Unpopular opinions about Birmingham

It’s a Twitter thing, where people are challenged to post an ‘unpopular’ opinion for each like a post can get. We had a go… it cost us a few followers.

  1. 1 like = 1 unpopular opinion about Birmingham.

    Go…

  2. 1. Having a famous orchestra based here does very little for the cultural life of the majority of the citizens.
  3. 2. It’s probably not the best use of money to re-open Moseley train station.
  4. 3. We probably _do_ make enough of Black Sabbath and don’t need to do too much more.
  5. 4. You can count the number of people who give a fuck about Michelin stars on the number that the city has.
  6. 5. Most of our canals aren’t very interesting.
  7. 6. ‘Blowing our own trumpet’ is not going to change people’s attitude about the city. For that other people need to blow.
  8. 7. The Rotunda looked better when it had a clock on top.
  9. 8. That spy thing that was filmed here was pants.
  10. 9. We should let Sutton go it alone if they want to.
  11. 10. We shouldn’t claim Slade. They’re from Walsall.
  12. 11. Every damn city markets itself on green tech and being a “young” City. It’s not going to be enough.
  13. 12. HS2 will drag as much money to London as it drags to Brum.
  14. 13. There’s no gain in persuading the government to make C4 ad execs unhappy by making them move here.
  15. 14. Those Peaky Blinders hats make people look stupid. Even the good looking chap on the telly.
  16. 16. As a city you had the Egyptian cotton sheets pulled over your eyes and elected a bloody Tory Mayor. You fools.
  17. 18. Joseph Priestley invented all his good stuff when living in Leeds.
  18. 19. The electric cinema was better when it showed three hour long Polish films downstairs.
  19. 20. We might be a multicultural city but we’re pretty racist—just ask a minicab driver
  20. 21. Mr Egg was fine, but basically it was only ever a chippy with a novelty duvet stuck to the ceiling.
  21. 22. The ‘sticky carpets’ in Snobs are a false memory. Most of it was a dance floor covered in beer and broken glass.
  22. 23. Most baltis are just a curry served in a wok.
  23. 24. All the famous brummies you can think of haven’t lived here for years.

    That includes Shakespeare.

    Who was from Stratford.

  24. 25. If we can’t fill in a form properly, we don’t deserve an international sporting event.
  25. 26. The joke about how many ‘quarters’ the city has has never been funny. And we apologise for ever doing it.
  26. 27. Our local media is poor and our democracy is worse off for it.
  27. 29. Hull’s done a better job with the City of Culture title than we would have done.
  28. 30. None of our football teams are ever consistenty good enough to be in the top flight.
  29. 31. We will have to concede that on most metrics that other people use we are actually smaller than Manchester.
  30. 32. Birmingham’s ‘social media scene’ of the 2000s contributed to the PR-ification of modern news. It’s partly our fault we’re buggered.
  31. 33. Mixed use developments are often used for nothing useful.
  32. 34. It’s better to spend money on social care than Christmas parades.
  33. 35. We as a city have no independent bookshops. That’s a real paucity of culture that craft beer ruin pubs won’t solve.
  34. We now return to usual programming. Of un-numbered unpopular opinions about Birmingham.

Author: Jon Bounds

Jon was voted the ‘14th Most Influential Person in the West Midlands’ in 2008. Subsequently he has not been placed. He’s been a football referee, venetian blind maker, cellar man, and a losing Labour council candidate: “No, no chance. A complete no-hoper” said a spoilt ballot. Jon wrote and directed the first ever piece of drama performed on Twitter when he persuaded a cast including MPs and journalists to give over their timelines to perform Twitpanto. But all that is behind him.