feb 28 2007 Birthday Parents Evening

February 28 2007. City's Brithday celebrations. Parents Evening.

How do you feel about the city's birthday celebrations? Are you excited? Do you feel in a birthday mood? Are you counting the days to August 28, the official commemoration date?

My guess is that you aren't really caught up in the 800th birthday swing of things yet.

It's a difficult one.

It's impossible for the city to stage events every single day. People would get heartily sick of the whole thing as the ideas ran out and contempt replaced familiarity. And the city council/culture company would argue too, that people should be generating their own events and excitement, not sitting back in a metaphorical armchair and waiting to be entertained.

Then there's our own role. What responsibility do WE as a media have for generating excitement? The Echo is a commercial business. Simply devoting acres of space to birthday-linked initiatives is a non-starter unless there's an eventual link to selling more papers or more adverts.

Although that can include long-term gain through strenghtening our brand, and not just short term hits.

Our programme, as it stands, is about raising awarness and enthusaism and hopefully building to a crescendo around the Bank Holiday Weekend that precedes August 28. We have dozens of great ideas and have linked in with some good ones from elsewhere. Today for instance we feature the Liverpool Debates - a public debate programme that we are sponsoring.

And On Page 11 of today's Echo there's a smashing piece on the city's efforts to find the people that can trace their family history back furthest. Great birthday stuff both. We've appointed a reporter to be responsible for generating birthday stories (so send us yours) and we will now carry at least one page lead a week.

What sort of things would you like to see in the Echo as the birthday approaches?

Parents Evening last night at Harry's school. Had been dreading it. He's a great lad but year after year Lynne and I have had both barrels over his lack of personal organisation and half -hearted academic efforts.

Hallelujah. The penny seems to have dropped. This year was a revelation. He's settled down well, apparently, and is conscientious about his work. If he kicks on from here, he can do very well, they all said. At one point I asked the physics teacher: 'Are we talking about the right 14-year-old'? To a man (and woman) his teachers said he was great to have in class and they were pleased with his progress.

Came back home and could sense the tension. Said nothing. Lynne says: 'How did it go?'

I just said: 'Get him in here. We need to have a serious talk. She found him and I heard him say: 'Oh No. Please, surely not...'

He sat down next to Lynne on the couch. I got my wallet out and gave him £20. 'Well done, son,' I'm very proud.'

He and his mum hugged each other and whooped with joy. Then we had the 'don't-slip-back into-bad-old ways' talk and the 'this-is-just-a-launching-pad lecture.'

But for a day, just a day, I'm going to enjoy it.