The next few postings result from an accidental trip to Birmingham, my home town. I was on my own for the day, so I resolved to make a sentimental tour of parts of the town where there were certain reminders of my past. These items are not necessarily of lesser or greater importance than anything else which is of significance for me in the town, they result more from random meanderings. Anyway, years ago, I had a girlfriend who was keen on the 19 Century French artist James Tissot. I would describe Tissot as a romantic realist – someone who was a fine artist of the highest order, but who brought out the romantic fascinations of his times, namely the Victorian era. One particular picture my former girlfriend especially liked by Tissot was of the Victorian adventurer and hero Frederick Gustavus Burnaby, painted in 1870 (see next page). Apart from admiring the art of Tissot, I researched Burnaby and found him fascinating (there’s a biography over the page as well). Then, one day, years after I stopped residing in Birmingham, I was visiting the City and I realised that the monument in the middle of the town centre, adjacent to Birmingham’s St Philip’s Cathedral, was actually dedicated to Burnaby, my sometime hero. Thereafter, each time I have visited central Birmingham, I tend to go to see the old Burnaby monument and as a minor sociological survey of human awareness, I ask passers-by “Do you realise who this is?”. Most people scurry on their way, thinking I am a nutter, occasionally someone pauses, sees the name and offers something like “It says Burnaby, whoever that was”. So, Burnaby, the once legendary Victorian hero, is now just an obscure monument and no-one (except me) has the foggiest idea who he was or why Birmingham Council at some point decided to honour him. Perhaps in relative terms, Burnaby is actually better known and remembered than most bygone citizens of this world, what with paintings, great monuments and the like still extant around the place, all bearing his name. Of course, one day, no-one at all will know who he was, or I was (or you, for that matter) and one day, no-one, or no being, will exist who even remembers what human beings were like...."wait a minute, I wonder where this is going?”, they all asked as the Burnaby monument crumbled and fell to the ground.