BiNS iPhone icon, originally uploaded by bounder. As soon as I found out you could add a custom iPhone icon to a website it was inevitable that I’d do a BiNS one. Immediately. And then blog about it. Seriously it was all of five minutes ago I found out. Those with iPhones (or touches), save BiNS as a Home screen bookmark – and Brasso the Bull will appear there for you too. (If you want to make one for your own site have a look here.)
If you missed me on 6Music this morning but would like to hear what I got up to: ToastTheNation
I spent this Sunday morning freezing cold and being threatened with arrest, and no it wasn’t another early morning kick-off down the Blues. I was being filmed for 21 Stories – the film about the Rotunda being made by Nic Gaunt – holding a placard (you can see it above) while all around me people got on with their Christmas shopping. I wasn’t called upon to act as such (which is a good job, my thespian skills are a little broad to say the least), but to walk up and down New St and stand still so Nic could film some slow shutter-speed stuff. It was, what we call in the trade, a long shot – which meant that I was standing about 100m or more from the camera. This meant I spent a lot of the time fending off comments from passers-by “who said it was” “it is” or more bizarrely “they are”. It also meant that every time (three in the space of half an hour) one of our boys-in-luminous-yellow trotted up to me I had to explain: that it was a film, that the camera was down the road a bit, that we had permission from...
It’s that time of next year again, when in a flagrant attempt to pay for all the incidental costs of B:iNS we unleash the Birmingham:It’s Not Shit Calendar on the suspecting public. It is, we’ve seen calendars in the shops. As always it features 13 shots of real Brum, with no spin and only a tiny few adjustments in Photoshop to try and make it look warm in the summer months (well did you try getting pictures of the sun this year?). While it isn’t all pretty, it at least isn’t 12 shots of canalside living. It includes, the beach under Spaghetti Junction, Mr Egg, The Pantomime Horse Grand National and you can see tiny versions of the inside pictures here. We’ve got two versions for sale from Lulu.com, a full height version at £12.99 (cover pictured) and a slightly cheaper folded version at £7.99. Both include all your Bank Holidays, as well as a few special B:iNS chosen dates and anniversaries. (There’s also one in our Cafepress shop might be cheaper with the dollar exchange rate being over 2-1, have a look see what you think. This one doesn’t have special dates, just normal holidays.) It’s a perfect...
Ages ago (I was reminded when I was swapping the site about) we made a preposterous attempt to get Birmingham twinned with Timbuktu. Turns out we needent have bothered according to Birmingham News editor Ross Crawford: “The difficulty in covering a city the size of Birmingham, is that many of the suburbs have little in common. If you live in Acocks Green, for instance, Great Barr is as remote as Timbuktu.” Having lived in both Acock’s Green and Great Barr, I wish I could have had that quote to excuse why I never got round to visiting my mum – but what he’s on about is the weekly free paper being rebranded this week as seven local newspapers. A total of 25 people, who will be paid lineage rates, will file copy and pictures from their own communities – although they’re still calling them “citizen correspondents”. Sounds like a plan, and I’m sure there are some great “citizens” out there. It sounds even more like a structure for a network of blogs, but the icbirmingham site isn’t up to that at all. Are any of our local bloggers involved? If not they maybe they’ve missed a trick. Via
