h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

BIRMINGHAM -
I love this city. I was born and raised here and I am more than proud to call myself a Brummie.

Smog and coal flows through my veins. The sounds of the metal bashing factories where my family beat out the industrial revolution ring in my ears. We created modern technological Britain - without this city you'd be ploughing fields and writing with quills.

This grungy heart of England is the misunderstood and infinitely more fascinating dirty sister to this nations more 'upright' family of cities. We are always locked in the attic, hidden from view, belittled and damned by our fellow siblings. Held up for ridicule, we wryly smile and, behind the others backs, transform our home into the greatest modern city in Europe.

We love the concrete, we love the black faces, we love our own voices - they define us and make us what we are. If you don't like these things - if you have prejudices towards what is different and difficult to understand then don't visit us - you weren't invited anyway. And if you were born here and left because you were bewildered by it all, then good riddance and please . . . don't come back.

To all the others, with open minds and open hearts, come and be amazed - everything you have been told about this city is a lie, all your prejudices are wrong.

My city has a motto, a great motto, which all true Brummies keep close to their hearts - FORWARD.

As a response to exactly the blind prejudice highlighted in this article, I created the Peoples Democratic Republic of Birmingham website at http://www.peoplesdemocraticrepublicofbirmingham.co.uk/...

... lemme know what you think!