West Brom aye it? #blackcountry

It’s Sunday morning again and so time for another ramble through the dustier pathways of my mind. Today’s picture is of sunny West Bromwich. It was sunny when I went in the summer anyway. Not quite so sunny when I went this week…

West Brom

Yes, I went back to West Brom this week for the launch of Creative Black Country. I know the idiots at Sandwell Council are on record as saying they wanted West Brom to deter motorists, but there were still traffic jams. It is a nightmare made worse by road works and a street I wanted to go down blocked off. Anyway, I got there in the end and took a few photos. I hope it is a success, but in the Black Country we aren’t conventional. We like our canals and industrial history. We like proper pictures that hang on the wall. I have a collection of painting and I have to move them out of my spare room. A student advised me to put them on the walls. It was a logical thing to do, but plugging a wall in this house is a nightmare. I think it was built by German prisoners of war.

West Brom

Yesterday, my door bell was rung by the Prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservatives for West Brom West, Paul Ratner with a couple of helpers. I shouldn’t have laughed when I opened the door and saw the blue rosettes. It’s not nice to mock the afflicted. He has more chance of winning the lottery than the seat for West Brom West. I checked out his web site, he did go to a Midlands university. Which one? He doesn’t say. My guess would be the most expensive – Warwick. He comes from immigrant family, but seems to be against immigration. Maybe not so much Jewish immigration? He also says all our debts are Labour’s fault and we owe the money to the ‘Chinese’. I thought we owed most of it to the pension funds that buy government bonds; plus that 375 billion that we ‘owe’ to the Bank of England. I liked his overcoat, it looked like one of those four hundred quid jobs from Debenhams. We all were cheap parkas from Matalan around here.

West Brom or Walsall

I’m not sure where to go today, West Brom or Walsall. I usually go out and take photos on a Sunday afternoon. The weather seems to be improving, it’s freezing but I might have good light. I got good pictures of the Metro a couple of weeks ago. Walsall has a couple of lock-keepers cottages that make interesting subjects for photos. West Brom has Sandwell Valley, which is a very scenic local nature reserve. It will be cold there this afternoon. At least the nights are getting lighter and we’re headed for the longest day in June. We have to think positive!

Anyway, I’ve done something creative today, by writing this. I also did some research. I thought maybe Paul Ratner was related to Gerald Crapner, but I couldn’t find a link. His family did own a very successful company though. Which one? He doesn’t say. There is a lot he doesn’t say and what he does say is crap. I liked Gerald Ratner’s joke about Ratner earrings being the same price as Marks and Sparks prawns, but the prawns last longer…

That’s it for today, please subscribe or check out the stuff I write on a Zillion Ideas. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Advertisement