Recent content by Mark Tooze

Total lunar eclipse visible from Birmingham next month - will be hard to see well as moon will rise in eclipse phase:- Full details on here - for any part of the world:- https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/uk/birmingham The one in August 2026 looks MUCH better from Brum:-

This years open day is on September 13th:- Join us for a fun-filled day at the Museum Collection Centre, Birmingham Museums’ 1.5-hectare store, holding over 80% of the City’s collection all under one roof. Come and take part in a full day of family-friendly activities all while exploring our...

But - if you get a clear night (like last night) you can see the difference in sharpness:-

Nice moon last night too - low in a hazy sky so not as sharp detail as usual:-

We had a couple of (I think?) buzzards flying over the house yesterday - sounded like they were having a bit of a barney......

On most sites (ie: 28dayslater) you have to become a member to see the vast majority of content. I think that is fair enough. Its not like we are asking for the earth. If all 409 guests joined and donated a pound a month that's nearly £5K extra per year coming in.

Agreed - I also signed up. Just looking at the home page we seem to have lots of guests and very few members on line at present:- Is there anything we can do to encourage the 409 guests to become members I wonder - assuming they are not all bots of course!

Yes they were - forgot about them! We also used to have inter-factory accounting dept at the very end of the top floor but they had moved down to the main accounting offices years earlier. This was their office on the day we left the building:-

Pity only around a quarter of the route will have anything worth looking at through the windows. The rest will be in cuttings or tunnels apparently....... Hope they will have a good in-flight video to watch........ Having used trains in France, Germany and the rest of Britain more times than I...

Yes - approximately. The club closed because (allegedly) it needed a 6-figure sum spent to re-roof it. Dunlop Hall was shut earlier when asbestos was found in it I think. Early-mid 1990s. Pictures of the computer annexe above are from just before it was demolished - we had already moved down to...

It also involved a man on one of those little digger things with a kango-hammer end bit - he was left right on the end of the remaining bit of floor. Do wish I had had my camera with me that day.................. This was the computer annexe building by the way - taken after Commercial Offices...

Correct. When I started in the 80's the mainframe, data prep and buying dept were on the ground floor - upper floors were empty. At the far end was the workshop where you could get a new set of "test tyres" fitted for the cost of logging your mileage each week. The only time I ever went upstairs...

I was originally planning to photograph both sides (Livery St / Constitution Hill) of the siding walls, and also underneath the arches (cue the song.....). However - lack of time, vile weather and the fact that the arches down by the Lionel St end contained some VERY undesirable-looking...

Hi Richard; Tyres now being made in low cost countries (China, Eastern Europe, Asia, etc). Like everything else. It is cheaper to make it in China and ship it half way round the world. Make them here and they are too expensive and no-one will buy them. The good folks of America are about to...

It is where, as Eric Morecambe would have said, a gentleman would go to "Irrigate the Desert".........;)