Curry Bashing.

Staple diet of the English.... Curry. What better after a few pints than a couple of Popadom’s, some hot pickle, Onion Baji’s and a red hot Ruby Murray, washed down with Indian beer, probably brewed under licence in Birmingham? Following three lovely pints of Timmy Taylor's each last night, three of us ambled over to Queen’s Tandoori starving. It was busy. Usually is. Giggling like school boys we ordered a mixture of dishes, none of which I can remember, but all were good and we ate the lot, complimented by a bottle of Cobra each, just to be polite you understand. The bill was £55. Very reasonable for Popadoms and two courses to follow, whatever it was. The downside of consuming so much beer is that I clean forgot to photograph the meal itself, casually getting my camera out when it had all gone and we had licked up the gravy.

Resident's Parking.

We have seen a victory for common sense here over the last week. The council was planning to impose a residents parking permit system. £25 to park outside your own house - no guarantee of a space, a quid a go for visitors, local businesses wiped out as shoppers unable to park and everybody getting thoroughly pissed off with parking tickets when they forget/don’t give the visitor a voucher/left the second car out by mistake. There was a heated meeting on Wednesday 3rd, as about a quarter of the residents would like a residents parking scheme. True. It is very difficult to find a space, but that is the price we pay for city living, for having good bars and restaurants on the doorstep, for a range of excellent local shops. Without free parking they would all loose custom, we would loose the ‘buzz’ of Queens Rd. and the whole area would slip back down the popularity scale. Those of us who have been here a while can remember the empty shops of the eighties. One pub and a couple of takeaways. The plan has been shelved for five years. Great.