The delicate little flowers are leaving Twitter. Or, and I’m not sure which is worse, they are announcing their departure like some shit airport and not going anywhere. As someone who is very much a left leaning centrist – and I need to make that very clear from the off, because the context is important here – I understand it, but I don’t agree with it. I am a firm believer in freedom of speech, that to see the true centre you must see the full spectrum of both the left and the right, and that the horseshoe of politics proves that extreme left and right have far more in common with each other than the centre. Twitter is a cesspit for sure, but it offers way more reality than the poop-smelling-of-roses distortion of Instagram. It’s bringing back debate, that long forgotten art form of duel where it is okay to disagree with someone over something. If you don’t like it, there are tools to not see it again in mute or block. I’ve taken it further, cutting out the cancers from both ends until it reaches a medium I can learn from and internally challenge. So for every Little Stephen Yaxley-Lennon I mute I do the same to Supertanski, for every Laurence Fox I take out an Owen Jones. Mute Musk because he shags robots. Mute Piers Morgan because he doesn’t shag robots. And is Piers Morgan. But fine, if you want to really sit in a fake environment with people who think exactly the same as you, please do head over to Bluesky, Threads, or Mastodon, but I can pretty much guarantee you’ll be back when you miss the weird robot shagger, or, I hope that you learn as I am gradually, that a life off screen is way more brighter and colourful than any social media.
Now, I was at some party with the usual set when one particular dullard told me that my writing rarely features food. I think he meant it is an insult. A fair comment, though not an accurate one in this case. See, one of my favourite pubs in Birmingham was recently featured on GB News discussing the potential ban on smoking in external pub spaces. Now, as a left leaning centrist non-smoker who has never watched that channel, it’s not something I would naturally gravitate to, but will I cry about it? No, I positively encourage it. Good on them. Get all the air time you can. They have opinions and those opinions have as much right to exist as anyone else’s.
The reason why I love The Queens Head is they cater for all, which is what happens when the pub is next to the prosecutors and prosecuted of a court of law. The drinks go from lagers to fine wines, they have an all singing, all dancing cocktail list that has long fruity drinks for my mate Jim to short boozy ones for me, whilst the food menu runs from breakfast to dinner with sandwiches to burgers to pies and even a bottomless Sunday lunch if that’s your kind of thing
What starts as a two for lunch quickly ends up a four. Lots of cocktails in the warm sunshine followed by cooking that’s never going to trouble the guides but more than fills us up and leaves us happy. Snacks are nothing of the thing; heaving bowls of sriracha corn and a big bowl of chips flooded in a masala curry sauce that’s better than most of the places who are famous for curry. Cheesey garlic bread with garlic butter for dunking, a big messy, pungent meal for one at under £6.
I think the quesadilla are my favourite. Plenty of filling, plenty of cheese, no messing about, nor should there be for nine quid. Same with the gammon; a slab of salty pig, free range egg, peas and chips. Exactly how you remember it. Exactly how it should be. There’s a burger that I didn’t eat. Jim said it’s decent, that it hits the spot.
We drink and then drink some more and I can vouch for the espresso martinis as much as I can vouch for the service which is typically excellent. More so is the value, mains around the tenner mark, cocktails on two-for-one much of the day. Come with the right expectations, one of a comfortable surrounding with filling over frivolous food and you’ll do just fine. The Queens Head knows exactly who it is and exactly where it stands within the city. We need more like this in the world.
8/10