Liverpool 08 Squash Championship

From May 1st to May 7th Liverpool hosts the inaugural Liverpool 08 Squash Championship, the biggest squash event in Europe. The event, one of the top six on the PSA men's world tour for prize money and ranking points, will feature England number 2 seed James Willstrop and take place in the stunning setting of St George's Hall. The event will also feature a Women's Invitation Classic. The Championship proper will be broadcast live on Sky TV. Check out the official website for full details of the event including ticket prices or contact the ticketmaster hotline on 0871 2330 9808.

Michael Shields to remain in prison

Michael Shields will stay in prison for 10 years and have to pay a £71,000 fine following a shock decision by the Bulgarian Appeal Court. While his original sentence has been cut by 5 years, his fine has been increased. Reports say the Shields family are "dumbfounded" by the decision; they had been hoping for a retrial based on the signed confession of another Liverpool man, Graham Sankey. The appeal judges have agreed that Shields can serve the remainder of his sentence on British soil and he is expected to be back in the UK within a month but that will be little comfort to the Shields family who have campaigned tirelessly for his release. Send your messages of support to the icLiverpool message board, or the Free Michael Shields website.

Stevie G – Art Lover!

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard will appear in a TV programme looking at and discussing Liverpool museum exhibits and aimed at exploring the issue of football players as role models. According to icLiverpool, Gerrard took a tour of the World Museum and Walker Art Gallery after returning from getting his PFA Player of the Year Award. He met Tranmere Rovers chairwoman and trustee of National Museums Liverpool, Lorraine Rogers, who showed him round. Expressing a personal interest in art and history, Gerrard said he had not been to the Walker since he was at school. "Some modern art is easier on the eye but I prefer some of the older paintings in the Walker", he said. "They tell the story of how it was back then. I like to look at the expressions on the faces." Commenting on the programme, Lorraine Rogers (who is executive producer of the programme), said: "Sport and art are both important aspects of culture and both contributed to the reason Liverpool was chosen as Capital of Culture for 2008. We were delighted that Steven Gerrard agreed to appear in the programme and he showed a lot of interest in the different exhibitions at the galleries." The World Museum Liverpool celebrates the first anniversary since it's multi-million pounds refit this Saturday. In that time it has attracted 600,000 visitors and is in the top five most visited museums in the UK outside London. Photo c bbc wales

Rodin at the Walker

Six sculptures by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), best known for sculptures like The Thinker and The Kiss, are on display at the Walker Art Gallery from tomorrow, April 28th. All the sculptures on display were left to the Walker in the 1920s by Liverpool wine merchant and art collector James Smith. Smith, who bought the pieces between 1899 and 1907, had a lengthy correspondence with the sculptor and visited him in Paris several times, aided by his travels in the pioneering of Mediterranean wines in the UK. Smith, who lived in Blundellsands (currently home to Anthony Gormley's 'Another Place'), was also a patron of Victorian sculptor and artist G F Watts and the Walker has an extensive collection of his work also. The Rodin sculptures are; Fleeting Love (1899); Sister & Brother (1901); Danaid (1901-2); Eve (1902); Minerva (1905-7) and the Death of Athens (1903). From Saturday, the Walker also hosts its first major exhibition dedicated to costume, A Passion for Fashion. Over 700 period items of clothes, shoes and accessories worn by Emily Tinne and her children between 1910 and 1940 will be on display. The Walker is also currently hosting a celebration of the work of George Stubbs, dubbed the nation's best sporting artist from his instantly recognisable paintings of racehorses, in particular. The Stubbs exhibition is on until July 30.

Replay ‘86

Full details of Monday's 1986 FA Cup Final rematch, in aid of the Marina Dalglish Appeal, are here. It should be a cracking day out if you are either a Liverpool or Everton fan and can get tickets. Listening to Alan Hansen, who will be running out on Monday with the rest of the team of '86, it seems as if some cheeky training has been going on by members of both teams and the game is likely to be played in a spirit of real competition and rivalry. In the FA Cup Final that year, with Liverpool chasing the league and cup double, a goal from Gary Lineker seperated the sides at half time. In the second half, Ian Rush equalised, Craig Johnson added a second and Rush made it 3 just 6 minutes from the end after great work by Jan Molby (always one of my favourite players) and Ronnie Whelan. According to Hansen, both Liverpool and Everton players have been working on their fitness and he expects the tackles to go flying in. As Whelan commented about last year's Liverpool Legends vs Celebrities game in aid of the victims of the Asian Tsunami, he got busy about the midfield in that game "at least twice", so maybe there'll be more energy this time round!

LFC Season tickets – £4

At least that's what they were in the period 1948 to 1951! Liverpool Museums is currently hosting an online exhibition of sports-related items as part of the themed activities leading up to Liverpool 08. Exhibits include the aforementioned LFC Season Ticket, a painting of the Hillsborough disaster by George Eisler and an illustration of the Titanic's gym.   

Photo c Liverpool Museums. 

Is it a building?

Following the release of funding for the new Liverpool Museum on Mann Island and the controversy the design has caused, the admirable people at Downtown Liverpool draw interesting and instructive comparisions with the Austrian city of Graz. Itself a European Capital of Culture (2003) and UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is what Downtown describes as an example of how "an outstanding cultural heritage can sit quite happily alongside a modern and dynamic metropolitan outlook". While I believe it is only right that people look closely at the quality of planning and development, a knee-jerk negative response to modernist developments just because they are new and different may benefit from a wider consideration of how cities move forward and interact with the people who use them. And you can't get much more exotic than Graz's Kunsthause, featuring a floating skin, dubbed BIX by the designers, which doubles as a multimedia display panel. I'm not saying planners should advocate dropping something like this into the middle of the Liverpool seafront, but equally just because modernist architecture is used need not necessarily mean Liverpool will lose its World Heritage status or "spoil" its skyline. As Downtown Liverpool notes, there is little negative reaction to the changing and historic skyline of London, despite the erection of giant gerkhins and so on. Over time the capacity is for these new buildings to enhance the city. To do this, planners should not only reference the Victorian and Georgian past. For what seems a more orthodox approach, see A Vision of Europe. As an aside, and linking the cities in another way, AK Graz were Rafa Benitez's first Champions League opponents as Liverpool manager, beating them away and scraping through the home leg on the way to glory in Istanbul. Photo c Graz Tourismus

John Lennon walrus notebook fetches £126,500

A John Lennon schoolboy notebook containing the 10-year-old's drawing of Lewis Carroll's The Walrus and the Carpenter, yesterday was sold to a private collector for £126,500. The poem is said to have inspired the 1967 Beatles' song I Am the Walrus. At the same London auction, a ship's log kept by Lennon in a crossing to Bermuda in 1980 went for £12,000, while his silver christening bracelet was sold for £27,000. All the lots were sold at an auction of pop memorabilia at Maddam Tussaud's in London. A letter from Paul McCartney to the other band members, linked to a dispute over who was to manage the group, failed to reach its reserve of £50,000, according to the BBC. The letter is believed by some experts to have finally lead to the end of the Beatles. 

08 Liverpool Facts – Events

Attraction: Mathew Street Music Festival on August Bank Holiday weekend is a celebration of music – both past and present.

Community: More than 70,000 people will participate in events celebrating African, Arab, Irish and multi-faith to Gay and Lesbian communities funded by the Liverpool Culture Company in 2006.

Face: John Lennon Airport – the fastest-growing airport in Europe welcomes more than 4.5 million people a year. 

Fact: £16.2 million will be invested in events and arts in 2008 alone.

Impact: After 2008 Liverpool's reputation as one of Europe's leading festival cities is expected to generate £200m a year in tourism spend.

New: Merseyside will host two of the next Open Championships at Royal Liverpool in 2006 and Royal Birkdale in 2008. 

Project: Liverpool Culture Company is funding youngsters to participate in the Tall Ships Races as the city prepares to host the start in 2008 which will attract over one million people.

Reason: Liverpool attracts more than two million people to its festivals alone – from the Grand National, Mathew Street Music Festival, Summer Pops and Liverpool Biennial. 

£32 million funding for new museum approved

The Northwest Development Agency has approved a £32.7 million grant to cover approximately half the funding of Liverpool's new waterfront museum. This follows the rejection of £11.4 million of funding when the Heritage Lottery Fund turned down a bid back in January. The design of the modern, X-shaped building has proven controversial; it will be sited on the Mann Island area between the Pier Head and Albert Dock, obscuring the view of some city residents of the Three Graces and also, according to some, clashing with the more traditional architecture in the area. The planned museum will provide a larger exhibition space to house the urban history collection now at the Museum of Liverpool Life.