Channel Four TV ident filming in the Bull Ring

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Wonder what the red bits will be sfx’d into, giant pork scratchings?


10 things I’d change about Digbeth and the Custard Factory - daveharte.com

Dave Harte does a list/linkbait post, and it works as I agree with every single point. Don’t share his obsession with fried breakfasts, so much [link]


D’yer wanna be in moi gang?

For John Mostyn, the opening titles to Gangsters (filmed in Brum doncha know):

Series two:

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Series one (embeding disabled, sods — it’s not as if _they_ made Gangsters, they just uploaded it to the interwebs).


Cook Pass Babtridge

Les Ross interviews Hardeep Singh Kohli, it doesn’t go well.

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(via Tom Watson)


Birmingham Space Day

"This event, aimed at all ages of the general public, will feature talks by researchers from the School of Physics and Astronomy, including Dr William Chaplin on the "Music of the Sun" and Dr Somak Raychaudhury on "Einstein's Outrageous Legacy - Black Holes, Cosmic Illusions and Dark Energy", as well as interactive workshops which tackle telescope making, air rocket creation and launching, and even making Mars rovers out of little more than cardboard and sellotape! Other activities such as a tour of the night sky in a mobile planetarium, a tour of the department's astronomical and space laboratory facilities, a chance to see how many cosmic rays pass through you every second and a raffle are planned for the day.

Space Day is currently planned to run from 10:00 am to 5:15 pm on Saturday 4th of October 2008. Entrance and all activities are free, but due to limits on numbers certain workshops will be on a first-come-first served basis." [link]


It’s fun to play at the M A C E

I’ve recently stumbled upon MACE — that’s the Media Archive for Central England — a government funded body that archives ” moving images held on film, video, DVD or any other carrier that relate in some way to the Midlands”.

While I doubt they’ve got every episode of Boon on VHS, they do have some of the collection online, and I’ve been investigating the Brum stuff.

Cue a newsreel from 1956 and a very patronising guy tells us why knocking things down is good:

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And this is Blues and Albion training, from 1957 - it  once included “shots of Wolverhampton Wanderers players training but these have been removed”. And a good job too, I say.
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I’ll keep digging through and post some more stuff, what’s really facinating is what they’ve got that isn’t online (yet, i hope): “a traditional ‘trussing the cooper’ ceremony for a new apprentice at the Atkinson Brewery in Birmingham.”, the “Lord Mayor sees biggest tyre in the country at Dunlop” .

Brilliant.


Crane school

The Birmingham Conservation Trust has a new website just gone live (disclaimer: which I’ve worked on), it’s focussed more around its blog which is nice and goes with a new look all round — logos, fonts, colours that sort of thing.

The Trust look after historic buildings in Brum, they restored the Back to Backs and made sure Perrot’s Folly could be used again — that’s some pretty important stuff.

Home - Birmingham Conservation Trust

I love the “crane over the back-to-backs” logo, and especially how it scaled down to a brilliant fav-icon, the work of a local design firm whose name has now completely left my brain.

As well as a fresher look, there’s a bit of a modern touch in presenting flickr pics and YouTube vids that are tagged birminghamCT — there are photos already coming through, but no videos yet, so if you have any clips related to brum and buildings and so on, I’m sure the BCT would be greatful if you tagged them up.

There’s barely been a time when Brum needs people who care about our historic architecture more, long may they continue.

If you’re in a shopping mood there’s an affiliate shop that lets you buy stuff from all over the web for the same price and the BCT get’s a cut.


Eccentric purchases

The Eccentric Auction seems to have gone down well at the Anchor the other night (well there are people there in this photo and they’re not throwing stuff at the autioneers).

Harry & Si of Eccentric City by Midge Diabolik on Flickr

Harry & Si of Eccentric City by Midge Diabolik on Flickr

Nicky Getgood was there and bought some kind of weird hamster thing. Not sure who one the prize draw, I’ll keep you posted…

The team are also making a last call for any articles for the third edtion of The Eccentic City newspaper (more details on the site, deadline submitted material is Tuesday September 30th 2008).

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Bull vs Elephant

There’s a painfully slow flash site announcing a Kerrang radio unsigned bands competition — with the chance to play at the Bull Ring.

Festibull 2008: Battle of the Unsigned Bands

Festibull is going on at the Bull Ring on the 18th and 19th of October — where eight bands battle the public vote to win the chance to support ‘Cage The Elephant’ (whoever they are). To get the chance to be one of those bands you have to upload an mp3 to the website (plus photos and videos if you have them) and then get your mates to vote.


Mod day out

Get yer parkas out. With DJing all day and all night (er to 3am at least) and a scooter competition - 25th October at Red Babbon on Ludgate Hill. [link]


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