If there’s one thing you learn at school, and if the current Education secretary gets his way it many be soon the only thing, it’s this: no one likes a tell tale tit.

Watching The Sweeney, you may have picked up this: nobody likes a grass.

In fact the only positive cultural representation of an informer that is easy to find is Starsky and Hutch’s Huggy Bear: and you can bet that he had to run the gauntlet of hate from the other boss pimps in the area.

So, given that we don’t like people what ‘tell’ how do we make sure that those in the know can reveal terrible problems in institutions without undue opprobrium? Back in the early ‘70s US civic activist Ralph Nader coined the phrase “whistleblower” to avoid the negative connotations found in other words such as “snitches”, “grasses” and “bastards”.  He took his cue from the practice of giving a healthy toot on a whistle when there was a problem—be that a referee spotting a running back smacking a quarterback blind-side, offside, in the bastardisation of rugby that the yanks play or the lookout on the Titanic seeing (all too late) a metric shittonne of ice.

Those metallic tooting machines—they came from Birmingham. The whistles on the Titanic were the famous Acme Thunderer, designed by Joseph Hudson’s company who also supply refereeing aids worldwide. Hudson was a farm worker from Derbyshire who moved to the city like so many during the Industrial Revolution, and trained as a toolmaker.

He converted the wash house at the side of his end of back to back home in St Marks Street into a workshop where he made many things to help increase his family’s income. The company are still making a racket to this day—in Hockley.

Photo CC Alison Clarke

Let’s oblige (or hit refresh for more of our ideas):

Picture courtesy ITV and Media Archive for Central England

Talk of a world-record hiccuping girl on BBC News this weekend led David Nash to ask after the Sutton Coldfield sneezing girl of 1979, and the wonderful people at MACE were able to deliver this video footage of Tricia Reay as she set off to France for a miracle cure.

Paradise Circus was pleased to hear that Tricia did eventually stop sneezing, but the sad end to this story is that her Guinness World Record title was lost a few years later to another teenage girl from Pershore - though not before her achievements were celebrated in a bluegrass style song by Roy Castle on a Record Breakers LP (which may not have broken any records itself, but is much fun — more here):

Tricia Reay by Roy Castle, from the LP Record Breakers:

The song is courtesy of Ben Castle and with permission of the Castle Family. You may wish to make a donation to the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation if you enjoy it.

Sometimes we all feel like we’re just not worthy of attention: even though we are perfectly fine women, men, and cities. We share the experience of being unable to reach a subconscious, fictional final goal of subjective security and success to compensate for the inferiority feelings. If we’re not careful we may exhibit an inferiority complex.

Stemming from the psychoanalytic branch of psychology the concept of the inferiority complex is one of Sigmund Freud’s. Alfred Adler, founder of classical adlerian psychology, held that many neurotic symptoms could be traced to overcompensation for this feeling—like building big bed-spring style libraries when there is already a perfectly good one for example. Or shovelling visitors between antiseptic hotel and featureless conference centre without letting them see the real city, or stuffing shuttlecocks down our collective pants. But who are we comparing ourselves to? Surely a city as well appointed and industrious should be confident in its place in the world, size may not be everything but we’re carrying a pretty package.

Further analysis reveals the source of all anxiety: in 1890 a professor of physics at Mason Science College (now the University of Birmingham) called  John Henry Poynting calculated the mass of the Earth and forever made us all feel small and insignificant.

Perhaps before that date, Brummies were as annoying overconfident and gobby as cockneys and those from Greater Manchester.

But now we have a lovely line in self depreciation—like good people everywhere—thank Birmingham and Prof Poynting, and thank heaven and earth, for that.

Photo cc West Midlands Police via WikiMedia commons

As an incomer I’d heard the stories and bought into the myth about M6J6. Gravelly Hill Interchange existed to me in quiz questions and in the banter of the family friendly (but in hindsight probably a bit rapey) light entertainers of 198os television. Spaghetti Junction was a symbol of Birmingham, a simple icon or emblem. The junction was an avatar that stood for the city and in so doing pegged her identity to the story of crumbling concrete post war utopias: Spaghetti Junction was sold to the world as a folly, a dysfunctional, unworkable, unnavigable tribute to man’s over-confidence, and it cast that aura onto the city that it guarded.

The first time I drove across the interchange I missed it. I’d got as far as Park Circus before I asked my copilot when we’d see Spaghetti and he told me I’d sailed through it a half mile or so before. On the ground it’s just road, you can’t see it when you experience it, all you can see is your lane, your sign, your exit. It only exists as a complex system when abstracted from the mundanity of mirrors, signals and manoeuvres. Frankly it’s a disappointment. It disappoints you because it works. This isn’t in the script.

Photo cc Ell Brown

How does one get lost on Spaghetti Junction? It’s hard to. You might momentarily lose concentration and miss a turn but if you do that is a fault in you, not a fault in the junction. For 41 years it’s worked. It’s battered, it’s bruised, and I’m sure some of what your average bar stool historian might say about sloppy construction might well stand up. These are not the issues I wish to address today. I just want to tell you clearly and plainly: Spaghetti Junction is a piece of piss.

A number of years ago, during the stag party celebrations for a good friend of mine, I went along to play paintballing. Upon arrival at the centre we discovered that our opponents for the day were a group of men who had evidently been paintballing on several occasions before; they had the correct footwear, warrior-like nicknames for each other, and most worryingly of all: their own guns. They were likely to be more than a match for our disorganised and hungover group of musicians, liberals and wimps. And so it proved.

I was ‘killed’ within 30 seconds of the first game starting, taking a pellet direct to the facemask. My colleagues fared no better. With a mouth full of yellow paint I watched as my buddies died face down in the mud. War is hell.

After three or four games during which we had our arses repeatedly handed to us the safety official accompanying us around the course became exasperated. “Have any of you ever done this before?”, he asked. A single arm was raised, belonging to Richard Loach. Rich was immediately given the job of captain, which he accepted with some reluctance. He began tentatively, dividing the team into attack and defence squads and muttering something or other about tactics. Soon, however, he began warming to the task and eventually grew visibly before our eyes when he started shouting motivational phrases in a highly animated manner, evoking the spirit of Ron Saunders himself. It was stirring stuff, believe me.

As Rich’s speech neared its Henry V climax, and at the very point that we started to believe in ourselves, he shot himself in the foot. Literally.

A split second later the hooter honked for the beginning of the next game and the enemy came over the brow of a hill—finding us collapsed in a heap of weeping laughter. They fired at will.

This moment of pure slapstick will live with me forever and a day, and it just so happens that Richard was merely carrying on what is a long Brummie tradition. Without Birmingham, folks, there would be no slapstick comedy.

It really originated with Charlie Hall, who was born in Birmingham in 1899. As a young man he trained as a carpenter before finding his way to Hollywood, via a sister in New York. Working as a stagehand, he became friendly with a young Stan Laurel and eventually appeared in over 40 movies with Stan and his partner in LOLs, Oliver Hardy. During one such film, The Battle of the Century, Laurel and Hardy are caught in the middle of a gigantic custard pie fight. By throwing the first of 3000 pies, this fight was started by none other than Charlie Hall.

A Wetherpsoons, in his home district of Erdington, is a fitting tribute to a man: where comedy fights are often only a spilt pint away.

Without Birmingham there would be no You’ve Been Framed. Think about that.

As a footnote it is worth mentioning that every child who grew up in Birmingham in the late 1970s and early 1980s went to school with a kid who claimed that his dad was the Phantom Flan Flinger from Tiswas. May the circle be unbroken, bab.

The last time you had a right row with someone at your bank—like you’d changed address with them but they hadn’t updated the one on your credit card—or you had to sit on hold to an ISP (because they hadn’t properly cancelled the account you had before you moved, and they wouldn’t talk to you as you hadn’t phoned from the number they’d cut off), thank the the city of Birmingham. For without the second city you’d have had to pop into a office to do it.

In 1965 the Birmingham Post and Mail installed the GEC PABX 4 ACD which is the earliest example of  a call centre in the UK—probably to deal with a huge influx of members to the Chipper Club. So, Birmingham gave the World: hold music, pressing ’2′ to speak to the billing department, recording calls for training purposes (but not so they can remember what they’ve told you) and labyrinthine  telephonic ‘customer service’. Thank you, Birmingham.

What Birmingham didn’t give the World, it turns out was The Chipper Club: oh poorly rendered Fred Basset-lite of our collective childhood, why didn’t you tell us you were unfaithful? With Portsmouth, and Hartlepool of all places. How many more?

Inventor of fizzy pop Joseph Priestley made other contributions to our society too. On April 15, 1770—not ten years before he would move to Brum—he recorded his discovery of Indian gum’s ability to erase lead pencil marks. He wrote, “I have seen a substance excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the mark of black lead pencil.” And did so in ink, which pissed him off when he discovered he’d made a cock-up.

Priestley called them ‘rubbers’, and they made their way into the pencil cases of schoolkids: amusing classmates of people called Jon for years to come. It also gave PR people, politicians, capitalists, and other liars a sense that it was okay simply to pretend that you’d done nothing wrong. We love that.

Viva Joey P, and viva his home town (1780-91) of Birmingham.

You could automate this, but what’s the point? A job’s a job. There are so few about, that even one that involves hanging off the back of a moving bus isn’t something you can turn down. There’s something stuck around the back driver’s-side wheel, wait for a nice straight bit of road and get out there. I strain from a sweaty chrome handle, one foot jammed against a vent and I can see something flap round. Like some filthy brown bird, it wheezes and waits for its chance then coils and springs round again. I’ve got to catch it before it disappears and dislodge it, set its carcass free.

I grab, miss, grab, miss. It’s getting wound more and more round the axle. If we have to stop, lose time, then we’ll be late and lateness isn’t an option.

Stretching, last chance, push harder away from the bus, swing almost.

Got it.

And then we hit a bump, or hole, and I do swing, dashed against the flank. But I don’t let go. I can feel my wrist burn, pulling against my weight, hang on, grip and bend, hold on, pull. My greenflash swipes the side, struggling for a ledge, a screw, anything to help support myself. The driver has noticed and slowed, a little, but we can’t stop. We do. A fare stage, the bus shakes as the engine idles and I’m able to use the wheel for support.

Back into the top deck I lay across a seat, my wrist is both numb and painfully sensitive to movement. I’m suddenly cold and I pull up the blanket I’m holding, it’s baked in grime, stained and hairy. It’s what I pulled out from the wheel, an oily coat, for the moment it’ll do. I’m exhausted.

When I wake, about an hour later judging by the circuit, we’re in Witton and I’m desperate for the toilet. We normally shit into a cardboard box and chuck them off at a superloo, but to piss it’s quicker and easier to wait until we’re on a quiet road and do it out of the top window. Down by the River Tame there’s nothing but closed industrial units slowly reclaimed by scrubby weeds, no-one whose complaints would be listened to lives here. It’s awkward but I’m well practised in holding myself in the right position to do this, piss inside the bus and, well, it’ll be even grottier than it is.

From the outside the buses look okay, presentable even. The dirty cream of the top two decks is so dusty looking that grime doesn’t show. The lowest deck is kept spotless, the upper passenger deck not so much. The top deck where we sleep and rest is a mess, one bed, some seats, and just anything we’ve managed to salvage from outside houses. On recycling day, if we’re lucky, we’ll be passing through Bournville or Harboune just as the good stuff is put out. Electricals are no good, but maybe there’ll be a mattress or clothes, or best of all books. Books are unusual, mainly the result of a house clearance when some old hoarder has died. I doubt there have been any printed for years.

But pissing hurts. And there’s blood. Shit, I’m going to have to get off.

A circuit takes two hours 45 minutes to do the 26 miles, if i get off I’ll have that long to get back on again before the driver swap. We normally do once round, then one rest, then another at the wheel, then four off and back round again. We never get off because there’s nowhere to go that might not result in us not getting back on. If we don’t talk to control when it’s our shift a new driver will be employed by the time the bus reaches Acock’s Green garage. And we’d be off, without even the fare to get — where? The bus is our home.

We don’t get off, unless you had an iphone and a connection you might miss the bus. Another one isn’t any good, one bus won’t catch another, I don’t have an iphone. Or a watch. We have to rely on our internal circuit, I can count our timetable in my head. Even asleep, lulled by the engine I can feel it; Perry Barr, Handsworth, Bearwood, Harborne, Selly Oak, Bournville, Cotteridge, King’s Heath, Acock’s Green, Swan Island, Fox & Goose, Six Ways Erdington, Perry Barr, Handsworth, Bearwood…
That’s what I can rely on, there’s an asda in Perry Barr where I can see a doctor, I can get off and count the stops, the ‘burbs, in my head and get back within the circuit. The other drivers will cover for me, make up some maintenance I’m doing out of CCTV, outside. A hole in the roof?

It’s cold, so I wear the coat. I get off. Perry Barr. Past the old railway station, I can see the asda. It glows almost in the early evening gloom, hundreds, thousands of cars wait and tick and shine their headlights behind the superstore. The bus will be in Witton by now, the place where it scrapes the underside of a rusting bridge, flecks of claret scraped onto the roof, deep tracks of the past on the relentless present. That’s where the hole comes from, they’ll tell the garage. That’s why I’m not on camera.
Stockland Green. I lean against the handle of the escalator, the doctor is right at the back of the store. What you need most always is. I can’t be distracted, maybe if I’m not that badly injured, if it doesn’t cost that much I can buy something. Past the fruit, fruit would be nice. Erdington.

There’s a queue, it’s okay, I can wait. Queue to be seen, queue to get in, queue to get on, ring the bell, queue to get off. Five people ahead, I clutch my stomach, hands inside the old coat. I can feel the pressure building, I’m hoping that it’s just bruised. Some nurofed and strapping and I’ll be back at the stop waiting way before I need to be.
Fox & Goose.

“I fell, slipped.” Can’t mention that it’s an injury from work, the law states that the company should treat me. But there’d be something in the small print, a term or condition I couldn’t read or understand. An excuse to replace me. “I’m in pain, it’s probably just bruising. My stomach and my wrist.”

A seat, which is good and my gut is really hurting. We’re passing the Swan Island, I can feel the curves, the slight lean as we turn on and off. The brakes, slowing and I’m gently leaned forward, which hurts more. Concentrate, Swan Island, no traffic now,
a constant speed I can relate to. The bus fills up, no the waiting area fills up. The pained and ill stare at a screen, I don’t want to — if I drift off I’ll lose track of the timetable. How long can I wait? Two fare stages it took me to get here, I’ll have to leave by Dudley Road, treated or not treated.

Acock’s Green. It’s so full now, the Green. Green, it was, or at least I can remember grass. Then people started to camp out on the island, on the rec, tents from argos. It would have been an adventure, but it was because there were no houses. If you couldn’t work then you couldn’t afford a house, so people protested — scrawled banners on bedsheets hung on railings and shrubs. There was no-one to read them, councillors would only respond to emails or blogs. If you’re living in a tent on a road island in Acock’s Green you don’t email, you don’t get post, you make the best you can — the island was quite a good camp, protected and convenient for public transport. You could move freely. There’s a sharp turn, a sharp pain, I grasp my belly tighter and doing so hurt my wrist more. My wrist is now swelling up and purple. I was born round here, we lived in a high-rise squat that used to be an office block above the argos and the post office. I would watch the buses go past from the top window. You felt you could see the curvature of the earth.

King’s Heath. There were camps here too, but they were cleared. Powers enacted to deal with graffiti and public drunkenness gave the police enough rope to shovel the poor over constituency borders. The parks were made good again. Prosperity came to all that could afford it, fuel from plants was plentiful, from wind farms and from solar panels. Living became cheap for the rich and life became cheap also. Move them on, somebody else’s problem.

Cotteridge. My number is called, I can barely stand. I ride each movement of the bus, and each one sends throbs of pain. I need to piss again. Bournville, Selly Oak, the factory is closed, the purple paint remains, the university is gone. Universities went bust, they grew and grew and built flats for hoardes of students, but when the crash came there weren’t enough. I’ve lived in some of the old halls, thin walls, dirty corridors, cheap plumbing. Often there would be a toilet almost next to your bed, private, but the inevitable backwash would leave the floor coated in a film of disease. The small shop, selling crap in blue plastic bags meant you paid more for worse food. Not a good place, the bus is better. The bus pulls in. I get up.

Harborne, rich. Where the rich live, gated off with security, so much power they plug everything in. They’re always on, but they need watching, they’re not safe. Security, that’s not a bad job. The rich either drive or pretentiously take the bus, they sit downstairs, complaining about the smell, the noise, that the stop is too far for them. But the bus is the only way you can get to where you need to be, it keeps going. Cars gridlock and jostle, but the bus keeps going. Round and round.

Bearwood. The doctor binds my hand, but he’s wanting to examine the spreading blackness around my middle more carefully. Course it fucking hurts there. Handsworth. I have to leave. I swing upright, I brush past the doctor and start to make for the exit. Handsworth. Handsworth Wood. No time to wait for the escalator, I start to climb it, stepping isn’t easy but I’ll make it.
I stumble. The coat is stuck, sucked and trapped in the side of the moving stairs. I pull, I yank. I need to hold my stomach or I can’t stand. We reach the top, still stuck I can’t even tear it free. The escalator stops. Jammed, or has someone pressed the alarm? I can’t talk, can’t explain, I have to leave the coat and get to the stop.

Perry Barr. It’s waiting, as is tradition, by the church. Shift change, for it used to be the nearest stop to the old garage. When buses stopped there had to be somewhere for them to go, there were garages all over the place. Perry Barr. I need to get across the road, but there is a constant stream of cars. I wait for it to clear, but it won’t. Revising down to smaller and smaller gaps, eventually I have to go. Run. It’s more a stumble, clutching, flapping, leaning forward.

My trailing leg is swiped by a car, they pause. Have they hit something? It’s just an old tramp, they keep going. I do make the pavement, all I can see is the pavement, grey, blurring. Look up. See the brake light dim. Faster. Calling, reaching, can’t, the gut hurts too much.

I’ve missed it and pretend I wasn’t running, there’ll be another one along.

Except there won’t.

Life in the sun just feels better. I think there is a strong case that the notion of the Judeo-Christian God always watching over us is just a bastardisation of the visceral good feeling of being in the warm summer sun.

So the sun is shining and everybody in England runs outside as naked as they can get away with, to drink as much free vitamin D through their dappled, pasty, flesh as they can. And I’m alright with this.

I’m outside my favourite pub in Birmingham: canal side, listening to the geese honk up to the balcony for scraps and fag butts to be thrown down, presumably to eat. This is Birmingham and finding out that our waterfowl need nicotine patches wouldn’t surprise me.

I’ve always loved this place, even during the brief period when me and my friends were so barred the staff would phone the police if we even walked past.

But time be time, and now I’m free to watch the sun slink behind the overpriced apartment blocks, drink my beer, and silently pray to the uncaring fiery god for one of the cyclists or joggers to hit a stone and fall into the canal.