I love the attempts being made all around England to make stations more attractive.

I came across this artwork in Birmingham New Street recently. I don’t know if it really counts as “artwork”, especially as it is probably designed to encourage people to go shopping (Birmingham seems to be a shoppers’ paradise: I counted at least 4 different malls).

People in a station: is it art?But it certainly brightened the place up in the midst of all the building works going on. (They’re laying down tram lines, so over the next few years Birmingham should be an even nicer place in which to travel.)

I think one could use the picture as a creative writing prompt. Like who are these people, and do they know each other? You could write a story centred on just one of them.

Where does technology come into all this? The photo was taken on my phone. It’s not bad, is it? Who needs to carry around a proper camera all the time, “just in case”?