beta blogger is working better

This afternoon I got off the 97 bus at Digbeth and walked past the taxi rank towards the bottom end of Hurst Street. I looked up inside the bus station at the roof with its wide clear span supported by hot riveted beams which will soon be gone for ever when it is redeveloped - another photo blog topic.

BIG OOOPS this lorry came by just as I thought I was taking the next photo
showing the gigantic plastic Flanders Poppy.

November is fund raising time for the benefit of invalided service men, war widows and orphans.

we, this nation, remember Armistice day - the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day of the eleventh month iof 1918
and temporary fireworks shops appear
because it is soon the fifth of November -Guy Fawkes night - a religious terrorist who plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

I am thinking about what I should paint next year with my newly aquired acrylics from LIDL

flower painting is one possibility - and here a very faded offical graffiti on the market halls


and where could I sell my paintings? apart from on the net with PayPal and Ebay
The Works Gallery
The Works,
Third Floor,
Jubilee Works,
130 Pershore Street,
Birmingham
B5 6ND
Enquiries to: 0121 233 2232
or may be not
no one answered when I rang their bell.


this pub is on the corner of Hurst Street


originally the Roebuck, built during the reign of King William the Fourth, now this gay bar THE VILLAGE INN
the first recorded licensee of the Roebuck Inn is John Green. He appeared in an 1838 ratebook for St.Martin's Parish as the occupier of No.65 Lower Hurst Street. He moved from a beerhouse in Bread Street to the newly-built premises for which the annual ground rent was £22.10s.0d. He paid the rates of £1.2s.6d. in full. Although the occupier of the public house, John Green was not the first owner of the building. John Harford is shown in the ratebook as the man who leased the site of the Roebuck Inn from Sir Thomas Gooch.
Up until 1898 Lower Hurst Street ran from the junction of Bromsgrove Street and Sherlock Street. However, in this year it was joined with Hurst Street and the numbering changed. The Roebuck Inn, formerly No.66, became No.152. (from Google's cache)


soon to be Christmas and time for lights on some suburban homes



serious drinking in a gin palace for small money


"COMPRESSED AIR, formerly noted for it's all grey livery, will gain a natty bright green shoulder band!" -- GAS SAFETY UK



the gas was in the white van extreme right
Hurst Street - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hurst Street is the location of the Birmingham Hippodrome, ... The gay scene of Birmingham is mainly centred on and around Hurst Street.

one of my themes is old pavements and these brick shaped setts are hand made in granite - was this prison work?


how horribly anonymous can english architecture get - just a yellow box using London stock brick in red clayed midlands

To see some architecture in english streets always look at the upper floors

these have been the best picture uploads ever - since google fixed their network problems

O'Neils where we will be from 3:00 to 5:00 pm on Sunday
the car is a rather old VOLVO
the pub a plastic palace


I might well try this lunch tomorrow

the upper floor windows shout FAKE !!!

any old theatre pub is my kind of place

looking on and upwards towards New Street Station

and turning 180 degrees in order to looking back at where I had been - to the right the slum which is now a museum and the theatre

I turned right and walked past China Town towards the three markets

entering the first hall - west indies fish - eg red snappers to the right
and hard dry salt fish - baccalao

leaving the second hall into the open air St Martins market

and I got eight of these pears for £1
and took the 97A bus home snacking on thoise very sweet grapes.