Today's question is this: do you want to strip off and sunbathe next to a hoodie?
No? What about catching a glimpse of municipal eye-candy Mike Whitby, the city's Tory leader, cramming himself into a pair of Speedos and doing an impression of Baywatch's David Hasselhoff?
Still not your thing? Not even if Mike agrees to a Brazilian? I thought so.
It may be best then to avoid Birmingham city centre this summer when Chamberlain Square will be turned into Plage Brum. An artificial beach is being created at the back of the Town Hall, to be open seven days a week from June 25 until September 16.
Ludicrously, there may be two artificial beaches in Birmingham this summer with the Bullring suggesting yesterday that the council had stolen its thunder. The Bullring plans to open its own beach in June and says the council's sandpit risks undermining its own venture.
Whatever the truth of the matter, an artist's impression of Chamberlain Square suggests the attraction will look like an accessory for a toy doll, Birmingham's very own Barbie beach. People will be invited to join in traditional beach games, such as volleyball and cricket, or simply lie back and fry. Expect to see offices packed with workers the colour of boiled lobsters.
There will be deckchairs, parasols and palm trees ... and tattoos, cigarette butts and swirling food wrappers. Ah, the very essence of an English summer.
Some city leaders leave behind a legacy of social amelioration, transport innovation or architectural wonder. Councillor Hasselhoff's greatest claim to fame may be that he ruined the grand sweep of one of Birmingham's most appealing squares with a sandpit.
All things are relative, and Chamberlain Square may lack the majesty of St Mark's in Venice, but I think the burghers of the Italian city would be excommunicated if they sanctioned such a hideous idea.
Councillor Hasselhoff says the "beach" will put Birmingham on the international map for innovative uses of public open space, presumably in much the same way that prisoner of war camps were deemed innovative uses of public open space in the Far East.
Contrary to popular belief, the inspiration for the city sandpit was not the builders' section at B&Q's Selly Oak branch but Paris, where a makeshift beach clogs up the banks of the River Seine each summer. It is said that more than three million people a year visit the Paris Plage, which is great if you don't mind rubbing beach towels with pickpockets, internet swingers and drug dealers.
With the exception of the perma-tanned Botox bunnies who wear buttock-splitting thongs, the French tend to do hot weather and beachwear in particular rather well. Stroll along the Cote d'Azur or the coast of Brittany and the vast majority obey the simple rules of plage dresscode: the fit and shapely wear tastefully cut bikinis and swimsuits while Monsieur and Madame Lard cover up.
England, however, is quite a different matter. Here the rule seems to be that the fatter you are, the more flesh you can flash. One fears Councillor Hasselhoff's piece of inner city plastic paradise will encourage the local head-bangers to disrobe more freely than they already do.
Former Beach Boy Brian Wilson famously had a sandbox built at his LA mansion and sat inside it playing his piano and composing songs, feeling the grains between his toes. Wilson was off his head at the time, his mental fragility and paranoia compounded by hallucinogenic drugs. A similar cocktail may be required to stomach les plages de Brum.