Monthly Archives: February 2010

Alien vs Editor

All the papers have gone with the release of the MoD’s records of UFO sightings, and published drawings of them (like this one seen in Smethwick). I’m not surprised that they’re all talking about it, as it’s nice safe weird news, but am rather disappointed that no-one can describe a long triangular prism thing without calling it a “toblerone”. We’ve seen people reporting all sorts of nonsense like in “Kingstanding at 4am on March 18, 1997 when a man claimed to have discovered an illuminated blue triangle hovering over his garden.” Lot of drugs about in the late 90s weren’t there? And as for the Smethwick, there’s surely a claim for some copyright over the design of the Tardis…

Danny Smith: Tufty Shit

Maybe I’m romancing it because I’ve never been formally trained, or glimpsed behind the curtain of the modern newsroom. But I carry the naive notion that a journalist should be a Jedi wielding TRUTH like the Force and ramming the lightsaber of FACTS up the arse of all that is corrupt. I know it can’t be easy, not only do you have to meet deadlines, smoke fifteen packets of cigarettes a day, and wear a hat with a small ticket that says ‘PRESS’ on it but you also have find interesting things to write about every, single, day. So its not surprising that many journalists fall for the Dark Side of PR. Like this story here http://tinyurl.com/ykn7639. The story is about a squirrel that has been banned from a popular Midlands theme park. Now this theme park is only mentioned twice, but once is in the headline and the entire story is about a new ride — that, apparently defying all common sense, is so good even the fucking squirrel enjoys it. They even named the squirrel after the ride making sure the journo HAS to mention it at least once. Interestingly, the technique they are using to this...

Brumcast – show 150

‘Little’ Chris Downing has brought the interwebs 149 podcasts full of “every conceivable music genre, from dubstep to thrash metal, from ska to folk. The only rule is that the music must come from the Midlands.” He’s now reached 150. You can listen live Monday’s at 8pm on Rhubarb Radio, listen again there straight after, or download for your keeping pleasure.

Danny Smith: Sabres of Paradise

Fans of vague marketing talk and transparent attempts to make the public feel as they’re in control really should head over to paradisecircus.co.uk and marvel at the property developments Argent. Apparently Argent and the Birmingham City Council have an ‘exclusivity agreement’ and if that brings to mind the result of an awkward conversational from a couple of Uni friends that have been occasionally drunkingly ending up in bed together, then you wouldn’t be far wrong. Argent and The Council have promised not to see other people, but on the promise that Argent phone their mates and check they don’t mind. The ‘mates’ in this analogy are us and the phone call they have promised to make is the website, its feedback forms and a small presentation they made in Paradise Forum. I went to this ‘public exhibition’ which consisted of all the different pages of that web site on four-foot banner posters and collection of smarmy PR drones, I believe the collective noun of which is a ‘toss’. Not so much an exhibition as a talking down to. These guys talked in non-committal terms about improving the ‘flow’ of pedestrian traffic from Victoria Square to what’s behind it. Now,...

CSI: Birmingham

The TV glamour of moping up blood and wearing paper boilersuits can now be yours in the old Borders shop in the Bull Ring. I mean, I think, I've never seen the programme.

Council Chief Executive on Redundancies

Stephen Hughes sets out the Council position on the reported job losses, pay freezes and the like. Unfortunately, for me it assumes that the amount of Council Tax paid by people is the their biggest concern — ie that people are all selfish. I'd pay more for a happier city, personally. And I wouldn't be spending millions on a new library…

Have your say…

You can now speak your branes on Paradise Circus about what should go where Central Library is. It won’t surprise you to learn that my answer is “Central Library”.

Flatpack Festival Highlights announced

Stephen Duffy, David Lodge, Oscar Deutsch… and tons of films too. Smashing.

Core Strategy – Birmingham City Council

One gets the feeling that there's something important going on here (as alerted yesterday to something that "is expected to happen in January 2010" from the city's 'consultation database') but I've read it over and over and can't really see any movement at all. "Alongside the Core Strategy, work has been progressed on a more detailed plan for Birmingham City Centre – The Big City Plan. The original intention was that this would form a separate Area Action Plan for the City Centre, alongside the Core Strategy. It has now been decided to incorporate some parts of the Big City Plan work into the Core Strategy, which will set a strategic framework for the city centre, as well as for other parts of Birmingham." um…

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