July 25th – In New Road, in Shenstone, there are a pair of curious, semi-detached houses. They look World War II era to me; there’s something austere about them. But they also have a very odd feature, that I’ve not seen anywhere else. One house bears the legend ‘Defiance’ and the other ‘Victory’, inlaid in a most striking way. There’s history right there, but I’ve never been able to find out anything about their origins. Anyone know anything?

March 5th – I had to nip to Telford, and visit two different places, one of which was on Stafford Park. I don’t often go there, but the one memorable thing about the place is a very peculiar feature. This huge industrial estate is one of several around the town, whose streets bear only numbers. Just off the romantically named Stafford Park 6 stands this peculiar edifice – the base of Enta Networks, a computer component import company. It certainly makes a change from the endless sea of flat metal warehouses that populate here, Hortonwood and Halesfield, but there’s something awfully tasteless about it too. An odd thing.