Looking at Victorian Architecture can be like seeing evidence from an ancient civilisation, one far in advance of our own.

His style, once you start to recognise it, is uniquely his. Stylised, streamlined and slightly cartoon-like but with real depth, fluidity and rhythm. The ball of a thumb is carved as richly and as memorably as a face.

I like to introduce my guided walks with the observation that every square foot of our built environment is there deliberately. Someone has drawn, designed and created all of it (not the same person).

What do Black Sabbath, Moss and Cradley Heath have in common? Possibly nothing.

It was moving to see Ellen discovering flora thriving amongst litter, dumped Metro newspapers and worse, among Birmingham’s various wastelands. A crop of poppies poetically grew up around someone’s dumped works.

A highlight of the tour was an intact ornate lamp outside a former wine cellar: “Selly Grove Ale Stores”, a wonderful Victorian survivor. I guessed the building opposite was the associated pub, with its distinctive corner door and cellar, but some of the older members of the group remembered it being a shop. The tour had become a knowledge exchange…OK I got that one wrong!

‘What is a Radial Truth?’ asks a Stirchley-based truth seeker.

I met Kerrie Reading last year at the 2nd International Research Forum on Guided Tours in Plymouth. There was a great mix of academics, artists, historians and tour guides. If we ever do Still Talking: the conference of Blah Bah Blah I hope it will be as diverse as IRFGT 2.

Every other hill figure in the UK is modern by comparison, Uffington’s white horse is the oldest by a long chalk.

If you pace a street enough times, it becomes yours—your patch. Ownership comes incrementally; when you devise short cuts to the bus stop, when you know if there is still time to get to the off licence, and when you can give directions to April Croft when someone asks.

On the left is a sealed-off doorway to a metal staircase, topped with a spiked rail. Climbing it is not recommended; it’s a sheer drop of 50 feet or so. I didn’t go in: Laira jumped over because my left arm doesn’t work well at the moment, I’d been up since half past nine and someone had to look after the bags.

The walk is an ear opening experience that gave us all a very different ‘view’ of Birmingham. Lead by composer David Prior (one half of Liminal, along with architect Frances Crow), we are encouraged to listen – really stop and listen – to the sounds surrounding us.