Radio 2 begins two weeks of celebration of Liverpool's year as European City of Culture by attempting to confound all of our preconceptions of the jewel of the Mersey as a hub of pop music, and concentrating on it as a hub of pop music. Presumably the less groovy stuff will be covered in the second week, or perhaps farmed out to Radios 3 and 4. Still, it does make you wonder about the advisability of confounding stereotypes by pandering to them.

Today (2pm) Dermot O'Leary is joined by the modern 'Pool - in the form of the saxtastic Zutons. Then he goes and spoils it by playing songs by Sharleen Spiteri, who comes from that Merseyside epicentre, Glasgow. Ditto Janice Long's show tomorrow (from noon), which features songs by those well-known Liverpudlians, Kaiser Chiefs. Come on chaps, if you're going to do it, do it properly.

And they do, in part. Also today Steve Lamacq presents (7pm) an excellent little history (spanning the years 1976-80) of Liverpool's second-most famous spawning ground of pop talent, Eric's. If the Cavern gave Merseybeat to the world, Eric's gave jazz, reggae, folk music, performance poetry and punk a vital platform. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Echo & the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes all played their first gigs there, while the Police and the Sex Pistols also appeared in the early years before the arrival of stardom.

Then, on Tuesday (10.30pm), Phil Redmond - the man behind Grange Hill and Brookside, and now the creative director of the Liverpool Culture Company - widens the brief somewhat by examining the city's contribution to comedy - from Tommy Handley to Lee Mack - and the written arts, talking to Jimmy McGovern and Roger McGough.

But it would hardly be a Liverpool celebration if it didn't include a Beatle, even if tomorrow's originally scheduled Paul McCartney Live at Liverpool Sound has turned into something of a misnomer, given that his gig at Anfield is to be a highlights-only affair on June 7 (7pm). Still, look on the bright side - if it's to be the highlights they'll surely have to leave out all those bloody fireworks from Live and Let Die.

Editor's choice

• U2 at Nou Camp Stadium, Barcelona
• The 50 Best Movie Villains
• The 15 golden rules of theatre etiquette