We came to Birmingham for the cricket. It would be unfair to disparage a city on the basis of experiencing it from a fifth floor apartment a block from the railway station, but it’s not a place I’d visit otherwise.
On the plus side it has the nicest train station I’ve ever seen. Most major stations in Britain were built in the 19th century and perform accordingly. Birmingham New Street is modern, more like an airport with its wide-open spaces, plentiful eateries and status boards.
Birmingham also has a world-class shopping complex called the Bullring and Grand Central just around the corner from our apartment. It is also the city that gave us Ozzy Osbourne so there is that.
But yeah … nice as the station etc. is, it didn’t stop panhandlers approaching us four times within our first half hour in town. Not just a Birmingham problem of course, as the British economy continues to struggle with the post-Covid recession.
The post subtitle comes from my comment on opening the windows of the apartment and looking down to the street below. ‘It’s a jungle out there’, said I. A cacophony of shouting, horn-tooting, jostling and drunken yahooing seemingly amplified at 5th floor level by the surrounding buildings. On the corner an electronically-scored punch-bag competition was underway at five pounds a go, and you got the feeling that for many it was just practice for later.
Apologies to any Brummies reading this, and I must say that everyone we met here was nice. As with elsewhere in England, it is a place where if you bump someone accidentally they apologise for being bumped into. As I say, the reason for coming was the cricket, and at Edgbaston you have the best cricket fans in all of England. More to come on that.
As for that train station, we went there for dinner on the last night. Where else would you happily go to a train station for dinner? From a choice of about a dozen pristine and modern restaurants of various ethnicities we enjoyed a couple of nice Vietnamese dishes and a pretty decent Vietnamese beer called Hanoi.
Birmingham: Jewel of the Midlands. Don’t let me put you off.
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