Nottingham… city of Robin Hood, DH Lawrence, Alan Sillitoe, William Booth and Torvill & Dean; Queen of the Midlands; famous in the past for lace, bicycles  and cigarettes and more recently for twice European Champions, Nottingham Forest (and a certain Brian Clough) and for being the gun and knife crime capital of the UK (it isn’t, never was and never will be).

Nottingham, like many other big cities, is a place of contrasts - wealth and poverty side by side, vibrant city and decaying outskirts, beautiful architecture and ugly urban sprawl, high culture and low night-life.

The connection I have with the city of my birth is a bit like a relationship with an old friend. You love them to bits and you want to let them know it but you can also tell them when their clothes don’t suit them, their hair is a mess or they’ve got something wrong… and you can still be friends afterwards.

This blog  just offers a snippet or two of news and opinion on all of this. And it may occasionally stray into some wider political and social stuff if it seems appropriate.

Hopefully, people from Nottingham will recognise – if not always agree with – my view of the city… and people from elsewhere may feel they want to pay us a visit.

You ought to… it’s really quite nice.