Liver birds

Forget the congestion charge, Red Ken's legacy to London is the falcon in Trafalgar Square.

I lived in London for five years, I worked in Leicester Square, and walked through Trafalgar Square each day - I have endured pigeon horrors innumerable.

But none like the life endangering run in I had with a bat-out-of-hell pigeon that dived bombed down an escalator at Moorfields today.

For those that don't know Liverpool, Moorfields is a bit like Kings Cross in that it connects everything, including the Northern line to the Wirral line by a steep, long, underground, enclosed escalator. That a big fat pigeon lives in.

It zoomed down, clipped my head, then sat stupidly at the bottom thinking about other ways freak me out. Flying straight at me did the trick - I screamed, dropped my paper and almost full down the escalator.

Fast forward four hours and I'm at James Street having a nice chat with the Merseyrail man about the pigeon problem - and more importantly what they plan to do about it.

Nothing is what they plan to about it - apparently, "you're alright if they don't hit you in the face".

It's time for the Echo to start calling for falcons in the city - if it's good enough for the capital, then it's good enough for the capital of culture, I say.