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Strange questions that sometimes need answering (or not asking in the first place really).

OK, so many of you know of my interest in the green stuff...

Tree of the year UK 2024.
Just been on the bbc breakfast news.
12 trees to choose from.
All ****** oaks.
Why?
Is this the start of "blonde hair, blue eyes" syndrome in oversized vegetative competition?
Immigration hate on a new scale and level.
We need to know, I fully support the foreign imports, they have rights too.
Ref..."The Trees" by Rush.

I blame Labour, this would not have happened under the previous lovely government.
 
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They will be banning french lavender next.
Racism and sexism...
Haven't you heard of the Lavender Scare?
Know your history...it is all coming back...
What next, compulsory hedge clipping and Bonsai?
I will not stand for the vegetative propaganda.
Free the Giant Hogweed...merely vegetative hate from Genesis.

...and I am sorry, but I do have a slight bias for Sycamores...
Rip 'em out by the thousand every year...with ****** Rowans and Cotoneaster they are the mass weeds of the future.
If they get to three years old they are absolute buggers to get out.
 
I have a strange question that occurred to me after my visit to Drayton Manor yesterday, which is broadly within the Birmingham built-up area.

My question is; why is the West Midlands metropolitan county not called “Greater Birmingham”? You have Greater London and Greater Manchester, so why is there no Greater Birmingham?
 
Unofficially (or officially sometimes?) they usually refer to it as Birmingham and the Black Country (which takes in Oldbury, Dudley, Wolverhampton etc). But, living on the outskirts of Birmingham, it's in no way treated as the 2nd or 3rd most important City of the country. Manchester, Liverpool and London are the 'darling cities' of this place. Birmingham is a sh**thole. From one who has stomped the pavement in my time.
 
BarryZola said:
But, living on the outskirts of Birmingham, it's in no way treated as the 2nd or 3rd most important City of the country. Manchester, Liverpool and London are the 'darling cities' of this place. Birmingham is a sh**thole. From one who has stomped the pavement in my time.
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As someone who’s not local and has only been into the centre of Birmingham once when I was 10, that’s surprising to hear. I don’t remember the city centre in Birmingham being bad, but I admittedly stuck to the city centre and didn’t delve into any suburbs or anything.

I always thought the North West cities like Manchester and Liverpool were supposed to be massively deprived? Whenever you see a list of “most deprived local authorities in the UK”, lots of them seem to be in the Northern places like Manchester rather than in Birmingham, and Boris Johnson’s “levelling up” efforts were always more aimed at the North, seemingly. I always got the impression that large swathes of the North West were very deprived, whereas I never got that impression from Birmingham.

All of them seem larger/more significant than Bristol, which is the “big city” I live nearest to. Bristol, while not overly deprived, seems pretty small and lower in significance compared to Birmingham and some of the Northern powerhouses.
 
Now you see our Matt, Liverpool and Manchester are the gleaming diamonds shining bright in a sea of shite and deprivation...they are where us northerners go for a party after scrubbing up to rid ourselves of the smut and grime of the (really) grim northern towns.

Bristol is a fantastic thriving city with a music scene as cool as anything...you are lucky to be local...and...
BarryZola said:
Birmingham is a sh**thole. From one who has stomped the pavement in my time.
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...I didn't say that...as one who had to hang around the old Digbeth coach station in the middle of the night, far too many times.
Not knocking the brummies, and I'm one of the few who loves the west midlands accent...it's just that if God gave the world an enema...
 
Got a few digs (punches) from a gang of black lads for no apparrent reason just down from the Ice Skating rink about 20 years ago. Went and hid at the top of the multi-storey car park not too far out of the centre. I was ****** out of my skull. Around the year 2000. It was like 20 to 2 in numbers so it wasn't even an option to have a fair fight. The lesson is just avoid gangs of black people in the City?! Might be stereotypical but there you go...
 
Matt N said:
I have a strange question that occurred to me after my visit to Drayton Manor yesterday, which is broadly within the Birmingham built-up area.

My question is; why is the West Midlands metropolitan county not called “Greater Birmingham”? You have Greater London and Greater Manchester, so why is there no Greater Birmingham?
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At the time they really tried to call it Greater Birmingham, I remember a consultation coming through my door and the drama it caused amongst my Coventrarian friends.

A big difference between Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, is that although GM has 2 cities, they're touching, and used to being lumped together (though Salford kicks up a fuss now and again) - the three cities of the West Midlands are further apart and their distinctness and separation from Birmingham is a source of pride. It's a much harder sell.

Of course they did kind of shoot themselves in the foot with it, civic pride is secondary to national and international recognition when it comes to naming things - I'd guess most Brits know the name of the GM mayor because when he's mentioned online and in the news, people's ears prick up "Manchester, that's a big city isn't it? This guy must be pretty important" - I don't think West Midlands has the same effect at all. And try hawking your small out of town science park to a foreign investor with something as vague as "the left side of the middle of the country on a map". "Good links to Birmingham which is also in the West Midlands" doesn't quite sound as impressive as being in (Greater) MANCHESTER!

It was daft, and pride stopped them from fully capitalising on the Metro county project, in my opinion.
 
Ryan said:
At the time they really tried to call it Greater Birmingham, I remember a consultation coming through my door and the drama it caused amongst my Coventrarian friends.

A big difference between Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, is that although GM has 2 cities, they're touching, and used to being lumped together (though Salford kicks up a fuss now and again) - the three cities of the West Midlands are further apart and their distinctness and separation from Birmingham is a source of pride. It's a much harder sell.

Of course they did kind of shoot themselves in the foot with it, civic pride is secondary to national and international recognition when it comes to naming things - I'd guess most Brits know the name of the GM mayor because when he's mentioned online and in the news, people's ears prick up "Manchester, that's a big city isn't it? This guy must be pretty important" - I don't think West Midlands has the same effect at all. And try hawking your small out of town science park to a foreign investor with something as vague as "the left side of the middle of the country on a map". "Good links to Birmingham which is also in the West Midlands" doesn't quite sound as impressive as being in (Greater) MANCHESTER!

It was daft, and pride stopped them from fully capitalising on the Metro county project, in my opinion.
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That’s really interesting to hear! For clarification, the three cities of the West Midlands county are Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry, aren’t they?

I think you’re right about the West Midlands name possibly diminishing their significance compared to “Greater Birmingham” or similar. To be honest, when I think of “the West Midlands”, I think of the considerably larger ONS region of the West Midlands, which spans as far South as Worcestershire and Herefordshire (parts of both are an hour or less from me) and as far North as Staffordshire and places like Stoke-on-Trent (at least a good 2 hours from me on a good run… for reference, Alton Towers is 2.5 hours from me on a good run, but I know Towers is getting on for half an hour away from Stoke).

A place like Ross-on-Wye is only 35 minutes away and feels close to me (I regularly drove on a dual carriageway towards Ross in my driving lessons), whereas Stoke-on-Trent always felt pretty Northern to me and quite far away (the local accent around Alton Towers sounds more like a Northern accent to me than a Birmingham accent, anyhow!). Yet both are technically in “the West Midlands”… it’s a big area!
 
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Heres the issue.

To us northerners. The midlands is technically south. So not much worth fussing about. But it's not true south as no one is smug enough.

Whilst to southerners. It's technically north. They are dirty, smelly, wear cloth claps and go and strike. (Unless it's midland miners in 1984.) But it's not true north as brass bands aren't a thing and it's warmer.

Plus I don't think the country ever forgive them for the truly awful cars built by British Leyland.
 
You seem to like your ONS defined regions Matt. To me, your neck of the woods pretty much is in the West Midlands! But it's an interesting question none the less and one I've often wondered as well.

I quite like Manchester and Liverpool actually. I've always enjoyed them when I've visited. No offence to anyone living across the Pennines in Bradford though, but that city has no redeeming features for me. It seems like the North shares these similarities with South Wales down our way. Cardiff and Newport are fine, and it's where all the money and jobs are. But travel further afield and it doesn't take long to find the hard reality of life in these post industrial areas in the valleys, and you really feel it when you get to Swansea. Decent and honest salt of the earth people, cast aside in the 80's and neglected by successive governments ever since.

There was an attempt to do the whole "Greater Bristol" thing decades ago. That term is still used sometimes today. It became the Country of Avon. It didn't last long and we've been stuck with the weird system we have now ever since. They've known how to draw the boundaries of that city.
 
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