News of two tasty little events – the second of which I’m particularly excited about. But first, to West Bromwich – and to a comedy competition! The Public’s suffered from more than a little derision and criticism since it opened (“that big, hugely expensive building in the middle of West Brom which nobody bothers to […]
Author Archives: Christopher
Vote for your favourite charity for 2009’s Brum Twestival
With the next Brum Twestival fast approaching in September this year, the organisers have decided to hold a vote to find out which local charity is the favourite of the twestival-goers – and which will be supported at this year’s event. All the candidates are excellent charities in their own right, and I strongly urge […]
About Brum Podcast: Episode 1 now out
Roll up, roll up – it’s the shiny new About Brum podcast, replete with delicious podcasty goodness and compatible with all half-decent media players and devices. The inaugural episode features Nick Booth of Podnosh and Birmingham Social Media Surgery fame! Also, Birmingham- or West Midlands-based band? Get your music featured on the next instalment… Contact […]
[updated] ANPR camera rollout across Birmingham city centre commences
The eagle-eyed amongst you may have already noticed unmarked black gantries appearing in several areas of Birmingham over the past week or so. Some have already gone up in Digbeth, and from informal discussion with contractors installing the gantries today it appears that there are at least 10 more to go. Today (Monday), two gantries […]
Notice: AB undergoing WordPress upgrade
I’m currently upgrading About Brum to the latest stable WordPress – I’ve left it too long without updating and it was becoming dangerously obsolete, so I took the plunge a little earlier today. There will be some temporary ugliness but fortunately the WP coders have made upgrading to a new point release wonderfully simple – […]
No more lying to Birmingham City Council, then…
…As apparently they’ve just decided to take delivery of a new VRA (Voice Risk Analysis) system for their Benefits helpline, in an effort to reduce fraud (often indicative of lying, just how polygraphs work) by detecting stress in a caller’s voice. Rats. In the first three months of a pilot scheme in Harrow, north London, […]
The Persuaders (no, not those Persuaders)
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 […]
In case you missed it, Birmingham has a music video
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 […]
Gay Pride, Tolkien and Longbridge
An odd couple of bedfellows, but both quite significant events that took place last weekend – Birmingham hosted the Gay Pride weekend, seeing hundreds and thousands of people converge on the second city for a weekend of festivities, celebration, drinking and general madness… My lesbian housemate certainly seemed to enjoy herself, though she’s not shown […]
Birmingham on film
This is something I’ve had in my bookmarks for a while waiting for a purpose: I know this may well have slipped many people by (it almost slipped me by when it was first published) but the BBC ran a feature about a film made to promote Birmingham in the 1970s. Called “Telly Savalas looks […]
