11-11-11: From Selly Oak to Harborne

At 1.43pm we cross the Bristol Road and head down Harborne Lane. From the front seat on the top deck of the number 11 bus you get a great view of the still-under-construction new Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The futuristic, super sleek tri tower structure already looks so impressive you could be forgiven for thinking that the builders cut corners and used CGI.

Light dazzles my eyes, and I automatically reach up to pull down my sun visor. I remember that I'm in a bus and not a car, and realise that I now look like an idiot or, more worryingly, a Nazi sympathiser. Not that there's any difference, of course. I wonder if the new hospital will find a cure for stupidity?

By 1.50pm we're in Harborne. I look out for my brother whose doing some carpentry wrork in the area. I scan the suburban streets for him and his big-ass silver van, but to no avail. If you want quality carpentry work done at a competitive price, you can find his website here.

Tell him the idiot on the number 11 sent you.

11-11-11: From Cotteridge to Bournville

Two days later and so far I've only covered the first two miles. Typical.

We pass a fancy dress store in Cotteridge, where a plastic mannequin catches Clare's eye. A potential Christmas present? 'No,' says Clare, emphatically.

We hook a right onto Watford Road and pass a shop called Vis a Vis. "So that's what David Brent did next," muses Clare. I respond with a good natured 'Heh.' In truth, I only actually get the comment once we reach Bearwood. Boost bars really slow down the speed of my basic cognitive functions.

We're heading down Linden Road, now, and passing leafy Bournville. A line from an old Elvis Costello song springs to mind:

In Chocolate Town all the trains are painted brown
On the silver paper of the wrapper

At least it wasn't Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight.

JJ Abrams' Starship Enterprise

A quick break from this bus route blather:

I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to tampering with this particular fictional design classic, but at least it looks a damn sight better - and remains truer to the original concept - than some of the franchise's other misguided efforts...

11-11-11: from Kings Heath to Cotteridge

1.25pm: Kick off.

1.26pm: Boost bars are unwrapped.

We make our way down Vicarage Road onto Fordhouse Lane - from Kings Heath to Stirchley - as Clare writes: "I don't like Stirchley, or the innermost layer of a Boost."

By contrast, I'm inordinately fond of Stirchley. Having lived there during the mid-90s, I've always loved the fact that the nearest train station from my old stomping ground was Bournville. When you left the station you would look out upon this idyllic, picturesque vision of England. You'd see nice, polite chaps playing cricket while shoots of ivy climbed up the sides of their ornate red brick houses. It always seemed like a cross between The Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society album and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Once you walked under the railway bridge, however, you were confronted with Stirchley, and the contrast couldn't be greater. You'd see disused factories, discarded pizza boxes and cars mounted on bricks. Compared to Bournville, this was urban and butal. It's hard to believe that two such different areas could be divided by a single railway line. I imagine an aerial photograph of the area would look a bit like like the face of Harvey Dent from Batman.

Whoever coined the phrase "The other side of the tracks" probably lived there, too.

11-11-11: Kings Heath departure lounge

Be warned: the following contains personal minutiae that might be deemed offensive or, possibly, inconsequential.

At about 12.45pm (-ish) Clare and I grab a bite to eat at the Wetherspoon's pub in Kings Heath. We swap Brum pub war stories, including my elaborate and unproven theory that the decline in the standard of the clientele at a certain city centre branch of a certain national pub chain was not unrelated to the filling-in of a nearby wino-infested traffic island subway. The food was tasty.



Clare decides that we should grab a pair of Boost chocolate bars from a nearby newsagent. At the checkout we're advised that Boost bars are part of a three-for-the-price-of-two offer. We leave the shop with three Boost bars. Clare scribbles note in my notepad: "3 for £1.09 on Boost Choc Bars - WHAT CREDIT CRUNCH??"



If you find anything in that last paragraph at all interesting you should be ashamed. I am.



At the 11C bus stop on Vicarage Road we see a man who bears a remarkable facial resemblance to the infamous Dr Harold Shipman. He walks past a clinic. We shiver.



Clare scribbles the following faux tabloid headlines in my notepad:

"Doctor Death Alive and Well - Walks Past Birmingham Clinic"

This is followed by:

"Woman in Large Hat or Small Head Mystery"

"Schoolboy Smokes Whilst Wearing Last Season's Trousers - 'Can Mother's Not Afford New Clothes?' Shocker"

'Teenage Parent Hides Complete Bus Stop in Pram WHILST SMOKING"

I don't think Clare is taking this seriously. Either that, or she's trying to get me to quit smoking. To be on the safe side I don't light up.



At 1.25 the bus arrives.

11-11-11: The Introduction

I said I'd do it and today I did. I took part in Jon Bounds' mad-but-inspired plan to spend eleven hours of the eleventh day of the eleventh month on Birmingham's number eleven bus. Much to my surprise, my significantly better half Clare decided to tag along, too. She enriched the day significantly by keeping me company, feeding me chocolate and providing a steady stream of comedy-rich comments and generous slices of fried gold observations. She really is much funnier than me and I have every intention to plagiarise her aplenty over the the coming posts. My people-watching partner in crime has already informed me that I'll be hearing from her lawyers.

We didn't manage the full eleven hours - there was the small matter of having to pick the Littlest Raindog up from Mandy the childminder - but we did complete a full 27 mile, bus-based circuit of the city. We boarded the 11C on Vicarage Road in King Heath at about 1.25pm and it brought us, by Joyce's commodious vicus of recirculation, back to Kings Heath and Environs about two-and-a-half hours later.

I thought of doing some kind of live blogging (a first for me), and even started setting up a Twitter account before we set off. Clare, however, took one look at my 4 year-old mobile phone and laughed. She's much more tech savvy than me.

In the end, I made copious notes in a notepad while Clare took some photos. I've yet to decide on how to structure this cavalcade of scribbles. Should I do it chronologically? Shall I do it thematically? Shall I just make it up as I go along? That's always worked in the past.

I am, as I have said elsewhere, an analogue man living in a digital world.

FFS

From Variety:

Steven Spielberg and Will Smith are in early discussions to collaborate on a remake of Chan Wook-Park's Oldboy. DreamWorks is in the process of securing the remake rights, and the new pic will be distributed by Universal.