Birmingham: It’s Not Shit

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We interrupt usual cynicism about awards to bring you this plea from the lovely Luke at Tindal St Press:

Vote for Catherine O’Flynn as Newcomer of the Year!
Tindal Street Press is very proud that Catherine O’Flynn has been shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year at the Galaxy British Book Awards, for her novel What Was Lost. (You may have seen her on Richard and Judy last Friday.)

What Was Lost is a novel growing strongly through word-of-mouth, and so we’re delighted that there is public voting for Newcomer of the Year. It would mean a lot to us if you would log on to the Galaxy British Book Awards website http://www.bookmarketing.co.uk/surveys/awardsvote2008.htm to vote for Catherine O’Flynn (and enter a competition to win £200 of book tokens).

This is a great opportunity to register a vote for a proud and very gifted Brummie!

The Award ceremony, presented by Richard & Judy, will be shown on Channel 4 at 4.45pm on Sunday 13 April.

To that we would add, don’t vote for Clarkson.

Youtube

Keep on with the campaign for the Spotted Dog guys and gals.

Even if St Patrick’s Day is awash with irritating amateur drunks like New Years Eve. Part timers

The image of the pub landlord as a gruff figure-of-fun has been exploded by Brummies voting in their hundreds to make John Tighe - of The Spotted Dog - Birmingham: It’s Not Shit Brummie of the Year 2007

John triumphed in the last hours of voting, finally pulling ahead of Pete Ashton, by less than 20 votes. Voting closed at midnight on Saturday, but we’re only telling you now (although you are the first to know - feel good blog readers).

John has gained much press, praise and support over his stance against a noise abatement order served on his pub - home to music for over twenty years - following complaints from recently built apartments. His fight continues - and a campaign website is at keepdigbethvibrant.co.uk.

Congratulations John - we’ll see you with the trophy asap.

Third in the voting came gig promoters Capsule (Lisa Meyer & Jenny Moore), while Catherine O’Flynn - first time author having great success - was fourth. Here’s the full results.

Read our runners up post, the voting page, and the original nominations thread.

So that’s it, polls are closed. The Brummie of the Year 2007 has been decided, but who is it?

Well, we’re not going to tell, not yet away, blogging evangelist Pete Ashton and campaigning pub landlord John Tighe have been neck and neck almost since the polls opened - and there was still little but a cigarette paper between them as the votes were finally counted. We’ll announce the winner early next week - which will give us time to sort out the trophy.

The rest of the results, in reverse order are:

Richard Pawley - 0.8%

Condori : Big Chief Busks With Recorder - 1.6%

Martin Mullaney - 2%
Soweto Kinch - 3.8%

Carl Chinn - 4%

In fourth place, but still up for so many book awards we’re sure she’ll cope:

Catherine O’Flynn - 11.4%

Winners of best festival of 2007, according to Plan B magazine, but only third for Brummie of The Year:

Lisa Meyer & Jenny Moore of Capsule - 15.9%

Well done to Cath and the Capsule girls, we’re a little disappointed with Condori’s showing - we thought pan pipes were very popular. You can read a little more about the candidates here.

So, stay tuned…

It’s not every year that you get to vote for your favourite locals, except it is. So here’s who you’ve nominated for the 2007 Brummie of the Year Award:

Pete Ashton - blogging evangelist to the creative community.
Lisa Meyer & Jenny Moore of Capsule - bringing much needed gigs (and cake!) to Brum.
Carl Chinn - larger than life local historian.
Condori : Big Chief Busks With Recorder - on behalf of all our buskers and street entertainers.
Soweto Kinch - Mobo award winner and Town Hall associate artist.
Martin Mullaney - Camcorder Councillor, trying every which way to involve people in local politics.
Catherine O’Flynn - First time novelist who’s wowed the literary world this year.
Richard Pawley - Wants to build a 600 foot tower - and jump off it.
John Tighe of The Spotted Dog - Keeping Digbeth noisy, or so we hope.

The results will appear here:

Voting closed on the 1st of December and the results will be announced soon. No correspondence will be entered into and all that.

Learn more about the nominees, with links: Read the rest of this entry »

‘Walk of fame’ closed over safety

We promise you’ll be able to walk all over the Bummie of The Year Award. Nominations close on Wednesday, so keep them coming.

Okay then, nominations are now open for the 2007 Brummie of the Year award. Last year Jason Furnell narrowly beat Danny Reddington to the top spot, and the year before Babu wiped the floor with all comers.

Just add your suggestions here in the comments to this post and we’ll consider all suggestions. Nominations are open for a month and the vote will start from 1st November.

You can nominate anyone, anyone at all, but the idea is that they’d be someone, from Brum, that has done something worthy in the past year. You’re welcome to discuss each others nominations, but keep it civil.

And so, in the words of the late Ron Pickering, away you go!