Today was the day for the old and the new of Liverpool. The old being friends of many years and the new being two more fine Museums down at the waterfront, near The Three Graces. In one of these - museums, not Graces - there was a fine exhibition of Roger McGough's witty poetry, called Doors. Well worth a visit, if you're anywhere near the city. Roger shares a birthday with me and there may be something else; like both me and the historian of Spain, Paul Preston, he attended a Christian Brothers College near Liverpool. And he mentions a Brother Ryan, implying he was perhaps a little aggressive. Not to say brutal.This is a chap whom Paul Preston and I talked about a couple of years ago, over a lunch in Galicia. He once strapped me at the start of a class and when I asked him why, he said "It's for all the trouble you're going to cause me during this lesson." But anyway, it does seem that all three of suffered at the hands of Brother Ryan. But I will ask Roger to confirm this.

And now, something I haven't included for a while - a foto. But not just any old foto; it's one of me, standing in front of my childhood council house home. It looks a lot better than it did back then but it still has the window out of which I used to squeeze before shinning down the pole and then crossing the nearby golf course to meet my pals on the sandhills near the sea. And back up and in again sometime before dawn. Happy days.