From Black Sabbath to Judas Priest The Crown is Birmingham’s spiritual home of music… But I dread it just being mausoleum to old white blokes. It should be the beating heart of contemporary Brummie musical talent like Katherine Priddy, Katie Malco, Johnny Foreigner et al.

This Thursday, we’re exploring Soho Hill, Hockley and Handsworth. From Harriet Samuel’s remarkable jewellery factory, a striking Arts & Crafts building, to a hidden mosaic and a Pugin monastery, uncovering the stories Birmingham chooses to ignore. #WalkingTour #Birmingham

A pint of Ansell's Mild would have gone down a treat last night.

I do remember these being pretty much everywhere!

This Sunday, we uncover the hidden history of Birmingham’s canals. Crime. An observatory. A sinking pub. A hospital that once imprisoned women in Birmingham. These stories matter. They deserve to be told. #Birmingham #Canal #Walkingtour

For two years, while we’ve been rabble rousing, Birmingham’s @flatpack festival have been working on a fully costed alternative to Glenbrook Property’s desire to bulldoze what was the UK’s oldest working cinema. The 116yr old Electric on Station St. Here are those plans:

Peter was inducted as a solo artist into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on this day 12 years ago. "Watch out for music. It should come with a health warning. It can be dangerous. It can make you feel so alive, so connected to the people all around you, and connected to what you really are inside, and it can make you think that the world should and could be a much better place. And just occasionally it can make you very, very happy."

While there’s another big bland Dune film coming, a reminder that David Lynch made Dune in 1984 and it’s a (flawed) masterpiece. With Space Pugs.

Art by Michael Whelan for Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov (1983. Acrylic on board). Easily a top 10 favourite book cover for me.

Art by Martyn and Roger Dean and Richard Clifton-Dey originally intended for Jeff Wayne’s 1977 War of the Worlds album, but never used.

Creating the miniatures in Star Trek The Motion Picture (1979). Images from Berton Pierce’s must-watch Sense of Scale documentary series on YouTube.

For today’s #ManuscriptMonday, we turn to a thirteenth-century vision of some pilgrims visiting the Tomb of Christ in the Holy Sepulchre Church as imagined in a French manuscript. (BnF, Département des Manuscrits, Français 2825, f. 1)

Victorian tiles at St Peter's, Lowick for #TilesOnTuesday The dark green background set the varied designs off perfectly.

in medieval occultism each planet is associated with a secret science. The Moon is connected with the powers of the soul and dreams For example, using lunar secrets one could probe the dreams of another or influence them, or heal through touch known today as “laying of hands”

'When I see blosmes springe, And hear foules song, A swete love-longynge Myn herte thourhout stong, Al for a love newe That is so swete and trewe, That gladieth al my song...' A medieval springtime poem for Eastertide: aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/…

St Cuthbert's tomb, Durham Cathedral.😇 His medieval shrine would have been in the same location. 📸2025

Did you know the Nazis almost blew up the birthplace of Black Sabbath in Birmingham? 7 years before baby Ozzy arrived the car showroom next door to The Crown took a direct hit. The space next to The Crown has been an empty or a car park since 1941.

This Thursday, I’m the speaker at the Yardley Conservation Society, exploring Birmingham’s bold and brilliant Arts & Crafts movement — the buildings, the makers, and the minds behind it Once home to the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft, whose motto said it all: By Hand and Hammer

This Weds, 18th March, I'll be @SOAS talking about Arabic poetry from the crusading period. Hybrid & free (but you need to register)! Warning: may include performance 🎶🎵 soas.ac.uk/about/event/arabi… #medieval #Arabic #history #poetry Image from British Library Add. MS. 22114. f.94

Arabic proverb of the day: 👑 "How sweet is the throne even if you only rule over a stone!" It rhymes in Arabic: yā ḥabbadhā l-imāra wa-law ʿalā l-ḥijāra