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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 14 Star Wars
In the 1970s a young filmmaker named George Lucas began putting together an ambitious project to bring us the story of a boy, a girl and a universe. He took a pretty standard Proppian fairy tale...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 15 New Coke
Americans hated New Coke. Scared by loss of market share to Pepsi, The Coca-Cola Company decided in 1985 to reformulate and relaunch their particular brand of sugary mess. As it turned out people...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 16: Daytime TV
The essential ingredients of daytime television are: jumpers, middle aged people, chat. Whether they’re hunting for antiques, buying or selling or failing to sell things (especially houses) or even...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No: 17 Cluedo
As Anthony Pratt and his family huddled in their Kings Heath fall-out shelter while the Luftwaffe flew over Birmingham, it bothered him that there was nothing to do. He was concerned that, rather like...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 18: Christmas
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Santa Claus on his sleigh, people moaning about how it all starts too early and has got all commercialised and stuff, I know it’s been said many, times many ways,...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 19: Manchester
Ah, Manchester! Competitive little Manchester! Gutsy, plucky, Manchester! What makes you tick? What makes you worry so much about Birmingham? What makes you enter into dick measuring contests with us...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 20: Dieting
Essentially it’s eating less food, so how is dieting a huge industry around the world? Heinz (the HP-stealing bastards, see No 8) produce special ‘Weight Watchers’ foods, supposedly healthy versions...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 21: The Worldwide Economic Crisis
Are you troubled by debts, mortgage repayments, or other loans? Do you struggle to make ends meet? Are you tempted by those adverts on television offering short-term loans at rates of interest that...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 22: Text Speak
The SMS is twenty years old this year—and still no one has managed to come up with a past participle that sounds right when spoken. In a kind of way, the ‘shortness’ in the ‘short message service’...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 23: The Post
Imagine a time before always-on instant communication with everybody. Imagine a world where you had to add your seal to a document in hot wax and have a messenger run it to its recipient. By the time...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 24: Vile Products of the Welfare System
Every tragedy has a beginning, and sadly one of the greatest tragedies of our time begins here, in fair Birmingham. For it was here, in the workshop of the world, that social housing was really born...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 25: A nice cup of tea and a sit down
Image CC Ant McNeil There is a very simple principle to the making of tea and it’s this – to get the proper flavour of tea, the water has to be boiling (not boiled) when it hits the tea leaves. If it’s...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 26: Local Radio
It comes into it’s own in a crisis, you know. It’s how people know that roads are slippery or schools closed because it snowed, other than that the ground is covered in snow. And despite attempts by...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 27: Not Admitting Your Mistakes
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...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 28: Calls being monitored for training...
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...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 29: Slapstick Comedy
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...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 30: An Inferiority Complex
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...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 31: Whistleblowing
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...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 32: The Weather
“Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way…well, if you’re watching, don’t worry, there isn’t!” Oh, Michael Fish you were a weatherman. And...
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101 Things Brum Gave The World. No. 33: The Internet
We are under attack. Our very way of life is threatened. All because of the fucking Internet. Make no mistake, we are at war with the machines now, today. It’s already started. And there’s one sure...
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