Monthly Recap February 2023

The flowers are on one of our PhD students’ Venus Fly Trap. I didn’t even know they bloomed (VFT’s that is, as PhD’s mostly tend to blossom if they last long enough). Spring or a horde of flying vermin must be on the way.

The totals for the month: 133 miles running, 15 pubs, 5 kebabs, 5 fish and chips, 6 short reviews. Here’s the cartoon of the month (not necessarily a monthly feature):

Jimi tried to crush his tail off a few hours after this photo (below). Around bedtime, he jumped up onto my lime tree in the laundry room window and pulled it down. We tidied up and went back to bed and he eventually made his way up there. The next morning we noticed blood everywhere but he has since recovered…his lovely tail is still the same length but takes a bit of a turn a couple inches from the end, now.

I don’t usually have confidence in mocking the lack of maturity of others my age but I spotted another 60-ish year old dude wearing a Sonic Youth bobble hat which, frankly, I coveted. But, he was also carrying a Star Wars slash sporting goods logo-ed back pack. Tsk.

We’ve got new incentive to finish off the detail work in the house as Debra booked her flights this month for a May visit. With luck, the spring foliage will cover the the rubbish blast areas along our otherwise scenic trails:

Chaps Pizza (kebab), Ladywood, Birmingham

The run to my hospital appointment a few weeks ago started a little after lunchtime but I needed some nourishment and, to be fair, some comfort. This took the form of a kebab oddly spelled on the menu at Chaps as a ‘Donner‘ Wrap. It was good but thoughts of Donner Pass wouldn’t leave me … although I understand that their repast tastes more of pork.

Short Television Review: Everyone Else Burns

It is heretical and very funny. Kind of an Addams Family for religious fundamentalism. You should watch this for all eternity.

DJ Quinn’s, Yardley Wood

Pub #2526:

It was 7 miles into the afternoon run and across the road from my finishing spot this massive pub loomed. It was twenty minutes until my train and I reckoned I could slake my thirst in fifteen.

A second cavernous house on this run but this time it (DJ Quinn’s) was one in excellent repair. There were only four others in there, though, three of them gambling on the horse races and the other wanting to talk to me about running as I was sweating profusely. I managed to turn the brief interaction back to beer and architecture and he left back to his original perch.

The Horseshoe, Brandwood End

Pub #2525:

In the pub 2525* I was watching a Bundesliga match between Köln and Frankfurt when I heard someone say, “that’s only a misdemeanour.”

Not wanting to stare at whoever was making such a comment about a football match, I glanced first out the windows to the inexplicably pirate-themed playground then turned my gaze slowly back past the middle-aged guy who had been absorbed with his phone the last ten minutes and finally to the group of fellows watching some Australian cop show with a suspect’s/apprehendee’s face blurred out.

Friendly house. Cavernous.

*apologies to Zager and Evans

Rail Run #87: to Perry Barr

It was a brisk morning with a glorious sunrise when I left the house to tick Perry Barr off the Rail Run List (thirteen to go). While covering new streets to this project I felt that I had already traversed this path before, perhaps in the opposite direction.

Arriving at the station 30 seconds too late for my planned train into work, I decided to kill the half hour until the next one over breakfast and a pint at the adjacent Arthur Robertson (a Wetherspoons I covered previously). They have slashed the prices on the traditional breakfast of a sausage, two rashers of bacon, an egg, toast, two hash brown patties, and baked beans so with the beer I was only £5.20 out of pocket…result!

Short Book Review: Lithium

It’s alright. You should read it for the nuggets of trivia — like the 7 in 7-Up is for the atomic weight of lithium since it was flavoured with lithium citrate up until 1950, or that Lithia Springs Georgia is so called because its calming waters were rich in the future bipolar medicine.

Ocean Fish Bar, Birmingham

It was in the midst of a Rail Run a couple weeks ago when I stopped in the Ocean Fish Bar for lunch. I’d made the amateur mistake of passing through the city centre and, as I’d have to walk for a few streets, a pile of fish and chips seemed to be the perfect accompaniment.

The crowd in the city centre seemed to be especially savage, this day, and I had to resist wiping my greasy hand on more than one asshole’s jacket as I dodged people who had plenty of room on the trajectory they started with but decided swerving over to get in my way was somehow better.

The fish was plump, moist, and simply lovely. The assholes on the street were merely plump. Don’t accuse me of ‘fat shaming’ as these morons have no shame.

Short Record Review: This Machine Still Kills Fascists by Dropkick Murphys (and Woody Guthrie)

It’s interesting. You should definitely listen to it.

Rail Run #86: to Spring Road

The dash to beat the setting sun also got me to Spring Road, another stop on the Rail Run List, early enough to stop at The Lady Winchester for a pint before heading back to catch my train. Fourteen to go.

I spotted some loud, local girls moving down the opposite walk way and setting up camp in the waiting shelter there. Everyone of them was speaking on different subjects and all at the same time. One of their phones chimed and the group went quiet so I heard this:

“We’re all at Spring Road.” Pause. “Spring Road Rail Station.” Pause. “No, we’re not getting on a train. You need to get your ass down here.” And, then they all started yelling at each other again. City kids are cool.