Last year the launch of our own international festival shone a very bright, very welcome light on Manchester. But in 2008 the focus shifts to Liverpool - beginning tonight when it kicks off its year as Capital of Culture.

I’ve had a scan over this PDF guide to the year ahead and spotted a few early highlights…

• Turner Prize at Tate Liverpool - This weekend is the last chance to catch the entries for last year’s prize [Tate]
• Fresh Festival (last week, sadly) - A three-day music event based around Hope Street - included Polar Bear and Manchester’s own Cortina Deluxx* [eFestivals]
• The Twentieth Century: How it looked and how it felt (until April) - A varied exhibition of the Tate Collection at Tate Liverpool [PDF]
• The Taverner Requiem (February) - John Taverner’s newly commissioned work addresses warring religions - hosted by possibly Liverpool’s strangest-looking building

If you want a comprehensive blog view of what’s going on, however, check out the Guardian’s recent Blogger’s guide to the Pool. It’s particularly good to see that Ian Jackson and his ever-reliable Liverpool Art and Culture blog is featured.

The city’s perfect for a day trip - trains run roughly every 10 minutes on a Saturday, with the last one back at 11.33pm - though I’d advise avoiding it like the plague… which is what you may well catch onboard. The fare’s reasonable too: £8.90 return, or £5.60 with a rail card.

In 2007 I visited our biggest North Westerly neighbour just once - for the Chapman Brothers retrospective - so my aim is to at least double that tally this year…

** The Banksy stencil featured above was produced for the Liverpool Biennial in 2004. It has since been stolen (is it possible to steal street art?) and the building it was attached to demolished, so says the photographer, new folder. Coincidentally, another of Banksy’s works in Liverpool has been in the news lately.

Using the timely hook of Liverpool’s failed attempt to signed Manchester United defender Gabriel Heinze, the BBC published an interesting feature today on the perceived rivalry between the neighbouring cities.

It compares the city’s respective histories - Liverpool’s finance and shipping versus Manchester’s cotton mills - as well as deprivation, regeneration, architecture, sport and, of course, music. The pieces concludes that - outside the football world - a Manchester-Liverpool rivalry is little more than unfriendly banter.

The feature also includes a public poll on ‘which is your favourite city’. At the moment Manchester is winning - if that’s the word - with 54 per cent of the 13,000 votes. Just so you know, Manchester and Liverpool’s respective populations (ignoring surrounding areas) are 441,200 and 447,500.

So I hopped across to Liverpool yesterday - just �5.60 return (with a railcard) on her majesty’s finest trains. The main reason for the trip was to see the Chapman Brothers’ Bad Art for Bad People at Tate Liverpool:

I think it easily qualifies as one of the best exhibitions I’ve seen. The retrospective crammed in as much work as possible. Their series of comic-style sketches, for example, were stuck haphazardly to the walls, almost as an afterthought.

The Guardian and The Telegraph have been, with the former at pains to point out how unsuitable the exhibition is for children. Or even squeamish adults, one would imagine.

Check out the Guardian’s slideshow for a taster, but I’d say it’s well worth a visit. It runs until March 4. The Patrick Caulfield exhibition is great too, and makes the trip even more worthwhile.

Over at the Beeb, they’re reporting record shopping numbers at the Boxing Day sales in the North West today.

The thought of 130,000 frantic bargain-hunters raiding the Trafford Centre’s Superdrug is more than enough to keep me away. I visited Preston briefly where only Riverisland attracted anything constituting a queue.

I was also drawn to that other annual feature of Boxing Day: a festive, freezing football match.

Blackburn Rovers’ 1-0 win over Liverpool was the game of choice. The ticket cost �39, which works out at 43p per minute of football (excluding injury time).

Or, according to current rates, 12.2 ounces of gold, which is probably how much the ticket and program (�3) weighed.

I spotted The Zutons giving insider tips for Liverpool to CNN’s The Scene travel programme the other day and wondered who would do the same for Manchester. The answer: Badly Drawn Boy.

In the short video he mentions Britons Protection, where he first performed, Manchester City, Piccadilly Records, Chorlton and, of course, the Bee Gees. He also admits that, like most Mancunians, he doesn’t know much about the city’s history.

The Scene is asking viewers to contribute their own insider tips for Manchester. Magazines 69-247 and Time Out are both mentioned, as is Mancubist’s Google Maps mashup to track the www Sabi Rock guy. He’s gone awfully quiet of late, hasn’t he?

CNN have really put the effort in with Manchester. You can also find an overview of Manchester, a decent city guide (Killing Fantasy, Earth Cafe etc) and an extended Q&A interview with Badly Drawn Boy, all by Linnie Rawlinson.