Birmingham: It’s Not Shit

Forward with pottery

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The lovely Nicky Getgood of Digbeth is Good (the best source of Digbeth info around) found this tiny doll’s chamber pot and gave it to us.

But how do we know how big it is? Well, according to Nicky, you photograph it beside a cat:

Nicky has also given us a lock of, 2007 Brummie of the Year, John Tighe’s hair, which we intend to seal inside the trophy for 2008’s winner.

Birmingham to fund web access for 1,800 families

Birmingham City Council is to provide computers and internet connections for 1,800 households in Aston. Some good news. [link]

Birmingham International Film Society

The Birmingham International Film Society offers a programme of new and classic World Cinema and it now has a website. Which is nice: [link]

Mike Whitby, Fool

Mike Whitby thinks Aston Villa should change their name to include the word Birmingham.

Wouldn’t a disregarding of 134 years of tradition, and obvious love of “branding” make him unsuited to be in charge of things?

Just a thought.

Who is Brummie of the Year 2008?

Voting has now closed for the 2008 Brummie of the Year Award.

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The nominees were:

Adam Smith (aka Steve Zacharanda), for showing just how to deal with breaking history. Get in there and get pissed.

TWMDriver - Brum’s best blogging bus driver, who has come from nowhere to become a fixture online and on Les Ross. All whilst staying anonymous, a bit.

Johnny Doom, the voice of metal in Brum. Late night DJ for Kerrang! Radio and previously lead vocalist of the band Doom.

Little Chris of Brumcast. Brumcast plays only music from the Midlands’ underground, dedicated to showing that there’s more to the area than Black Sabbath and UB40 (there is?). And Little Chris has been doing it off his own bat. One hundred and eleven times so far.

Roshan Doug. Writer, poet and internet troll. Roshan is loved and hated in fairly equal measure, based on reading the comments on his Birmingham Post blog.

Pogus Caesar. In the year of his retrospective exhibition, can one of Birmingham’s best known photographers snap to victory?

Paul Murphy of the Destroyers (see some video). Paul has called Birmingham home for over 30 years and has been a vocal supporter of songwriting and live music in his adopted city.

Helga Henry, creative industy all round good egg. Runs a mean tea stall too, and is loved a great deal.

Barbara Nice, “From crowd surfing to crap raffles… Barbara is the queen of comedy”.

The poll closed at midnight on Saturday 13th December.

Do you think he saw us?

Birmingham Writers’ Group has a short story competition for original stories of less than 2,500 words set in Birmingham’s past, present or future.

There is a £50 cash prize for the winning entry. The winner and selected runners-up will have their story published in the forthcoming ‘Birmingham through Time’ anthology and will receive a free copy.

Go write, full details and some nice research links, are on the website.

Westsiiide, Aii

If Eastside wasn’t an awful enough name, the latest Big City Plan stuff introduces us to Westside. And it’s associated Ali G connotations. What next? The area between the Turks Head and the Royal Mail Sorting Office becomes Northside, and residents are themed into madchester gear and trained to say “top” a lot?

There’s a website, full of the usual vile canalside living photographs and meaningless words like “global”. And if you dig there are little PDFs where the “vision” for the various areas are explained — they seem to be already hived off to developers, during the consultation process (?) — including the previously mentioned Baskerville Wharf.

Taking a look at the drawing, and comparing to the recent now with Google Earth (click on the pic for big) and there seems to be no difference, apart from painting the car park white and the water blue. It looks like at this stage they don’t have any ideas.

But they have words (albeit meaningless redevelopment words):

“Baskerville Wharf has the potential to deliver Grade A office accommodation, high quality city centre  apartments, family housing, hotel and conference facilities and a range of shops, bars and restaurant facilities throughout. A sequence of active streets and public spaces will lead pedestrians from Centenary Square to the new canal-side destination and beyond into Brindleyplace and the Jewellery Quarter.”

Sounds good doesn’t it? Except that there are already apartments (or flats as we called them before), family housing, conference facilities, bars. And offices. And proper pubs where the music heritage of the city is grounded.

We dont’ need another Brindley Place. Clean up the canal, improve the lighting, improve the signage, the transport links. But not more canalside living, please.

Birmingham’s hedgehog crisis. Why it’s so important.

Harry Palmer - (self proclaimed) Eccentric Archaeologist on his public address. Scroll spast the large photo of the Native American for the full SP. [link]

Art of Birmingham 1940-2008 exhibition - Birmingham Post

Terry Grimley views the Art of Birmingham 1940-2008 exhibition at the Water Hall gallery. February 1 (Mon-Thur, Sat 10am-5pm, Fri 10.30am-5pm, Sun 12.30pm-5pm; admission free). [link]

Eleven bus route reports

People are still getting their reports from 11-11-11 (you remember, a load of people spent 11 hours on the 11 bus) online. I’ve just finished a pyschogeographical report, there have been contributions from TWM Driver, Tom Lennon and loads more all at elevenbus.co.uk (click on ‘Recording’ to see them all).

There are some great photos too, including this one taken by Alicja Rogalska:

See all of the pics from the fisheye set here.

Alicja is researching art and public transport, and with gentle nudging has started a blog all about it.