Category Archives: Birmingham

Winterval – the truth

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Mike Chubb got in touch, having seen my responses to falsehoods in the Birmingham Post, about Winterval, to say:

In conversation with Polly Toynbee of The Guardian re the long running Winterval Saga, she suggested that, as the originator of Winterval, I should stand up and put my name to it. So here I am.

I am Mike Chubb, as Head of Events for Birmingham at the time I invented the term Winterval (41 days and nights of festive fun!), fully supported by The Council and the cultural and business community. I am continually fascinated that the term Winterval, ever caused (and still does) such a furore.

Quite simply, as Head of events at that time, we needed a vehicle which could cover the marketing of a whole season of events…Diwali (festival of Lights), Christmas lights switch on, BBC Children in Need, Aston Hall by Candlelight, Chinese New year, New Years eve etc. Also a season that included theatre shows and open air ice rink, Frankfurt open air Christmas market and the Christmas seasonal retail offer. Christmas, called Christmas! and its celebration, lay at the heart of Winterval.

Political correctness was never the reasoning behind Winterval, but yes it was intended to be inclusive (which is no bad thing to my mind) and a brand to which other initiatives could be developed as part of The Winterval offer in order to sell the City at a time when all cities are competing against each other for the seasonal trade.

Each part of Winterval had its own marketing plan… the same as ,for instance the marketing of a brand whose sub brands (ie chocolate)have their own niche marketing.

I do believe that those who took umbrage did it for their own reasons, to sell their own message and of course, everybody got on to their own hobby horses in the process.

I am amazed that no-one could see the simplicity of The Winterval brand, but read into it what they wanted; to further and give voice to their own aspirations/prejudices. It is time for Birmingham to be proud of Winterval and stand up for an innovative initiative that befits an outward looking city.

However on the plus side thank you for keeping the Winterval campaign going and keeping Birmingham in the World’s eye… what fantastic publicity.

As I still have in my posession the original Winterval brochure produced by Birmingham City Council, I can confirm that it does indeed incude the things Mike describes, plus details of a Christmas Carol Concert and pictures of angels. As soon as I can rememer where it is, I’ll post pictures

Birmingham Post and Flickr images

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PostBlog

I am shocked and more than a little disappointed to see that the picture used by the Birmingham Post in this blog post seen above, by the tiresome Roshan Doug, and credited, poorly, as “Photo from Flickr” (Why no mention of the photographer? Flickr is a hosting website, not a picture agency) is marked by the original photographer as “All rights reserved”. Perhaps I’m being overly cynical, and the Birmingham Post can reassure us that a cheque will be in the post to the photographer shortly. After all, Doug is apparently a magistrate, so wouldn’t condone anything like copyright theft, would he?

Update: Another post by Doug, “Where the weather suits my clothes – or not!” was using this “all rights reserved” image when I first captured it in my RSS reader:

PostBlog2b

but appears to be doing so no longer.

Second update: Within 30 minutes of my posting the above, and mentioning it on Twitter (where the Birmingham Post follow me) the image was removed from Doug’s blog.

(Bus) stop this madness!

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One afternoon last week, I had cause to catch TWM‘s 997 bus from central Birmingham to Great Barr, while my car was in the garage, for its annual MOT test (it passed, I’m pleased to say).

I have mixed views on public transport: on the one hand it’s a good thing (TM), in that it’s available to all, environmentally friendly, and so on, but on the other hand, it usually involves the kind of user-experience which makes it undesirable for anyone who doesn’t have to use it through lack of choice.

I had already used the 997 into Birmingham that morning. It’s a limited stop service, and I must say I had been impressed that the level of comfort was higher than I was expecting.

I wasn’t sure when where to catch the bus for my return journey, so looked up the route on the Transport Direct website.

The way that site works makes it impossible to link to the relevant timetable, but as this screenshot shows, they clearly say that the service departs from Carrs Lane in Birmingham City Centre.

[Transport Direct web page showing Carrs Lane as start of route 997]

I arrived in good time for the advertised departure, but none of the three bus stops in Carrs Lane listed the 997 as stopping there.

Purely by chance, I happened to see the 997 turning into Carrs Lane, from High Street, only to stop at a pedestrian crossing. I indicated to the driver that I wished to board, and he kindly opened the doors and allowed me to do so.

I subsequently found that the 997 does not stop in Carrs Lane, but around the corner — and earlier on its route — at stop DG, on High Street (map here).

[showing corner of High Street & Carrs Lane]

The above picture shows the corner of High Street and Carrs Lane. The bus stop on the extreme left is stop DG, on High Street. On the extreme right, it is just possible to see stop DH, the nearest on Carrs Lane. Note also the pedestrian crossing at the start of Carrs Lane.

The bus I boarded had already departed from its stop. Had it not been for the pedestrian crossing and the kindness of the driver, I would have missed the bus, and thus missed the chance to pick up my car before the garage closed.

TWM and Transport Direct need to work together to eliminate erroneous information from the latter’s service, not least if they expect to entice car drivers onto public transport.

[997 at stop DG on HIgh Street, Birmingham]

Come friendly bombs and fall on Birmingham Central Library

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OK, Hands up everyone who thinks Birmingham Central Library is of sufficient architectural merit to warrant occupying its prominent position in the centre of Birmingham? OK, now put your hands down again if you’ve never worked in there (as an employee, I mean: not just doing your homework for a few hours).

Well, you might not have done, but I have, and it was awful. Bad acoustics, stale air, inflexible, unwelcoming — and impossible to drill into to attach a coat hook, much less a bookshelf.

Goodbye and good riddance to the monstrosity.

Spotted Mimics

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As a child, I was often taken to our local shopping centre in Perry Barr, north Birmingham (since replaced by a tin shed with pretensions of being a mall) to see a Mynah bird (Acridotheres tristis). It resided in what I now realise was a ridiculously small cage, on the counter of a petshop, and would delight all and sundry by asking repeatedly, “Where’s George?”, wolf whistling, or performing another of its many acts of mimicry.

Now my ears are more attuned to such things I realise that the journey was unnecessary. Still living in Birmingham, I can hear the avian equivalent of Rory Bremner any time I wish, simply by opening a window and listening to the Mynah’s relatives, my local Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). With the onset of autumn, they flock in ever increasing numbers, resplendent in new, strikingly sleek and spotty plumage, and very vocal. As well as having an uncanny ability to sound like any number of other birds, they have been known to imitate car alarms and mobile phones, and even children’s playground screaming.

The quiet suburban road where I live is rarely without Starlings, at any time of day, but the city-centre skies are no longer darkened by the flocks which came in to roost there in my childhood. A backfiring car would see thousands take off at once, and have pedestrians reaching for tissues to remove their supposedly “lucky” deposits from clothing or — worse — hair.

The birds in my garden are far better behaved, except when treated to their favourite delicacy: leftover, raw, shortcrust pastry. They descend from my and my neighbours’ rooftops the second I step back from the bird table, and the food disappears in moments, in a cloud of flying feathers and squawking and pecking bills, the birds mingling too rapidly to count accurately.

One particularly convincing, if annoying, individual has perfected the art of reproducing a Buzzard‘s (Buteo buteo) mewing call, no doubt heard in more open country. Ever gullible, I rush into the garden each time it performs this trick, in the hope of adding the real thing to my “garden list”. So far, without success.

[The above was written some time ago, with the intention of emulating the Guardian’s Country Diary column. As such, it has exactly 200 words, not counting the subsequent addition of scientific names. These are marked up with the draft Species Microformat, which I developed, and which is already being used on Wikipedia.]

What would my grandfathers have said?

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Back in 1996, or thereabouts, I gave a presentation to a meeting of my then colleagues and senior managers, and said something to the effect that the web, and the technologies that were emerging alongside it, would “change the way we work, as surely as the coming of electricity changed the way our grandfathers worked”. They looked at me as though I was raving mad, and there was even a murmur of embarrassed laughter. [To be fair, one of the few present who seemed to accept what I said was Michael — later Sir Michael — Lyons, whom I had earlier shown his first ever view of a web site. Now, as chairman of the BBC Trust, he’s responsible for overseeing bbc.co.uk!]

Last week, I wrote a review of a concert by the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall (please feel free to comment on my review, below). During the interval, still sat in my seat (booked, of course, by e-mail), I wirelessly bluetooth connected a pocket-sized, folding keyboard (an iGo device, purchased on-line) to my Nokia N95 mobile computer (it’s really not fair to refer to the latter as a mere “phone”) and jotted down my thoughts on the first half. After the concert, I sat in the ICC’s adjacent cafe and, using the same kit, fact-checked some spellings and dates on the web, then completed the draft of my review, which I then sent by e-mail to my home PC. To be more precise, I hit “send” and dropped the N95 into my back pocket. The e-mail was actually sent from there, as I walked to my car.

When I got home, I tidied my prose, then e-mailed the review to the publishing site’s editor, who, after his usual procrastination, uploaded it to his web server. Can you imagine me writing a review that way, in 1995? I think I had the last laugh, after all. My grandfathers, George Mabbett and Harry Brazier, would have been astonished. And, I hope, proud.

Surface Unsigned: to be avoided

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Like many others (see below) I’m seriously unimpressed that Surface Unsigned have tried to stifle reasonable criticism made on Created in Birmingham, by threatening legal action on what appear to be spurious grounds, in order to force the removal of this extract of their contract with performers:

As you must bring with you at least 25 people to your event you must sell at least 25 tickets for each round you play. If you do not sell 25 tickets you will still be allowed to play however you will NOT progress to the next round no matter how many Surface Ratings you receive.

I hope others will support Created in Birmingham by linking to the following blog posts, and adding them to social bookmarking sites like Ma.gnolia, Digg and Delicious.

Update: Curiously Jay Mitchell, the person behind Surface Unsigned, is involved in another event which openly advertises similar conditions.

Update: Dead link removed, 30 July 2010

Free music, courtesy of your library

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I lay awake last night (or rather, early this morning) listening to Radio 3, and heard some wonderful music by Paul Gilson, a composer I’d never previously even heard of.

The pieces were all delightful, and were “La captive”, “Andante and Scherzo for cello and orchestra” and “La mer”, performed by Timora Rosler (cello), Brassband Buizingen and the Flemish Radio Choir and Orchestra with conductor Martyn Brabbins.

If (like me in Birmingham), you have an enlightened library service, they will have paid for a subscription to Naxos Music, so, by entering your library card number (you do have a library card, don’t you?) you can listen on-line, for free, to a “CD quality” stream of their recordings of Gilson’s music (or anything else in their vast and ludicrously high-quality catalogue). From home (or anywhere else, for that matter).

Well, what are you waiting for?!

Cards are barking up the wrong Christmas Tree

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This year my Christmas cards have gone to the dogs – to Birmingham Dog’s Home, to be precise.

This is part charitable donation, part environmentalism (cards are such a waste of paper), and part consolation for the fact that my lifestyle precludes me from keeping a pooch of my own.

Merry Christmas!

Oops

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A WindowsXP error message, projected onto a building in Birmingham, for all to see.