800th birthday

I don't know about Liverpool being 800, but that's about how old I feel this morning.
And yes, I'm vowing never to touch anything stronger than tap water ever again.
But if you can't celebrate a whole city's birthday, what can you celebrate?

Yesterday started for me at 7.45am, standing on the balcony at Radio Merseyside as the giant cranes on the Grosvenor site gamely hoisted banners aloft proclaiming "happy birthday liverpool".
I say gamely because things really weren't going to plan - at least to start off with.
The banners weren't anchored to anything so they twisted around in the faint breeze with the "liverpool" being particularly troublesome, despite the crane operator moving it backwards and forwards trying to get it in the right position.
I felt sorry for our (no doubt air sick) photographer up in a helicopter circling round and round and round waiting vainly for all the right words to turn round in the right order.
In the end the helicopter flew off (maybe to refuel?!) and the banners came down to be tied together.
Only then did they behave and the birthday message become clear.
I wandered back to the office past garlands of gold birthday bunting and hoped the banner problems weren't a sign of how the day was going to go.
At 10am there was the church service where the numbers of mayors and other ceremonial types there would have had John Lennon repeating his "rattle your jewellery" quip.
It was an understated, simple but affecting service, and despite not being that way inclined I admit I got a lump in my throat when a small, unaccompanied choir sang a version of You'll Never Walk Alone.
While the civic procession formed in the churchyard, I went off to meet Pebbles and Janus, the two horses pulling the Lord Mayor's ceremonial coach.
Not that the Lord Mayor was in it. It was occupied by the Georges - the oldest family in Liverpool - while the Lord Mayor walked behind!
As the procession finished, the pageant started. And the sun came out. Maybe it was another sign...
There were a lot of people in Castle Street considering it was a working weekday, and Pete Price was there to try and drum up some party spirit.
He said to me he'd thought about singing but there was nothing to play backing music on (Pete was more high tech than that but I'm a Luddite when it comes to technology and can't recall what exactly he said he needed).
So I suggested he ask the police band to play for him - and off he trotted, microphone in hand, to do just that. Moments later they broke into a Beatles medley.
He also managed to get the likes of the Lord Mayor of Dublin (himself celebrating his birthday yesterday) and the Chinese Ambassador to do a Mexican wave.
A lot of people in the crowd said to me they had made a special journey because the birthday was a once-in-a-lifetime event. I hope they enjoyed it after all the expectation.

The pageant was fun, colourful and noisy and populated by pirates, fighter pilots, river pilots and liver birds of every shape and size.

Later there were events in the city's squares.
I missed the school sports day in Old Hall Street, but I hear the teams were quite competitive and there were only a few MINOR injuries to the competitors.
Pity my work colleague Richard however, who apparently tumbled in the sack race and as he fell inadvertently bared his backside and mooned the crowds.
Explaining he predicament, He said later: "I heard this oooohhh"
I don't know if it was a sympathetic groan at his fall, or the response to being flashed by the Irvine posterior!
It was all a lot more decorous up at the town hall where the invited guests handed over their birthday presents to the city - the gift from Dublin being a bird carved out of a 4,000 year old piece of peat.
City historian Steve Binns was there and seemed to be enjoying the day, although was insistent that despite King John giving Liverpool its charter, the monarch was still a 'rascal' who should have been handed a 13th century ASBO.
I was back at the town hall a couple of hours later for the civic dinner, all dressed up in a frock and heels. Well, I don't often get the excuse.

While the guests enjoyed a glass of wine or two on the town hall balcony, behind the scenes the lift broke down sparking a bit of a crisis.
Not only does the lift bring the less mobile up to the state rooms, but it also brings the food up from the town hall kitchens.
Luckily most people weren't aware of the frantic calls to lift engineers going on behind closed doors.
And we did all get our dinner.
For once it wasn't simply celebs and civic dignitaries at the event - the Lord Mayor had insisted there were 'real' people there too. Foster carers, taxi driver Bernie Buxton who has organised trips for kids for 20 years, and other people who have helped the community all sat down to roast lamb and strawberry roulade.
There were a handful of famous faces however in Ricky Tomlinson, Alexei Sayle and - when he eventually made his appearance clutching a pair of tickling sticks - Ken Dodd.

Doddy later did a truncated (by about five hours!) turn with gentle digs at the city's leaders.
He described Warren Bradley, Jason Harborow, Colin Hilton and Robyn Archer (remember her?!) as "the Fab Four", and suggested some of their greatest hits, such as I'll Never Pass This Way Again, and the theme tune to the Big Dig.
Talking of the Big Dig and its associated chaos, Doddy informed diners the road closures, diversions and holes in the road were part of a themed attraction.
"We want to show visitors what it was like here in the Blitz" he joked.
If only it WAS a joke.
I didn't see Doddy join us on the ferry, but the rest of us piled up the gangplank for a two-hour trip on a thankfully mill pond-flat Mersey.
It was a beautiful evening with a full moon and even the dull and dreary Princes Dock looks attractive when it is all lit up at night! The waterfront looked stunning, and that was BEFORE the 50 tonnes of fireworks were set off.
Then, the skyline erupted. There were rockets firing off towards Seaforth, fireworks cascading off the roofs of the two cathedrals, and in the middle, the Pier Head a dazzling gold, red, green and yellow explosion of colour.

We lacked the musical accompaniment out there in the middle of the river, but the view made up for it.
Someone said to me this morning they felt the birthday could have been so much more, and celebrated over a much longer period of time.
Maybe it could. Or maybe Liverpool got it just about right.
Certainly those who came out to watch the fireworks seemed to think so.
Now if only they can replicate some of that for 2008 we may also have a Capital of Culture to remember too.