A Night Out in Birmingham

Why is this picture of Katie O’Brien’s out of focus?

Well, I did not expect that.

I was in the centre of Birmingham this week. Work trip up from London. Hotel off New Street. Doing that bar hopping thing. Apparently England had a World Cup game the night before at 1am in Mexico and so most people were sleeping it off. Not me. I don’t give a fuck about football. Not since 1980 anyway. Is Kevin Keegan still playing?

So, Brum seemed unusually quiet tonight. I went to a few bars. Had a curry at my favourite Birmingham curry house The Indian Streatery. Went back my hotel to prep for the conference next day. Yes, dear readers, I’m important and attend events near and far to listen to the worthy, the unworthy, the boring, dear customers, would be customers and industry leaders as they read poorly off Powerpoints or rant randomly. And I get to post selfies on LinkedIn and pretend that I give a fuck.

Once more unto the Brum, dear friends

But something made me go out for one more foray into the goodly night. It was too early for YouTube and lube. So I went out armed with my performative notebook so I could jot down some ‘ideas’. You know, like proper businessmen do. Or posey wankers. Lists and listettes, ideas and ideation. Bullshit from an unobserved corner table - screaming look at me! look at me! - compensatory activity. I’m well versed in this. You should know that I’m not just the face plant guy from Mons. Oh no! I hold down a serious job doing serious things.

So, walking down New Street, I went up Temple Street and into Katie O’Brien’s. As I said, Birmingham was dead tonight apart from the usual quotidian town centre zombie apocalypse types and hoodies on scooters intimidating all comers. But I walked passed them all and climbed up into the bar. Been there before. Usually empty.

But not tonight…

Stepford Wives

Fuck! I’d landed in the valley of the dolls! Literally all the Stepford Wives and their beautiful daughters were arrayed before me. Without sounding too lechorous - oh go on Tim, go on! do - I’d walked into a pub with, how many?, fifty beautiful blonde ladies.

And, dear reader, not a bloody tattoo to be seen.

Everyone of them was wearing a figure hugging dress, had perfect make up and, most particularly, long beautiful wavy (mostly) blonde hair. No tacky extensions clipped just for the night here. Now, of course, I’m from a generation that eschewed tattoos and relegated them to sailors, tarts and prison bitches. Latterly though, the youth of the UK sport sleeves, incomprehensible signs, wordy platitudes nestling with dog names, ex-lovers, flowers, fantastic creatures, football clubs and, generally - let’s be honest - poor designs.

Sit down grandad...

But here I was with 50 Stepford Wives and their daughters. Mainly their daughters. I looked. How I looked! And indeed, how I was caught looking. Of course. And yet still I stared; a street anthropologist discovering a lost tribe of attractive women. Rare. Immaculate. Inviolate.

Of course, and I must for obvious reasons, say; it’s all subjective. I get that. Many people find tattoos and slovenly dress attractive in women. But, nah, fuck that, not me. Well dressed, well coiffured, nice make up, pretty faces with no botox: That’s my preference, your honour. We’re all entitled to our standards of beauty and this is mine. (Lost your mirror, Tim?) But here, en masse, were fifty fantasies. What had I stumbled on? Had fallen into a time loop and was I now in 1955? Where’s the DeLorean?

An Irish Wedding?

And they were having a good time! Irish music played. Songs of pride. Songs of revolution. Songs of drink. They screamed at each other above the music. They sang. They danced. They drank. And drank again. Vodka took a pounding as did Aperol. Tequilas may have been slammed. The men - their men? - mainly stood around tables chugging Guinness, laughing inclusively, but not interacting with their women folk. No words needed to be said. No danger here. Their presence, my timidity, their beauty, my notebook, cleaved an invisible Lancelot’s sword between me and the ladies. I could watch, agog, amazed, but unobserved and wilfully paralysed.

Never have I seen so many attractive ladies in one place and never have I felt so invisible. I was there but I wasn’t. My part was to mumble silently in the chorus, my lines were cut, I was but a shade in this vision - just passing through - observing but not participating in this Brummie Brigadoon.

And all too soon, they left in twos and threes, and fours and fives to go to a mythical ‘next place’. Maybe they were transported into another time, a once and future land of reels and dances, good times, smiles and elegance.

I drank my Guinness at the bar, picked up my notebook and left for my hotel. What had I seen? What had I wandered into and through?

Wasn’t bloody Birmingham petal!

Quotidian Notes

1) It’s not to say I diss all tatoos. But their ever present presence, their variable quality, stands as a marker. Time breaths: You were young then, now you are not. The past was a different - un-inked - country. Canute like, it’s useless to rage at the oncoming tide.

2) But what was the occasion? A wedding? A Wake? If only I had the ability to converse. But that night, I was dumb and, frankly, dumbfounded.

3) Why was I in Birmingham? My ways and movements are unknowable. I like hiding in plain sight.

4) Check out my night out in Mons for the face plant. Or my night in Bruges for the Irish bar I went to. Perhaps the night in Breda where I rocked the Dutch?