Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands: October 2009 – Russ L
Russ nails October, via organised fighting, music, theatre and a sly dig at Julius Caesar. [link]
Birmingham: It's Not Shit
Mildly Sarcastic Since 2002Announcing the Bullring Playtest -| BARG
Can you "play" with a shopping centre? "Ingredients for playing with include, but are not limited to: 3 levels of shops; the escalators in between; the outdoor bit down the middle; the square next to St. Martin’s church; a department store with some silver discs stuck on it; and a large statue of a bull."
Saturday 10th October is where it all happens. [link]
Friday Photo by Karen Strunks
This beautiful building on Oozells Square, just off Broad Street, was originally a Victorian boarding school. At other points it became a college and then a furniture store for Birmingham City Council. It was all set for demolition in the 90’s, but it’s life was saved and has been home to the Ikon gallery since 1998.
From the Ikon website: The gallery features temporary exhibitions over two floors totalling 450m². A variety of media is represented, including sound, film, mixed media, photography, painting, sculpture and installation. Click here to find out about current and forthcoming exhibitions.
They have a full and varied programme of exhibitions, and it’s definitely worth popping along!
See you next Friday 
The development of Birmingham
Pretty much an 1918 version of the Big CIty Plan — including ideas for improving New Street station. [link]
Get Folked
Ian Edwards found this wonderful looking book in a 2nd hand shop:
It contains the words of about a hundred songs — complied in 1915, and dedicated to Mrs Neville Chamberlain — from round these parts. Odd to read of Oldbury, Erdington and Smethwick as having Ladies and Lords, odder for them to have ballads and heroic deeds.
Ian also found that the entire book is available online to read. There are no tunes, but stick you finger in your ear and strum a few minor chords and wine them in _that folk voice_ and you’ll be set.
Would love to hear or see some versions of these — try ipadio and you can sing them down the phone and send us the link.
Harry Palmer: Darknosis scientific think-tank laboratory investigations at the PhD show.
Day One (24hrs) 18th Sept 2009 starting 7pm.
Inspired by the statement below, the PhD show’s mythological think-tank investigation, conducted by Harry Palmer, seeks to discover the relationship between the banana plantation and lost civilisation concerning the Hawaiian Mauna Loa tribesmen and women. Mythological hoaxes have been reported suggesting that banana worship and ecological disaster were aligned to the Indian rope trick in which the Darknosis Scientific team sought to define and clarify on their 1917 expedition to this Pacific Ocean Island.
Previous investigations lead by Japanese scientists in 1994.
Statement by Edward Percival N. Spoonhandle – geologist prior to the 1917 expedition:
‘Painting, drawing – that is, the process of meditation and the ability of transmutational story telling, time and space alteration – seen and heard through the senses – is a primitive and ancient instinct.
I do believe that the Mauna Loa cave painters and sand drawers employed the use of colour and lines via the mobilisation of arms, feet, hands, mouth spray (wind power) – sticks, fingers, dyes and animal inks – the rattle of drums, voice, dancing and chanting creates the psychedelic hypnotism, enchantment. The Illumination of fire….Ghostly apparitions appeared. Gods were formed – some stayed for a few seconds, an hour, others for thousands of years. Their demons haunted themselves! Superstition emerged and as the short supply of consumable vegetation severely decreased (why, we are unsure) – the last substantial evidence of human subsistence purports to an increased intake of banana and high intakes of potassium.
The Mauna Loa divided experiences into pockets of memory time. The Darknosis team believe that this significant civilisation witnessed disturbing solar movement, tide changes, thermal alteration and temperature fluctuation. A departure of flight and fantasy, we are unsure.’
PhD think tank investigation from inside the think tank
Find out more at The PhD show: On until 25th Sept at The Edge, Birmingham. Please visit website for details and directions: www.phdshow.com
About Harry Palmer
The Big Paws 19/09/09
“BiNS’s” radio show , all the Brummie things that matter, plus pirates, geordies, a man in a cage, and vacuuming along to Shergal Farkey:
Kent Street Baths in danager – Birmingham Central: Art Deco Pool drained
“The frontage is a superb example of a neoclassical facade and should not be destroyed,” she said. “The area is suitable for re-development and it would be a shame to lose another traditional building.” Another building that the Council don't see it as a duty to keep. [link]
Chaos At Halesowen Town
"When Morell Maison arrived at Southern League club Halesowen Town in 2007, he had high hopes for the club. Few, however, would have guessed that rather than being merely the manager of the club he was actually the owner, and fewer still would have even hazarded a guess at the absolute chaos that has engulfed the Midlands club over the last six months or so, a story which is now involving administration, a boycott of the club by supporters and even the involvement of the specialist fraud officers of the West Midlands Police’s Economic Crime Unit." [link]
