Who’s this little fella? I see stickers of him pasted up in all kinds of urban locations around Birmingham. Is he local? I’m obviously too old to be aware of urban youth culture, whence I assume he originates.Can anyone help me?
Mysterious Objects: No 2 of an occasional series
This object has been a puzzle for a couple of years. It’s been constructed on land alongside an old railway siding adjacent to Small Heath Bridge Birmingham B11. This picture was taken from a train on the way into Birmingham Moor Street.
It’s pointing vaguely westwards, i.e which is the direction the camera is pointing in. The reverse side is a highly polished surface (stainless steel?). It looks like it might be a solar collector of some kind but there are no power cables or fluid/gas pipes that I can see so it remains a mystery.
Any offers of what it might be?
Mysterious Objects: No 1 of an occasional series
Can anyone help in identifying this object which has been lovingly placed on Aston University Campus. It’s not mapped yet: what do you tag this as? Perhaps they just haven’t got round to placing a label or information board there. Any help gladly accepted
November Pub Meeting
We had a good turnout last night in the Spon Gate in Coventry – nine people, including three new faces. A special welcome to Florian who’s just arrived from France for a long stay, working in Coventry. It was a good choice of pub with some excellent choices of beer made tastier by their low cost – well done Wetherspoons!
Our discussions ranged widely and randomly as usual, including: aerial photography, postcodes, quadrocopters, bridge relations, postcodes, listed buildings, footpaths, blue plaques, postcodes, SOTM, memorials in cemeteries and parks, postcodes, tagging businesses, public bodies’ open data, plans to improve our building definition inside the Ring Road in Coventry, Natural England open spaces and all the other topics at the other end of the table I couldn’t hear.
We didn’t just idly chat, we also made some plans:
- To keep the momentum going from the completion of tracing buildings in Birmingham we decided on collaborative armchair mapping of the buildings in Balsall Common – a large dormitory village midway between Coventry and Birmingham. Maybe it will motivate some of us to travel there to do some surveying. We’ll have to remember to get off the train at Berkswell ( named after the next village to Balsall Common, even though the station is not in Berkswell but Balsall Common – such is the logic of naming of stations!)
- Next month we all felt we’d like a curry rather than a pub meet , which soon progressed into “Let’s map the Balti Triangle in Birmingham”. Now the Balti Triangle can probably be surveyed relatively speedily, so we soon expanded the mapping objective to the Bus Route 37 which can be boarded outside Moor Street Station and will take us to the edge of the Balti Triangle. So the party will be dubbed “Mappa Mercia 37” and will take place on Saturday December 1st with mapping for as long as the weather and stamina allows until it gets dark – say 4:30 where we’ll meet in a pub (bit of a challenge since the area is mostly muslim and most of the pubs have closed!) and then proceed for an early evening curry. Cake based on No 37 bus stops will be up shortly.
- SOTM 2013 bid – numerous decisions based on keeping up the momentum which will be communicated separately to Talk-GB.
If I’ve missed anything apologies and let me know so I can add it.