No examination of Liverpool would be complete without a section on its famous wit. This is, after all the city that produced the expression “getting off at Edge Hill”, the penultimate station before the terminus at Lime Street, as a euphemism for coitus interruptus.
* Two Liverpool heads are discussing those slogan-packed mission statements that schools now adopt. (“Learning for the earning environment” is a typical abomination.) One of the headteachers says: “I know the right one for our place: ‘Itwuzzn’t me, sir - it wuzz ‘im’”.
* The city’s accent is as distinctive as its humour. A Year 7 boy created problems on his first day at secondary school by insisting that his name was “Gooey”. To save him embarrassment, the teachers told him to ask his mother to call in to sort out a few administrative details. When she was asked to explain the name, she assured staff that her boy was right.
“How do you spell it?“asked the mystified teacher.
“G - U - Y. Gooey,” came the answer.