Say something nice about Birmingham (UK)

And the accent's grea- no, it isn't, is it?

Also:
http://www.cgray.dsl.pipex.com/Images/kevthelook.jpg

(not Next)

here :

http://www.jonbounds.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/jon/brum/brum.html

(I particularly like the song)

Cat Deeley?

They come from Birmingham.

I'm afraid to say that both Highway 61 and the Plastic Factory have now closed down. It's very hard to find a good record shop in this city :(

Name Bosko Balaban
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Musical Exchange is the best thing about Birmingham. The Jewellery Quarter is pretty handy too if you need that kind of thing.

I wouldn't want to live there.

Search: the rag market, the cool bit of China town that looks like a Blade Runner set, new Selfridges building, massive and lovely bookshop by the station (used to be Dillons, is a Waterstones now I think), Duran Duran, Black Sabath, Cat Deely, Sue Lawley, the Afflecks Palace type place that I have just had a total blank-out trying to remember what it's called, the Custard Factory, Circo, the Ikon, Gas Street Basin, the Symphony Hall, Spaghetti Junction.

Destroy: the Rotunda (don't give me Concrete Brutalism, the Rotunda was never what Le Corbusier had in mind), the massive pikey furniture store in the shopping centre by the station, New Street Station come to that, and Birmingham International, the accent. I am quite glad most traces of my own West Mids accent have gone, especially as even Birmingham accents sound better than my native Wolverhampton.

We shall be going there, in March! We shall make a day of it! I hear it has a jewellery quarter (not really bothered about that though I have to admit), and a "Balti Triangle"!

Second hand bookshops?
Good art?

And what is this "Custard Factory"?

http://www.capsule.org.uk/Coming_Up/139.aspx

Since 2004 the Rotunda has been gutted and is soon to open as 'luxury apartments'. It looked cool in the 70s now it looks even cooler. More swishy hotels have opened. The new Radisson looks pretty good. Eat posh at Simpsons in Edgbaston.

Excellent curries still available.

Jewellery quarter is not particularly exciting unless you want jewellery.

There is a big Waterstones, but that is first hand.

The art gallery has Pre-Raphaelite stuff, if you dig that.

I miss the old manky smelling Bull Ring, in a weird sort of way.

xp, N and C not still there? I hadn't even noticed. Sunflower Lounge a few doors down is aright, but purveys only alcohol and Mod, and no comics.

Beauty contest officials chose a model from Stoke-on-Trent to represent Birmingham because they could not find anyone pretty enough from the city.

Miss Great Britain organisers picked Sophie Wilson to represent the city in a heat despite her only connection being an ex-boyfriend who lived there.

The 18-year-old IT student said she thought it was unfair on Birmingham's beauties.

The competition was later won by Rachael Tennant, from Aberdeen.

Miss Wilson said: "When they said there wasn't that many pretty girls in Birmingham I didn't actually believe in that.

'No-one suitable'

"There are obviously going to be absolutely gorgeous girls about but I just think they weren't auditioned."

Tracie Bedwood, of Birmingham model agency Adage Models, said she could not believe the decision.

She said: "If it's someone representing Birmingham then they should be from Birmingham.

"There are lots of beautiful girls in the city and I know because we've got lots of them on our books."

A spokesman for Miss Great Britain said: "We were desperately looking for a Miss GB entrant from Birmingham but in truth, there was no-one suitable who entered.

"We look forward to more entering next year."

just a quick note: i know a realllly cute guy from birmingham, and he has the best voice ever

that's it

So - is anyone on ILX actually from this city? If so, whereabouts?

There are lots of nice things to say about it, the premise of this thread seems a little defensive, and I'm bored of defending the city to people who've never visited. That said, when people DO visit I'm not always full of wonderful ideas to show them.

Can always take them to Cafe Rouge or All Bar One.

My girlfriend's a Brummie. That's good enough for me.

my boyf is moving to birmingham. i'm ridiculously upset.

My future sister-in-law is from Birmingham. She's lovely. People from England tell me that she is "so west Midlands." I don't know what that means.

I'll be there this weekend for the Supersonic festival. Anyone else in attendance? I've always liked Birmingham when I've been there.

JUDAS PRIEST!

spent a week there earlier this year for work. everything was grey. the buildings were vast wastes of money at war with each other. I got a stomach bug and spent 3 days puking in a holiday inn, eating cold pancakes.

never going back.

Don't necessarily know whether this link still works (bloody Websense blockage) but if it does it'll lead you to the short and tacky seventies documentary Telly Savalas narrated about Birmingham despite never actually having visited there.

i really like birmingham.

I'll going there in two months for a wedding. What should I do?

Just hang out. I love Brum (as I said upthread probably). I just wonder around when I go there now. The buildings around the Newhall area are so great and varied, but then so is the whole of the city. I have no idea what Ronan was talking about. But also I've been going there (and I lived there for a while) for about 30 years. Maybe it's charm grows on you?

Where's the wedding?

birmingham is really chilled out. no one from outside or inside the city think it's cool so there's no attitude. lots of nice folk just doing their own thing at their own pace, it seems. obviously this is a huge generalisation based on two recent visits. i think i came in contact with a higher number of generally pleasant and open people there than anywhere else i've ever visited. i'm going back for a long weekend next week. my bf is living there now but leaving in a few weeks to come back to glasgow, he says he's really going to miss it.

yeah, considering it`s the second city, which it definitely is, I always notice how slow paced and relaxed it is when I go back there from Lon

last time I was there I went for a walk from the Mailbox through Brindley Place along the canal and it was mad nice

actually no, the last time I was there an obese Birmingham City fan coming back from Reading fell asleep on me on a train, reeking of fags and booze, and then didn`t answer her massively loud Reggae-ringtoned phone on any of the fifteen occasions the same person tried to call her on the rest of the journey

when she woke up and realised she was leaning on me she put her arm up and rested it on my shoulder to get more comfortable and I had to shove her off

"last time I was there I went for a walk from the Mailbox through Brindley Place along the canal and it was mad nice"

did the same walk in the opposite direction and it was indeed, mad nice. the mailbox itself is a bit of a depressing dungeon though.

yeah it`s a shame so much of Brum`s expensive reinvention is focused on gaudy shit capitalism

also fuck lifts that don`t go to all the floors

i posted this on the apprentice thread:

noticed today in the independent - ad advert for birmingham(!) picturing two men with their arms around each other superimposed on to a photo of the selfridges building.

strapline: "birmingham, a great place to come out."

― jed_, Saturday, 23 May 2009 18:16 (Yesterday) Bookmark

I have birmingham on the brain

does it hurt?

it does actually

how does it manifest?

find it difficult to leave the house, not getting much sleep and feel generally dead inside

thanks birmingham

I like birmingham

My favourite ever holiday involved Birmingham. For that I thank it.

(A 4 mph narrow-boat circumnavigation of Worcestershire and the West Midlands, fwiw, didn't rain once in christ over a week)

don't really know where to post this, so here it is - i'm thinking about applying to warwick university to do my phd, but as a man of culture / thinly disguised hipsterism i get the feeling that it could be a grim stay with only coventry and birmingham within reach, and the latter only just about. so, would it?

warwick is a great university for a bunch of reasons, including the arts centre if you are interested in a bit o' the culture, but coventry is a fucking terrible place to be a student of any variety. most students live in leamington and that is barely much better nowadays, and is no nearer birmingham, which for a city its size is also pretty shit. if where you live is as important as where you study you really don;t want to commit yourself to living in the cov area for i am assuming multiple years.

yyyyup that's pretty much what i was expecting. hm. positives - at least equal to anywhere else when it comes to my research area; probably a significantly better chance of funding than the other places. negatives - the rest. and that applying for ahrc funding there would exclude me from applying for it with less likely but still conceivable (and more liveable) places. hmmm.

If I've said it once, etc...Birmingham is great. I'm not exactly sure why anyone would call it "pretty shit" unless they just sat in New Street station their whole life. Also not really understanding the hate for Leamington, in that I'm not sure what you expect from a town like that? I can even find things to love about Cov is you really want. This kind of blanket dismissal of places I find really depressing.

co-sign. I lived in Brum for 5 years whilst at Uni and after (dim&distant early '90s) and *even then* it's reputation was undeserved. And it's come on massively in all kinds of ways in the intervening years.

Here's something to love about Coventry!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI9RCzN6oN0

I went to Warwick University for my undergraduate degree and it was a great uni. I lived in Coventry and it was basically a hell hole, but Birmingham, Leamington, Kenilworth & Warwick are all rather nice in varying ways.

You can ensconce yourself in the university campus bubble if you so desire.

Birmingham has shed loads of arts & culture type offerings and is a great city. I still go back there once a year at least.

xp haha - love it...
Cov market IS ace though - and "they" want to knock it down!

Cov is not a hellhole ffs - my friends live in Earlsdon and love it there, just down the road from the Uni. As for the rest of Cov there's some great curry places, big parks, fine Cathedral, even some nice bits of history if that's what you want. Do you mean it looks like a hellhole?

I lived in Earlsdon for two years too and I did like it there for the most part. It certainly beat the hell out of my last year when I lived just outside the city centre.

You're right, I am being rather hyperbolic and emotive in my language. But, I seriously couldn't recommend Coventry itself to anyone for living. There are so many much nicer places to be.

The degrading concrete brutalism of the city centre & the horrible layout with the ridiculous tiny ring road etc do play a big part. It's a depressing looking and feeling place to me.

I agree that the Cathedral is amazing and there is a lot of interesting history, but I maintain, with a degree of experience, that it isn't somewhere I want to return to particularly.

It was 8-12 years ago that I was there, so do bear that in mind.

wrt to Birmingham i was being relative. it is disappointing in comparison to other big uk cities, certainly Manchester or Edinburgh, even somewhere like or Glasgow or Leeds. everyone's experience isn't going to be the same but Birmingham's reputation hasn't materialized from nowhere.

Coventry is pretty indefensible though. what is there for a city of 300,000 people? tell me what i missed in 18+ years. there is a decent theatre and the warwick arts centre, but i wouldn't recommend anyone move there for them. yeah there is some history but again, want to live somewhere for a few years because it has a nice cathedral? the shopping is terrible, the nightlife is non-existent and it is generally a very ugly city. Earlsdon is a residential area which is a patchwork of nice and shitty parts. it is probably the best place to be in Cov for someone as merdeyeux describes, certainly it is where we used to spend our time and where my friends who stayed or moved back lived, but it boils down to 4 pretty shit pubs, a couple decent restaurants and a couple good chippies.

it's also relevant that violence against students in the city at night was a big factor in the move of the student population to Leamington in the 90s. that hasn't disappeared entirely. Leamington is decent, it is where i would recommend living if you had to be based around Cov, but it is a small town. the impression i get from being back there is that its short period threatening to be an actually cool place was gentrified out pretty quickly.

but yeah, you will not have to go far for a good curry.

You should have tried growing up in Leamington in the 1970s - I tell yer, Coventry was the ace-est. Ghost town or not.

http://i51.tinypic.com/2vukcp2.png

This is from the FB location page for coventry. 3 places in brum and a nandos. i don't know what this means but i feel like there is an ineffable truth in there somewhere.

Good read about Coventry here...
http://www.jonestheplanner.co.uk/2011/02/urban-impressions-amazing-coventry.html

that is a good piece. the overall tone was more generous than the individual parts though. i was at uni in liverpool in the late 90s and in the decade since i left both liverpool and cov have been going through fairly extensive city centre redevelopment. the success of what they have done in liverpool highlights the failure of what they have tried in cov. the approach there has been coherent and carefully planned to take full advantage of what was already there and the best features of the city. in cov they just seem to add bits on here and there, and the additions are typically ugly or poorly thought through - the 'crisp' new development with bars and restaurants behind the cathedral he talks about is basically dead now because the way they designed it cuts it off from any main thoroughfares - in fact, Nandos is the only restaurant that has been able to take root there. i feel like this was the big opportunity to really make something of the city centre but it has just been another milestone on a road paved with terrible decisions since the war. good to hear that the new plans they have in place sound equally as arbitrary and terrible tho. thinking about urban design and coventry is always a good way to spoil the day.

btw you are v otm about the ring road. i love it because it's like a secret handshake for locals. you are either one of us, or you're desperately trying to change lanes to make an exit.