Monthly Archives: December 2009

Dexy's Midnight Run – 5k from Bearwood to Birmingham

A run, at midnight (Sat night/Sunday morn). Starting from Bearwood, the location of Dexy's fave cafe, to Birmingham city centre — where hopefully we can get a Dexy's tribute band to play. We'll dress like Dexy's MK 1 — donkey jackets and woolly hats. And we'll have a look for the young soul rebels on the way.

Brummie of the Decade?

Just a little bit of festive fun, I’ve taken the winner of every Brummie of the Year award and popped them into a poll so you can vote for your Brummie of the Decade. Since there was no Brummie of the Year prior to 2003 I’ve allowed you to write another option in if there’s someone you feel would have won if they could. So who’s Brummie of the decade?(survey) Poll closes on New Year’s Day.

Review: Sleeping Beauty at the Hippodrome

I love panto, I love its traditions, its history, its very Englishness and its tendency to throw up hairy men in backless dresses and tights. So much that I’ve spend way too much time dragging the medium into the 21st Century on Twitter, but last night I went to see my first actual in-the-flesh with-well-know-people panto for about 20 years. The Hippodrome’s Sleeping Beauty is a thoroughly modern panto too, the 3D (yes really), a character out of adverts (although everyone loves Churchill the dog) and a star that has risen only in the environs of reality TV. That said it still has all the proper ingredients: a dame, the chameleonic (as long as it’s within the tall bloke in dress category) Ceri Dupree, fart jokes, songs that seem to hold up the action, references to nearby towns being uninhabitable, everything you’d expect. I’m no great Joe Pasquale fan, as indeed I wasn’t a big Russ Abbot fan the last time I went to a panto (that too was at the Hip, Aladdin), but it’s odd how some actors or comedians seem only to really be at home in this special brand of theatre. It’s difficult to see how...

Digbeth to get a cashpoint? – Digbeth is Good

What next? Great Barr to get a cafe with wifi? Broad Street to get a bar you'd go into voluntarily?

Birmingham Central Library: Should it Stay or Should it Go?

Seren Worton did his dissertation on Central Library, it's long but worth a read

I want to talk about Birmingham’s bid for Britain’s City of Culture. Now this shouldn’t be confused for the European City of Culture bid, which if won brings money, tourists and actual prestige, That’s going to the South Hampshire region in 2022 which by then, if Internet idiots are to be believed, we will all be destroyed by an alignment of planets as predicted by the Mayans*. No this is the British city of culture, a knock off basically. So if Birmingham is successful what would we actually win? Well, potentially holding the Brit awards and the Turner prize, although not even that is not definite. And I’m not sure how this would be that even be beneficial. Do we want the Turner prize? Recently it’s turned into an attention grabbing oddity choosing deliberately challenging pieces for the sole reason of angering Sun readers and inciting headlines. And lets face it the art facilities in Birmingham are embarrassingly small, although what we do have is excellent. Including the always interesting Vivid, the young but ever growing Eastside projects, and the only venue really large enough to hold the Turner prize, the Ikon. And the Brits, who watches the Brits...

Brummie of the Year 2009 – Brian Travers

Congratulations to civic sax-god Brian Travers – Birmingham It’s Not Shit’s 2009 Brummie of the Year. I spoke to him on our radio show The Big Paws and this is what he said: Brian Travers Brummie of the Year 2009 on The Big Paws UB40 / Brian Travers, originally uploaded by Sebastian Gerhard. See how the voting went…

Wanted: Strategic Director of Development

"A world famous city, with world-class ambition" want a replacement for Clive Dutton.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! If you were in Birmingham yesterday you couldn’t have missed the super snow flurry! Tweeters sprang into action using the hashtag #uksnow along with the first part of their post code and a rating of the snow out of 10. I gave Birmingham a 7/10 rating. Tweeting these 3 pieces of information contributes to a very clever UKSnow map which gives an up to date view of the UK snow flurries around the country. Snow makes everything more exciting! Will Birmingham see a white Christmas? One bookies has odds of 11/4. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed! Have a great weekend :)

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Birmingham's emotional wellbeing* on Friday 27th of January 2012 22:09: 60 % (okay)

Monthly Archives: December 2009

Dexy's Midnight Run – 5k from Bearwood to Birmingham

Brummie of the Decade?

Review: Sleeping Beauty at the Hippodrome

Digbeth to get a cashpoint? – Digbeth is Good

Birmingham Central Library: Should it Stay or Should it Go?

Danny Smith: Big City Culture

Brummie of the Year 2009 – Brian Travers

Wanted: Strategic Director of Development

Friday Photo by Karen Strunks

@onBirmingham – Breaking Brum News on Twitter