The Knowhere Guide

Other Stuff in Birmingham, West Midlands*

Birmingham, West Midlands Stuff You Don't Get Anywhere Else

The Stuff We Can't Fit In Somewhere Else

• BEAST IT!
• Moseley Festival 17th and 18th July 2004 in Moseley Park and all week around the village.
• well the best place i find is netadventure in dalton street near the crown court in brum city center the staff there will play games with u not just show u how to play and u can play on net or lan with ur m8's the manage there ron has a long standing gamers clan that has been going for years [TpR] troopers www.troopers.s5.com he lets any one join his clan and its a laugh they have a leased line so no sharing conection its 2 meg thye have most if not all the lates games to try
• Ummmm...... the bull ring?
• public libraries have free internet access. the central ref has 83 terminals spread all around the building & if its not lunch time or 5pm-6pm you can find one somewhere, the speeds not very good, the firewall is massive, & you only get an hour at a time, good for email tho' & if you push it you can spend all day there. the outlying libraries may require you to book, but often thats not nessecary but its an hour only in these ones
• extremely cheap frozen food "Nice frozen food" against the back wall in the indoor market near china town/digbeth branded stuff (macd, sainsbury etc) that is slightly underweight or discontinued etc. really cheap. 4 pasties for £1. huge salmon for £2. unbelieveable value bubs says checkitout checkitout checkitout checkitout checkitout checkitout
• birmingham is nice in the sense that it doesn't appear to be something it isn't, however, i think that birmingham is better than it probably thinks it is!
• MUSIC-wise; rich bitch studios in mosely. attracts a rather diverse crowd of hopefuls and not-so-hopefuls...
• one thing that has to be said. the whole of birmingham should be listening to funky house and speed garage. the flow is so smooth, if every1 listened to it the world would be a better place. big up halesowen college, all the 4dwellings massive, big up LWS, silk city FM and the sexy little fox from kingswinford (u no who u be!) ;)
• Duran Duran are from Hollywood near Shirley.
• Piercings places are Modern Body Art and Toxic Shock, NOT Oasis.
• To certain individuals. Stop shitting on BMX respect, goes both ways. I know a lot of skateboarders and their all pretty cool. There are as many twats ridin as there are skaters skatin. But we can all bin blading though.
• Birmingham was the home of the motor vehicle especially the motorcycle.( For posh people a motorcycle is a vehicle that the working classes used to get to work!) Check out www.geocities.com/bhamtestersrun teels you about the birmingham motorcycle industry and the greatest motorcycle racer in the world who had a shop in erdington.
• Why is it that all the Big Issue sellers seem to be able to afford Nike trainers?
• WE NEED A NEW SK8 PARK!
• Brum is an all round good place, just watch handswort, ladywood and maybe my home town smethwick, its a bit rough sumtimes!
• Coming to Birmingham from elsewhere in the UK you get the impression it wasn't planned. As if people went to bed in a small town and woke up one day and said 'blimey! we live in the second biggest city in Britain!' As a result the public transport is poor, the architecture nondescript and civic identity diluted. Not great for tourists then, but to live here means there is no regional attitude like you'd get from Londoners, Mancs, or Yorkshiremen, and the people are the friendliest I've met outside Glasgow (but without the unsettlingly aggressive undercurrent). Plus there are jobs here! So, thumbs up from a new resident.
• Try skating other areas around Birmingham. Harbourne is probably the best. Mormon's chruch. No hassle, excellent session spot, as is the Doctors surgery nearby.
• Students be aware- if you wander around looking studenty in Selly Oak, best to not have any valuables on you. Oddly enough, this applies more to the men. Oh, yeah- the Church of Christ is probably still hanging around the city centre looking for recruits; they pretend to be lost, then pounce. Eeek.
• The best person to go to in Birmingham if you have backache, neck pain or headaches is an Osteopath. Dr David Smith at Birmingham Nuffield in Somerset Road Edgbaston is brilliant. He has a website at www.myspine.freeserve.co.uk worth a visit. The staff are really friendly and you can have a free cup of filter coffee before and after treatment.It helps to take a friend with you to listen. Be prepared for a few clicks, but not the mousey kind!
• There are more pubs/bars per sqaure mile in Birmingham than any other point on earth!
• See the Skateboard bit. B'ham must be (though I'm talking out my arse) the mecca for Snowboarding with Tamworth 'up the road' and a new 1/4 pipe at the Extreme centre. Not yet open. and a
• The "Bloo Toon" is so called because of the colour of the granite extracted locally many years back by residents of the local prison. The coastline around Peterhead was at one time notorious for smuggling. The cemetery situated 4 miles north of Peterhead known locally as "The Pirates Graveyard" is all that remains of the village of Kirktown that was slowly consumed by the sea. If you look closely at some of the sand dunes beside the graveyard, you can still make out the shapes of roofs and chimney pots.
• Custard Factory,Digbeth, Tuesday Nights - great salsa dance classes followed by dancing in the Cafe des Artist - sounds as scarey as hell but is great fun.
• Cafe Surf seems to be very shut. As a matter of fact I think its closed down. So much for Brum's premier cyber cafe, huh?
• the best little guest house in the city centre (close to broad street) that i stayed at is Monument gardens ,two hundred years old and loads of character. e-mail at sebshouse@aol.com
• I'd like to add Cotteridge to the list of decent places to live. I've lived in Midland Road for over seven years and thoroughly enjoyed my time here. Great neighbours, good links to the city centre and no pubs, but hey, at least I'm not woken up by drunks chucking up in my hedge most evenings! It takes about ten minutes to get to a pub by bus or train so it's a worthwhile sacrifice I think. Cotteridge has a brilliant park for kite flying, dog walking and child-type activities, we've got tennis courts and reasonable everyday shops so please add it to your list. Also house and rent prices are lot cheaper here than in King's Heath and Moseley with a quieter atmosphere. Admittedly, you may not want to spend a week on your holidays here but it is a good place to live.
• Wealth of history: from prehistoric fortifications to ancient inns (The Old Crown, Digbeth), to several timber framed buildings (including Handsworth Town Hall and Aston Hall) most of which are museums, to Georgian Terraces and Soho House (Murdoch, Brindley and Watt) to Victorian and Edwardian mansions and houses and despite the 60's some excellent modern buildings. Bring a camera!
• Good areas: Moseley, Edgbaston, Harborne, King's Heath, parts of Erdington, Sutton Coldfield, Bearwood, Kingstanding. Bad areas: everything else, especially in the "ring of scum". Current hate figure: Jeremy Clarkson, who slags Brum off shamelessly whenever possible. Thinks there are no good restaurants and that the centre is "empty". Is completely wrong on most counts and much despised.
• Cafe Surf is Birmingham's premier Cyber Cafe, we have 10 Computers constantly connected to the Internet. We have great coffee and a varied menu. We also have DJs regularly appearing at the cafe and sell email accounts, training and web page design. I think this is one of the better things about Birmingham.

The Knowhere Guide started out as a list of places to skateboard in the UK. It is a compilation of (unedited) information and views supplied by users like yourself. It is not a conventional tourist guide!

In most cases, the information in each section has been submitted by more than one contributor (the credits at the bottom of the page list some, but not all, of the contributors) and some of it dates back to the 1970s.

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Last updated: 2008-01-15