Strange economics. The budget for the Mathew Street Festival was overspent by £80,000 (to the tune of £480,000 and rising!) despite the scrapping of outdoor events.

With council and culture company managmement like this (plus a no more cash message from Whitehall) who needs outside experts to advise on anything?
Thus I was genuinely delighted to attend this week's Philharmonic pre-season briefing, which showed that in-house skill and know-how are winning through.
I'm talking here of the day to day management of programming and the overall expertise and vision to see it through.
The same compliment can justifiably be paid to National Musuems Liverpool and Tate Liverpool who are progressing with an excellent agenda.
But two minuses I encountered this week.
The confirmation in an interview with Liverpool-born Jude Kelly (who ran West yorkshire Playhouse up to being the best theatre in Britain; then did the successful artistic input to the 2012 London Olympic bid, and now runs the South Bank complex), that she had interviewed to join the 2008 team.
So why isn't she aboard? How can anyone responsible for making appointments have missed this unprecedented opportunity to welcome home Britain's most able arts administrator and director?
Secondly, the view of doyen Liverpool composer John McCabe, also internationally renowned as a pianist, that he has not been involved (apart from during the bid) with any of the actual 2008 eventing altough he "would like to have been."
How much more Liverpool and Merseyside talent was ignored, or just plainly missed in the so-called international trawl for 2008 talent?
The mind boggles.

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