1)Ozzy the Bull, who you may remember stole the show at the 2022 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, has been relocated to take pride of place at New Street station. To be fair he's been there since last summer but this is the first time I've seen him which is why this is 'news'. When you walk into Grand Central, the shopping mall atop the cavernous station, Ozzy's right there in the middle looking immense and bovine. Even better, every hour from 10:15am to 8:15pm he wakes up and performs, by which I mean his eyes light up and he moves his head from side to side very slowly. A bit of theatrical heavy breathing can be heard from time to time. After six shakes Ozzy goes back into a deep sleep for 57 minutes, but by then everyone who wanted photos or video has their digital content and a smile on their face.
2) The fibreglass animal of choice in Birmingham this summer is the bear. I found Jester in the Piccadilly Arcade, and apparently his themed decoration represents historic exploitation or something. He and his nine fellow bears are on the streets until 1st October, and quite frankly this kind of artificial placemaking trail lost its allure some time ago.
3) It's Cadbury's bicentenary this year, if you count the birth of the company from the day in 1824 when John Cadbury opened a grocer's shop at 93 Bull Street, two of whose products were cocoa and drinking chocolate prepared using a pestle and mortar. You can see a model of the shop made out chocolate at Cadbury World, but I wanted to see where it really was so I went to the original site in the city centre. Being Birmingham the entire block has alas been knocked down and redeveloped, possibly more than once, so there was nothing to see. Address-wise My Hair My Beauty is at 95-96 Bull Street, whereas Cex nextdoor is at 89-90 Bull Street so there isn't even a 93 any more, so basically don't waste your time looking.
4) Last time I was in Birmingham, which was 18 months ago, workmen were finishing off the new tram junction on the corner of Bull Street and Corporation Street in readiness for the Metro's Digbeth extension. They've now finished, as you'd expect, but the tracks go barely 100m before ending up in a mess of roadworks and unfinished rails so the new extension feels as far away as ever. I blame HS2.
5) HS2 has taken over a massive swathe of sort-of central Birmingham, mostly without a lot to see behind the barriers. The old station building on Curzon Street stands empty and pretty much alone, other than the Victorian pub across the road which is very busy on a Friday after work. Beyond all that I saw what looked like three pristine white viaducts, so might be where the platforms are going to go or else where they'll join on. What I learned from staring at these vacant acres is that it's not just Euston and Old Oak Common that are essentially an extremely unfinished railway desert, so is the Birmingham end.
6) Chiltern Railways are running a special promotion on Fridays this month where you can get tickets from London to Birmingham/Oxford for next to nothing. Ian Visits has the details, as ever, but the key thing is you have to book at the start of the week if you want to travel on the Friday. I paid just £6.40 to get to Moor Street (and another £6.40 to get back), and this is why you're reading the news from Birmingham today.
