Tag Archives: Birmingham

Big changes at the University of Birmingham (Rousse)

Posted on October 4, 2025 by Dreamaticus

Childhood friends SB and KH met me in Birmingham to scope out venues for next year’s university reunion. We were in for a shock when we reached the University of Birmingham campus. The French department was completely unrecognisable. The corridors … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged banner, Birmingham, Chinese, corridor, French, hall, lecture, navigation, reception, reunion, student, university, venue | Leave a comment

Dreadful driving with the Bay City Rollers in Birmingham (Rousse)

Posted on May 25, 2025 by Dreamaticus

I was a terrible driver anyway, but when the accelerator of the huge Ford Granada got stuck to the floor as I drove through Birmingham, I was in big trouble. I had no option but to steer the car wherever … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 111, Bay City Rollers, Birmingham, biscuit, car, crumb, driving, dual carriageway, joke, police, rifle, roundabout, six-pack | Leave a comment

Wrinkly faces and a Fiat 500 (Rousse)

Posted on April 19, 2025 by Dreamaticus

JB was alive and well in Birmingham. I admired her Fiat 500 and the way that the family had stuck four large cardboard head portraits of themselves across the car’s dashboard. JB complained that she looked very wrinkled in her … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 500, Birmingham, car, dashboard, dead, face, Fiat, hug, portrait, wrinkle | Leave a comment

Aristotle, Shakespeare, Pirandello, Henry IV – and a shop for sale in Stirchley (Rousse)

Posted on November 8, 2024 by Dreamaticus

The university reunion in Birmingham was a very dull affair, attracting only the quietest of my former classmates. I eventually managed to persuade JG into a conversation. She spoke of her preference for the study of Latin and Greek over … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Aristotle, Birmingham, French, Greek, Henry IV, Latin, Pirandello, Shakespeare, shop, university | Leave a comment

Sell-by dates and shoe walls (Belle)

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Dreamaticus

I was up a long ladder cleaning the top of my grandmother’s kitchen cupboards while she supervised. Mostly I was checking sell-by dates on food items, and lying to her about them. When I found a box of ‘Apple-Cinnamon Breakfast … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged apple, Birmingham, cereal, cinnamon, cupboard, dry stone wall, food, grandmother, kitchen, ladder, sell-by date, shoes, sparrow, squirrel, wall | Leave a comment

Undercover work at the sex club (Belle)

Posted on September 29, 2024 by Dreamaticus

I had infiltrated a high end swingers party in London’s King’s Cross by dressing head to toe as an invisible ninja. I recognised politicians and influencers chit-chatting in an animated fashion in the bar. It was all pretty tame stuff. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bar, Birmingham, bus, influencer, invisible, Kings Cross, London, night bus, ninja, paperback, Perry Barr, politician, spy, swingers | Leave a comment

University fees scrapped for state-educated students (Rousse)

Posted on June 1, 2024 by Dreamaticus

The University of Birmingham revealed the institution’s innovative widening access policy at the launch of a spanking new hall of residence. All incoming students who had attended state schools would no longer be liable for fees. Those privately educated, however, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged audience, Birmingham, education, fee, fees, footwear, mother, private, school, scrap, state, TPR, university, wellington | Leave a comment

Traitors, faithfuls, and the University of Birmingham Ballroom Dancing Society (Rousse)

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Dreamaticus

Playing a traitor was not as easy as it looked, especially when the other two insisted on tailing me as I wandered around the building. We spent so much time apart from the others that when I asked a prominent … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 1980s, ballroom, Birmingham, dancing, faithful, faithfuls, society, traitor, Traitors, university | Leave a comment

Grand designs in south west Birmingham (Rousse)

Posted on April 11, 2024 by Dreamaticus

The suburb of Northfield in Birmingham had smartened up considerably since the late 1980s. The tumbledown garages behind our old street had been demolished and replaced with a row of neat new houses. Our old house had been vastly extended at … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bike, Birmingham, Champagne, design, garage, garden, gargoyle, Georgian, grand, granite, house, Northfield, portico, statue | Leave a comment

The Princess Royal, a self-driving car, and a road traffic accident (Rousse)

Posted on October 3, 2022 by Dreamaticus

While Princess Anne drove, I told her all about my new self-driving car. ‘It’s amazing in multi-storey car parks’, I boasted. ‘It can even loop other vehicles when coming down the exit ramp’. The only drawback that I had noticed … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged accident, binoculars, Birmingham, car, hair, Princess Anne, Princess Royal, safety, self-driving | Leave a comment