Immigrants to Birmingham from the seedy South will have to pass the O-R test before they get off the train. “O-R” is the Brummie equivalent of “Yes”, but there’s a right way of saying it, and not many southerners can get their gobs round it convincingly.
It’s true.
No way would us Northerners accept a Brummie as one of our own.
South of Sheffield is pushing it, Derbyshire isn’t really the north, and Staffs is another country.
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Northerners couldn’t hammer a tack through a buttered pikelet. “One of our OWN?” 
The company I used to work for had offices in Birmingham among other places, I went there a couple of times and they were absolutely the nicest people imaginable. I thought Birmingham was the midlands.
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As in, God’s own country.
We grant freedom of movement them ovver t’boarder in Lancashire.
Enny bugger else can forgerrit.
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Indeed they are.
My Mum was a Brummie.
She emigrated up north to wed mi Da.
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Sorry me dear but I am a Londoner and anything north of Watford Gap is ‘the north ‘ - ‘there be dragons’ etc etc etc.
It’s like Game of Thrones…
Thank you, Véronique.
Brummie are generally, with a few exceptions:
Hospitable. Exceptionally accommodating of visitors, homely and generous hosts, especially people from foreign parts.
Modest. We are not braggarts or boastful.
Peaceful. Not combattive or argumentative.
Cultured. Brummies really do appreciate art, music, literature, and things of beauty and craftsmanship. Countless amenities to further and promote culture.
Industrious and inventive. Those words have been synonymous with the typical Brummie worker or business for many centuries.
Ingenious. Especially in the development of machines and tools, and metal fabrication.
Educated. Brummies value all forms of education including further education adult education and high quality apprenticeships. Russel Group Uni.
Environmentalists. Birmingham has more green spaces per capita set aside for leisure and sport than any other comparable British city.
Diverse. Brummies of all ethnic groups and minority groups live in harmony, and proudly, as citizens of Britain’s Second City. It has long been a melting pot for skilled immigrants from all over Europe, and the British Commonwealth.
Sporting. We have three fine football teams in the conurbation, each with an ardent fan base: Birmingham City FC (The Blues), Aston Villa FC, and West Bromwich Albion (The Baggies - don’t ask). Also home to Warwickshire CCC, at Edgbaston.
Could go on, but won’t, would take up too much space. But I deeply love my birthplace, and part of me will always belong there.
These projects often have unintended consequences. The M25 was meant to create a rapid East/West route avoiding central London and the stop-start chaos of the North and South Circular.
But it has ended up as a commuter rat race for people who think they can earn more 50 miles from home. Meanwhile, the person who could have done that job is doing the opposite commute to take the job the first man just quit.
Why do they do that? Because they are descended from ancient tribesmen and need to prove their manhood by undertaking a dangerous hunt to bring back meat for the women and children.
The thousands of tons of CO2 they produce every day means nothing. Modern man is just a savage with a smartphone!
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It’s a no brainer IMO, it should have been built decades ago. I remember when I lived in Grenoble using the Lyon Paris TGV soon after its launch in '81. I was very impressed then and continue to be. SNCF whipped me from my local station, Les Arcs sur Argens to Gare de Lyon last week in total comfort with wifi and a bar instead of having in far less time than it would have taken me to drive to Nice airport, fly and get into the centre of Paris from CDG.
Anyway, it’s capital expenditure that can be written down, even conservatively (no pun intended), over fifty years. Good value IMO. Much as I distrust Bojo, he’s right on this call.
That’s the problem with road infrastructure Mike. it always fills up.
@cat “Watford Gap”
I reckon you mean ‘anything north of Watford’. Watford is an English town northwest of London.
Watford Gap services are motorway services on the M1 motorway in Northamptonshire*, England. They opened on 2 November 1959.
It’s a common mistake made by Southerners/Londoners who are by and large geographically clueless. 
*Northamptonshire is, er… in the East Midlands.
Nope. It is Watford Gap as that was the traditional motorway service stop and thus considered the last outpost of civilisation before heading ‘oop north’ 
I seem to remember the expression “ni**ers start North of Watford” pre 1959, Cat.
I used to motorbike to Birmingham from London via Hemel Hempstead, Aylesbury, Banbury, and Stratford-on-Avon before the first motorway (M1) was built, and Watford Gap was an unknown hamlet in a muddy field in the flat rural County of Northants in the East Midlands.
The Watford Gap ascription is, in my gnarled old memory, a “modern deviation” from an ancient truth. 
And that really is saying something
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Why is everybody so down on Brummagem. If you’ve ever lived there it’s a great city.
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… and it’s where I met my wife of 40 plus years… (she’s not a brummie but was a sexy young student from Sarfend at teacher training college in Selly Oak 
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Three fine theatres, super Museum and Art Gallery (one of the best collections of Pre-Raphaelite Paintings in the country, silversmiths and jewellery makers galore ( a lot of that bling you find at Aspreys is actually made in Brum), home to three first class universities, a number of Michelin starred restaurants, more miles of canal than Venice ( a common but true jest it’s just that we lacked a Canaletto), a fine Convention Centre much frequented by the Tory Party although they do avert their eyes from the plaques indicating it was built with EU funds, one of the homes of British Track and Field, it does lack a first class Rugby club now the the great Mosely has slipped down the rankings but you can’t have every thing.
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Sorry, nothing to do with HS2, but the revered Press and Journal daily paper in Aberdeen used to publish a South edition – for the effete folk around Dundee. There was also a Deep South edition, which extended coverage as far as the Stirling area. Watford didn’t even make it on to the map.
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