England’s second city has a dodgy reputation that it doesn’t deserve. As the Commonwealth Games come to town, we round up the best it has to offer
on the six o’clock news), there was a “You know you’re a Brummie when …” list going around. One of the entries hit the spot. It was: “You don’t think there’s anything odd in your three favourite bands being ELO, UB40 and Black Sabbath.” The people of Birmingham prize loyalty above liking similar kinds of music, giving us an eclectic taste enabled by the dogma that there is no point going anywhere else.The science behind the modern electric kettle – and a decent cuppa – comes from Brum.
Charlie Hall was born in Birmingham in 1899 and trained as a carpenter before finding his way to Hollywood. Working as a stagehand, he became friendly with a young Stan Laurel and eventually appeared in more than 40 movies with Laurel and Oliver Hardy. In 1927’s The Battle of the Century, Laurel and Hardy are caught in the middle of a gigantic custard-pie fight. Who throws the first pie? Hall. A Wetherspoons in his home district of Erdington is a fitting tribute.
Many of our notions of modern Christmas come from Charles Dickens, who toured the country reading A Christmas Carol. It helped turn the feast day into the jolly, family-oriented affair we have today. The first reading was at Birmingham town hall, so Birmingham is Christmas’s Bethlehem – and Roy Wood wants you to remember that every day.Prince Charles hated the 70s-built Birmingham Central library; he said it looked like a place where books would be burned, not kept.
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