About Brum

While many may not know who these guys are, The Persuaders a design agency based in the Midlands who’ve done a slew of work for a variety of companies, including the BBC and (ironically) Digital Central, an Advantage West Midlands organisation who in turn produce their own content and sites.

The Persuaders did a CMS-based site for Digital Central, and I never realised this until I found my way to their almost without realising who they were! I thought it was highly ironic given that Digital Central is supposed to be able to do its own in-house web and content design (and indeed, they have, I’m working next year for a company whose entire online presence has just been bolstered by the rollout of a new ‘Digital’ site, complete with promotional tools and online retail facilities).

Makes you wonder why Digital Central didn’t just design their own site in-house… Anyways, the Persuaders site is a very fine piece of design, and makes an interesting few minutes of perusal just checking it out, seeing who they’ve designed material for – you might have actually engaged in some of their content without even realising it.

This made the news sites a while back now, but I’ve had it in one of my Opera tabs for a long time and never bothered to note it down on here. It seemed appropriate that I reference it, even though others have done so long before myself.

It’s a music video made as a promotional tool for the council and as such works quite well – it’s got some great montages of the sights in and around Brum, and the song’s pretty good to boot. The BBC site’s got it available for streaming on their Birmingham LocalTV subsite (and the accompany article, with a link to the video, can be found here).

Something I hadn’t noticed until I just had the video playing in the background – so I could only hear the sound – was that after the song finishes, and the credits roll, there’s a bloke heard speak very quietly in the background of the audio. I don’t think (well, I hope not!) that this was intended, but I don’t have a copy of the video on DVD so I can’t verify against the original version, so either the BBC kit had a dry wire or ground loop somewhere in the signal path, or the video was VERY poorly mastered!

What he says is quite amusing, too… If you’ve got very good ears, or you just turn the volume all the way up (the scientific method), this is what you’ll hear:

<guitar fades out>

“And join me to meet the mushroom picker who doesn’t mind working in the dark, and having compost dumped on his head… Join me to meet the mushroom picker who doesn’t mind working in the dark, and having compost dumped on his head… That’s right, join me at Warwick University where we meet a mushroom picker who doesn’t mind working in the dark, and having compost dump-”

Make what you will of that, but either which way, it’s an amusing easter egg! I’m feeling generous, so I clipped the audio and attached it as an MP3 for your enjoyment, though you can just watch the video in its entirety on the BBC web site if you think I’m having you on. Take a listen: Warwick University Mushroom Pickers?