I am spending a bit of time in the Birmingham area at the moment and last week actually spent a night there! My business takes me to the Solihull area but I stayed right in the heart of Birmingham: Broad Street to be precise. I followed detailed directions to get from Solihull to Broad Street but got lost and it took me around an hour and a half to drive the 12 or so miles from door to door. I found my own way back the following morning and took only 45 minutes to accomplish what was a really simple journey by a totally different route. I stopped off in Solihull on Friday morning and relived part of my youth at their market: Eccles cakes, custard tarts, lemon curd ... I had to buy them all. I also invested in some nice Cox's Pippins and Bramley apples, marvellous. Broad Street is a cultural centre: bars, cafes restaurants and hotels abound. I had a decent Indian meal for around £20 in the evening: not especially good value and not the best meal I ever had but decent decor, good service so it wasn't bad. In the morning I needed to go to an internet cafe since I knew someone needed an email response urgently. Hooked up, logged on to the slowest connection since around 1995 in Almaty! I had been there for about 20 minutes when a cheery chappie from BT rocked up and started larging it into his mobile ... switched us all off! I didn't achieve my objectives in full but at least they didn't charge me either! Good business that! DW