Sorry. I flaked on my report. I crammed a suit and three shirts into a backpack with some contact lens solution and went. Credit cards, passport, et. al. were included, no mishaps.

Unfortunately, I stayed in the Bullring. There was much shopping, of which I did not partake, except to step into WH Smith (inordinately boring book selection. My god. Do English people really read such boring books? I went straight to Literary Criticism... it was all full of biographies and handbooks!). It rained a lot. It was June, and the heat was on in my room. The hotel was lovely. Every day they supplied me with custard wafers and digestive biscuits. Every day I left the same strand of hair on the edge of the bathtub, and it was always still there when I returned in the evening. I ate mostly at Subway. I went out for a French dinner of rabbit in mustard sauce, which made me ill, and I had that plus several other pleasing bowel movements during my stay. The elevator will remain a memory for a long time. That, and the trouser press, which I had always heard of but had never actually seen an example of. I cannot vouch that it did any service to my trousers, but perhaps I misused it. Quite the place to go for a conference, generally. I highly recommend it. A Starbuck's on every corner, and everything closes at 19h30. National Express got me back to Heathrow just in time for a plate of pasta at the airport.

I do confess I love England for this: all the men look gay, so you finally assume no one is, and it leaves you much less scintillated. I believe, outside of periods of flu, it was the first time in my adult life I didn't have sex for a period of three days, inclusive of masturbation. Bravo, Birmingham. Two thumbs up for dull and uninteresting.

PS - I confess there were muslim riots outside my hotel on the last day. But, after perusing the extremely dull pamphlets they were distributing, I quickly dodged into the corner Starbuck's and avoided them.