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Is this a record? I have had three emails today about packages being held by Royal Mail. Everyone was from a Gmail address which was a dead giveaway to start.

I have been getting several phone calls from named people at BT Open Reach about my internet connection and the fact that they had noticed faults lately. I just put the phone down. Now the calls could be genuine but I think it safer to not respond to them. BT know my email address so they can...

Those gate posts were an entry (probably a rear entry) to Windsor Terrace, a gated terrace of Regency(?) houses. The main pedestrian entry was off photo to the right. I don't know if the houses are still there. I have gone back on Street View to Sept 2008 but there is a bus shelter in the way so...

I may have mentioned this in the past but some years ago I led a walk for the Black Country Society along the Dudley No.2 Canal on the parts that are in Birmingham. We started in the California area in Stonehouse Lane. There is a grassed area there which I see from the map is called Old Quarry...

Map of the Dudley No. 2 Canal as it passes through the Parish of Hales Owen in Shropshire c 1792. No, I haven't got that wrong. That was the way Halesowen was spelt back then and it was an exclave of Shropshire not becoming Worcestershire until 1844. For orientation purposes, the road running...

My parents had a party line with a neighbour half way along the road. Only very occasionally did we pick up the phone and the other party was on the line. We had different numbers so our phone never rang for their calls. We never had occasion to ring each other but I believe we might have had to...

When I lead guided walks, especially in streets with shops, I always tell people to look up above the shop front.

Lyn, If you look at the building level with the back of the Sandon Road bus, you will see that the corner is cut away and that is the first building on the left in the present day photo. The buildings on the right are also unchanged except for the ground floor shop fronts..

Sorry don't seem to be able to post video that I wanted to show

The Blue Coat Schools were set up to educate poor children so their first duty would be to cloth them other than in the rags that they would likely to have been wearing when they entered the school. The only real choice as there were no particularly children's clothes would be scaled down adult...

That building is King Edward House. I recognised it by the Midland Red bus shelter and then checked the windows on the first floor. I remember Littlewoods on the Big Top site as a good place to have lunch.

The reason the operators were so close together was that each operator had access to both her own board and the boards each side. Women worked the day shift, men took over for the night shift. Years ago, I served on a committee where the chairman was a night telephone operator so meetings always...

Some calls can be genuine but how do you know? Yesterday I had a phone call 'This is an urgent call about your gas bill. Press any key to hear the message.' I just put the phone down. However, later I did go online to pay my gas bill. Before you ask I do not authorise a direct debit on my gas...

All this work costs money and is included in the cost we hear of HS2. No credit is ever given for these non railway benefits to the environment.

Lyn, If you find the report, perhaps you should send a copy to the city planning office. I don't know if they still have an archaeologist in the planning department checking these things or perhaps that is a job that has gone.

A variation on Park and Ride

Although there is no parking, there will be the Kiss and Rides driving in, parking all over the place and driving out. At my local station this is a problem at 4.0pm with the schoolkids getting off the train and again 5.30-6.30pm with the workers coming home..

There used to be an open air carpark between Stannier House (don't know if that is still its name since it ceased to be railway offices) and the entrance to the tunnel. I often used the carpark on Saturday afternoons after 3.30pm when the attendant went off duty so I could park for free. One day...

The sorting office now know as the Mailbox did have a tunnel to New Street Station but that was for the little electric tugs pulling the trailers carrying the mailbags that you used to see coming up the ramps onto the platforms at the station. These ramps have all been taken away. The tunnel...

I was surprised to see Ind Coope on a Birmingham pub so I did a bit of research and find that they had a number of pubs in Birmingham and they list the Shakespeare Inn, Great Colmore Street as owned in 1901. Are we sure that this photo is of the Lower Temple Street pub?