Karate, folk, art, Fatboy Slim and Billy Ocean — Russ rounds up May.
It now has a cashpoint (during shop opening hours).
"The MAC in Birmingham – the Midlands Arts Centre – is about to re-open following a £15 million refurbishment. Mark Lawson reports on the building, and discusses the original vision behind the creation of arts centres in Britain." iPlayer will be live for a week (an mp3 is here).
Election Circus Hits The University, originally uploaded by TheBrumReaper. “The University is hosting an unnamed ‘high-profile event’ on thursday… UK voters can probably guess what that will be.”
I've a sneaking suspicion that we'll never see this building, but fine Planning Committee reporting from Geoff Caine about the decisions on this tallest of towers. Apparently this development would be within "BCC guidelines and policy for Birmingham’s future development." This would sound strange to all those who responded to the Big City Plan questions about tall buildings, and who (alongside everyone else) have never seen the results.
Sarah Jane Lynch (on twitter) is s putting together a project on Moseley, its history and community over the last 100 years — she started by interviewing Pete the Feet… Pete Mckenzie, better known as Pete the Feet, aged 64 has been propping up the bars of Moseley, Birmingham since the hedonistic days of the sixties. His resilience against the norm of wearing footwear, the fact he has created his own merchandise in form of homemade lighters and purses which he carries everywhere, and not least his warm and friendly nature have made him into something of a local legend. For many Pete is an iconic figure. He isn’t one of the many millions on the social networking site, Facebook, but a group set up in his honour has attracted over 1000 members. He has had a song written about him by local band ‘Katlama’ and was even voted the ‘most famous Midlander who isn’t actually famous’ in a radio poll. I caught up with Pete to unveil the real man behind the legend and to discuss his love of Moseley, the corner of Birmingham he is synonymous with. “ I came here I was about 20, I’d travelled...
"The 4am Project will be hosting a special 4am event this Saturday 24th April (at 4am!) on behalf of the Birmingham City of Culture bid! The event will take place at Birmingham Museum Collections Centre. This is a rare opportunity to photograph the wealth of archived articles and artefacts that are not on show to the public at the Birmingham Museum. From classic motor vehicals, to stuffed animals and interesting curiosities! It’s a huge place, with plenty to see and photograph. The Museums Collection centre usually only lets the public in 2 or 3 times a year, and have been kind enough to open it’s doors to the 4am Project this Saturday!"
Got a chance yesterday to pop into the mac (still a week or so before the opening, and work being done all over the building) and taste the catering. Yum. The building re-opens to the public on May 1st, with loads of events, a very much refurbed bar and café and free wifi streaming out into the park. The cinema, theatre and hexagon theatre have all had a spruce up and there’s now extra performance space around the building. Most impressive is the huge new gallery space — a vast room that already looks to be very flexible. The opening exhibition ‘Plug In’ is currently being installed, and features a ton of locally related art, including a sound piece by Peter Cusack, photos by Stuart Whipps and this masterpiece too long out of sight: It’s also got the Brum word cloud in situ — have a quick look on the mac blog. But best of all I found out that the mac had once been the site of Bob Carolgees’s brief foray into the World of architecture:
On a 61 in Selly Oak.
