Recently in Going Out Category

I was at a conference a few weeks ago, which was debating the essence of identity for Brits and Americans. It was run by the British American Project, an organisation which exists to build relationships between the two countries.

I've been to a few of their events previously and always find them to be enormously stimulating, not least because of the cast lists they assemble. There can be few places where your dining companions include a professional poker player, a young female Church of England Vicar, a National Lottery Commissioner, a whistle-blower on Ken Livingstone's administration, and a Scottish Chieftain. Oh, and Trevor Philips as the after-dinner speaker.

In trying to define what it meant to be British, all the usual hackneyed definitions were wheeled out by conference delegates: "if you can explain the rules of cricket and sing Jerusalem, you must be British" being my perennial favourite. Well forgive me, but being brought up in Scotland, neither cricket nor 'England's green and pleasant land' was high on the curriculum choices at my school.

Buses aren't the most romantic form of transport, or at least aren't romanticised. Car driving gets the Route 66 treatment, the concept of "the road movie" and any number of soft rock classics, trains get Brief Encounter, Night Mail and er, Jimmy Saville. Ask anyone to name a piece of culture about a bus -- Summer Holiday and funny looks are all you'll get.

I think it's something to do with the bus being the middle ground, not the romantic freedom of the car, nor the regimented closeness of the long distance train. Buses are always just that one step up from Shank's pony, and bus stops don't get names so there's isn't even a Mornington Crescent type game to play.

We didn't have a car when I was a kid, and for one reason or another I'm just not bothered by them, trains were always expensive (they were competing with the fabled 2p fares on the bus, remember) and still to me seem a middle class way of travelling I'm not totally comfortable with. So buses are where it's at for me culturally, not that I get aroused by a shapely MCW Metrobus or even a Gardner engined Daimler Fleetline (I am however quietly obsessed with the 11 route, the local network in general and harbour fine memories of the tracline 65).

The interweb, of course, is nothing if not home to the nichest of niche content so, along with the bus-spotting and the tiny sites I've made that track people using twitter on the bus, there is something genuinely interesting and bus-related happening.

Mayday...mayday...mayday... just an old hack's cheap trick to grab your attention, but as the sun sinks slowly over the building blocking the view from my officestrokebedroom (I think it's a former shoe factory now turning out cardboard boxes), it's time to be reflective over a fine holiday weekend.

Quiet and calm, with the Dr Who trailer probably the most pulse-raising moment - although the troll chasing kids through tunnels in The Spiderwick Chronicles certainly got the attention of this pensioner and his two young charges.

The thing that worries me most about Birmingham City getting relegated to the Championship is that I might have to go and watch them every week. Even an average Premier League team is on television enough to make it possible to see every goal and costly individual error without setting foot in the ground, but if we go down I might have to go down and that isn't going to be fun.

Up until a few years ago I had a season ticket in the main stand at St Andrews, and was in the habit of meeting the guys I went with around two hours before kick-off in The Sportsman on Garrison Lane. A few pints in a pub shorn of all its furniture to pack more people in, at least I assume that's what happened -- I never went in when there wasn't a game on so the pub could possibly just have had no chairs or tables at all.

A combination of Brady et al deciding to evict a section of the people that sat in the main stand, in favour of people who could pay for padded seats and access to a bar offering us much worse tickets as replacements, and the spiralling price of watching poor football meant that I stopped going to every game. Once out of the routine it's difficult to rouse yourself to go and watch on a cold Tuesday night, or a cold Sunday at four o'clock especially when the game is on TV. Much of my footballing budget was transferred in to watching England more regularly, and while I'm not sure the standard of play was any higher (and the frustration levels are much the same) at least I got to go to Frankfurt or Barcelona rather than Small Heath.

I still go to St Andrews and in truth it probably costs more to do it the way I do (£40 to watch us throw away a two goal lead against Liverpool, £40 to watch Agent Ridgewell put through his own net against the Villa), but this year I've seen almost every game home and away -- through a combination of pixelated internet feeds and darkened rooms in pubs.

Lunchtime drinking is a sadly lost art. Even in journalism, formerly the last resort of a feckless ne'er-do-well looking to combine full-time employment with a raging drink habit.

No more the 'swift half' turning into a pint, then two pints, and so on in a self-propagating Fibonacci sequence of drinks leaving you at best hung over, or at worst asleep, at your desk come 4pm.

We're all professionals now - or at least we have to pretend to be. So it was a treat to be out on a training course earlier this week when suddenly a window off opportunity presented itself. A reasonable lunch break, the sun was shining, the hint of summer was in the air. Where to go? Why a darkened pub and a pint of warm beer please!

Much to the illusion of my scribblings or at least my appearance, I go to alot of totally different clubs, and last night went to Subculture, hailed as 'probably the most diverse rock night ever.' It was their third yearly Pirate Night, with free rum shots for all dressed up and competitions for best dressed. I took the chance to play face hunter and photographed well over 150 pirates and wenches. I can only put up a few photos so if I took yours, just email me from my site on the right and I can send you it! Here are some of the best and the craziest...

For over 30 years now the last Sunday in April has been bluebell day for the Langley clan. We think of a wood we know where acres of bluebells grow as more or less our own.

It's reached by an unmarked footpath besides fields and then through Forestry Commission tracks, and I've no intention of telling you where it is. It's only been such a well-kept secret because it is inaccessible by car.

It's close to where we used to live when we first decamped to the Midlands from Suffolk, and we've moved a couple of times since, so the annual pilgrimage now involves a bit of travel.

Jazz and Real Ale go together like Wimbledon and Cliff Richard, in that fans of both show a propensity towards beards and jumpers, and a general alienation from popular society.

Of course it's more likely to be turtlenecks and goatees than the facial privet hedges and thick-knit Arran sweaters beloved by us ale-drinkers, but the principle stays the same.

But enough of such silly stereotypes. I'm just suffering from beard envy anyway. Check out the baby-smooth chin under that pint glass on my picture over there. I couldn't grow so much as a George Clooney style fashion fuzz without a few months' notice.

Kevin Spacey may be seeing red over it, but by the time I first sampled I'd Do Anything I had turned purple.

Perhaps I mean Purple - for I saw the show on the big plasma screen at a new Birmingham hotel, branded, like many trendy things these days (think bullring and brindleyplace) without capital letters.

The purplehotels chain is a self-proclaimed "no frills chic" brand launched by the Real hotel company (some of that may be capitals as well, but I've given up trying to sort it out). The company line is that they want "to bring a touch of style and cool to a hotel sector previously only defined by price".

A late night following the Birmingham Forward AGM and Deal of the Year certainly loosened the tongues of the city's business leaders. One might have expected the conversation to turn to the economic climate, the deadly rivalry between city firms, or to debate key Birmingham issues such as transport or civic leadership.

Hell no. Amongst the revelations over dinner were that Crosse & Blackwell baked beans were better than Heinz, and that Sainsbury's on Broad Street offered better networking opportunities than Spar in Brindleyplace.

Although I've never heard a better argument for work/life balance (guys, you need to stay in more and learn to cook), it's wonderfully refreshing to have such normal conversations with the people driving forward our city economy. The fact that they can gather around a single table and are happy to share such personal information bodes well for Birmingham's future.

But if an army truly marches on its stomach, Birmingham's professional services community won't get far on Pot Noodles and Ginsters pasties.

Food parcels at the ready girls...