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A BADGE FOR LIFE
We've made our feelings about the destruction of the Central Library abundantly clear, by howling with hurt and sobbing loudly in the faces of terrified passersby every time we step within 50 metres of the doomed building. Less unattractively, though, we've also had this pin badge made for all those who wish to remember the divisive ziggurat long after the last concrete slab is lost to time. Teaming up with the wonderful Birmingham badge kings Pin Game and the designer behind our much-loved logo, Clare Hartley, it's a charming and ever-so affordable nod to John Madin's top-heavy landmark. And even if you never loved the old library we bet you know someone who does and for just £6 (with free postage) you can pin this fitting tribute to their shoes. Or their lapels, if you're going to be utterly unoriginal.
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Venue: Bar Opus, One Snowhill; B4 6G; website
Choice: Cassoulet (£9) Chooser: Manager
It’s the morning after the night before and we’ve stumbled into the city centre bleary-eyed, foggy-brained and broken. Salvation dawns with the brunch menu at Bar Opus offering a New York bagel with smoked salmon, avocado, scrambled duck egg and truffle oil, and a spider steak (Includes: marbled fat. Doesn't include: spiders) served with fried eggs and sauté spuds. But the undisputed champion’s choice is the cassoulet, that traditional, slow-cooked, French tomato stew, packed with hangover healing meat and beans. This one’s been given a twist with chunks of north African merguez lamb sausage and a fat wedge of bone marrow butter - the sort of intensely rich, calorie crammed substance you could survive on a mere sniff of if you found yourself stranded up K2 for a week. Wash it down with a £12.50 bottomless Bloody Mary. Soul soothing, belly filling, hangover annihilating goodness.
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COLMORE FOOD FESTIVAL GOES FRINGE
Colmore Food Festival, the biggest food event in the city's calendar, just got considerably bigger with the help of this humble e-mag. The annual Victoria Square gastronomic knees up usually lasts two tum-filling days in July, but this year will come complete with five foodie fringe events, starting in April and concocted with the help of I Choose Birmingham. The food labs of UCB will be weirding you out with sensory taste tomfoolery, four top hot dog purveyors will be going head-to-head in the city's first ever gourmet Dog-Off, The Old Joint Stock will be doing a food and film pairing (clue: Mrs Lovett's pies) and for one weekend only we'll be boldly declaring the British Sunday roast dead. Keep your eye on the Food Fest's Facebook page and right here, on I Choose Birmingham.
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HAPPINESS IS A PAAPA CALLED HAMLET
Like the vengeful rescue mission that finds its way into every Liam Neeson film, Hamlet is a theatrical phenomenon that needs no introduction. Reassuming its position at the RSC's Stratford-upon-Avon HQ from March 12, the tale is described by director Simon Godwin as a play that "transcends genre - it’s part ghost story, part family tragedy, part dark comedy". Taking on the title role is a man quickly becoming a staple of both stage and television, Paapa Essiedu, who, if you're experiencing a sense of deja-vu, was in Utopia. In what's being billed a contemporary take on the unshakeable classic, music for the production is composed by Jamiroquai percussionist Sola Akingbola. Tickets prices vary but start at £16. On until August 13.
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