Comedian Alexei Sayle has apologised to the people of Liverpool after he made inappropriate remarks about the town.  At his new book launch at the Edinburgh Festival, Sayle made the comment: "The sentimentality in Liverpool is compounded by both Heysel and Hillsborough, you know. Liverpool people are so sentimental anyway and even more so with this - oh, we're the greatest people and you'll never walk alone...and all this shite."

Naturally this caused offence and distress to many people in the town, not least the families of the victims of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. 

Sayle apologised for the comment, but claimed that it was not intended as a joke, and instead was intended to demonstrate the suffering of one of the characters in his new book.

He also upset Liverpudlians by mocking Liverpools selection as the 'European Capital of Culture 2008.'  To be honest, we share some scepticism about this award.  Although Liverpool is, in 2003, famed as a Mecca of arts and cultural enlightenment, we feel it is probably too early to hand out this award, as by 2008 the town could become an un-enlightened industrial-midlands town populated by people with funny moustaches wearing track-suits.  Anything could happen.