1548 days ago
Big Nose and our daughter Olaf are on the train to her mother in West Wales and I am on the phone to the latter. She has a medical exemption and is a proud non-mask wearer. We agree that it is rubbish. Her mother shouts over that she is also a rebel. This top City lawyer goes round M&S not only not wearing a mask but also heading the wrong way on the social distance arrows trail.
2192 days ago
On this day we should remember the anniversaries of 25 folks murdered by the IRA. They were civilians, largely in Birmingham. There were two 17 year olds with their lives ahead of them, numerous other young folks on a night out in a pub, a man away from his pregnant wife who never got to see her give birth or his kid grow up, a factory worker, a railwayman, the list goes on and on.
2297 days ago
My business at the Greek Consulate in Birmingham was done with all the efficiency you expect of Greece - that is to say with long delays, over-runs and numerous stamps impressed on my piece of paper. I then hurried back to the civilised south of England as fast as I could.
2298 days ago
It is not a complicated journey from Bristol to Birmingham but it is ffing expensive. Had I got up before 6 AM I would have saved £8 but for the sake of a bit of a lie in I caught the 8.30 and my return ticket cost a whopping £117.80. adding insult to injury Cross Country trains is making me pay an extra £2 for an hour’s internet access. To put this in perspective, I can get to London and back from £75 which is about the same distance and the wifi is free.
3129 days ago
I am not saying that all Brummies are thicker than Benny from Crossroads but it strikes me that he would probably have been among the brighter sparks in his local pub quiz team. I read today about Richella Heeking and Ben Marlow from Sutton Coldfield, who saved up £1200 to go on a lavish break in Las Vegas and turned up to Birmingham airport to find there was no plane.
Er.. slowly it dawned on these two imbeciles that they had booked a flight from Birmingham Alabama as opposed to Birmingham, the post industrial shit-hole on the southern fringes of the great Northern welfare safari.
These idiots insist that it is a common mistake. Yeah right,
ht, among folks
3554 days ago
I am pre-booked elsewhere so shall not be getting out my passport to satisfy border control at Kenilworth but for those of you who do live in the Grim Northern post-industrial wastelands there is an interesting event run by my pal Paul Jourdan of Amati – a very switched on fund manager – in Birmingham next Wednesday Morning. I did not know that they had hotels in Birmingham, I thought everyone lived on Benefits Street with White Dee but apparently Paul has found a nice venue.
On the agenda
3769 days ago
Fund Manager Robin Christie was arrested earlier this year and this week, I am led to believe, the Crown Prosecution Service will decide what charges to press against him. Meanwhile around £25 million invested in funds he created has disappeared. The cash was supplied by IFAs and it is not clear yet whether all ultimate investors know what has happened. The real red faces are round at the FCA which (under its previous guise as the FSA) visited Christie in 2009 and gave him a clean bill of health.
Christie’s funds at Propertybourse based in the Channel Islands invested in German and Tuscan real estate. He also established the Campbell Property Student Accommodation Investment Fund (Birmingham) LP. You would have thought that investing in Birmingham real estate over the past three years was a nil brainer but er…it was last month revealed to be worthless.
It
