On Monday, to the Ruskin art garage off the Cowley Road, where the fine art students are in production on "Alpine Milkmaid". I prepare a shooting schedule with the director but make no attempt to enforce it upon her, or anyone else present. These are determined people who do not mind working late in the cause of art, even if they may do the odd weird thing - such as shooting everything with two cameras.

And anyway, what do I know about art? I don't even know what I like! Though I certainly like these determined filmmakers, and the vanishing art department.

Tod heads north for a dinner with TV moguls in Manchester. I stay put in our billet at St John's, for a meeting with another group of student filmmakers who are up for an adaptation of "Women Beware Women", by Thomas Middleton. We repair to the gazebo (or is it a rotunda? Or a belvedere?) in the Garden Quad - which has a chess board on the floor - to plan the scenes.

Here are students who have their exams in Law, and Science, and Job-Oriented Subjects in four weeks' time. By rights, these future cogs in the wheels of capitalism should be studying flat-out, so as to gain work in law firms, or GM food companies, or the City of London.

But no! Instead, they prefer to adapt, direct, costume, design, compose the music for, and act in, a six-minute sequence from a Jacobean sex-and-revenge drama, to be shot in ten days' time.

After they're gone, I head for the Lamb and Flag with plans for a quiet pint.

Instead, I find the dons John Pitcher and Frank Romany: John was our consultant on "Revengers Tragedy", and Frank is editing a new complete edition of the works of Kit Marlowe.

I cannot possibly pass up the opportunity to pick such distinguished academics' brains, and so - over considerably more than one pint - I'm treated to an intense, eccentric, demented conversation regarding different possible styles for the films in Exterminating Angel's new slate of ten Jacobean/Elizabethan revenge dramas - including "Women Beware Women", "The Jew of Malta", "White Devil", "Malfi", "Volpone", "Dr Faustus", "The Changeling", "'Tis Pity She's a Whore", and "Spanish Tragedy".

Having got that lot sorted, we proceed to the merits of the Beatles and the Stones, about whom we have, by now, equally strong feelings. For the record, Dr Romany thinks the Rolling Stones the better rock band; your correspondent loves the Beatles, but can only dance to the Stones; and Dr Pitcher contends emphatically that the four loveable mop-heads were the best dance band in the world.

Next day I return to the city of the mop-heads, to attend an anxious breakfast with the city council in the mezzanine of the Empire Theatre, at 0720 hours.

I don't normally turn out for civic functions at this hour. But this one is different: it is to watch a big screen telly as culture minister Tessa Jowell announces the winner of the Capital of Culture 2008 bid.

Liverpool was, as you probably know, in a contest with various other British cities, including Oxford. What has struck me over and over again over the last five weeks is how incredible it is that two cities as different as Liverpool and Oxford could even exist in the same country, never mind compete for the same cultural prize.

But Oxford already is, in a certain way, a capital of culture - and not just European culture. It doesn't need a prize the way that Liverpool or Birmingham - physically and psychically battered cities in the process of regenerating themselves - might benefit from one.

Not that anybody in the room thinks Oxford is going to win, in any case. And I doubt that more than a couple of die-hards really believe that Liverpool or Birmingham will get the prize: the bookies' favourites are Newcastle/Gateshead, and most of those present are resigned to those two cities receiving the title.

Instead, on that big screen at 0811 hrs, Ms Jowell announces that Liverpool has won. There is an immense cheer, fists in the air and much jumping. Not being much of a one for football, I have never seen so many happy Scousers. And no one has ever seen so many Liverpool city councilors smile before.

I'd really only gone down to be a good loser, and say things like, "Well, Newcastle/Gateshead is supposed to be a great place, and I look forward to visiting it/them." Only I didn't have to. Because we won.

What does this mean? I don't know yet. Someone from the council has slipped me a fact sheet which says the title of Capital of Culture will translate into 14,000 jobs, £2 billion investment, and 1.7 million extra tourists.

A cynic will say these are part-time jobs for bartenders and hotel maids. But some of them must surely also be in the cultural sector? Does this mean that in future, when a film production company comes up here from London, it might actually hire a local cameraman, or costume designer, or even a director? It will be great if that is one of cultural capitalhood's results.

The movies shooting in Liverpool right now seem to be operating according to the traditional no-Scousers-need-apply policy of films originated outside the city.

This phenomenon - which we have seen before - stems partially from ignorance. It is in the producers' interest to hire locally, since they don't have to pay for a local crew person's travel, or give them cash perdiems, or put them in hotels.

Yet somehow - in spite of Liverpool-crewed pictures "Letter to Brezhnev", "Going off, Big Time", and "Revengers" - the message still isn't getting through to London or to Europe that there are world class film professionals here.

So maybe being the European Capital of Culture title will make a difference. Part of Liverpool's bid consisted of the acknowledgement that there is much work to be done between now and 2008. We are not yet perfect! We need more creative challenges, more difficult art assignments, more cultural work.

I am made up today, and will be even more made up if this cultural boost for our great city brings more work for her actors and filmmakers!

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