Mike Best
@bestlaidplan
Planning, placemaking, music, politics and general wokeness. Birmingham
Have really enjoyed the first month of the Bluesky MapTappers league instigated by @lewisbaston.bsky.social A respectable 5th so just outside the medals and a handful of daily wins. Explains why I now spend all day staring at a globe! 🌍
Currently reading the excellent The Blazing World by @jonathanhealey.bsky.social about the revolutionary 17thC and its parallels with modern times. But also fascinated to read about the other Blazing World by the remarkable Margaret Cavendish. A gap in my history knowledge filled
It is quite staggering that the Times editor probably doesn’t get the bitter irony of a front page like this. 60% of us support net zero. The only people who strongly oppose it are Reform voters. Who are the media pandering to?
The Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022 were a great ‘feel good’ moment as we emerged from Covid. And the ceremonies were excellent (I was there for the closing). Looks like Glasgow 2026 is using humour too - I love the Tunnock’s tea cake!
My dad played against him in 1961 while Sobers was playing for Radcliffe in Lancs. He appeared as a guest for my dad’s works team (Hadfields) in Sheffield against a Yorkshire XI including Brian Close and Fred Trueman. My dad is in the middle at the back - sadly no photo of Sobers
It’s only a matter of time before we get Time-Outs so coaches can choose when to disrupt play and/or regroup (and note, get in more advertising). The game of two halves is dead.
Frame it and put it in the geographer’s Louvre. My first 1st place in today’s Maptap Bluesky group organised by @lewisbaston.bsky.social 🙌
A Reform-led council saying it out loud. No more houses for migrants. I first heard this at a local plan examination over 15 years ago and people gasped. I suspect they’d cheer these days. What have we become?
I wasn’t quite one year old when England won the World Cup in 1966 but my dad went to one of the games at Hillsborough despite being a Blades fan. I apparently watched the final on his knee but my first real memory was the 1974 final. I won’t be watching it this year for the first time.
Can’t decide whether this would be on his ‘noir’ or ‘intellectual’ lists?
I saw the aftermath of Ebola in Sierra Leone in 2018. Burial sites encased in concrete next to hospitals that had treated the sick. Orphanages overflowing. And now we have decimated the aid budgets that could help DRC to cope.
1986 was a great year for music. I was 21 and a whole host of great albums came out this year - The Colour of Spring by Talk Talk, Life’s Rich Pageant by R.E.M., the eponymous Crowded House LP, Graceland by Paul Simon, Get Close by Pretenders, and this masterpiece by Peter Gabriel
Looking at where bombs landed, it makes you realise that your very existence is happenstance.
Nigel Farage is indeed a historic shit in British politics (Sorry I must’ve misread it)
I once met Sir David Attenborough when he opened a building I’d worked on at Nottingham Trent University. They say never meet your heroes but in this case he was just as inspiring as he is on TV.
As was Coventry’s swimming baths and sports centre which was inspired by the city’s logo which has a castle carried by an elephant
Trump’s net approval rating is -38% according to the Economist daily tracker. But by demographic, the differences are stark. Women in the US need to know to what the administration thinks of them.
I’m a humanist and I find it disrespectful as even a cursory look at Just War Theory sets out conditions which clearly haven’t been met by the Iran War. In fact, it’s the least just war the US has ever waged and it’s already a high bar
I got planning permission and listed building consent for the NTU scheme which connects the Newton and Arkwright Buildings and refurbished the Newton for university use. Designed by Sir Michael Hopkins respecting the original Howitt design. Opened about 15 years ago.
They’re just waiting for the Farage ad saying “Fatima’s next job could be in oil and gas. She just doesn’t know it yet”
Some things never change. This is a quick AI assessment of what was happening in Vietnam under Nixon at the time of the 1969 moon landings.
Will the real West Midlands please stand up? Read my blog mikesbestlaidplans.wordpress.com
You’d think a new government making fairly public pronouncements about new housing targets and possible new towns might have alerted the water companies to review their five-year-plans a little earlier than 2029
Trump claims to have destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capability but they can still threaten the Strait of Hormuz. Strong Monty Python and the Holy Grail vibes #justafleshwound
Saw both Cam Norrie and Alex de Minaur live at the Australian Open in January, both in form, so great to see Cam win today at Indian Wells #atptennis