So now we know. Not everything - but a fair bit. Liverpool, whose capital of culture credentials have for some time been looking decidedly shaky, has at last come up with the goods.
Most Merseysiders - and the rest of us - should be able to find something in the 2008 fun sheet to keep them happy, whether the golden glitter belongs to Gustav Klimt (subject of a major exhibition at Tate Liverpool) or Colleen McGloughlin (who may feature in a footballers' wives fashion show).
As is the way in this London-dominated land, details of the 70 events had to be unveiled both north and south, and much of the Klimtery emerged only at a briefing in the capital on Monday.
There had been a northern briefing at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall on Friday, with a small posse of journalists addressed by an array of councillors, Liverpool Culture Company staff and the city's cultural supremos. They looked both nervous and excited.
All this, said Professor Drummond Bone, vice-chancellor of Liverpool University and chairman of the culture company, would boost economic regeneration but would also boost "the regeneration of the quality of life in the city". He added: "This is the launch of just the highlights. But that's minuscule compared with what is coming in the pipeline."
You could sense the relief and soaring morale among the collective now running the big year: here at last was something to shout about. The enthusiasm was infectious, a marked shift away from the embarrassed tight-lippery that had characterised dealings with the media when Robyn Archer, the 2008 director who resigned in July, was at the helm - despite being rarely present in Liverpool.
The programme, starring Messiaen, Seamus Heaney, Le Corbusier and Chekhov, is artier than this sceptic (and sometimes miserable cultural elitist) had expected. In reporting it, some of us forgot to mention its entertaining eccentricities: artist Richard Wilson is going to turn a former Yates's Wine Lodge inside-out; the European Opera Centre is going to revive Emilia di Liverpool by that well-know Scouser Gaetano Donizetti and doctors' surgeries across the city are going to be turned into arts installations. Which will be nice when you come to sort out your piles.
All we need to know now is what there is in this box of delights for, say, the Boot estate in Norris Green or Kensington. But it's a start. And, I think, a good one too.
