KNEX3 is a community radio station based in the 3 estates of Kings Norton. More on this once I've checked it out properly. (via)

Russ L's Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands for March is up.

I quite often moan, or at least quietly comment to myself, that those in the music arenas are tragically behind when it comes to internet adoption. The reason MySpace became the place to follow music was because band websites were so terminally useless that anything, even an abortion like MySpace, was better. But even so, I do like the way the A6 flyer has survived. Once found clogging up random shelves at venues and student markets they now clutter up MySpace pages serving notice for upcoming gigs. And they work so much better than mere text, throwing a bit of character and creativity into the proceedings.

So in lieu of running a proper gig guide I'm going to start posting a selection on this blog. Usually you can consider them a recommendation but occasionally it'll just be because it's a nice flyer.







It also occurs to me that this could have the makings of a stand-alone blog. If anyone wants to follow that line of thought and do one, go for it.

Sightly late notice, but there's a public meeting to discuss the future of Birmingham central library tonight at 7.30 in the Birmingham and Midland Institute on Margaret Street chaired by The Stirrer's Adrian Goldberg who has more details.

Of note is the current plan for moving the library to a new building next to Baskerville House in Centenary Square after the original notion of somewhere in Eastside fell through.

Personally I quite like the current building to look at though I know some people who work in it and they hate it citing an acute case of sick building syndrome.

There's no booze in Bournville. If you want to drink liquor you have to bring it in from the surrounding areas of Stirchely and Selly Oak. It's creeping closer though. Everyone's favourite retail monolith Tesco is building a new Express store on the site of the old petrol station on Linden Road just outside the Bournville Village Trust estate boundaries so it doesn't come under the same restrictions as, say, The Green. The killer is they've applied for an alcohol license.

Naturally the local community, or at least the vocal part of it, is up in arms and there's a public meeting tomorrow (Sunday) at 3pm in the United Reform Church on Beaumont Road. Here's the letter that was distributed around the area.

You'll note, however, that the objection is focussed on under-age drinking leading to anti-social behaviour, most notably the vandalism to the rest house on Bournville Green last year. This is notable as there's been a simmering war on youth recently in the area. Living on the Green I have some sympathies with this - the buggers hang out by the college playing music from their cars and making an awful racket as I'm trying to watch a movie.

But that's the crutch of the matter. They've got a car. Selly Oak and Stirchley are not that far away even without a car and thanks to the dry zone there are loads of booze merchants there catering for us sensible adults who keep our boozing in doors.

The great thing about Bournville is it's like a quaint Cotswalds village but civilization is only a mile away and I'm sure most residents quite like this arrangement. The Tescos, while not particularly desirable as a business, is not going to impact on this in my opinion. It's just another chance for the elders to beat up on the kids who probably don't give a shit either way.

Anyway, I'm prepared to be proved wrong. Hopefully I'll be able to make that meeting (though it's going to be close). If nothing else it'll be a fascinating chance to see Bournville in action close up.

The Stirrer was at the climate change event last night.

"But last night’s occasionally chaotic meeting attended by more than 120 active citizens revealed just how far current thinking – even in an advanced city like ours – is lagging behind the science.

"It also demonstrated how difficult it is to engage in a meaningful way with a wide range of people who have such a variety of aspirations."

Word has reached me (ooh, doesn't that sound investigative...) of a big participatory art project that's starting on March 1st. Name In Lights will result in one person's name being illuminated on the side of a Birmingham building in very large letters. The person will, apparently, be decided by a public vote and will run as part of this year's Fierce Festival. The artist behind it is one Joshua Sofaer.

More news as it develops but this strikes me as being, well, let's be charitable and say somewhat similar to B:iNS's Brummie of the Year award, famously won in 2005 by a red panda. Jon, I think this needs hijacking, don't you?

B:INS have found a couple of really good videos of the Pantomime Hosrse Grand National that took place last year.

Blog Roundup

Welcome to Charlotte Vega, a journalism student at UCE who is exploring the local online music work on her blog. She's found me so she must be on the right track.

Via Charlotte, comes Paul Bradshaw's Online Journalism Blog, which is as descriptive a title as any. Good writing there - he appears to get it and rains hell down on those who don't.

Meanwhile...

Lee Jordan talks about the new Black Country Flickrmeets he's set up.

Andrew Dubber is pissed off to hell with Severn Trent Water.

Tak are busy downloading audio files for old video games.

Pete Lewis is moving to Stirchley.

Laura Gig-Slut is back after a week off.

Russ is astounded by the number of things to do on the 24th and details them all.

The line-up for the Moseley Folk Festival 2007 on Sep 1st-2nd is starting to, well, I was going to say trickle in but this is quite a flood.

So far confirmed are Fairport Convention, Kate Rusby, Davey Graham, Tuung, Alisdair Roberts, Swarbrick’s Lazarus, Martha Tilston, Broadcast, Findlay Brown, Jim Moray, John Smith, Clive Palmer and Voice of the Seven Woods.

Last year was tops. This year also looks to be tops. Where else are you going to see Fairport and Broadcast on the same bill?

I've just stumbled across the Bournville Village Trust Landscape Masterplan and as a resident of Bournville I'm in something of a state of shock.

Bournville isn't supposed to change. That's the whole point of Bournville. It doesn't change. It's not supposed to be changed.

I'm sure the plans are good and worthwhile, but Bournville isn't supposed to change.

Bournville Green especially isn't supposed to change.



This might not look like much to you but... It's change!

I knew those new lampposts were an omen. I knew it...

A whole bunch of PDFs are here including the somewhat impenetrable master plan. Enjoy.

(later)

Okay, I'm breathing more deeply now. It seems from this forum thread that the plans were posted over a year ago so it isn't exactly news. Still...

That forum looks to be kinda alive though. Check out what happens when it's discovered a Tesco's is being built on the border of Bournville. There'll be pitchforks, I guarantee you.

News comes to me of The First Dragons Den UK Film Festival on Saturday 24th Feb at the AMC cinema at Five Ways.

"We decided to pool our resources and offer the fans a chance to sample some of the best martial arts films from around the world, the way nature intended, on the silver screen. For one whole day you will be able indulge in a mixture of old school martial arts classics and the best modern independent action movies, including two exclusive UK premieres!"

Here's the schedule:

13.15 - 15.00 : Invincible Armour
15.15 - 17.00 : Kampfansage - Der letzte Schüler
17.15 - 18.45 : Mystery of Chess Boxing
18.45 - 19.45 : BREAK
19.45 - 21.30 : Contour

I'm assuming BREAK is in fact a break and not a film, though you can never be sure. Personally Mystery of Chess Boxing has me intrigued. According to Wikipedia chess boxing involves "a match between two opponents consists of up to eleven alternating rounds of boxing and chess sessions, starting with a four-minute chess round followed by two minutes of boxing and so on. Between rounds there is a 1 minute pause, during which competitors change their gear." Regrettably the film "does not feature chessboxing as understood in this article". Aww.

More seriously, this is a great thing to see, making use of those massive multiplexes for some serious niche action. If you like a bit of kung fu do go support this.

Dragons Den on MySpace, link via Film Birmingham

BullRing Flash Mob Pillow Fight

Your stupid piece of journalism for today:

"Birmingham is being described as a holiday hotspot despite polls saying it is among the rudest cities and less important than Manchester."

There are three stories here. The first is that some television people have come to Birmingham to make a show about the whys and wherefores of coming here for a holiday. To the best of my knowledge this kind of program has been around for a while and frequently features people coming to cities all over the place.

The second is that in a poll worthy of The Metro "newspaper" Birmingham came 9th, above Liverpool, in a ranking by politeness. This survey was commissioned by Somerfield, a supermarket, and involved 1,500 people. It was undertaken "online". Nothing else is known about the methodology but it's fair to assume it wasn't rigorously scientific.

The third is that in a BBC show cashing in on the ever so tiresome Second City debate (and yes, it was tiresome way before this) a survey of 1000 people resulted in 48% saying Manchester was better and 40% disagreeing. No news on the other 12%. This, apparently, is conclusive proof that Birmingham sucks and Manchester, floppy hats and tambourines and all, rules.

The article goes on to say that Birmingham, while it might have had a bad reputation in the past, is much better than it was thanks to the regeneration. Which is nice to know. There was me thinking it had always been a nice place when in fact it used to be horrible. Consider me corrected.

But check out that opening paragraph again, specifically the word "despite".

TV bod 1: "Let's see. Where haven't we covered in the UK yet?"

TV bod 2: "Well, there's Birmingham. It's quite nice, you know. And given that everyone thinks its a bit shit we might be able to swing some coverage."

TV bod 1: "But hang on. My psychic powers predict that in the week before we broadcast this pre-recorded program there'll be a couple of dubious polls with statistically insignificant samples declaring Birmingham to be a horrible place. Do we dare go against that?"

TV bod 2: "Hell, despite what these not-yet-published findings say I think we should. Let's be brave! Let's be cutting edge!"

TV bod 1: "Okay, but we're taking a hell of a risk."

The program in question is on BBC1 in 20 minutes and despite myself I'm probably going to watch it...

Andrew Dubber took his son to FlatPack and had a lovely time.

Silver Footed Laura makes jewellery which you can buy.

From this shock news piece that Central Trains are still naming and shaming fare dodgers on posters in stations comes this great quote:

Russell Price from Central Trains said: "These people may have thought they'd save some extra cash for the January sales, but instead fare dodging has cost them dearly."

It costs £1.80 for a return into town from Bournville, £3.10 at peak times. I wonder what you could buy in the January sales for that? Half a CD? Some socks from Primark? Maybe they were after a widescreen TV but were just a few quid short?

In all seriousness, this gives out a pretty stupid message - that traveling on Central Trains is so expensive that if you don't do it you can buy lots of other things. And as someone who used to not pay in the 90s and does now, the main motivation is the fact that the system is crawling with inspectors these days, not some posters that nobody reads.

B:iNS has news of a forum run by the Birmingham Strategic Partnership entitled Tackling Climate Change on Feb 22nd. They're showing Al Gore's PowerPoint presentation An Inconvenient Truth at 4.15 followed by a buffet and a presentation of the Draft Strategy. The whole thing is free. More details.

A Grand Central Station

Here's a mad one.

Did you know that plans exist for a new railway station to replace New Street on a completely different site? Check out this map.



The logic is that New Street currently suffers from a bottleneck on the east where six lines merge into two. This is currently not a major issue but as rail travel increases, as it's due to over the next few decades, the much vaunted rebuilding of the station might, just might, find itself at capacity sooner than would be desired for a £550m project. Instead, by moving the station into what's currently the area between Moor Street and the old Curzon Street Stations, New Street can be mothballed and a massive new station, worthy of a 21st century City, can lead us into the bright integrated transportation future.

Here's the sexy concept drawing for you to ponder next time you're descending into New Street.



The New Street development is, of course, not just a railway station. One of the main aims is to remove the carbuncle that currently separates the Mailbox from the rest of the city and open the whole thing up. Naturally this involves plenty more shops but that's what that area of the centre is for. So whatever happens to the railways, New Street is going to be redone. That's a given.

It's worth noting that while the New Street Gateway (as it's known) has the support of all parties in the council as well as all the regional development agencies, Grand Central Station is being pushed by Arup, a "global design and business consulting firm", pretty much alone.

That's not to say Arup don't have a point, New Street Gateway does stink of compromise. No matter how big the glass atrium is the platforms will still be underground and it can't practically get any bigger.

That said, if Arup did get their way that large patch of grass, something of a rare commodity in central Birmingham, would be replaced by a massive structure dominating the area and completely cutting off Digbeth. Not to mention the inevitable destruction of old redbrick buildings in that area. According to that map it's not just the grass in front of Curzon Street that'll go. While the map doesn't quite match the Digbeth I can see on my A-Z it looks like whole chunks of Fazeley Street will go along with sections of the canal network. I don't know if you've ever seen the area behind Euston and Kings Cross stations in London but it's not pretty. Goodbye Learning and Cultural quarter.

I don't think this plan is going anywhere. While it might have the numbers and be a theoretically sound it's pretty disconnected from the reality of Birmingham. And even if it came to pass the area currently known as New Street Station would still have to be redeveloped. That's not to say it's not a neat idea though.

Further reading:

Monday's Birmingham Post reports the news and offers some shit-stirring commentary. Quality journalism there chaps.

Arup's Grand Central Station project page has a number of PDFs from which the above images were taken.

I got the news from West Midlands NO! who I'm keeping tabs on, not for their opinions but because when people hate they seek out targets for that hate. This saves me a lot of work in monitoring stuff about Birmingham's regeneration.

Found on Flickr - a great set of photos of Birmingham taken in 1983.


© dartsmaster

It's kinda odd to see these. Photos from the 60s and 70s have an otherworldly feel to them but 1983 still doesn't seem that long ago, even though it is. If not for the details some of these could be contemporary.

It's been suggested that the Birmingham Flickr group try and recreate them. Not a bad idea.

Newman Brothers

Birmingham Conservation Trust, one of the key groups behind the saving and restoration of the Back to Backs on Hurst St, have a new project in the Jewellery Quarter. The Newman Brothers Coffin Factory on Fleet Street closed in 1999 leaving a good century's worth of equipment and records intact. The building was purchased by Advantage West Midlands (who, lest we forget, are evil) in 2002 to ensure it was safe and most of the funding has now been approved for a restoration of the grade II building, the creation of a museum and conversion of rear portions of the building into small managed commercial units, rents from which will fund the museum.

From the Conservation Trust page:

In June 2004 Julian Litten - a leading expert on the funeral industry - summed up its significance as "not only the last surviving 19th century coffin manufacturing but also ... the most important manufacturer of such items at a time when England was regarded as the template for funerary pomp and extravagance". As such it has an enormous amount to tell us about us and our attitudes to death.

The premises include warehousing and offices on the first two floors with the shroud room above. The rooms are heaving with old stock, company records, patterns and fine craftwork. At the back are two long ranges of workshops, including a stamp shop with its original battery of four drop stamps. Beyond is the electroplating room.

There's a short BBC news article but the best piece of reporting I've seen is on 24dash.com. Once all the funding is secured work will start on cataloguing the contents of the building before it's restored. There's also the tantalizing mention of "open days - by appointment only". I'd love to get in there before it all commences...

Photo nicked from the BBC as, to my horror, I haven't been there yet.

English Heritage has a short photo essay on the Jewellery Quarter.

What is Advantage West Midlands?

It was inevitable that the question would eventually be asked. What exactly is Advantage West Midlands anyway?

I'm not going to try and give an answer to that but the BBC's Politics Show is having a go, leaning on the angle that it's an unelected body and too Birmingham centric whilst having control over a huge budget. Which are all valid comments. I guess the real issue is whether or not that's a problem.

There's a campaigning group called West Midlands NO! who are pushing for the abolition of "regional assemblies, regional development agencies, regional observatories and the new city regions" and for control to be given back to elected local councils. They're not based in Birmingham and have a Tory MP and UKIP MEP on board. They're not happy.

I think the big problem is that agencies like AWM don't explain themselves very well. They're full of seemingly empty phrases and jargon which cause normal eyes to glaze over. Things like "Developing a diverse and dynamic business base" which sound good but what does it mean?

Of course, doing a job on this sort of scale is very complicated and, like particle physics, maybe it can't be broken down into layman's terms. Maybe an agency, staffed by people who, while unelected, actually know what they're doing, is rather a good thing.

Or maybe it isn't. Like I say, I'm not going to give an answer. But I reckon as the great West Midlands Economic Strategy kicks into gear you're going to hearing a lot more questions about this.

Grit Costs

Here's a question, in the light of Birmingham's roads being gridlocked for a few hours yesterday.

Would you like the authorities to invest a significant sum of money in being ready to deal with this sort of thing in the manner of countries where heavy snow is a reality for months on end?

Or would you rather our society just accepted that it only gets like this for a couple of days each year, if that, and that maybe we should just write off those days, appreciate the snow for what it is and chill?

It's a serious question. The cost of being ready to deal with snow is not going to be low, especially in an over-congested city like ours. Do you want to pay for it? For two days a year?

Photo by Lee Jordan

B:iNS Got Blog

Birmingham: It's Not Shit, long the grandfather of the Brummie webosphere thingy, has turned that handy little sidebar linklist into a full blown blog. Which is terrific news! Welcome to the conversation, chaps.

Double Yellow Mayor

The Lord Mayor of Birmingham has been caught on camera parking his car illegally outside the Mailbox. Not a CCTV camera. A citizen's camera. Who then posted it on Flickr.



Photographer Troutmask writes: "This is Birmingham mayors car. Parked on double yellow lines, right under a no parking sign, opposite some roadwork's outside "Hugo Boss" in the Mailbox. The Mailbox has a really big car park, but obviously our mayor is much to important to use it."

Of course it might not be the Mayor's car and a search for "LOM 1" doesn't bring up anything. So I've emailed the Mayor's office to check. Will keep you posted.

Update 8th Feb:

I got a reply from Cathy Dukes, Civic Affairs Manager

This is the LMs car although the chauffeur was driving the Lady Mayoress on this occasion. As I understand it this is the space that VIP visitors to the BBC are advised to park in and it is used throughout the day and night as a pick up and drop off point for visitors to the BBC. Cars must not be left unattended as they may be moved on in the case of an emergency. If you listen to Jimmy Franks at the BBC after 10pm this evening I understand he will be explaining the situation.

Needless to say, despite the advice above, I have instructed the
chauffeurs in future not to park up in this position.

B:iNS absurdity of the week. The England Rocks website, presumably set up by the Tourist Board to pick out locations where important moments of musical history occurred to which folk might like to make a pilgrimage (such as Nick Drake's grave in Tanworth), has included Saramoons in their listing because Duran Duran were formed there.

Now, I'm not one to pass judgments on pubs - some of my favourite boozers over the years would come under the description "dodgy" - but Saramoons, found on Dale End by the 33/34 bus stop, is possibly the scariest fucking pub in central Birmingham. No, I've never ventured inside but I used to spend a long time at that stop waiting for the last bus to Kingstanding so I've seen what spills out. While I'm sure the regulars love it, and variety is something to be cherished in pubs, it's not somewhere I'd knowingly send a tourist.

So if someone who looks like that had a major crush on Nick Rhodes 20 years ago asks you where Saramoons is, make sure you do the right thing.

Believe it when I see it

Climate Change Consultation

Birmingham Strategic Partnership have produced a massive draft strategy on climate change for the city (download the 65 page PDF) which I confess I haven't read through but the key aims appear to be reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010 and 60% by 2060 along with preparing the city for the effects of climate change. How they're going to do this will probably impact on everyone.

So they're running a consultation. Admittedly it's quite a small consultation (one page) but it's probably worth filling out if you have an opinion on this one way or the other. You have until March 31st.

Via The Stirrer

Flatpack Previews

If you're planning on attending the Flatpack Film Festival this weekend I've prepared a bunch of previews over on Created in Birmingham which you might find of some use in negotiating the madly full programme.

Friday (that's today)
Saturday
Sunday

Maybe see you there!

Fire in the Sky

I missed the mad sunsets last night but photos turned up on Flickr.


gorillazboy ©


Lee Jordan

Blimey!