KEY POINTS:
Nottingham is a city embellished by ancient legend but it is a contemporary myth that warrants immediate investigation.
The centre of England's East Midlands has, I am breathlessly told by an obviously sex-starved man, the highest woman-to-man ratio in the United Kingdom.
So a sportswriting colleague and I head out into the good night for a pint and a curry, half expecting (and, for the sake of our egos, half hoping) to be fending off hordes of winsome young Maid Marians eager to throw themselves upon male Antipodeans in order to escape a kind of Midlands Amazonia.
The pint was satisfying, the curry was superb and the women, despite the splash of Old Spice, a freshly ironed shirt and a gargle of Listerine, were hibernating - or hiding, take your pick.
It's not the only time Nottingham would defy expectation.
Perhaps nothing should surprise about a city that was once ruled by a Saxon chief named Snot, a man accused of looking down his nose at people.
Snot might have given name to the city but its most famous son is Robin Hood, he of green tights and unerring bowmanship. There's still debate as to whether he was a genuine historical figure or fictional but if he was the former he was almost certainly a Yorkshireman, although he did a lot of pottering about in Sherwood Forest.
Nevertheless, his is a powerful legend - stories of mavericks defying tyranny and "redistributing" wealth from the rich to the poor are always going to get the juices flowing. His influence permeates around the city from street names to an elegant, understated statue of him in an archer's repose, outside Nottingham Castle.
The one-time fortress, built in the 11th century, the Town Hall and the Old Market Square - the largest such square in the UK - are the focal parts of the city. You could spend a day marvelling at the architecture around the city centre, particularly the Victorian-era buildings and the Nottingham council house with its baroque columns.
Its industrial history as a centre of the textile trade spawned some grand old factories that have been restored and the Lace Market is now a popular entertainment enclave. Lace Market is also home to St Mary the Virgin church, on which site Hood was said to have been arrested by the sheriff before being rescued by Little John.
But it's a little building that reputedly dates back to 1189 that is hardest to pass. Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is built into the cave system under the castle and claims to be the oldest pub in England. Just to be killjoys, two other pubs in the city, The Bell Inn and ye olde Salutation Inn, claim to be the oldest public houses in the city.
It is the Trip that looks and smells like the oldest. Cosy up with a pint of real ale and you can imagine the clinking of armour and braying of horses as crusaders fortified themselves. Nottingham's beauty is in its history and there's no harm dwelling on the past. In fact, its modern history is less glorious.
Nottingham might have given Britain Boots chemists, Raleigh bikes and, more recently, Paul Smith, the high street designer, but it's also a city with rather ugly sprawling suburbs and their associated problems.
For a city that has such an inviting centre and numerous cultural diversions - Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, BrewHouse Yard Museum, Theatre Royal and the Galleries of Justice, to name a few - it's surprising to learn that it leads the way in an altogether less savoury, albeit disputed, statistic: the capital of UK gun crime.
Local burghers are quick to label these statistics flawed, but regardless of the methodology there is no doubt Nottingham's reputation has suffered as a result of the proliferation of violent crime.
Last year a television property programme named Nottingham as the fourth-worst city to live in.
Robin Hood preferred his place in leafy Sherwood, entering town only to shop, drink and rescue the odd distressed damsel.
No one is asking you to live here, even if swashbuckling knight of the Greensward Sir Richard Hadlee managed quite nicely during a long and phenomenally successful stint as one of Nottinghamshire County cricket club's overseas pro.
He did his best work at Trent Bridge, arguably the finest ground in England, nestled against the banks of the Trent River.
In fact, if you spend a lazy day there before heading up to the city via the canal that hosts several waterside bars, you can see why Snot was attracted to the town in the first place - it's not a place to be sneezed at.
- Detours, HoS
