Dick Whittington defeats Nigel Havers in a short swordfight, so the Sultan of Morocco hands him the girl and the Mayorship of London; an odd election process, but if that’s what’s in the Tories’ Localism Bill we’ll have to deal with it. It’s how Boris got the job after all, besting Nick Berry in two rounds of Greek wrestling. Sion Simon will no doubt be spending the Christmas break practising manipulating his foil.
In a display of seasonal awareness to match how Bill Oddie thinks it’s time to watch spring in May, Birmingham City Centre is getting a Summer Fête at the end of August. The Edge in Digbeth will be the venue for Punch & Judy, Splat The Rat, a Tug O’ War, Teddy Bear Bungee, Guess The Weight Of The Cake, and all of the stuff you would expect at a traditional British summer fête — plus music and comedy from some exciting acts. It’s the launch event for new Brum-based magazine Dirty Bristow*. The magazine doesn’t carry adverts, in order to give full freedom to the writers and illustrators — and so each issue will hold fundraising events to offset the cost of production. Issue one is packed with literary musings, essays, fiction and art on the theme of ‘birth’, and the only way to guarantee a copy is to come to the fête. The mayor and vicar of the small fictional hamlet of Dirty Bristow have collected a huge variety of traditional musics, comedy, stalls and games — and have arranged for them to happen: on Saturday 28th August from 6pm ’til Late at The Edge in Digbeth for...
And also a new — actual paper and ink! — magazine that is to “celebrate South Birmingham’s cultural scene”. It’s a beautiful layout and print job and the first issue features Barbara Nice, what could be better. You should be able to pick up a copy for two quid in B12-15′s coolest shops and hang outs (or according to the editorial get it delivered by hand direct to your door…) and you should. There’s a vibe of space throughout it, no articles seem to be too short although it covers a load of stuff. It’s monthly, so in a way it’s a bit of a test for that there ‘cultural scene’ — can it do enough interesting stuff to fill a mag each month. I should think so.
The makers of the spangly Fused magazine have gone all What’s On-y. Which is good, because: a) What’s On was never very cool, & b) it’s shut down. Area is the new “pocket sized” (or A6 in grown-up terms) “pocket guide” to what’s going on in and around Brum. It’s going to be monthly, although the first issue is a July/August double issue as “everyone’s on holiday and not much goes on”. It looks lovely. It’s got listings and writerly things from top people such a Danny Smith (whose new “wordcast” you should check out). It looks like this: And for those of you not hip enough (myself included) to be anywhere it’s distributed the first issue is online (and I link directly to page 18 because I wrote it, and I’m vain).
As a city with three universities, Birmingham is about to be hit with thousands of new students. The helpful people at Fused have even done a special issue just for them to try to get them up to speed on all things Brum and beyond: Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch! You can see the whole damn thing online in a nice looking Flash interface that I haven’t got the hang of yet. It might be handy to see what students like these days, in case you need to infiltrate them for any reason.
The new issue of Bearded magazine is out and features the rather wonderful David Shrigley – you can download a PDF, or subscribe on the site (which I’m sure they would like). They are also planing a “Belated Bash for the Birth of Bearded” in Feb at the Sunflower Lounge, more details again on their site. Thanks to Prime Objective for reminding me (Bearded types, you should get an RSS feed if you can).
Bearded “is a bi-monthly music magazine based in the Moseley suburb of Birmingham”, that I’ve just seen on Wikipedia but I hadn’t heard of previously. I’ve learnt that it “that distributes for free nationwide through a distribution network of independent record shops, alternative music venues and other hubs of alternative culture”, it sounds interesting – why haven’t I seen this? Then I see that it’s first issue is out on 20 August 2007 – nothing like getting your promotional wiki-ing in early guys. Seriously though, it will be good to see, and if writing about themselves in some bizare future-past tense is any training I bet it’ll be a good read..
Big ‘n’ Bostin Heritage is the interweb home of Pete Millington’s Spaghetti Gazetti – the magazine about the culture, heritage and history of the West Midlands region. It’s on issue 4 and you can download a PDF version. Poetry, features – even a wordsearch (although I couldn’t work out if that was Brum related). The website is dreadful, at least on my Mac – but according to the magazine there are some audio clips and other stuff on there.
