After having a very long, marathon sleeping session I think I’ve just about recovered from my 12-hour New Year sit-in in the new Birmingham Coach Station. It was a great night and surprisingly good fun – I cannot recommend enough that everyone spends a little time watching the world go by in the nearest coach or train station, to experience where you live as a traveler. You’ll see a truly different side to your area and get to talk to some very interesting people passing through it, who all have their own stories to tell.
Midge passes through before going to a Sheldon house party
I’ll be writing up some of the stories I got to hear here under the heading NYE Express, a title thought up by Midge, who kindly popped by to see me with a little something to see me through the night. He wasn’t the only one:
Ben Mabbett was at the station waiting for me when I arrived with a little bottle of bubbly in a brown paper bag, which was ever so thoughtful.
On the morning of New Year’s Eve I was on BBC Radio WM chatting to Daz Hale – you can listen again here for one week (I’m at the tail-end of the show, roughly 2:18 in).
Roughly twenty-two hours later I was back in Radio WM studio chatting to Brett Birks about the experience. The programme is not available to listen again but Alan Colson took a sneaky audioboo:
I managed to collect quite a few stories during the night. Watch this space for future NYE Express posts to read all about them.
The 4am Project would like to invite you to a very special 4am photography event in Birmingham. This event is going to be held at the Bodies Revealed Exhibition at the Custard Factory, and there are 100 FREE tickets for this event!
So set your alarm clock, drag yourself out of bed and grab your camera!
UB40 played their Raise The Roof gig at The Rainbow last night, raising publicity to the campaign against the Noise Abatement order as well as money for a new, sound-insulating roof. Photographer Karen Strunks listened to her gut instinct and went to the gig sans press pass, but managed to sweet-talk her way in (she’s good at that) and got some great photos.
UB40 gave their support to The Rainbow because it is under threat as it has received a noise abatement order from local residents (or resident). Although the landlord Kent Davis has agreed to build a noise insulating roof, there was still more funding needed. UB40 stepped in, and the sales from the tickets and takings behind the bar will go towards the new roof. Digbeth is a vital part of Birmingham’s cultural scene and the music in and around the area plays an important role. I hope that tonight, The Rainbow has managed to raise all the funding needed. As the local saying goes “Keep Digbeth Vibrant!”
The new exhibition Bodies Revealed at the Custard Factory had a press day last Wednesday, which has resulted in some links. Karen Strunks went along with her camera and took some striking images, which she’s compiled into the video above. She seemed to enjoy it, posting one picture as her BiNS Friday Photo.
Would I recommend the exhibition? Absolutely. It’s a chance to see the human body how you would never get to see it ordinarily. It is fascinating, informative and something very, very different.
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.
We had a grand old time, taking in the pubs, street art and public art and, thanks to Karen Strunks’ blagging skills, a grand tour of the Travel West Midlands bus depot on Liverpool Street by the lovely Myron. Karen Strunks got to sit in the diver’s seat of a brand new bus, we took a double decker ride through the bus wash and said farewell to some older buses destined for that great bus depot in the sky. Here’s some photos of our fun:
Andy Mabbett asked how Belfast Social Media Surgeries and Cafe’s are doing. Now, I don’t know much about Belfast’s social media scene but I was lucky enough to meet someone who did – Phil O’Kane, a Belfast photographer who took part in the 4am Project, met up with Karen Strunks and I for a drink (and didn’t make it home until the following morning after falling asleep on a sofa, but that’s another story). He seemed to know his stuff, so I took the opportunity to milk him for the information Andy wanted.
Seems their social media cafes are more commonly known as OpenCoffee Belfast, ‘an informal meet-up for people with an interest in technology, the internet, business and startups’ in Charlie’s Coffee Shop every other week.
Rather than our Barcamps, Belfast has San Fancisco export Cupcake Camp, ‘an ad-hoc get-together where participants bake and bring cupcakes to share and socialise. It’s organised primarily over the internet, making use of the most modern communications to get people involved.’
For the more tech savvy, there’s Build, ‘a leading-edge event covering design, standards, best practice and accessibility on the web.’ It’s organised by Andy McMillan, who seems to have a bit of a habit of organising good stuff like events, fringes and photo walks in and around Belfast. Good chap.
There’s quite a bit going on down south too, which many from Northern Ireland make the effort to go to. Phil feels because there’s more money and people in southern Ireland, the scene seems to be growing a lot more down there.
There’s also Blogger/Twitter/Whatever meet-ups, ‘an informal gather of people who are interested in (but not limited to) blogging, social media and the web’ that sound not unlike our Brumbloggers meets. BTW’s have popped up in Dublin and Cork. They’re organised by an Irish blogger called Jason Roe, an interesting man who caused a very heated debate after he noticed a little ‘bug’ in Ryanair’s online booking system and blogged about it. Rather than thanking him for highlighting the error, staff proceeded to leave some pretty angry coments on the post. Ryanair’s official response to this bad behaviour?:
“Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again. Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.”
So it seems Ryanair don’t like bloggers half as much as BMI Baby, who are itching to fly us to their destinations.
I’m loathe to say Birmingham wins this one for being awesome, for fear of sounding far too self-congratulatory, so I’ll leave the outcome up to you. But it is nice to swap notes with people from other places and see what’s going on elsewhere. And it was lovely to meet Phil, even if he was unconscious by midnight. Lightweight.
I hope when visitors come to the city they know about these treasures. You could easily spend a day visiting them, enjoying a few drinks and soaking in the atmosphere. When more and more older pubs are closing down, it’s important to support these gems and to help keep them going before they are part of history.
Friday Photo by Karen Strunks – Birmingham: It’s Not Shit – Made a new category called ‘Voices from the motherland’, bringing the Irish Quarter related bits from across the sea. This is Karen Strunks’ Friday Photo of Londonderry, Northern Ireland, which she managed to get onto a Birmingham website because:
My dad mentioned that Birmingham and Derry had a history together. A company called Birmingham Sound Reproducers from Perry Park Road, Birmingham set up a factory in Derry many years ago. It produced turntables and decks used in record players and was one of the worlds leading suppliers of these. As well as a factory in Birmingham which employed about 14,000 at it’s peak, it was one of the biggest employers in Derry in the 50’s and 60’s.
