CITY SLICKER : BIRMINGHAM

BBC Radio's Music Live 95, the biggest musical outside broadcast ever mounted, kicks off in Brum on 25 May and runs to Monday 29 May: 60 hours of live music, 49 broadcast transmissions from 21 city locations and artists as diverse as East 17, Tammy Wynette, Cleo Laine, Michael Ball and Jools Holland. Be there or be somewhere else ...

What to wear: never mind what you wear. No matter how scruffy you look you won't be the worst dressed person in Birmingham.

Latest fad: Brummies learn Latin shock. Salsa and merengue parties held at Heroes nightclub on the first and third Saturdays of the month. Get there at 8pm for free lesson and a Latin buffet. There are two Latin American bands in the area; Como No, and, from the Welsh borders, The Lost Gringos, so called because they are all English.

Meeting places: Quo Vadis is a hangout for people in suits. The Rep theatre bar is a trendy spot for drinking bottled lager. In summer it spills out into Centenary Square and when the interval bell rings a dozen or so of the less merry slink off to watch the play, unaware that they are about to miss the evening's real drama.

Outing to avoid: you are bound to be told that Birmingham has more miles of canal than Venice, and then invited to step on to a tour barge as images of sugar-plum palaces still dance in your mind. The reality is more like two hours in a sensory deprivation tank. You can see nothing but a 6ft- high wall behind which, the guide tells you, there was once a factory.

Food: since the demise of BSA motorcycles, the fastest thing to come out of Birmingham is the balti, a type of curry unheard of in all Asia, but fast becoming ubiquitous in Britain. Three parallel streets make up the Balti Belt; Stratford Road, Stoney Lane and Ladypool Road. Everyone gets his or her own mini wok of sizzling curry and a share of a nan bread the size of a child's quilt. An older local delicacy is the Hot Pork. You can get it at the market from a van. The cheery vendor slaps a slice of porkmeat between two wedges of white bread and always asks, "Do you want stuffing?" At the Chinese bakery you can get more pork, stuffed inside a doughnut. The Wah Key bakery in the Arcadian Centre spotted this hole in the doughnut market.

Pubs: Birmingham has been invaded by a ruthless gang of interior designers with a mission to tart up our bars. They have replaced the smoke-stained Victorian snugs with shiny new Victorian lasagne serveries. The Irish pubs in Digbeth happily remain unmolested, crowded and very friendly amidst the dark warehouses and cold meat storages that loom over them. Aficionados of soap opera should seek out Billy's Bar in Coventry Street for a fix of TV nostalgia. The guv is none other than Benny (right) from Crossroads, otherwise known as Paul Henry.

Niteclubs: avoid John Bright Street, the centre for discos, and find the Monte Carlo Theatre Restaurant in Soho Road, a Caribbean club where young and old come to eat, drink and dance. Or the Moseley Dance Centre on one of their bongo nights, or a bhangra night in any club.

Shopping: let's face it, we are not going through a golden age of retailing at the moment. Brum has its share of shops in which everything is pounds 1. Shops that only sell things beginning with B for bargain. Shops with names like Mr Clearance, Dottie Price and - saddest of all - Budget Brides. You know you are in Birmingham when the word quality is spelt with a k.

Least welcome cultural import: the bhangra and the Chinese supermarkets are part of Birmingham now, but the Royal Birmingham Ballet will always be an alien import. Brummies can't see what this bloodless activity has to do with dancing. Birmingham spent thousands of pounds persuading Sadler's Wells to come up here on tippy-toe and both sides were ripped off. In a city full of dance clubs, going to see Giselle is like sitting at home with a Daymart catalogue when you could be at an orgy.

Edmund Beatty Wright