On Friday Perth announced the plans for their bid to be named the 2021 UK City of Culture.

On Saturday and Sunday, Paisley is hosting a weekend full of events to publicise their existing bid to be named the 2021 UK City of Culture.

Both places have many pros, cons and famous faces to stake a claim for the title which they could compete for against the likes of Sunderland, Coventry, Hereford or Stoke-on-Trent.

The winner will not be announced until the end of next year, with 2017 marking Hull as Britain's new City of Culture.

Everybody knows Dundee lost out on the title, so stakes have been ramped up for the two Scottish competitors.

But which is better? In the famous words of Harry Hill...

Since we have already acknowledged there is a fair bit of time to go until the bids escalate and the announcement is made, we will take existing factors into consideration.

Perth: 44,820

Paisley: 76,834

Since the bid is purely from Perth we have not counted the population of Perth and Kinross, which would have been 146,652 (according to the 2011 census) and double that of its rival. Point for Paisley.

Score: Perth 0-1 Paisley

You would think this is a given, but it's actually not because Paisley is not a city. The bid website even admits so but says: "By the way, we know Paisley is a town, not a city, but that's ok - the competition is open to large towns and urban areas. So as Scotland's largest town, we are well equipped to apply... and win!"

Confidence looms large but it has to be a point for Perth which was once the capital city of Scotland way back in the 12th century. Indeed the city status was revoked in the late 1990s but reinstated as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012.

Score: Perth 1-1 Paisley

It is the reason we are here, but not exactly a deal-breaker in the competition run by the UK Government department of Culture, Media and Sport.

In advance of both bids there has been plenty of funding allocated to make improvements and impress the judges. Perth Theatre is currently in the midst of an ongoing £16.6m renovation, however, Paisley has allocated £56.7m to transform the town's museum - £15m of which is from the council alone.

More will assumedly come from Perth's bid in the time before the final deadline but for now it is another point to Paisley.

Score: Perth 1-2 Paisley

Sticking with the theme of the rest of the government office, we have to have individual battles between the outlets of each city.

Perth has the Perthshire Advertiser, a weekly publication with a circulation of around 3000, and a local daily edition of The Courier which sells around 2000 copies.

The weekly Johnstone and Renfrewshire Gazette has a circulation of 3500 while the Paisley Daily Express has a circulation of around 5000.

Both have radio stations which serve a wider area (Tay FM and Clyde 1) so we will stick to the newspaper statistics for now. Perth's 5000 lose out to Paisley's 8500.

Score: Perth 1-3 Paisley

The saints are marching in both cities with Perth's St Johnstone winning their first ever Scottish Cup in 2014 and St Mirren winning the Scottish League Cup in 2013.

St Johnstone are currently residing in the Scottish Premiership which gives them an edge over the Buddies who are aiming to bounce back from the Scottish Championship.

Things have never really been the same since they left Love Street for the new St Mirren Park, although special mention must go to the club for renaming the ground the Paisley 2021 Stadium to boost the town's bid.

Score: Perth 2-3 Paisley

Perth may try and lay claim to John Duncan Fergusson with a gallery dedicated to the man considered one of Scotland's finest colourists. But he is from Leith.

Paisley has its own pattern, so this one is no contest really.

Score: Perth 2-4 Paisley

If Perth cannot claim Fergusson, then who else is there? Comedian Fred MacAulay, nutritionist Gillian McKeith, late tennis star Elena Baltacha and Taggart actor Colin McCredie to name but a few. Ewan McGregor was born there before moving to Crieff.

Paisley has Gerard Butler - which is a strong start - plus Doctor Who David Tennant, singer Paolo Nutini, journalist Andrew Neil and scorer of that goal against Holland in the 1978 World Cup: Archie Gemmill.

Perth also has controversial former MP Eric Joyce while shamed banker Fred Goodwin is from Paisley. But we will leave them out of it for another draw.

Paisley are edging it out just now but they've had months more time of preparation to be named the 2021 UK City of Culture.

Perth's proposals are only beginning to take shape and can bring back two points if we decide to have another scorecard in a year's time, closer to the announcement of the winner.

For more on both bids, see below.