What to do?

polo is an odd thing for some cyclists (dan lj has talked about this) in that it's a team sport that's fiercely competetive and also a ball-game. lots of cyclists are opposed to all of those things.

Oppossed? Really?

not violently opposed. they're not at war.

Except surly riders of course.

Except surly riders of course.

Yeah us Surly dickheads are wooly acidhead vegans (according to Dan) who violently oppose violence.

Haters gonna hate!
There is good stuff going on, just not very well publicised, there is a distinct lack of crossover between groups, and birmingham city council is a kafka-esque monolith that seems to hinder anything creative/progressive.

Good place to start - http://www.createdinbirmingham.com/
Music - Capsule - http://www.capsule.org.uk/
Film - 7 inch cinema - http://www.7inch.org.uk/news/
Art - ikon gallery, grand union, friction arts, vivid, eastside projects
Cafes (maison mayci is sick as sin imo) - canalside cafe near brindley place

• urban coffee church street centre of town
  
  

Just a few here other should post their favs too
We can even make our own fun - stick and poke tattoo party anyone?

^ yeah, let's turn this thread around. there may not be anything good bike-wise, but there are upsides to birmingham. the place isn't full of self-important assholes who can't stop going on about how special their city is. birmingham is special! it's full of miserable ugly people!

upsides:

(overly and unnecessarily) compact city centre/suburbs means the countryside is only a 30 minute drive/cycle/train journey from the centre, even less if you're like 99% of everyone i know and live a few miles south... go for a ride or pub lunch, or walk.

houses/rent are cheap. i'm an impoverished shop assistant yet with my missus i can pretty easily afford the mortgage on a 2 bed house 3 miles from the centre, with a nice garden.

being a compact city, everyone i know or like lives within a few miles. in london and other cities you spend half your time travelling, whether it's to socialise or to work.

things/places i like:

prince of wales in moseley - proper pub
coach and horses in wetheroak - proper pub with its own proper brewery
capeling and co in kings heath. - proper cheese shop in brum (finally)
lots of nice (small) parks - admittedly cannon hill is full of littering cunts
re-generated canal district is nice to walk through, even if there are no nice places to drink or hang out.
great irish pubs in digbeth (spotted dog in particular)
lasan (eatery) in hall green - totally different indian food
balti-belt - i know every other city has something similar, but it's still cool. BYOB!
mr egg - past its best, but it still has a fucking egg on the ceiling
bullring market - cheap-ass fruit and veg for amoral assholes like me, high-quality organic stuff for ponces like pastrylover.
rag market - who'd've thunk rags could *be *so cheap
amusing place names - i live on pineapple road, my missus works at the custard factory, some wit took a crucial 'l' off the 'dogpool road' sign, there's a street called 'gooch st'...
okay, i'm scraping the barrel now. still, it's not all bad.

still agree about the general apathy thing though.

^ yeah, let's turn this thread around. there may not be anything good bike-wise, but there are upsides to birmingham. the place isn't full of self-important assholes who can't stop going on about how special their city is. birmingham is special! it's full of miserable ugly people!

upsides:

It's tiny, and cheap.

things/places i like:

There is food.

still agree about the general apathy thing though.

fixied/abbreviated

upsides: See some of the best 60's architecture in the country, the library (my fave building ever, see it before its knocked down), the natwest tower, see the old industrial buildings of digbeth and the jewellery quarter, see corporation street, the facades above street level are the same as when the road was set out in the 1800's, loads of amazing buildings from all eras. See ruined mansion houses in soho, back to back slums in digbeth, awesome schools and other such victorian public buildings[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Birmingham-Pevsner-Architectural-Guides-City/dp/0300107315"], get an architecture book[/ame] like the one by andy foster.

Go to the library and find out about birminghams past, its raping and pillaging in the civil war, why we're definately not royalists, birmingham in the 2nd world war, the bombing, the vision for the new city built after, people living in graveyards during the war, etc. the industrial revolution.

Eat in the chinese quarter at anywhere small, eat in moseley (italian: ponte de legno) or kings heath (tapas: byzantium), kings heath has an new cheese shop too! goat curry in the market, the best curry in britain on ladypool road (its official), there is loads of good food around.
Drink in the victoria, the rainbow, the old contemptibles, the wellington, the fighting cocks, the hare and hounds, that jazz place by the library. there are thousands of old pubs in the city, before you get out to the ring road, in places like digbeth,the gun quarter, handsworth, soho, edgbaston.

Birmingham has more parkland than anyother city in europe. Mainly due to sutton park, presented to the people by henry VIII, also loads of leafy suburbs lovely for cycling though, acocks green, hall green, kings heath etc. Lickey hills, cofton park, clent hills.

Artwise there is a lot going on, the ikon, the pre-raphaelites in the big gallery and at the barber, the custard factory, musicwise there's all sorts everywhere, pick up some flyers in the custard factory.

bullring market - cheap-ass fruit and veg for amoral assholes like me, high-quality organic stuff for ponces like pastrylover.
Oi! I buy far more of the cheap stuff than the local/organic stuff!!! I only buy from Carol what the other stalls haven't got

If you go up to sheldon, you will find a couple of the most amazing little modernist chapels.

They are in the middle of knowhere, but really impressive. Much more so than the big stuff in Birmingham centre ever was.

Was this thread entitled 'What To Eat'? I can get food anywhere in the world pretty much.

But my 'haters gonna hate' stuff was based on there being a complete lack of a vibrant, self-perpetuating, open-to-all, social scene here. But maybe its just me, I probably want to do stuff that just isn't here, don't know.

I mean really, how many hipsters in this city and Dan's hustling his ass off every week to get five others to play polo.

it is quite frustrating even for an outsider looking in, god knows how frustrating it is for dan. but i think being hipster is more about posing than actually taking part in any activity. if you play polo theres a chance you might not look cool

If proof be needed, here's the blog I used for shit to do in the last place.

Austin Texas Bike Shit

Hate the US all you want but they know how to do stuff recreationally.

actually, fuck it, i'm back to being negative:

http://www.lfgss.com/thread13851-125.html

Manchester 13 Birmingham 2 (number of people playing polo today in respective cities).

But you have a shop here that sells cooked eggs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dan, this is what I was waffling on about yesterday, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle.
In theory nowhere should be better than Birmingham as nothing at all is special, but obviously when they devised this principle they hadn't been here.
So maybe Birmingham is special as it disproves scientific theory?

that seems to be mainly about space and monkeys and shit.

i disagree with all that though - humans are fucking brilliant and there's loads of happy coincedences required to evolve a species as advanced as ours. just because there are loads of galaxies and planets doesn't mean there'll be loads of advanced animals like us. that's the truly scary thought. we could be all there is, yet we're still fucking it up spending our lives watching celebrities dance on ice!

ha ha, or moaning on this thread