Glimpses

I seem to have spent a lot of last month writing about Birmingham. I think this was more due to the coincidence of receiving two different commissions about the city, rather than anything in the March air. The first piece was for the BBC's Made in England project and has more of a personal angle, the second (reprinted here in the Post) was for The Art of Ideas and was concerned with the cultural profile of the city. Both really were reworkings of the piece I wrote here on qanik years ago about taking photos of Nechells. 

James (Yarker - of Stan's Cafe) was with me on the panel at the latter - and so here's his talk as well. And for anyone with even a passing interest in faded utopian visions (three words I tend to use with tedious regularity when speaking about Birmingham), and who hasn't visited yet....welcome to Euphoria.