A video I took last night on my tinny mobile phone of the fireworks at Pierhead.

Thanks to some idiotic regulations in force at the Albert Dock we were faced with the choice of watching betweeen a gap in the Pumphouse and Dock buildings or walking around the entire Dock, by which time they would have certainly been finished. Lunacy.

Anyway, later on I went to the Tate to see the diverting but fairly hollow Fifth Floor and intriguing William Blake exhibition; and the Bluecoat where the decidedly patchy Next Up Liverpool Art Now exhbition and at least two gigs were on.

Me and the missus got told off for taking for trying to take a picture of me with my arm round a owl-faced child. The absurdity of that admission is not lost on me, but touches on a particularly irritating fact about certain galleries that maintain a strict policy on installation art that’s totally at odds with the aims of making art more accessible and less daunting for people. So I carried on taking photos regardless, just to be contrary.

The night ended off in the Baltic with several pints of Smoked Porter with a group of friends, and much talk of ‘cranking’, which is best left unexplained.

It was boozy, musical, cultural and fun and it seemed fitting.