Male, British, ex-RAF. Is anyone else experiencing REALLY bad lag in the review text box at the mome...
Male, British, ex-RAF. Is anyone else experiencing REALLY bad lag in the review text box at the moment? Its so bad I have stopped writing & editing reviews completely. Can't Ciao fix this?
Member since:14.02.2006
Reviews:412
Video reviews:1
Members who trust:12
This might be a bit of a biased review because I actually live here ;-)
History! Those devilish Huns air-conditioned Coventry during the 1940's (sorry, some of us are still a bit bitter about that) and you can still see the after effects of that in Coventry Cathedral. Our old Cathedral that is. Yep, we've got 2 Cathedrals! Well at the football we do sing "If you want a Cathedral, We've got one to spare" and we can actually mean it!
Actually we have 3 Cathedrals! At least according to Tony Robinson and Time Team we do, we're the ONLY place they ever visited and spent more than 3 days digging there. So thanks to Phil & Mick we now have another Cathedral, admittedly its a big pile of rubble but so is most of one of the other Cathedrals too.
You can see the City wall (or whats left of the bits of it) and 2 of the original city gates which still exist. Theres also the new Whittle Arch and the weird World Clock but neither are that popular with the locals.
So why are we called Coventry?
You'd have to blame a bloke called Cofa.
There's various stories behind the TRY part of Coventry though. Stories like Cofa's tree was where he sent his enemies to be executed by hanging which is where the phrase "Being sent to Coventry" alledgely comes from as your pretty damn quiet when you've just been hung. There's also a civil war version of that story as Coventry was used as a prison for that English Civil War. No-one knows if Cofa's tree did exist though.
All our Cathedrals exist for sure and you can go and see the worlds tallest tapestry in the new Cathedral (called Christ In His Majesty), its in the Guiness Book Of Records! Its got some seriously excellent stained glass windows as well. Their bleeding huge! Or you can go up the Old Cathedral Tower and have a good look over the city.
If ya don't fancy churches we've got a nice Art Gallery (The Herbert Gallery) which constantly has different stuff in it, We've also got a Toy Museum (worth seeing just for the Dougal!)and an excellent Transport Musuem. In fact its possibly THE best Transport Museum in the world. Why's that then? You think Longleat is better? Your having a laugh! Does Longleat have the FASTEST car on the damn planet?
NO! Because Thrust SSC is in Coventry's Transport Museum? Why? Because it was built In Coventry by Coventry Motor Panels & Maganeze Bronze Holdings (the people resposible for the black cab - yep, I bet you didn't know we built THEM in Coventry did you?), thats why! And we've got Thrust 2, the former world Land Speed record holder. And that was built in Coventry as well! Or you want vehicles that have been on telly, try seeing Charlie Bormans motorbike that he rode around the planet on his "Long Way Round" series with Ewan McGregor.
Ok, you don't care for record breaking motor vehicles? How about places that were on telly then? You like Doctor Who? (You know you do, you liar!) Go visit Ford's Hospital which featured in "The Shakespeare Code", part of Coventry pretending to be Stratford. If your lucky you can still smell the essence of David Tennant.
Bits of Coventry also featured as locations on BBC1's "Keeping Up Appearances". I actually live near Onslows house! Not impressed by that? Ok, Coventry is part of British cinema history.
Why's that then? The Italian Job (The original version!), that's why! Go on, say "It was filmed in Italy and Pinewood". WRONG! The sewer chase was filmed in Coventry (As Micheal Caine would say "not a lot of people know that") and I live very near where the mini's were lowered into the sewers!
You can also enjoy our shops, our cinema's and our pubs. We've invented things as well, The sewing machine (was invented in Coventry by Starley who also invented one of the earliest bicycles!), The Jet Engine (Frank Whittle) and if you've driven a Peugeot in the last 20 years then the chances are it was probably built right here in Coventry.
Of course if you still fancy a bit of history you can go and ogle at Lady Godiva or watch Peeping Tom come out of the town clock every hour on the hour. If its working ;-)
And if your completely mad you can go watch Coventry City play Football in our nice new Ricoh Stadium that the club doesn't own. That's if its footy season and their not hosting a pop concert (We've had Jon Bon Jovi & Rod Stewart there!) or a convention there.
Yep, their now nicking business from The NEC. Or you could go see something at the Warwick Arts Centre (very confusing name, but its in Coventry. It totally confused The League Of Gentlemen who got the shit booed out of them for thinking they were in Warwick a few years ago during their live UK tour), they host live music, plays and comedy.
We're the town that brought you 2-Tone & Terry Hall can strongly deny Ghost Town wasn't written about Coventry all he likes but "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" & "Stereotypes" both certainly were. You can still visit the Locarno he sings about but its Coventry's Central Library now.
We also gave you 80's punk singer Hazel O'Conner and the vocalist of 90's band All About Eve Julieanne Regan. We're also the city that gave you Hollywood Superstar Clive Owen. He's me cousin! Well, me step-cousin but I'm still related to him!
That's why you should go to Coventry. The natives aren't bad either ;-)
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
It's only whilst reading this review that it dawned on me that I've hardly ever been in England. Maybe I should go. Coventry sounds pretty decent. Good review
Stg27 31.07.2008 14:36
Really good review. Apart from the cathedral and footy ground I wasn't aware of much of the rest.
supercityfan 31.07.2008 13:14
There's nothing wrong with playing at a stadium you don't own and hosting pop concerts as long as it doesn't stop you playing your home games at Barnsley (must be something about playing in sky blue !!)
NH Hotels, the hotel chain leader in Europe, with more than 300 hotels in 20 countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Enter into our web site and find the best available tariff at all times
very helpful by (80%):
helpful by (20%):
