I've been popping in and out of this shop since I was about 10 years old. My earliest memory of the…read moreplace is when Granddad lived around the corner on Dyas Road and would always pick up his Evening Mail from there. I find it very satisfying that the shop is still there and looks pretty much as I remember it as a kid. Whilst it's changed hands a few times over the years it's still a reassuring fixture of the Kingstanding Road. These days I drop in once a month or so to buy tobacco, or some other 'essential' (is tobacco an essential?) as I pass through Kingstanding. As well as a newsagent this is also an off licence - it wasn't like that in my Granddad's day! - so, if the mood takes you, you can always pick up a beer or two for a reasonable price.

Selling a wide range of newspapers, magazines and everyday household items, this small…read morenewsagent-come-convenience store is a handy place to stop by whenever you're passing through Kingstanding. A large public car park is located just over the road, for shoppers visiting the Hawthorn shopping centre and several bus stops are within walking distance. Inside, the store is clean, spacious and very well organised. Though small in size, logical organisation and lack of makeshift shelving make ensure that the store never feels cramped, and friendly staff make every visit here a pleasant one. The prices are surprisingly good too.

Located just above New Street Station in the Pallasades shopping centre, Newsflow is a small,…read moreunassuming newsagent. However, despite its appearances, don't be fooled. If I'm every after a drink, snack, or something to read on the train, I always head here instead of the much larger Smiths down on the station concourse. Newsflow's main selling point is the surprisingly expansive selection of magazines that they have on offer, with more than their wall space seems capable of holding. The prices haven't been ramped up with the proximity to the station in mind, either (a sharing bag of sweets retails for less than £2, which is competitive for anywhere, even large supermarkets), and the staff are always friendly. Even better, there's rarely a queue, meaning it can often prove to faster to go upstairs to Newsflow and then come back down to catch your train than it is to go to the nearby Smiths and queue for five minutes.

I find it hard to believe I'm the first person to review this city centre institution! My mates…read moreand I used to refer to it as the shop that never shuts until we discovered that it did shut, albeit late at night. This shop is always busy and 99 times out of 100 you'll be in the queue behind someone updating their bus pass. But not to worry because there's always at least two blokes working behind the counter and they get through serving people very quickly. This is probably a skill acquired through years of people dashing in to buy something to get change for their bus fare. Amazingly, the guys who work there seem to know the price of everything off by heart. In the years and years I've been buying chocolate bars, mints, chewing gum, newspapers, Lucozade, sandwiches, Ginsters Rolls and so on from there - I've only ever been short-changed once and that was by about 2 or 3p. Sometimes you might have to brave walking past a few dodgy looking folk to enter, but there's never any trouble and that's a reflection on how horrible hanging round Bull Street can be rather than the shop.

Standard newsagents that I often pop to for a newspaper or lottery ticket. Friendly service and…read moreeverything you would expect from this type of shop. They may even have that extra bit of luck we are all looking for in life as the last time I bought a lottery ticket from here I won a tenner!

For a hospital shop this is a great little gem…read more A friend recommended I visit this place just tucked inside the public entrance to Birmingham's Children's Hospital. I was a tiny bit sceptical, and I have to admit to feeling slightly uneasy at the prospect of a hospital trip even though I had no patient to visit. I needn't have worried. Yoo Shop is a short walk up the bright, glass panelled ramp and is perfectly accessible to passers by. My friend had told me this place was decent if you needed a quick snack or if you needed to make a few purchases for an up and coming celebration. As I entered I knew exactly what they meant. Yes, there are get-well cards aplenty but Yoo also stocks a huge range of wrapping papers and gift bags for any occasion. It's like a fully fledged card shop!!! In this way, Yoo makes a good alternative if you're trying to find something a little bit different from the high street. Incidentally, the range of colourful and wacky balloons on sale is really staggering. I love my balloons!

The Craic is a free magazine that can be picked up in a variety of places - mostly churches,…read morecommunity centres, social centres and pubs - it's aim to provide articles and editorials on Irish issues for the local community in Birmingham and the West Midlands. I have to admit that this isn't the reason I always look for it in The Anchor or Spotted Dog - I love it for two things - firstly for the cover, which generally features a pretty Irish girl (and has in the past featured, gasp, people I actually know) and secondly - and perhaps most importantly for its listings. The listings are great. Where else can you find places with these sort of names - The Craic House (in West Brom), the Sacred Heart Club (Aston), Casey Joes (Acocks Green and home to a roof terrace and all the Gaelic football and hurling matches you could ever wish to see), Behans (Karaoke every Thursday) and of course Cleary's (Irish music bar, spirits plus dash for 2 quid).

If, for whatever reason, you're only passing through Birmingham and want to quickly sample a bit of…read morethe local flavour, you could do a lot worse than News Express, a small, independent, locally owned newsagents about a five minute walk from New Street Station. I may be going out on a limb here, but in my opinion, in terms of service at least, the corner shops of Birmingham are the best in the country, and a part of its unique culture. News Express is emblematic of the Birmingham convenience store, with friendly staff, good choice, and, in classic Brum style, as much stuff crammed into a small space as possible. The prices aren't the cheapest, but in the centre of town you're not going to do an awful lot better anywhere else, and they do have regular deals on chocolate bars, which is never a bad thing.

This is just a typical newsagents as they have what you'd expect from a newsagents; magazines,…read moresweets and drinks. As you many know Hall Green is a large residential area therefore there are a lot of news agents so I think what would make Sai news stand out is having a larger selection of food and drinks and possibly sell stamps. I thought the owners were friendly as they gave a good greeting when I walked in. The prices are cheap, which is great for everyone who wants to save money and especially as I am a student.

So ummm it's not often that | give a newsagents 4 stars, because they tend to be much of a…read moremuchness, let's face it. This one, however, was great. The chap who was working there (Mr. Sai? Who knows...) was lovely - really smiley and pleasant. It was also extremely well-stocked - with anything you could ever want from parcel tape to plastic toys - oh, and plenty of newspapers/ magazines, of course. They also had a great selection of general groceries, and the shop was clean and well-presented. Probably the best newsagents I've been to in the past few weeks. Also, they seem to be very reasonably priced - for example, the chewing gum I bought was only 40p - I've paid twice that in some newsagents....

My three-star rating here is neutral for a reason; I wasn't even aware this adult-only…read moreestablishment existed until two weeks ago but, hunting down new places to review with a friend for the purposes of reviewing on Yelp, the two of us - for the purposes of 'research', you understand - entered the premises on Hurst Street , which sticks out like a sore thumb with its 'hello, we're seedy here' red-and-black exterior. So, I don't frequent places like this and, besides trips to the actual Amsterdam where shops like this feel quite quaint amongst all the brothels and sex show venues, I have no experience to compare it to. The shop itself is an eye-opening plethora of skin vids, phallus-shaped playthings and all sorts of other (sometimes scary-looking) sex aids. The member of staff manning the till was quiet and discreet, which I imagine visitors to places like this appreciate, and he didn't bat an eye lid when my mate and I giggled at a nightmarish-looking rubber fist. A back door in the main shop leads through to a cinema, as advertised outside on the shopfront. I wasn't that committed to my research for this review to test out the cinema and discuss whether its seats were sticky or not, although I'm sure other more specialist sites may give those looking for an erotic cinema-going experience more of an idea of what to expect. So, yes - three stars as I wouldn't want to mark this place down purely for the fact that I'm not its intended audience. Avid sex shop fans may think it's good or bad but that's for them to judge - I'm just here to give the opinion of one curious, very baffled young man who feels really vanilla after my trip here.