Bang in the Middle

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Robert Shore. Bang in the Middle

Robert Shore. BANG in the MIDDLE

Contents

Queen Victoria’s blinds, John Gielgud’s private parts, and the great Robin Hood feud

The importance of Goose Fair, a prawn sandwich with a Midlands-denier, and proud to be a scab

A bit of crust and jelly, Thomas Cook and crook-back Dick, and the call of the Shires

The North/South divide, cultural backwaters and distant seawaters, and the MT Question

STDs and HDTV, Lampy – survivor of the great gnome purge, and Bates the true-born Midlander

Anxieties of a lone driver, men in tights swinging from ropes, and the revealing strangeness of the Authorship Controversy

A flag to gather under, Olympians and Scouts, and the age-old allure of Coventrisation

The propaganda value of a £50 note, baltis and Brum-bashers, and a moment of Stendhalian delight

The sound of heavy industry, philosophers in denim and leather, and the evolution of Dr Darwin

Pills ’n’ thrills in Mansfield and Stoke, what price an omelette?, and a pilgrimage to the ‘Monumite’

Mercia Redux, an encounter with the Green Knight, and statelies and sexpots

Lady Chatterley was a Midlander, the Ice Age avant-garde, and the source of everything, ever

Fifty Great Things to Come Out of the Midlands

About the Publisher

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A JOURNEY THROUGH THE MIDLANDS – THE MOST UNDERRATED PLACE ON EARTH

To Mansfield

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But history is a remarkable thing. Although by definition it’s all in the past, it keeps turning up again and transforming itself – and everything else with it – in the present. What if evidence suddenly emerged that Nottinghamshire genuinely did have pyramids, and a corresponding Pharaonic era? Unlikely, I know, since everyone seems to agree that the middle band of the country has no prehistory, but a development of the sort isn’t entirely out of the question. After all, think of the evolution of our own species. Even on a matter as fundamental as that, the question isn’t entirely settled. We know that Homo sapiens first appeared on the African continent about 200,000 years ago, before gradually migrating north, through the Middle East, to Europe and Asia. But, around the time of my writing this, fresh archaeological finds in Israel, Spain and China emerged to throw into question some of the finer details of the development of modern man. Even prehistory is in the process of rewriting itself. And if Israel, Spain and China can get in on the evolutionary act, why not the Midlands?

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