10:23 in Brum
by BrumPlum
A group of homeopathy sceptics spent the morning outside Boots in town, attempting to overdose on the fake remedies sold therein. They all look line to me, well as well as they did before.
Birmingham: It's Not Shit
Mildly Sarcastic Since 2002Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands – February 2010 with Russ L
Russ picks out "lots of things", although nothing's striking me a brilliant — have a look and see if you think differently. [link]
Paradise Circus – public info on development
A "public information exhibition on potential redevelopment options for Paradise Circus" at Paradise Forum
Tuesday 9th February 2010 12pm – 7pm
Wednesday 10th February 2010 7.30am – 2pm
not to be confused with paradisecircus.com
Paradise Forum ■ Birmingham B3 3HJ [link]
Danny Smith: Tag nuts
So I spoke to the Editor* about what to write about this week and he gave me this, probably to wind me up, which suggests that ten people are responsible for most of the graffiti in Brum. I knew my feelings on graff have been documented ad nauseum in other places. Also I find the weary ‘is it art?’ argument nonsensical and unhelpful and am at loathe to drag it out one more time. So, for once, I thought it would be good to give someone active in that world a chance to reply. The guy I spoke to didn’t want to be named so I haven’t.
What do you think of the thought that there only ten people responsible for the graffiti in Birmingham?
I doubt the council see it like this to be honest, I can imagine they have a wanted list a lot longer. But who knows. They will have probably whittled it down to their top ten targets who they have literally charted as the top ten. However what they don’t realise is that if your a “tagger” part of that concept is to get up. As many times as possible. More than anyone else. So in a way with this approach they may encourage some of them to go harder. Get to number 1. If they publish this list. Its possible there will even more tags on road then before… There’s so many factors involved its really hard to say.
Do you think you’re one of the ten?
No. I am probably about number 40. This might encourage me to work harder as I was just saying. No in reality I rarely “tag” these days and if I do I think about the size, the placement, the camera’s… The problem with a lot of the younger kids these days is they just write on anything, anywhere without thought. The whole problem with “tagging” itself, lies in there somewhere.
How about the fact that 10% of the city was ‘blighted’, is it a blight? Where do you think that figure comes from?
It’s a media figure. A bullshit figure. 10% of a city is a lot no? Maybe its 1% I just don’t really understand what they are trying to say there to be honest. It makes little sense. With regards the concept of “tagging” being a blight, in some respects yes it is, mainly due to what I was referring to in the previous question. A nicely placed, crafted, practices, hand-styled tag to me is beautiful. And people need to remember, all this scrawling and seemingly messy paint they see on the street are TAGS, Bombs… This is NOT “Graffiti Art” these are two separate entities. Although someone reading right now will cuss me for saying that.
Do you make a distinction between ‘good’ graff and ‘bad’ graff – where should toys learn if not on bus stops?
Good question. Half of the problem with “graffiti” in a broader sense is related to legal spaces and understanding of it as a culture. But hey, a bus stop is only a bus stop. It’s a public space. Its everyone’s isn’t it? Write what you want on it I say, but maybe just try and be positive with what that is. And maybe do write on a bus stop, but NOT on someone’s garage or garden fence, you know?
Is what you do an act of aggression against the city?
Not at all. Not for me. But for a lot of the angry youth of today maybe it is. Their way of marking their territory. But a lot of the tags in Brum, you might see in other places. Its not all about Brum, Its about the UK, the world for some of us. To a lot of older artists the street becomes their platform for freedom of speech. Sometimes that will be aggression towards an area, more often it will just be something they want to say. Anything from political messages about the system to a simple “I love you” to someone. We need some kind of freedom of speech out there. The street fills the gaps.
What would you suggest to answer the graff ‘problem’?
In Birmingham and in this current situation, the powers that be need to think about this whole thing in a bigger sense. They need to do their research; they need to watch films like Bomb It and Inside/outside. They need to communicate and reach out rather than trying to come down with an iron fist. With this heavy approach they will simply lose. Some of these younger writers (who I know will be in the top 5 say) some of them are angry young people with no other outlet. Like I said earlier a big top ten wanted list will probably just up the ante, up the potential fame. I remember years ago I “got up” on the front page of the local rag. I loved it. It was king of the town in certain circles.. top of the wanted list. I never got caught either. Fame.
Any thing else you want to add?
To all the bombers, taggers, dub writers, people, just try and think a little. Everyone gets drunk and smacks a tag where they shouldn’t sometimes, but just think a bit more about where your putting your name. And go paint a piece! A proper piece, somewhere out the way, take your photo’s and enjoy it. Its not all about getting up. Its much more fun than tagging a shop and running away from the police. To the establishment, as I said, do your research and try to understand this is a culture. Not just gang style youth’s going mental out there… for some of the kids, its all they have. A little empathy?
*when I say Editor, I of course mean Jon Bounds, but I like to think of him as my editor with a cigar in his mouth, cursing and shouting ‘GET ME PICTURES OF THE SPIDER-MAN’
The opinions of Danny Smith do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers of this blog, its affiliates, or any sane adult human beings. He currently lives in your cupboard, watching, always watching.
Moseley Road Baths – Lottery Funding success
Not to save or refurbish, but a step in the right direction:
"The Friends of Moseley Road Baths has been awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund Your Heritage grant of almost £48,000 to undertake a three-year project researching the history of the Edwardian Grade II* Listed
swimming baths" [link]
Zoom cut to the past
wevee is a site that a tempts to do something with the vast amount of old film — and there’s a lot of stuff of the Midlands on there. The interface is very slick — you can trim the ends of the clip and place them together on a timeline (very much like simple video editors such as iMovie) and there’s some audio to use too.
I was quite disappointed that you couldn’t use the audio from one clip with the pictures from another — meaning you can’t do cut-aways, and that does mean that you can either swap from speech to music (a bit jarring) or drop to silence (or have music over everything). I was enjoying cutting the “modern city” stuff with shots of riots and demolition, and wanted to mix it up that little bit more than the site would let me.
At the moment it’s difficult to see how just uploading the archive films to YouTube wouldn’t achieve wider exposure — the editing isn’t really enough, however well the interface is designed, to drag people in. Maybe people sharing stuff might help — but apart from encouraging a little bit of creativity alongside the viewing, I dunno.
It’s still worth a look tho’ it’s fun to have a mess — always worth trying stuff like this — go see if you can make something cool.
'Tweet potholes' appeal launched
The council have got a wee bit of publicity for announcing that they're going to take reports of potholes via Twitter (to the press office account, oddly) – "It just makes sense to use it," said Council spokesman Geoff Coleman.
Have to say it would make a lot more sense to use fixymystreet.com which is built of the purpose, and would be great to endorse. [link]
Danny Smith: Surge Domine et dissipentur inimici tui et fugiant qui oderunt te a facie tua*
Anglo-Saxon England was a horrible violent place with different kings and fiefdoms slaughtering for land, old gods, and, when the Danes landed, shits and giggles. Not unlike Newtown (except the bit about the Danes – I’ve never seen a Dane in North Birmingham).
Another thing worth stabbing your neighbouring villagers up the arsehole for, was gold. Not the tatty mass produced Elizabeth Duke crap the third generation crack-babies are killing each other for at present. Beautiful, hand crafted gold unique items; normally it was used for decorating the weapons you yourself used to rob people for their gold, thus making you more attractive to rob. You can see why it escalated.
To keep it safe they buried it, and The Staffordshire Hoard was discovered last year in the West Midlands; if you mean the ‘West Midlands Region‘ which pretty much covers everything with buildings between London and Manchester.
Folks, we already live in a world where pirates in Somalia fight off big corporations dumping waste into the ocean. Now it seems that buried treasure is not just storybook fantasy but a possibility if you plough deep enough. The world is slipping into fiction; trust me it’ll be mermaids next.
So who owns it? Well according to The Treasure Act 1996, no I’m not making that up, it belongs to the landowner and the finder BUT English museums have first dibs because the Queen says so. The Art Fund working with Birmingham museum and a bunch of others are campaigning very hard to raise the 3.3 million pounds it has been valued at so they can keep it in the Midlands. This is typical Birmingham behaviour, many is the hour we brummies have spent in the pubs ‘claiming’ any favourite products events, or celebrities that are in some way connected to Birmingham, however tenuous.
“Led Zepplin?”
“We’re ‘avin em” we nod sagely
“Cluedo?” someone else will suggest
“we’re ‘avin it” everyone agrees
“Elvis?”
“Spent a lot of time in Alabama, that’s got a Birmingham. We’re ‘avin ‘im”
(By the way, its good to see that this tradition of claiming pseudo-brummies as our own has been carried on by Broad Street and its marvellously silly Walk Of Stars’)
The Art Fund campaign has garnered some attention from the likes of Brummie-when-it-suits-him Frank Skinner and probably-never-even-been-to-Birmingham-even-though-he’s-been-to-all-the-other-third-world-countries Michael Palin.
The campaign is to ’Save’ the Hoard, save it from what? Being stuffed into an envelope and smelted by cash4mysterioustresureofhistoricalsignificance.com? Do we really need to keep it in the midlands so badly? Do we think ‘The West Midlands’ was a region ruled by ancient warrior kings with spit in their beards and copious supplies of concubines an pork scratchings? Must we fight for their piggy legacy? Real history; it’s an artificial political region dreamt up by John Major (without doubt the least viking-ish PM ever).
Are we hoping for pre-dark ages artefact tourists? A quick look at Facebook reveals that the largest relevant group would probably be Anglo Saxon England and most of them seem to be rudderless English guys looking for some sort of cultural identity. Even if the combined membership of the first three pages of Anglo Saxon fans on facebook, rounded up to a generous 3,000 they would have to pay £1,100 each for the museum to break even.
Okay I’m being spurious but I’m still not convinced why we should care.
*the title taken from one of the inscriptions found one of the artefacts. Translated it means ‘Rise up, Lord; may Your enemies be scattered and those who hate You be driven from Your face.’ – ‘Those You Hate Be Driven From Your Face’ being the name of my autobiography.
The opinions of Danny Smith do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers of this blog, its affiliates, or any sane adult human beings. He currently lives in your cupboard, watching, always watching.
You wish to give money? DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal
A History of the Birmingham
A BBC/BMAG project to identify ten items that tell the history of the World with some Brum connection. [link]
Eccomony fails to bounce back for rubber shop
Cocoon fetish shop in Digbeth, you've seen it the one with the quite "constricted" mannequins in the window, is to shut. Huge savings to be made, if money is tight. [link]
