National Circuit Rider Conference - Birmingham 15th - 16th January 2007

In my new role as a Circuit Rider I shall be attending the National Circuit Riders Conference in Birmingham in Mid January 2007. I wonder if it will be as interesting as the last time I went to Birmingham! .........

Dinosaurs!

A few years ago the kid's were watching Blue Peter and one of the features was about an exhibition of animatronic dinosaurs that had been on display at the Natural History Museum in London. Lindsay, decided that it looked really good and watched the end of the report to find that the exhibition closed that weekend, but was about to go on the road and next stop was BIRMINGHAM!

So one Sunday morning we set off for Birmingham with our friends from Cambridge to find the aforementioned exhibition. We arrived in Birmingham after a decent jourmey and on the way in to the city we saw an AA sign pointing the way to the Dino's! We were well impressed until we realised that we had passed the only sign point the way to the Dino's! Anyway we located the venue, and found a place to park (a multi-story car park - remember the multi-story car park oh best beloved as it features later on in the tale!)

We enter the exhibition, pay our entrance fee, wander round the first six tableau, which were OK, quite impressive, and went in search of the remainder of the show... only to find that there was no more to see, that was it. We had traveled 100 miles to look round an exhibition that didn't even take 30 mins to walk round! Ooops!

So we decided that we would find something else to do in Birmingham and came across their natural history museum but that was not due to open for a couple of hours. That was fine as we could have lunch first.

Are You Local?

Now you do remember that car park don't you!Well we looked round for a picnic spot and there really wasn't anywhere so we decided that we would sit in the car park and have our lunch. Let me explain. Part of the car park was coned off so there were no cars. There was a large flat area where we could spread out the picnic blankets etc and it was nice and sunny. So we sat down and tucked in to our food.

We had been there for about half an hour when two people started walking down the car access ramp from the level above and as the legs came clearly in to view it was obvious that they belonged to uniformed people. As the rest of the uniforms came in to view we saw that they belonged to two members of Birminghams Police Force. The Pc and WPc looked over in our direction, did a double take, and then started walking towards us.

Andrew, our friend, and I got up to greet the officers and we walked towards them not sure of the reception we were about to get, (now although this should have no bearing on events at all I should point out that Andrew is 6ft tall, bald (thru choice) and covered in tattoos!

The police officers approached very stoney faced and stopped about 2ft away from us. Looked us up and down and then the Pc broke in to the widest grin I have every seen, and in a thick brummy accent said "You're not from round 'ere are you? !"

We had quite a chat with them. explained why we were where we were and what we were doing next. They wished us a pleasant afternoon and a safe journey home and toddled off to complete the rest of their beat walk. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the canteen at the station later that afternoon...

Natural Gas or The Curious Incident of the (wet) dog in the night time

Next stop was the Birmingham Museum of Natural History. A pleasant enough diversion. We walked round the various rooms and display cases taking our time and enjoying ourselves. It was whilst we were in the paleontology section that thing took a turn for the worst.

In a nutshell, lunch began to catch up with me. Something I had eaten had given me terrible wind. I was crippled by the most horrendous stomach cramps, beads of sweat appeared on my brow, I needed to find a toilet but was unable to move for fear of ... well, need I say more! I did have a glimmer of hope. If I could release some of the pressure then may be I would be able slip off quietly and sort myself out.

We great cunning and no small measure of skill I managed to execute the aforementioned plan and with no little relief I smiled at my success. No one had even noticed. How smug did I feel. It was then it hit me. Imagine that a dog who is damp and has rolled in something unmentionable is warming itself by a log fire. Fix that aroma in your minds eye and times it by at least ten!

My eyes began to water and I could the tips of my fingers going numb. I suggested in a clear but calm voice that it was time to move to the next room. Howls of complaint met my suggestion. I suggested a second time that we really had over stayed our welcome and it was time to move on. Again mass protest, slowly followed by a sudden silence, stunned looks appeared on the faces of my companions, colour drained from their faces, eyes began to roll and stream and they ran from the room gasping for breath...!!!!

We spent about 20 minutes in the next room and where amused to notice that anyone entering the previous room spent no more than 30 secs in there before moving on! I wonder why?!