Those of you who missed the special screening of the Philip Donnellan piece on BBC1’s Inside Out on 8th March, which featured interviews with Filum fans at the Spotted Dog who’d just watched his documentary film The Irishmen, you can watch it again in the YouTube film above – sorry the sound is a little out.
Fans of Irish film might like to go along to the Spotted Dog tomorrow evening for an Irish Film Night from 6pm onwards as part of St Patrick’s Festival Birmingham. Landlord John Tighe is screening Everlasting Piece, The Informer and Dancing at Lughnasa. I can’t make this one because I’ll be chatting about Patrick McCabe at the St Patrick’s Literary Festival at The Old Crown Inn from 7pm. Go along to hear all about the darkly comic McCabe, poetical W B Yeats, avant-guarde Samuel Beckett, and modernist James Joyce.
Fans of Irish culture might also like to see the Irish storyteller Katrice Horsley weave her magic at The Irish Centre, 7pm this Weds 17th March (St Patrick’s Day), again as part of St Patrick’s Festival Birmingham. Irish film fans in particular would do well to check out the Flatpack Festival in Birmingham later this month. Highlights include:
Synth Eastwood’s Fast Forward Show on Fri 26th March, when Dublin collective Synth Eastwood will host a night of live music, animation and interactivity at The Rainbow.
The Secret of Kells at The Electric Cinema on Sun 28th March, ‘a stunning animation about how the Book of Kells was completed and survived to become one of Ireland’s national treasures.’
Spotted Dog barmaid Katie is currently training hard in her bid to run the London Marathon this 25th April. All sponsorship money will be going towards the British Legion charity. If you’d like to sponsor Katie, pop into the Spotted Dog and make your support be known!
Talking of The Spotted Dog, landlord John Tighe asked me very nicely asked for the monthly archive to be put back into the sidebar, so I’ve popped it back in there near the bottom. If you’d like anything added or amended (within reason), let me know by commenting and I’ll try to do it, spare time and my sparse technical ability allowing. I’m hoping to change the template to something more suitable soon but life’s a bit busy and this is a voluntary venture, so please be patient!
The Rainbow have two options: Full on rockin’ party at The Street, The Warehouse, The Garden with G.L.A.S & TRMNL (tickets £30), or a more intimate affair at the Rainbow Pub & Courtyard with Enid Blight On in the bar and Wobble v Crunch in the Courtyard (tickets £10). Both are followed by the Ultimate New Year’s After Party in the Rainbow Pub & Courtyard from ‘5am till whenever’.
The Rainbow aren’t the only ones offering a choice – at The Irish Centre Frank Dempsey is in the Leinster Suite (tickets £10) whilst Recovered are in the Connaught Bar (tickets £10).
The Mucksavage (better known as An Craic Editor John McMahon) is DJing in The Spotted Dog, supported by landlord John Tighe’s witticisms.
Of course, I won’t be at any of these because I’ll be too busy talking to people in the new Coach Station on Bradford Street. You can hear me talking about this on BBC Radio WM’s Breakfast Show at about 8.45am tomorrow morning.
Whatever you’re doing tomorrow night, have a Happy New Year!
There will be three presentations – from Environmental Health, Licensing, and the planning department – and the chance to quiz Council officers about future policy. Although publicans are the main target group of the evening, it is open to anyone who cares about the area. In an email to local residents, Spotted Dog landlord John Tighe has said:
This looks like it could be an important meeting. We do not want to let the Council get away with ticking a box saying that they’ve consulted everyone about noise issues, by hosting a meeting that no-one attends.
The meeting is being held by Regulatory Services at the Council House, Rooms 3 & 4, at 18:00pm on 24th November 2009. Anyone who wishes to attend should register in advance with Sophie.Mackay@birmingham.gov.uk. If you’d like to ask a question but can’t attend comment it and John Tighe will make sure it is asked.
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.
Short notice, but only just heard about this myself – there’s a Charity Night at The Spotted Dog tonight at which a cheque will be presented to Acorns. It’ll be Irish “Old-Time” style and John Tighe’s asked for ‘No “knuckle- draggers”.’ So if you’re not one of them pop along to enjoy the music music being supplied gratis by the following:
Digbeth Residents’ Association is meeting tonight at 7pm in The Paragon Hotel. Below are the minutes from the last meeting. All are welcome to come this evening – please come along. Items up for discussion are:
The Rainbow’s Noise Abatement Order from Birmingham Council. Both Kent Davis (Rainbow) and John Tighe (Spotted Dog) will be in attendance and will be happy to discuss the issue.
Work has commenced on the children’s play area, Highgate park. Plans were presented last meeting.
Bradford street improvements have now been given the go-ahead. Belated work to start 2010.
John Tighe spoke about the stakeholder Big City Plan consultation meeting on the evening of Tues 10th Feb in the Paragon Hotel. It will feature a presentation from Philip Singleton and/or Andrew Round (with an ‘approach to adopt plain language format, not jargon’) and workshops based on the areas of Highgate, Southside, Eastside and Digbeth.
Digbeth Residents can has a St Patrick’s Day Parade float! Join residents in the Spotted Dog, Warwick Street at 8pm on Mon 16th Feb to bash out some crazy ideas.
This appeal emailed out by John Tighe seemed worthy of copying and pasting for a wider audience:
Kent Davis of The Rainbow has asked for help in support of two retrospective planning applications for the Rainbow Warehouse. These are for premises that are already up and running, licensed and to quote the local police “run in an exemplary manner”.
Kent’s problem is that the Birmingham City Council’s Planning Department (presumably because he is not a major developer helping to enhance our City with unneeded Gerrybuilt flats) has taken issue with the fact that, although all other departments had been satisfied, he had not requested their permission for change of use from warehouse to whatever category it should be. Also, the bit under the arches is officially uncovered so requires some other hoops to be jumped through.
This was a complete oversight. These matters are normally paper-shifting and rubber-stamp jobs – fairly routine. However, considering the recent threats from Environmental Health about noise issues it might be necessary to demonstrate widespread approval from the unwashed majority. Please get involved and get your friends involved. Too much is happening in Digbeth behind our backs!
As promised, here’s the first video taken by my brand new Flip, kindly donated to me by Fullrange Films. Spotted Dog landlord John Tighe gets his head shaved for charidee by a rather un-PC barmaid. Funilly enough, no-one wants the lock of hair I harvested that evening. Thankfully Jon Bounds has come to the rescue with talk of somehow locking it inside the trophy for Brummie of the Year 2008. I hope this will start a tradition of the previous years’ winner passing on discarded body bits to their successors, complete with ceremony, like when Miss World passes on her crown but a bit grosser.
