Birmingham: It’s Not Shit

Brummie of the Year 2008 – Johnny Doom

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Mr Doom “Kerrang Radio DJ and full time loser” (according to his MySpace) has triumphed. 31% (879 Votes) was enough to pip Destroyers powerhouse Paul Murphy (23%, 652 Votes) to our famous trophy.

Johnny, once of the very loud band Doom, has been providing a voice for metal — not only in the wee small hours on Kerrang Radio, but as part of the Home of Metal team. Metal needs a voice, one that can discuss the “merits of cut n paste aesthetics and early flyer artwork” and well as go “URRRGHR URRH RUGGGH” or whatever metal vocalists get up to these days.

A leather and denim clad congratulations to Johnny Doom, who wins the all new Brummie of the Year trophy (that has last year’s winner John Tighe’s hair encased in it), and lashings of kudos (but no actual money or anything like that).

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Congratulations also to Paul Murphy, whose energy and enthusiasm for the Brum music scene may be a guiding factor in any future genres we get to invent.

Third was Barbara Nice, Fourth Little Chris. See those in ninth to fifth positions. See the voting thread. See the nominations.

Close, but… Who else isn’t Brummie of the Year?

Having led at different times, both our fourth and third placed Brummies could well have won the big title. But they didn’t.

Little Chris of Brumcast (14%, 405 Votes) Little Chris of Brumcast — in a Brum music scene that has the music, but not really the “scene” to make it easy to package and publicise, Chris’s podcast is a great way to find new and interesting local bands. If he didn’t do it, it doesn’t look like it’d get done and that is reason enough to give him a sincere vote of thanks.

Barbara Nice (20%, 566 Votes) Barbara Nice might have won had she solicited votes at birminghamitsnotshit.co.uk rather than “.com” (which has been owned by some American domain squatter for about 5 years), but I’m sure she won’t let it get her down. Before a late run from Paul Murphy it was a joy to be able to say “1st Nice, 2nd Doom” (or vice-versa), and pitch the Brummie of the Year Award as a battle for the soul of Birmingham. It’s now best to picture Nice and Doom as contrasting parts of the same coin — perhaps arguing on Paul Murphy’s shoulders, trying to drag him to the dark and to the light. Barbara is not only a comedy genius, but an angel guiding Birmingham in the right direction.

But — who is Brummie of the Year 2008? Stay tuned.

See those in ninth to fifth positions. See the voting thread. See the nominations.

So who wasn’t quite Brummie of the Year 2008?

Only those of us who can see the final numbers know who is Brummie of the Year 2008, but it’s no secret that some people ran away into a sort of “top four” quite early on in the voting. This becomes a little self-fulfilling, as new voters think “what’s the point in voting for them, they can’t win”. But despite that, all the nominees can feel a little bit proud (if that’s what they would like to feel) to have done good things in or for Birmingham this year.

Roshan Doug (0%, 8 Votes)
Pogus Caesar (0%, 12 Votes)
Helga Henry (3%, 73 Votes) — Despite Helga being nominated a whole ton of times, it didn’t seem to translate into votes. Loved a whole lot by a tight community is just as good as fame tho’, we’re sure.

TWM Driver (4%, 107 Votes) — TWM Driver has spent a good long year producing an episodic chronicle of bus-bound life in Birmingham. Are you a plumber, or a postman or something and want to be in with a shout of Brummie of the Year 2009? Get blogging now.

Adam Smith (aka Steve Zacharanda) (5%, 152 Votes) – With all his interweb publicity you’d have thought that AdamSteve (what’s all that about, anyway?) might have made more of an impact, twas not to be…

But who is Brummie of the Year? Find out soon.

Who is Brummie of the Year 2008?

Voting has now closed for the 2008 Brummie of the Year Award.

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The nominees were:

Adam Smith (aka Steve Zacharanda), for showing just how to deal with breaking history. Get in there and get pissed.

TWMDriver – Brum’s best blogging bus driver, who has come from nowhere to become a fixture online and on Les Ross. All whilst staying anonymous, a bit.

Johnny Doom, the voice of metal in Brum. Late night DJ for Kerrang! Radio and previously lead vocalist of the band Doom.

Little Chris of Brumcast. Brumcast plays only music from the Midlands’ underground, dedicated to showing that there’s more to the area than Black Sabbath and UB40 (there is?). And Little Chris has been doing it off his own bat. One hundred and eleven times so far.

Roshan Doug. Writer, poet and internet troll. Roshan is loved and hated in fairly equal measure, based on reading the comments on his Birmingham Post blog.

Pogus Caesar. In the year of his retrospective exhibition, can one of Birmingham’s best known photographers snap to victory?

Paul Murphy of the Destroyers (see some video). Paul has called Birmingham home for over 30 years and has been a vocal supporter of songwriting and live music in his adopted city.

Helga Henry, creative industy all round good egg. Runs a mean tea stall too, and is loved a great deal.

Barbara Nice, “From crowd surfing to crap raffles… Barbara is the queen of comedy”.

The poll closed at midnight on Saturday 13th December.

Vote O’Flynn

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.

Reassuringly noisy

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

Brummie of the Year 2007 – John Tighe

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.

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.

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

The votes are in, the die is cast

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…

Brummie of the Year 2007 – vote now

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:

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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 »

Doh

‘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.