Preparing for UKOUG breakthrough 2022.

My apologies, It’s been a while.

It’s a long time since I’ve attended anything Oracle IRL.

And while I live in Birmingham, I’ve probably only been into town about 4 times since COVID.

So my opinions are going to be somewhat less informed than in the past.

I’m also less knowledgeable about the Aston side of town than the center.

So updates:

Some character actor discovered the https://varanasi.uk/ long after I introduced several UKOUG attendees to it.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/restaurant-johnny-depp-racked-up-24173963

On sadder news the fake peaky blinders pub the bulls head has closed.

The Pub would be used for various Peaky Blinders launch events, but is alas no more. ( https://hnssigns.co.uk/project/peaky-blinders/ )

OTOH, I took Christian Antognini there and he was right royally unimpressed.

So, venues close to the event:

The Sacks of Potatoes – easy to find and far better than a student campus deserves.

Gosta Green – enough said.

Further into town:

The wellington – still Birmingham’s best real pub, and feel free to bring your own food.

The Queens head – New, will try to visit tomorrow, sort of the replacement for the Bulls head.

For food, I have no idea what to recommend.

You really have to go into town to find restaurants, expect a bit of a trek.

I have recently discovered https://pieminister.co.uk/restaurants/birmingham/ and although the pie’s seem to be getting smaller, it’s still good.

Should mention the Post office vaults, if you can find it, https://postofficevaults.co.uk/ good for obscure foreign lagers.

And there there is still purity craft and kitchen https://www.purecraftbars.com/ but don’t eat there it’s prohibitively expensive.

Even further away, https://www.albertsschloss.co.uk/cookhaus/, not been there, but heard good things.

On other topics, the tram strike is over, but I’d be confused if you needed to use the tram while at UKOUG.

HTH.