Mathew Street Festival This Weekend

Get yourself to town for this weekend’s Mathew Street Music Festival, which promises to be a real cracker. Get more details here.

Liverpool FC To Help Repatriate Michael Shields

Liverpool Football Club supporters will be able to donate to fundraisers at Anfield ahead of this weekend’s game against West Ham. The money raised will go towards the £8,000 needed by the Shields family to give to the Bulgarian authorities, which will then allow Michael Shields to serve his jail term in the U.K. Shields is due back in the U.K. in three weeks, but can only remain if his family can pay the monthly installments on his £90,000 fine. The Shields family have been left broke by their fight to have Michael released. For more information, visit the Free Michael Shields website.

Liverpool Hosts Cycle Tour of Britain NW Stage Finale

Liverpool will host the finishing stage of the North West stage of the Cylce Tour of Great Britain, the Blackpool to Liverpool stretch, August 30th. The Tour, part of professional cycling’s official programme, runs from August 29th to September 3rd, starting in Glasgow, taking in the North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands, with the fifth stage ending in Canterbury, the finish city of the first stage of the 2007 Tour de France. The final sixth stage is a new route through London. Details of the full route can be found here. Floyd Landis, the winner of this year’s Tour de France but now subject to allegations of doping, was likely to have taken part in this year’s Tour of Britain.

Slavery Remembrance Day

23rd August, 1791, St Domingo. A slave uprising began, a key event in the eventual abolition of slavery. That’s why UNESCO chose the date for this international day of remembrance, with particular resonance in Liverpool, which as a city and community did so much to grow and profit from slavery. The events this year begin on Sunday and end next Wednesday. They are as follows:

Sunday 20 Aug, 1pm and 2.45pm. African drumming with Ma Ma Dou at Merseyside Maritime Museum

Tuesday 22 Aug, 10.30am and 2.30pm. Slavery Trail walks, organised by the Maritime Museum, which closely follow the physical links to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. 30 mins duration.

Tuesday 22 Aug, 6pm. Ekow Eshun delivers a memorial lecture at Liverpool Town Hall.

Wednesday 23 Aug, 10.45am. Interfaith church service at St Nicholas, opposite Pier Head.

Wednesday 23 Aug, 12pm onwards at Otterspool Promenade:

Traditional African and Caribbean food in the marquee, arts and crafts and music

1pm: Traditional libation ceremony at the waterfront by Chief Angus Chukuemeka.

1.30pm onwards: Afternoon of music and drama from local artists.

Read here for more on Liverpool and the Slave Trade and Get a Map and Directions to Otterspool Prom. A free bus service will run. (photo c AP)

Gerrard snub

Fresh from hoisting another trophy this weekend, as Liverpool won the Community Shield premiership opener 2-1 against Chelsea, here’s a clip that shows they start them young at Chelsea. Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho infamously failed to shake Rafa’s hand after the FA Cup, and the same happened yesterday. Watch this amusing video clip of a cheeky Chelsea mascot getting one over on Stevie G.

Mathew Street Set To Rock

This year’s Msathew Street Music Festival looks set to be memorable, with a headline set by The Lightening Seeds on August Bank Holiday Sunday, an opener from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on Friday, 25 August and such Liverpool legends as Pete Wylie and Garry Christian also performing. There’s also plenty of new Liverpool talent on show from Saturday to Monday, as 31 unsigned banks take to a special stage at Pier Head. Download the Mathew Street Festival brochure (pdf format).