Category: 101 Things Brum Gave The World

From the team behind hit Birmingham miscellany, Paradise Circus, comes the definitive guide to the 101 things that made the world what it is today – and all of them were made in Birmingham.

Read how Birmingham gave the world the wonders of tennis, nuclear war, the Beatles, ‘that smell of eggs’ and many more… 97 more.

“101 Things Birmingham Gave The World, is not a Birmingham of the memory. It is a living breathing thing, wrestling with the city’s contradictions, press-ganging the typically arch and understated humour of the Brummie, and an army of little-known facts, both trivial and monumental, into reshaping its confusing reputation.”
Stewart Lee

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 41: Daily Mail Britain

Do you have a Facebook account? If you do, I’ll bet that at some point in the last month or so you’ll have read a mind-bendingly stupid, or downright offensive comment made by a vague acquaintance – someone you went to school with, perhaps, or a former colleague from that place where you once worked.

Try as you might, you can’t really blame Facebook for this. Stupidity is an idea that pre-dates the digital age and is something that never really goes out of fashion. These days, however, stupid ideas can breed with unprecedented speed and efficiency, thanks largely to platforms such as Facebook, and the facepalm du jour in UK stupidity is the belief that certain of our fellow countrymen and women are robbing us blind.

The UK government has been waging a really effective war on this front since ‘winning’ the 2010 general election. They’ve introduced us to the concept of ‘hard working families’, something with which many can identify. For those who struggle to identify, the government, and media outlets supportive of it, have kindly provided us with almost daily examples of the polar opposite: scroungers. No-one wants to identify with that, not when hard-working families is on the menu.

Scroungers, for those unaware, pump out kids at an alarming rate and expect YOU to pay for their education, health and welfare. The government has been so successful in peddling the thin end of this particular wedge that we’re now so mad at scroungers (and foreigners, who are swarthy scroungers) that we’re no longer going to stand for it. If all this was part of a wider, more sinister agenda, like the dismantling of the welfare state and the privatisation of the health service, you’d have to admire the planning and execution.

Anyway. It’s a sorry state of affairs, make no mistake about it. We should be forced to take a bloody good look at ourselves. Here’s a thing, though: None of this divisive bullshit would have been possible without the city of Birmingham!

It was here, on 20th April 1968, that Stetchford-born Conservative MP, Enoch Powell, gave a speech that became the benchmark and the blueprint for anyone wishing to spout dangerous claptrap at the weak-minded. In Enoch’s case his audience was the General Meeting of the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Centre, which sounds like a very weak-minded public indeed. Facebook, incidentally, was several decades away from being invented.

Powell famously predicted that ‘Rivers of Blood’ would flow through the streets if immigration continued un-checked. It was powerful, evocative stuff, and it became the basis and justification for the opinions of racist shitheads for the next 20-odd years. In much the same way, the present-day rhetoric about scroungers and Eastern Europeans will reliably inform the people of Britain, hard-workers and scroungers alike, all the way to a Wonga.com-sponsored welfare state.

When that happens, remember to say, ‘Littlejohn was right, bab’.

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 40: Photocopying your arse

1779: James Watt patents a copying press or ‘letter copying machine’ to deal with the mass of paper work at his business; he also invents an ink to work with it. This is the first widely used copy machine for offices and is a commercial success, being used for over a century. This letter copying press is considered to be the original photocopier. [Source: Wikipedia]

1779 Dec 15th: At the Lunar Society Xmas party, Matthew Boulton was seen removing his britches in the vicinity of the machine. [Source: Knowledge of how humans work]

Only one of those statements is recorded in the history books, but we’re saying both are definitely true.

Happy Christmas.

Photo by Martin Deutsch

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 39: Doctor Who

Way back in 1963, a children’s educational TV programme aired and not that many people noticed—they were too upset that Aldous Huxley had died (especially Sheryl Crow). It starred an old chap who pottered around the universe in four dimensions. But without a nemesis the story was going nowhere, he wasn’t much of a hero—what he needed was an evil race to battle—one that was flawless, except for the flaw that they needed a level floor.

But how would they perambulate across those even surfaces? They needed some sort of castor that kept the two bearing surfaces of an axle, fixed and moving, apart.

Luckily in 1876, in Birmingham, William Bown patented a design for the wheels of roller skates which did just this…

Continue reading “101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 39: Doctor Who”

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 38: Health and Safety

Used as a catch all excuse for not letting people get on with things—in the same way as “data protection” means people won’t tell you things and political correctness means you simply aren’t allowed to be a racist, cisexist, ableist, islamophobe—like you could in the good old days, Health and Safety culture is one of the biggest influences on our lives as we really to take care of our health and even our mental health by using products like the delta 10 product you can find online. It’s terrible that we’re not at liberty to hurt ourselves and others and are given advice on how not to, damn that Health and Safety it’s political correctness gone mad.

And you know who’s to blame? Birmingham, that’s who, er where.

John Richard Dedicoat, an apprentice to the famous James Watt, became a bicycle manufacturer and as well as inventing a spring-loaded step for mounting bikes—that charmingly catapulted riders over the handlebars if they misjudged it—he became the father of the nanny state with the invention of the bicycle bell. In one step he transferred the responsibility of pedestrian safety to the put-upon cyclist rather than the garrulous, attention-deprived, inconsiderate stroller. Damn Dedicoat and his pandering—safety should be the responsibility of the individual.

Although some people think it would be frankly a lot safer if all the cyclists stayed at home.

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 37: Easy Listening

The commonly held view of 1960s popular music is that it was the decade during which the rulebook was torn up. Out of the dull austerity of the black-and-white 1950s the youth of the following decade exploded as one in a Technicolor riot of mind-bending drugs, free love and revolutionary fervour. If you can remember it, you weren’t there.

It was The Beatles who led the charge and provided the soundtrack, and nothing was ever the same again. As if to illustrate this point, Birmingham would give the world Heavy Metal by the end of the decade. But that’s another story.

What this version of 1960s pop history doesn’t tell us is that the rampaging youth were only part of the tale. There were also a lot of other people around in that decade, and many of them didn’t much care for The Beatles and all they brought with them. Mostly these naysayers were drawn from the older generation (and in the 1960s, this meant anyone over the age of 21), and it rarely troubles the history books that they too, just like their younger counterparts, bought and listened to a lot of records.

What did these people want from pop music? It certainly wasn’t sex, drugs and rock n roll played by long-haired oiks, that’s for sure. Indian spirituality? Womens’ Lib? Not their cup of cocoa.

No, what they wanted was simply something pleasant they could tap their feet to: in a word, they wanted something nice.

That something nice came in the form of string-laden arrangements of pop hits, songs from the musicals, and movie soundtracks. No rough edges, and no feedback. It came to be known as Easy Listening, and the undisputed King of the genre was Annunzio Mantovani, or, as he was more commonly and simply known: Mantovani.

Mantovani had shifted a lot of records before the 1960s even began. At one point in 1959 he had no less than 6 albums in the US Top 30 at the same time. This success continued throughout the 1960s, when he became the first artist to sell a million stereo LPs, and with scarcely a burned bra in sight. In 1970, ten years before his death and a full four years before Kraftwerk hit upon a similar idea, he released Music For The Motorway, a suite of lushness inspired by the mundane joy of motorway travel. Travel sweets and driving gloves. Nice.

In terms of record sales, Mantovani was a behemoth. Remarkably, none of his light-orchestral unit-shifting niceness would have been possible without the city of Birmingham.

In 1923, at the tender age of 18, Annunzio had cut his conducting teeth leading orchestras in the posh hotels of the city. The musicians he controlled were of a much older vintage and often included his father, Bismarck Mantovani (crazy name, crazy guy). Eventually, as with many Brum inventions before and since, the gifts outgrew the city of their birth and Mantovani was lured first to London, and then on to fame and fortune in the wider world.

Noice, bab.

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 36: Looking Dapper

Hair is a problem. It sprouts from places you don’t want it to, shies away from the top of your head (for us older men), and generally needs to be kept in its place. Regular barbering, or hairdressing for the ladies, is vital—as is plucking, shaving, combing over and other general topiary. Worse, even if it’s perfectly in place when you leave the house one instance of hat usage or any physical activity can create a disaster of Johnsonian proportions.

Before 1928 there was no way of keeping hair under control: from Jesus, through Da Vinci to Wilfred Owen in the trenches of the Somme, all of society just looked a bit scruffy and unkempt. No wonder there was so much conflict.

But in that wonderful year Birmingham came to the rescue, as it always does. County Chemicals at their Chemico Works in Bradford Street formulated a pomade—an emulsion of water and mineral oil stabilised with beeswax—that once spread across unruly follicles truly made men look smart once and for all. They invented Brylcreem and the rest is neat, shiny, controlled history.

No idea how women manage mind you.

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 35: That smell of eggs

Philosophically one can’t really understand a concept until you can give it a name. You might get a headachey feeling when walking down Oxford Road in Moseley in the autumn but until you’re old enough to describe it as ‘smelling like poppers’ you won’t really know why. Or you might want a name for the semi-circular gap at the front of a gig or speech between performer and audience that isn’t filled until the venue is, or you won’t be able to discuss the space itself. It’s called a ‘King’s Heath’ by the way, and the process is called intentionality.

So we are again indebted to Mr Joseph Priestley for naming that weird smell of eggs that lets you know that there’s a catalytic converter in the area—or that someone’s guts are playing up. It’s down to “vitriolic acid air” as he called it or sulphur dioxide, SO2, to those with CSE Chemistry.

Priestley, we can be sure, never denied it. But he supplied it. Hoorah for Birmingham!

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 34: The Vacuum Cleaner

Freddie Mercury liked using one while in drag, and it makes an awful mess when you empty the bag. Apocryphally they end up in casualty departments all around the country attached to blokes’ private areas and make a lovely rattling sound when they suck up a coin.

Yes, the vacuum, it sucks but we can’t live without it.

And of course the manually powered domestic vacuum cleaner was invented in 1905 by Walter Griffiths of 72 Conybere Street, Highgate—Birmingham. It is originally patented as ‘Griffiths’ Improved Vacuum Apparatus for Removing Dust from Carpets’. A better name than Dirt Devil, I’m sure you’ll agree.

So Birmingham gave the World the first proper vacuum, and yet again transformed our lives: or at least those of our mothers. Although an electric cleaner was patented before in 1901 by H. Cecil Booth, Griffiths’ design is more similar to modern portable cleaners. Mr Dyson will no doubt soon improve on it more—before moving the manufacture to India and then making pronouncements on the British economy and the lack of jobs—but it was invented in Brum, and we’re having it.

Image cc: Nilfisk-Advance

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 33: The Internet

We are under attack. Our very way of life is threatened. All because of the fucking Internet. Make no mistake, we are at war with the machines now, today. It’s already started. And there’s one sure fire way to stop a war: KILL HITLER. Continue reading “101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 33: The Internet”

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 32: The Weather

“Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way…well, if you’re watching, don’t worry, there isn’t!”

Oh, Michael Fish you were a weatherman. And so was John Kettley, and so was Bill Giles, and so was Ian McCaskill. And with one slip of the tongue and your magnetic cloud things you failed to prevent Britain being warned of a storm that nearly killed Rene out of Allo Allo. This really is one for the teenagers, who with their smartphone weather apps know that it’s bloody hot right now without even needing to look up. Magic. We used to have to take the word of some amusing suited men pointing to bits of Scotland.

In January 2007 Blues needed to re-lay their football pitch. Thrifty as ever they bought second hand: a pitch going spare from the new Wembley Stadium. The club consulted John Kettley on the weather for that week who predicted there would be the average amount of rainfall. The torrential storms washed the pitch away.

And if this piece isn’t taking you back into the past enough, let’s look at where ‘the weather’ comes from. Is it round here, maybe? Well,yes: the use of weather charts in a modern sense begin in the middle portion of the 19th century and Birmingham’s Sir Francis Galton created the first weather maps in order to devise a theory on storm systems. These were printed in the papers, and people loved them—leading to the way we get weather information right to this day.

Brum, phew what a scorcher.