Birmingham Writers’ Group has a short story competition for original stories of less than 2,500 words set in Birmingham’s past, present or future. There is a £50 cash prize for the winning entry. The winner and selected runners-up will have their story published in the forthcoming ‘Birmingham through Time’ anthology and will receive a free copy. Go write, full details and some nice research links, are on the website.
This Friday people around the country with be spending the day talking like a Brummie, calling each other “bab” and advising people to go “careful past your granny’s”. The campaign has built up with hundreds of pledges on myspace and facebook and there are people planning to spend the day talking like a Brummie from as far away as Australia, Canada and even Liverpool. One special event that is being held is a celebration of the Brummie accent in Chamberlain Square, from 12pm to 6pm on Friday people will be able to hear a panel of local experts, record their own favourite Brummie phrases and sayings for the BBC Big Screen and will have the chance to win special Birmingham prizes – get down if you can even if it’s “looking a bit dark over Bill’s mother’s”. The lovely lads at Bostin.org.uk – home of the T-Shirts that Adrian Chiles loves – have agreed to send a T-Shirt to one lucky TLABDay-er. All you have to do is sign up and pledge to Talk Like A Brummie on Friday on the site. You can even sign up for their newsletter for the chance to win even more Bostin stuff.
To win a pair of tickets to the fab Rootsville Festival at the Custard Factory on Saturday 30th June, we asked you to tell us your Best Brum related gig story. We’ve decided our favourite tale was outercircle21′s merciless piss-taking of one of the Waterboys – and the random factor picked mrstubbs from the rest (mrstubbs, you have a day or two to email us – or we’ll pick again). Didn’t win? you can of course buy your tickets from The Ticketsellers: 08707 544445 (9.30am – 6.00pm mon-fri, and 11- 4pm Saturday). Or in person from Jibbering Records, Old school Daze, or Swordfish.
except without the telly, siralan, and with swanky ‘mixed-use’ property developments in Brum. The Successors
our competition to win a pair of Rootsville tickets ends this Sunday at midnight, so get posting your Best Brum related gig stories quicksmart!
At B:iNS we like two things above all else; music, and weirdness, and Birmingham. One of our favourite Brum stories we’ve been told since we started the site as about a bloke who hit the singer out of UFO outside the Odeon on New St, and we loved hearing about how Keith Emerson (of ELP) was thwarted in his attempt to fiddle with the Town Hall organ. We’re sure that Rootsville, with its none-more eclectic line-up will bring out a few more tales. So in order to win yourself a pair of tickets to the fab Rootsville Festival at the Custard Factory on Saturday 30th June, tell us, here in the comments, your Best Brum related gig story. The compo will close at midnight on the Sunday 3rd June and we’ll pick our favourite story and award the winner a pair of tickets – if you haven’t got a great story, don’t worry as we’ll also pick one random entrant who’ll also get a pair of tickets. Usual compo rules apply. Don’t forget we’ve got to contact you – check back on Monday 4th June for the results, or if you like email us with your entry too, so...
Curly-haired fcuk-er Trevor Beattie (Brummie lest we forget), Guardian & Newsnight Review’s Mark Lawson and her off Big Brother Alison Hammond are amongst the judges for a top competition that’ll see the winner get their name in huge letters on the side of the Central Library. It’s all part of this year’s Fierce! – and I think the biggest thing they’ve ever done. Name in Lights is a Fierce! Festival 10th anniversary commission to artist Joshua Sofaer, who devised the concept for the competition and installation. Go enter – Name in Lights hey – why not post your nominations here in the comments – we’ll see if we can’t get a bit of momentum behind them.
Quite a few people had a go at this fairly easy quiz-type thing, all the answers were and are areas in and around our fine city. In the end there was more than one entry that matched the answers we reckoned were right. So, drumroll please, the winner was Kirsty Walker from Solihull – who chose a green Brum’s Not Shit T-Shirt out of our shop. In joint second place were Ken Foden, Steve Thorne, Adrian Neale, Leigh Pipkin, Coleman Doyle, Emma Barton, Rebecca Myatt and Suise Humphreys who win lashings of Kudos but no actual physical prizes. So, well done everyone, and for those that are still interested, the answers were…. e.g. Kermit’s penis Acock’s Green 1. A monarch, not sitting Kingstanding 2. Girl’s name Shirley 3. One of five, heavyweight Quinton 4. Leader of the Blackshirts Moseley 5. On the roof and angry Tile Cross 6. A number of trees Four Oaks 7. Pear drink in a pub Perry Barr 8. Frozen rain is in debt Halesowen 9. Untamed and colourful Wylde Green 10. Sounds like all the food was left Nuneaton 11. A little Prime Minister Small Heath 12. Colourful land drain Reditch 13. Entrance with...
