You ever hear that old saying, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”? Yeah, it’s a nice little platitude, something your nan might’ve muttered while sipping tea and pretending the world wasn’t a screaming shitshow. I thought about it yesterday, trudging through Birmingham city centre like a man lost in a dystopian fever dream, wondering when the hell my old stomping ground got replaced by this… thing. This isn’t Birmingham anymore. It’s a fractured kaleidoscope of noise, flags, and faces hidden behind cloth, and I’m the idiot still looking for a Greggs to anchor me to reality.
It starts familiar enough. Broad Street, from Five Ways, still reeks of stale beer and broken dreams. They call it “rejuvenated” now—fancy word for slapping some neon on the same old dive bars and calling it progress. New pubs, same drunks. Century Square’s got its fairground, that weird-ass library looming like a spaceship dropped by mistake. It’s Birmingham, right? My Birmingham. Then I pass the library, and it all goes to shit.
Chanting. Screaming. Flags flapping like vultures circling a corpse. Big blue-and-yellow Ukraine flags, people shouting in tongues I don’t understand. Faces start disappearing under scarves and masks, like the city’s playing a game of hide-and-seek and nobody told me. I shrug it off—those poor bastards in Ukraine are getting fed to Putin’s meat grinder while Trump, that orange fuck, cheers from the sidelines. Nothing I can do but keep walking.
Then, Chamberlain Square. More chanting, different flavor. Palestine flags, posters in squiggly script I can’t read, voices howling in not-English. This isn’t my Birmingham. Not by a million fucking miles. I’m just trying to get to New Street, holding my breath like I’m diving through a sewer. Curiosity makes me glance at the posters—still not English. The chanting? You guessed it, not fucking English. I look around, and suddenly I’m the odd one out, a tattooed relic in a city that’s forgotten me. But there’s New Street, thank fuck. Time for a Greggs hit to wash the weirdness away.
Greggs is a sanctuary, right? Wrong. It’s just student types and grease, but it’s normal grease. I scoff my sausage roll, keep moving, and then—boom—speakers blaring gibberish. Gazebos in the street, like some half-arsed apocalypse flea market. White trash kids on bikes nearly run me over, pulling wheelies through a crowd like they own the place. I almost lose my Greggs to one of their back wheels, and let me tell you, that’s a declaration of war. Every doorway’s got a homeless bastard passed out, looking like the system chewed them up and spat them out. Down by the station ramp, two guys are sprawled on the pavement, motionless, probably OD’d on whatever’s killing the poor this week. Nobody checks for a pulse. Nobody gives a shit. This is the Birmingham I remember. A proper shithole.
I’m almost at Primark—my mission, my grail, just need a jacket for Baby Spider. But first, I pass these megaphone-wielding pricks. Two gazebos, side by side, like a theological cage match. One’s screaming about Jesus and the Bible, the other’s got some green banner saying “Allah loves Jesus,” trying to out-shout the Christians. It’s like two political hacks jerking off to their own manifestos, each pretending they’re the better cult. “Our sky daddy’s cooler than theirs!” Fuck ‘em both. If I had a crowbar, I’d smash their speakers and tell ‘em the only god on this street is cold, hard cash. Keep your fairy tales out of my face.
Finally, Primark. Five floors of consumer hell, a temple to cheap socks and existential dread. I hate it, but sometimes you gotta dive in. I’m here for Baby Spider’s jacket, maybe some trousers for me. Easy, right? Wrong. This place is a fucking warzone. And here’s where the woke police will scream “racist!”—but if you think that, you’re dumber than a bag of hammers. Go read my shit and come back when you’ve got a brain. This is just the truth, unfiltered: five floors, and it’s spot the white guy. Most of the time, it’s spot the face, with burqas everywhere. Not a word of English. I try to eavesdrop, catch some gossip, but it’s all foreign tongues.
And these fuckers are rude. Every time I pause to check a shelf, someone shoves me aside, muttering something I can’t understand. After the third time, I snap, “Sorry, didn’t know you fucking owned this place.” Childish? Sure. But I’m pissed, frustrated, and these arrogant bastards act like I’m invisible. Hundreds of people in that shop, and I’m one of maybe five white faces. I’m shoved, cut in line, surrounded by languages I don’t speak. This isn’t Birmingham. This is somewhere else, and I’m the alien.
I fight my way through, top to bottom, probably bruised from all the pushing. At the lifts, it’s the same story. Me and a few others wait, but a gaggle of burqa’d women with buggies and half a dozen kids each barge in front. Someone mutters, “There’s a queue, you know,” and gets a hand waved in their face, probably a curse in whatever language they’re spitting. Irony’s sweet, though—the other lift arrives first, and they miss it, too packed to fit. Fuck ‘em. I hit the checkout, pay, and bolt.
An hour later, I’m back on the ramp to New Street station. Those two bodies are still there, still not moving, still ignored. People step around them, eyes glued to their McDonald’s bags. Selfishness, apathy—that’s the Birmingham I know. I just want a train to get the fuck out of here.
Sitting at the station, that “When in Rome” shit hits me again. When we go abroad, we play nice. We respect the locals, learn a few words, try not to be dicks. But here? It’s not reciprocal. This is why Reform and those racist pricks are gaining ground—not because immigrants are “stealing jobs” or whatever bullshit they’re peddling, but because people are bringing their cultures wholesale and expecting us to bend. They hide their faces, we don’t. They demand we accept their ways, but won’t respect ours. It’s a double-edged sword, and both sides are bleeding.
I don’t care about your skin or your sky daddy. I care about how you treat people. And right now, Birmingham’s failing that test. It’s not about race—it’s about respect, or the lack of it. This city’s a mirror, and it’s showing us all the cracks. Fix it, or we’re all fucked.
But at least he liked his new jacket—Spider out.
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