Digbeth O’lympics 09 « John Mostyn’s Blog – John’s account of the Digbeth O’Lympics last year. It has some great photos of the bizarre fun, such as the cardboard coracle race, welly wanging and the soapbox race. But most importantly, it has this film of John announcing the Free State of Digbeth.
The Free State of Digbeth has no constitution. It has no geographical boundaries. It is the most powerful of all states – a stare of mind…
Ask not what Digbeth can do for you, but what you can do for Digbeth.
martin mullaney > Grants for new niche festivals in Birmingham – Councillor Martin Mullaney announces the Emerging Festivals Fund – which will award grants of £500 to £4,999 for small local festivals. The deadline for applications is 4th February 2010. What do you think – is there a festival you’d like to see happen in Digbeth that could be eligible? Could the Digbeth O’Lympics get even bigger this year with some money behind it? Perhaps, although it may need to cut back on sporting events that use Martin Mullaney’s face as a target.
The Free State of Digbeth « Steve Coxon – Old Custard Factory resident Steve Coxon looks at the Digbeth O’Lympics and the Free State of Digbeth from afar (well, Moretonhampstead) and concludes our rebelliousness is what makes us great:
If you want to know what makes a city great, you have to search out places such as Digbeth. It is in these places that you’ll find the most original ideas, interesting art, the free thinkers and the dangerous minds.
You know, the sort of people who planners and bureaucrats hate because they refuse to mould themselves meekly into the meticulously sanitised and nondescript schemes of braindead city planners.
The last post about my uber-busy Digbeth weekend. I started Sunday off in the Rhubarb Radio studio presenting Sunday Local with Michael Grimes. It’s a weekly show we do at 12-2pm every Sunday about all things local, be it news, events, music or whatever takes our fancy. John Mostyn popped by to fill us in on the imminent Digbeth O’Lympics, which cartoonist Alex Hughes, who likes to come in and document the proceedings, captured nicely.
Digbeth O'Lympics by Alex Hughes
Karen Strunks and Shona McQuillan also joined us in the studio. After the show we filled up on a nice big dinner at The Big Bulls Head before facing the games. The slideshow of Pete Ashton’s photos above documents our day, which was gloriously anarchic.
We missed the Opening Ceremony, so joined the fun at the Cardboard Coracle Race in the Custard Factory pool. Unfortunately, paint had been spilled into the water the day before so it looked like chemical waste, but at least it hid the fag butts, beer bottles and Christ knows what else was floating around in there.
From there we moved onto The Old Crown, where John Tighe was placed in the stocks for Noise Crimes, and pelted with water balloons.
We moved onto the Spotted Dog, where rumour reached us that someone had thrown an egg 60 feet in The Anchor’s Egg-a-thon and caught it without it breaking. In other news, children were seen running around in custard-filled wellies outside The Wagon and Horses. The Tug-of-War at The Fountain was sadly cancelled due to lack of rope.
Next came the Soapbox Race, which seriously surpassed itself this year for having the sheer gall to take place on Bradford Street, traffic be damned (to listen to their beeping, you’d have thought they were). There were some brilliant creations, such as the Penguin Carrier and a weird Grandad Armchair-Trike hybrid.
After that the children went off to enjoy a Snail Race at The Spotted Dog, whilst the more rebellious amongst us headed to The Rainbow for the Rock ‘n’ Roll triathlon of Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll. I couldn’t resist taking part in this one, which included necking sambucca, blowing up a sex doll and snorting a (legal) line before downing a pint. Unsurprisingly, I was crap. But the humiliation was worth it for the sheer satisfaction that is chucking a telly out of the window.
'Nicky Getgood Housekeeping' says Katchooo
It must of been even more satisfying for those who hit the bullseye target that was Martin Mullaney’s face.
The games ended back at The Spotted Dog with a bizarre Awards Ceremony (I haven’t a clue who won, or why John Tighe drunkenly beat up a penguin) and an extra-special announcement from John Mostyn:
The Free State of Digbeth has no constitution. It has no geographical boundaries. It is the most powerful of all states – a stare of mind.
Oh yes. The Free State of Digbeth is born. We are independent. These streets are ours. We are free. Free to use our roads to race sopaboxes down and throw tellies upon. Free to use our paint-filled pools to sail in boats that sink like lead balloons. Free to wang wellies. Free to lob eggs.
The substandard pics I took are in the slideshow above. It was so much fun, especially when we thought up the idea for a Destroyers calendar – tasteful yet sexy shots of the Destroyers boys with strategically placed instruments. Fiona got started with shooting Mr September:
Destroyers Mr September by Katchooo
Lovely. Then we made our way to The Custard Factory, where art supplies shop The Bench were celebrating their 7th birthday with some sort of graffiti-athon thing.
Unfortunately some paint ended up in the pool, which meant murky waters for the cardboard coracle race in Sunday’s Digbeth O’Lympics. The Bench are recent additions to The Custard Factory, where they’ve been for a couple of months after moving from Quinton.
Before heading home I had a another look around Inkygoodness’ Wonderland exhibition in the Vaad Gallery.
And the Digbeth O’Lympics has been updated with all the info, so go take a peek at the events timetable, FAQ (‘Digbeth O’Lympics is an ancient tradition…honest’) and a shop to buy tat (their description).
However, the blog gives details of the serious treat in store – The Rainbow are going to test your prowess in Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll. The Rock n Roll triathlon kicks off with Blow My Bitch Up, moves onto downing and snorting The 400 Mls, then ends on a high note with The TV Javelin:
Venting your frustrations on women and drink is no substitute for the real thing. There are times when nothing suffices quite like throwing your TV out of the hotel window. Your rockstar credentilas depend on how far you can hurl a TV from one of The Rainbow’s upstairs windows.This is the blue ribbon event of the tournament. (Rock n Rollnbow).
Join the Digbeth O’Lympics Opening Ceremony at 1pm in The Spotted Dog this Sunday 20th Sept to make sure you don’t miss a single second of the fun.
Digbeth O’Lympics – Sunday 20th September 2009 – Oh yes, the local sporting mayhem is back. So put Sun 20th Sept in your diaries for the Digbeth O’Lympics. It seems to have grown quite sizably in scale this year, with a long list of pubs playing host to the madness:
The creatives hanging around here tend to carry cameras. Here’s some results.
Karen Strunks Photography: B4AM – Digbeth – The seriously talented Karen Strunks wanders Digbeth in the wee small hours and talks about her experiences. Can’t believe I didn’t pick up on this until she posted the above film on YouTube.
I like Digbeth, it has a lot of history and is one of the ‘untouched’ areas of Birmingham. It hasn’t been redeveloped to death and its face hasn’t completely changed.
Midge digs punk – The Digbeth Slacker goes to a lot of punk gigs around here, mostly at the Wagon and Horses, with his camera. I really like this picture of a Punk Rock Pooch. Aw.
How do vegetarians get fat? – By eating like pigs, but not pigs, in the Friends of the Earth Warehouse Cafe on Allison Street, according to Paul Fulford in the Evening Mail.
Digbeth Olympics Ridiculous River Rea Raft Race – John Mostyn, Adam Crossley and some unconvincing-sounding Welsh guy travel down the River Rea in rubber dingies and manage to emerge with all their skin intact.
Gigbeth competition – This competition for free weekend tickets is such a fantastic idea: ‘Gigbeth is looking for entrants to create their own version of The Sugarhill Gang classic ‘Rappers Delight’ and post them on a specially created You Tube page. Entrants are invited to come up with the best and most original alternative music video to the ground breaking hit, or to produce their very own recorded performance of the song.’ If like me, you just fancy giggling at the entries rather than making one, all entries will be posted on Gigbeth’s YouTube.
Pub Crawl – The Final Leg – Bull Ring and Digbeth – A guy and his camera in the Bull Ring and ‘Digbeth, dusty, dirty, noisy Digbeth’. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, his camera died as soon soon as he hit The Dubliner. This may be a good time to tell you that me and Antonio Gould are planning to do a repeat of last year’s Digbeth pub crawl for our birthdays on Saturday 10th January 2009. We plan to make it bigger, better and bloggier, photographing and twittering our locations and drunkeness levels. All are welcome, especially if you’re wearing a flat cap – stick it in your diaries!
