I'd like to book a 50th birthday party, last Saturday in March

Welcome to Birmingham, the award-winning event city. We've just held a successful (by most accounts) Conservative Party Conference, and as we keep hearing, 500,000 Rotarians are coming to be earnest and helpful and to confer about being more so.

An event city, what does that really mean? And more to the point how do the people who live here benefit? We keep being told that the Tories brought £20M to Brum -- but how much of that will ever get anywhere near improving things for residents? The Rotarians are also estimated to bring £20M despite there being twice as many of them, well I suppose they do drink less.

Let's consider Brum as a big old boozer, like the Yenton, people who live here are the regulars; some drink in the bar (Kingstanding), some drink in the lounge (Moseley) and some only come once a week and use the bowling green and sip half a lemonade all afternoon (er, Sutton). What's this got to do with being an 'events city'?

The events venues are like the function room -- the landlord hires them out to outsiders, they spend money over the bar and help to keep the place going but they might only book at most once a year. For the regulars, all they mean are more noise, the car park being full, the bar staff being busier and sometimes running out of Skol White Top or nuts. It'll also be impossible to get a taxi home, without stepping over people in Ben Shermans who can't handle their ale.