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!
On Monday 25th January at 8pm in the Spotted Dog there will be an extra special screening of the documentary film The Irishmen for the BBC current affairs programme Inside Out. The Irishmen is a film about Irish railway workers in London in the 1960’s by Philip Donnellan, a documentary maker based in Birmingham in the 60’s and 70’s. Inside Out are making a film about Donnellan and are keen to collect reactions to this documentary:
We’d like very much to show the film to members of the Irish community here in Birmingham and then see what they think of it. Things like: Do they agree with what was being said? Does any of it still ring true? Should the film have been shown at the time or is it too one sided? etc.
So come along to the Spotted Dog for a great film, a nice drink and the chance to discuss it with the lovely chaps from the BBC afterwards. And if that weren’t tempting enough, there will also be free tea and buns in abundance.
Here’s artist Ben Waddington at his latest exhibition – a beer mat advent calendar currently on display at The Spotted Dog pub on Warwick Street. It’s an advent calendar made up of painted beer mats depicting signs and scenes personally significant to Ben. It’s on display until the twelfth day of Christmas, 6th January 2010.
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!
As posted previously on here (and on The Stirrer and More Canals Than Venice), Birmingham City Council is holding a meeting on 24th November to discuss the issue of licensed premises and noise in the area, enabling some of the concerns raised about The Rainbow pub and the Spotted Dog to be discussed. However I’ve indirectly discovered the meeting is not open to anyone who would like to attend, as was previously stated here and elsewhere.
The initial invite from Birmingham City Council stated the meeting ‘is open to anyone from the pubwatch area’s, licencees or others that have an interest in attending’ but apparently this does not mean it is open toall who have an interest. Here’s an extract from an email sent by a council employee that was forwarded to me:
This presentation has been organised for Publicans, and those directly involved with licensed premises such as breweries, unfortunately a misunderstanding has arisen that has implied that anyone who is interested in the topic may attend the meeting, this is not the case.
Personal invitations have been sent to the chairs of all local pub watches within the whole of Birmingham and not just the Digbeth area. Therefore I would appreciate it if you could indicate in what capacity you would like to attend the presentation as numbers are limited.
Here’s some highlights of the lovely garden party at The Spotted Dog last Thursday evening – Muchuu playing their particular brand of loveliness and our very own John Mostyn holding a raffle, ably assisted by the beautiful Claire Burgess.
Now my poor Flip cannot quite capture the sweet sounds of Muchuu, so please check out their website for the full, fantastic effect.
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.
Tessa Lowe, the driving force behind the Brainstorm open mic night at The Old Crown, introduces a new open mic night – Spot the Dog at the Spotted Dog. The grand opening is on Sat 24th Jan and will feature John Mostyn‘as his majesty the king’ and a singing fish. It’s set to be a regular thing, on the fourth Saturday of each month.
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.
