Blogs from Birmingham, West Midlands, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 11

“I reckon England will win this series,”, said Simon Hughes, unconvincingly on TV in a panel interview. The camera zoomed out to inlclude in shot a sceptical Merv Hughes (who’d have believed he could be so expressive through such a 'tasche) looked at him distainfully asnd said “do ya really believe that?”. The camera panned back to poor Simon. One look at his rather flushed face, and you knew he didn’t. Helen was obsessed with seeing the Ashes, and got tickets from Ebay on the Wednesday. If the seller (who’d bought the self-same tickets two months ago for rather more than we bought them from her) got her skates on, we’d just about have them in time for Saturday. We arrived at the ground, via a series of Brummie one way systems, to park up the ... read more

My sister Jaimee flats with her boyfriend Joel and three other lads. One of them - Simon is a huge West Bromwich Albion football team supporter. They have a huge rivalry with a neighbouring team the Wolverhampton Wanderers. The clash is known as the Black Country Derby. Sounds menacing doesn’t it. And it is, I have just now read Wikipedia and it states: ‘In 2008 it was listed as the fiercest rivalry in English football.’ Simon managed to score us some tickets for the game so we decided to make a weekend of it. Friday night I met up with Jaimee and Joel and trained out to Heathrow, where Simon and Ryan had picked up a rental car. About 3 hours later after listening to hard rock, talking about sport and a huge feed of KFC ... read more

As a budget-conscious traveller, I'm always on a lookout for cheap bargains. This time, I managed to find coach tickets between Slough and Birmingham for £1 one-way (thanks to National Express' funfares). After booking a return ticket (total £2) for myself, I asked my friends to see who wanted to join me. However, when my friends go into the National Express website, there were no more £1 tickets, and the price had increased to £4 one-way. In the end, only 2 friends, Wanqin and Yanping, were interested. The 3 of us decided to make the trip to Birmingham a day-trip (meaning we went to Birmingham in the morning and returned to Slough in the evening on the same day.) We chose to go on 6th Oct, as it's a Saturday and most shops and markets in ... read more

While I've been busy slaving over a hot computer trying to re-learn my ECDL in time for a job interview on Wednesday, Glynn has been working hard at college and even took Jish in to meet one of his tutors. As you know, Jish has a massive and ever-growing fan club although I'm starting to wonder if he has a girl in every port! He even has his own website now if you want to check it out - www.myspace.com/jishbear. On Friday, Glynn also took a walk around Birmingham city centre after college to capture a few photos so you can get an idea of what the city is like. I have to admit to quite liking the recently renovated Birmingham centre with the ultra-modern Bullring, nicknamed the Pincushion, and the famous Rag Market which has ... read more

caught the bus up to Birmingham again!! it was delayed a bit because of some crash on the other side of the road. i met George at the station and we drove back to Fazely. it was great to catch up with George, Sandra and Greg again. went out with Greg and his mates to the movies and then to the pub! the simpsons movie is even funnier when you can actually read the subtitles!!!!! (for the animals speaking etc) there is a first for everything...i tried Fosters. yes i'm not proud of it but i had to discern why all foreigners think we drink the stuff (did you know it is brewed in scotland, well the uk version is anyway). it was surprisingly ok...so i had another one. cricket!!!! went to the cricket to watch ... read more