Galleries

March 15th – To compound a bad ride, I had to go up to Walsall Wood, and my beer magnet was at full power. Excellent, you might think. Fourteen reds in a loose group, on the field margin along the canal that borders Grange Farm, Walsall Wood. Largest group I’d seen for a while, and there were some impressive specimens.

Just one snag: there was a thin scrub-copse and barbed wire fence stopping me getting through the trees to get good photos. Immensely frustrating.

Aaargh!

March 15th – The sunset the previous evening that promised so much failed to deliver anything but grey murk the next day. It was overcast, grey, cold and windy, and while I was out and about mid afternoon, it rained. I hate days like this, particularly so close to spring. You feel almost cheated.

I span round Chasewater, and noted the waterfowl now seem to have claimed the castle as their own, but was troubled that I could only spot one of the three white geese. Hope the other two are OK, but they must be quite old now.

On the other hand, last years cygnets are all doing well on the big pool, and accumulated, must number more than 30. With few natural predators and national treasure status, one wonders how long their population can go on expanding…

The water level seems to be increasing gradually, too; maybe 11 inches to go now. I somehow doubt we’ll see Chasewater overflow this spring, but it’s at a good healthy level right now.

March 14th – after a grey, murky day, a remarkably clear sunset over Aldershawe Hill and Springhill as I rode home from Lichfield down the backlanes. We’re entering now the spring period of great sundowns, and this one was gorgeous. I’m really loving this new camera, which really seems to perform much better in low light.

A great ride.

March 14th – Where do you leave a pair of bikes when you’re exploring a lost Mall? Well, loads of railings and street furniture nearby…

Cue rant.

Birmingham is a lousy city to cycle around at street level. For decades, the City Council have paid lip service to cycling, with a road system that routinely ignores the needs of more vulnerable road users, like Moor Street Queensway. They were given millions in cycle funding, which they used to resurface miles of perfectly good canal towpath.

And then, there’s aresehattery of this calibre. No cyclist would ever have managed this. I guaran-damn-tee the person responsible for this act of civic idiocy last rode a bike in school.

What am I upset about?

Cyclehoops are the round fittings bolted to these railings. They are great items of cheap street furniture designed to be fixed to existing street furniture to provide anchor points for bike parking. We have some in Walsall on lampposts. They’re brilliant because they stop your steed flopping around the post, and provide a secure lock rail that’s hard to remove.

Oddly enough, railings already provide that feature.

Birmingham City Council bought a bunch of Cyclehoops and instead of fitting them in places where they would be useful, bolted them to railings that already perform the purpose Cyclehoops fulfil.

You normally have to make an appointment for this kind of idiocy.

Stick a fork in the Council’s backside and turn it over, it’s done.

March 13th – This is about a death, or being present at the demise. 

I was in Birmingham for the afternoon, and had an important execution to record.

Fletchers Walk, the dingy, misconceived subway-mall near the Town Hall in Birmingham, leading under Paradise Circus and emerging at the foot of Alpha Tower, will soon be lost to the wrecking ball.

It is ugly. Badly designed. It represents some of the worst – very worst -aspects of modernism, utilitarian urbanism and brutalism. It is unattractive, badly lit, intimidating and dystopian.

I’ve always loved it.

In the 80s and 90s, there was a great record shop down there, one of Brum’s earliest computer shops, too. Some great restaurants. When it was alive, it was a curious, odd netherworld. I’d bet many Brummies never knew it existed. It often stank of sewage, or stale urine. 

Attempts to polish this architectural turd only succeeded in compounding the issue – that being it was impossible to build something like this properly in the space available.

Soon, it will be swept away, along with John Madin’s remarkable library on top, and replaced by a bland, steel and glass corporate space, which we will facelessly and safely drift through, like the insipid figures on developer’s pictures. 

We will be unchallenged as we do so – the architecture will not engage, neither will it be evident. There will be none of the apprehension. It’ll just be another glossy, transitory and irrelevant link between retail spaces.

That will never by my Birmingham. Fletchers Walk – with it’s memories of great nights out, obscure music finds and hurried dashes from grim menace – is my Birmingham. 

When it dies, a bit of my memory will die with it.

March 12th – I revised some old haunts tonight to try out the new camera on some familiar night shots. I’m astounded with the improvement in image quality of the TZ70 over the TZ60; the shots are far sharper and less noisy than I’m used to getting. Even the flats on the Watermead by Coopers Bridge are well defined and sharp.

They really let the unexpected beauty of Brownhills at night shine through.

March 11th – Quick photos grabbed in passing on a desperately murky evening, but there’s no mistaking the recently relocated, civically vandalised Walsall hippo. Now outside the library, publicity wonks working at the council decided it would be a bit of free and easy publicity to paint the concrete kiboko in a Walsall football strip to cash in on – sorry, celebrate – the recent success of Walsall Football Team, a sporting enterprise that in former, less successful times, was untroubled by civic attention.

The wonks this post prandial brainwave surely was – whose previous contact with paint technology is probably limited to spare rooms and nails – assure all and sundry the paint will wash off (presumably when sporting fortunes return to normal and disassociation is necessary) and that the stunt – sponsored by an unholy amalgam of tattoo parlour and home insurance company – is all in good taste.

Of course, seeing a football fan on the streets of Walsall, resplendent girth barely contained by team shirt is not unusual, and the footballing hippo is very representative, even more at home like this. But cast from cheap concrete worn porous with age, it’ll take some effort to expunge him from the red peril he finds himself in.

Of course, the duality of the civic position that graffiti is wrong has gone unnoticed, and it’s odd to see the insurance people back off the naughty step, but hey, this is Walsall.

And no, this sculpture has never been called ‘hoppy’ by anyone I’ve met, despite apparent attempts by the burghers to convince us otherwise.

Good luck to The Saddlers, though…

March 10th – Today was a bright sunshine day, and the sun was warm on my back. I nipped out of work near lunchtime and spun through Victoria and Kings Hill Parks in Darlaston just to see how they were looking. In Victoria Park, one group of pattern-planted crocuses is in flower, and they seem to be in the form of a wheel – I have no idea why. The greens and shady corners there looked as beautiful and serene as ever.

In Kings Hill Park, a riot of colour with daffodils, primroses and crocuses all vying for attention.

If you live nearby, and can get to these parks soon, do so. They are a credit to Darlaston and those who maintain them. Utterly splendid.

March 9th – This puss, who I’m fairly convinced is an elderly female, stopped me in my tracks on my way home. In the backstreets of Darlaston, she was in the road, and as I approached, just stood, looking at me. She seemed well enough, and appeared to be wanting a fuss. I gave her an ear tickle, stroked her for a while, and off she pottered.

A lovely cat with a beautiful colouring.