Cold Discomfort

"There is more than one kind of bread queue", I thought, as I waited in a bitter wind for the bakery to open at 12 midday and sell me a couple of croissants. I don't think any of the people who kindly comment on my posts are French - if they were, this might provoke some mystified questions. This is not quite the business model I have encountered on holidays in 'la France profonde'

I bought two other buns and two small loaves, and parted with over £13 of my inflation-proofed state pension. Over a dozen of us were queueing on the street to pay these kind of prices before the doors opened. Parts of South Birmingham are rapidly gentrifying. An artisan bakery with artisan prices is one of the symptoms

Elsewhere in the city, people who can't afford bread of any kind are queuing at food banks - there is one six minutes drive from here. This kind of contrast is more apparent in cities, where extremes of both affluence and poverty are more blatant and exist cheek-by-jowl. I don't think this is a problem that yesterday's budget statement was trying to address

The bakery has a sideline in local honey. Very local, in the case of the one nearest the camera. Mr Khan lives in the street next to where we have been staying; the river Rea featured in yesterdays blip - to take it, I had to find paths through the wild brambles that no doubt provide his honey. This morning I got a marketing email from the country's largest supplier of beekeeping kit - probably so did Mr Kahn. It was promoting a brand of smoker called 'The Empire'. I wonder what Mr Khan made of that. I replied to let them know I was unimpressed