Brumspace Blogs

By The Way...: Ben realised...

Benjaminbrum — 2008-11-19T00:02:27+00:00

That he'd ripped his entire music collection but not actually loaded it onto i tunes to listen to.

Stupid, eh?

Why isn't there a "You've got a lot of music on this computer that hasn't been listened to... would you like it?" popup?

Simon Howes: UB40’s Red Red Wine pub becomes a victim of the Credit Crunch

2008-11-18T23:50:54+00:00

The Sunday Mercury have covered the closing of the Eagle and Tun. Last time I knew it was open it was being used by Birmingham City University as classrooms. Hopefully the new City Centre campus and thousands of students and local residence coming to Eastside will bring this pub back to life. IT is the world-famous [...]

By The Way...: Rosie Thomas

Benjaminbrum — 2008-11-18T23:40:44+00:00

After a brief flirtation with electronica I seem to be settling back into acousticy, guitar based musical goodness.

One such balm for my soul is Rosie Thomas. She's a comedian/musician/genius from Seattle. She was supposed to play Greenbelt a couple of years ago but didn't come. I'll poke the greenbelt kids in the ribs and get them to book her.

And I just discovered she's got a Christmas album!

If I'm a good boy maybe Santa will bring me a copy!!

And I think I know who'll I'll buy a copy for. *sneaky sneaky*

Created In Birmingham: Plight of the hedgehog

2008-11-18T23:21:22+00:00

Not strictly creative (although I’m not sure what is these days) but it’s Harry Palmer, so worth a mention.

Join Harry Palmer this Saturday (22nd Nov) near St Martins Church – Bullring, Birmingham (3pm sharp) to hear details surrounding the tragic crisis of the hedgehog in Birmingham

Here’s the flyer:

© Chris Unitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us digg
Who's linking ? Technorati BlogPulse Google
Want more on these topics ? Browse the archive of posts filed under Others.

Created In Birmingham: Arty pubs

2008-11-18T22:58:23+00:00

I’m doing this wrong, I know I am. What I should do is go to the places I’m about to mention, ‘experience the art’, get trollied and turn this into some gonzo jounalism effort.

Sigh.

Anyway, there are a few pubs in Birmingham that are pushing the arty side of things - two in Hockley that have been about for a bit (but not all that long) and a new pretender the other side of town.

The Lord Clifden touts itself as Birmingham’s ‘urban art bar’ and makes a fair claim on the title by having work by Banksy, D*Face, Nick Walker, Blek, Obey, Faile and Army Lion knocking about. It’s at 34 Great Hampton Street, Hockley (map).

The Urban Art Bar people also own The Red Lion at 95 Warstone Lane, Hockley (map) which seems to follow the same formula and only opened a month ago (I think). There’s info and a few reviews on the beerintheevening.com page.

The Victoria (website soon come) is the new one - it only opened last Thursday. The pub’s been around for a while but has now been taken over by the people who own Island Bar. The pub now boasts a Birmingham cityscape mural made by the Them Lot collective which is based on the computer game Rampage.

It’s round the back of the Alexandra Theatre at 48 John Bright Street (map) and promises DJs, bands and burlesque shows. It was also the venue for Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School the other day (and will be again on 17 Jan).

By The Way...: BNP membership list online.

Benjaminbrum — 2008-11-18T22:56:25+00:00

Yes, I've seen it. Yes, it's genuine.

Yes, it confirmed some thoughts about a couple of students I worked with at the guild who've now moved onto a career in teaching.

No, I won't post the link. And, No, I shouldn't have read it.

It's terribly conflicting as this is exactly the same mentality that created a blog like redwatch. (A site that publishes names and addresses of left leaning people around the country, nice)

Surprisingly I don't feature on that page. (Which is quite nice actually. I don't want fascists knowing where I live and work- although you don't have to be Miss Marple to work all that out) Edgbaston usually puts around 300 votes into the BNP column. That's never going to solidify into an actual win for them. And is why I will always campaign against the BNP.

Podnosh: Linda Hines Blogs - another win for the social media surgery.

2008-11-18T22:47:55+00:00

I’ve just found another blog (courtesy of the Be Birmingham site) set up following last months Birmingham social media surgery for Blog Action Day. (Next surgery November 26th is also supported by the Third sector Assembly and BVSC but continues to use volunteers from the Birmingham Bloggers group. Community groups and voluntary orgs hugely welcome, please click here for details)
Bend it Like Linda can be found here. She writes:

Hi, this is my first experience of blogging so I’m a little nervous about what to write! I live in Perry Common and have been actively involved in my comunity for 18 years now. I was recently invited to become a “Community Champion” by Be Birmingham which means that I represent the community at a very high level and am able to feed others views and ideas into the strategic partnership

Linda Hines is a remarkable woman (who’s nerves I can understand but they might surprise some) who first became an active citizen when the council told her they would have to demolish her house. I’ve worked with her a number of times, including with residents for regeneration, the Third Sector Assembly, the local strategic partnership and the now defunct b:cen. Whoever gets to coach Linda at our next surgery will have a great time.

If you want to prepare yourself listen to the sometimes tearful story of why she does what she does please listen to this podcast from the Grassroots Channel in July 2006.

I've just found another blog (courtesy of the Be Birmingham site) set up following last months Birmingham social media surgery for Blog Action Day. (Next surgery November 26th is also supported by the Third sector Assembly and BVSC but continues to use volunteers from the Birmingham Bloggers group.nbsp; Community groups and voluntary orgs hugely welcome, please click here for details) Bend it Like Linda can be found here.nbsp; She writes: Hi, this is my first experience of blogging so Irsquo;m a little nervous about what to write! I live in Perry Common and have been actively involved in my comunity for 18 years now. I was recently invited to become a ldquo;Community Championrdquo; by Be Birmingham which means that I represent the community at a very high level andnbsp;am able to feed others views and ideas into the strategic partnership Linda Hines is a remarkable woman (who's nerves I can understand but they might surprise some) who first became an active citizen when the council told her they would have to demolish her house. I've worked with her a number of times, including with residents for regeneration, the Third Sector Assembly, the local strategic partnership and the now defunct b:cen.nbsp; Whoever gets to coach Linda at our next surgery will have a great time. If you want to prepare yourself listen to the sometimes tearful story of why she does what she does please listen to this podcast from the Grassroots Channel in July 2006.

Created In Birmingham: Stan Sulzmann and the Heritage Orchestra

2008-11-18T21:34:46+00:00

I saw the The Heritage Orchestra at the Town Hall (one of their rather good resonance events) last month and they were great, so I was chuffed to hear about Birmingham Jazz’s plans for celebrating Stan Sulzmann’s birthday:

Stan Sulzmann has had a long relationship with Birmingham Jazz and is a Honorary Fellow at Birmingham Conservatoire. So when Stan mentioned that he will be 60 this November, plans were immediately put in place to mark the event in Birmingham with a concert with a small version of The Heritage Orchestra (THO) and with arrangements of Stan’s material by both Jules Buckley and Stan himself.

Stan will be playing with THO’s 13-piece string section plus an extended rhythm section with piano, bass, drums, guitar and percussion. There will also be new material written for the occasion by Stan himself and by THO members Tom Richards and Sam Bullard

Woo-hoo! It’s on Sat 28 Nov at the CBSO Centre and tickets are available NOW!

Info about Stan Sulzmann’s 60th Birthday Celebration is here along with all the other stuff Birmingham Jazz have got on this month (ooh, Portico Quartet on the 29th).

Created In Birmingham: Opera Warwick - Dido and Aeneas

2008-11-18T21:20:19+00:00

Warwick Uni’s opera, drama, and dance societies have got together and are putting on performances of Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas‘ at a selection of churches around the West Mids, including a show at St Martin’s church on Wed 26 November.

There’s plenty more info on the press release here.

Andrew Dubber: The coincidence

2008-11-18T18:53:52+00:00

I went into Jibbering Records today for a coffee with a friend of mine to talk about an online music project.

As usual, Rich (aka DJ Cro) was there, and he had just taken receipt of the new 7″ single he’s releasing by an artist called Serocee on his label Crate Escape Records (though this is labelled as being from JamBrum Records - for reasons that are too insider to try to explain).

Rich played me the record - the video for which is above - and I picked up number 11 of a limited run of 200.

I happened to have with me on the laptop a copy of a record by a friend of mine back in New Zealand. Andrew Spraggon releases as Sola Rosa and his new album is coming out early next year, so I’m led to understand - but I thought Rich might like to hear some of it.

I played a few tracks, which were met with approval. And then ‘I’ve Tried Ways’ came on.

“Oh, I think you’ll like this one…” I said.

“Um… that’s Serocee on vocals. What the hell?” said Rich.

And it was. What are the odds? I get a new record from Birmingham and a new record from New Zealand, play one to the person behind the other - and they feature the same guy.

That’s just bizarre.

But She's A Girl: Shadow sister

bsag — 2008-11-18T18:10:06+00:00

[Something I wrote in my head at the end of last week, cycling home.]

The bright full moon is floating down the river, trembling and fractured by the breeze. A rider's lamp behind me spawns my shadow sister, moving in front of me, solid and hunched against the chill. She weaves left and right, now skimming across the grass, now sliding over the gravel path. I'm fascinated by my projected self, encountering the future ahead of me, but keeping me company on this cold, dark night.

Eventually, the rider passes me. My shadow sister slows then disappears, and I feel a sudden ridiculous pang of loss for something which was just a trick of the light. Despite knowing how she was born, I find myself looking for her for the rest of the journey, wondering if she's around the next corner, or waiting for me in the trees.

Pete Ashton: The Laurie Taylor Test

2008-11-18T17:19:47+00:00

There are many things I love about Radio 4 (and a few things I really can’t be doing with) but the my most favouritist thing ever is probably Thinking Allowed with Laurie Taylor. Partly it’s his wonderful voice but that alone isn’t enough to distinguish TA from the other wonderful voices on R4. Peter Day’s In Business is a fantastic listen despite the subject matter thanks to his vocal tones but there’s something special about how Laurie does his stuff, more akin to John Peel, now I think of it.

I like to keep a stock of unlistened TA podcasts for rainy days and insomniac nights and recently found them useful for solving a dilemma. My brain has a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night. Everything is quiet and calm and ideas and notions bubble up no matter how tired I might be. When it gets to 3am I have to make a decision. Will I try and get to sleep or will I give up, make some tea, and start working? In order to decide I do the Laurie Taylor test.

I turn off the lights and start playing a random TA podcast. It doesn’t matter what it’s about just as long as Laurie is presenting it. The battle is now on between his calming voice and his stimulating subject matter. Which will win out? If I’m asleep after half an hour then I’m asleep but if my mind is still racing then I might as well get up. And whatever happens I’ve probably learned something interesting in the process.

Podnosh: Social Media Surgeries - breeding in Brum

2008-11-18T15:46:32+00:00

We Share Stuff has announced a new set of Sunday morning internet surgeries in Erdington – building on what else has been developing in Birmingham.

so put Sunday 23rd November in your diaries as the ‘We Share Stuff’ team will be at The Red Couch cafe, Erdington each Sunday morning from 11:00am to around 1:00pm. The surgery will be free to attend and the cafe itself serves a wide selection of drinks and snacks. So if you’re curious about the Internet, want to know how to get a voice online, or merely want to drop by for a chat, please do. The atmosphere is real friendly and we promise not to bombard anyone with jargon. It’s all about showing you how easy the Internet is becoming.

It’s an important reminder than no one needs any formal organisation to be able to offer this help, just somewhere warm with wifi and somebody willing to serve a hot drink or two.

Meanwhile the Birmingham Bloggers group (with space and support from BVSC & the Birmingham 3rd Sector Assembly) is running a second social media surgery for voluntary organisations and community groups from the city Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 from 5.30pm to 7.00pm at the same venue at the first one (BVSC in Digbeth – see map link ~~4.064941&sspn=14.149238,34.101563&ie=UTF8&ll=52.478389,-1.891923&spn=0.014219,0.033302&z=15&iwloc=A”>here~~). If you came last time you are always welcome to come again. Please sign up by clicking ~~4.064941&sspn=14.149238,34.101563&ie=UTF8&ll=52.478389,-1.891923&spn=0.014219,0.033302&z=15&iwloc=A”>here~~). If you came last time you are always welcome to come again. Please sign up by clicking ~~4.064941&sspn=14.149238,34.101563&ie=UTF8&ll=52.478389,-1.891923&spn=0.014219,0.033302&z=15&iwloc=A”>here~~). If you came last time you are always welcome to come again. Please sign up by clicking ~~4.064941&sspn=14.149238,34.101563&ie=UTF8&ll=52.478389,-1.891923&spn=0.014219,0.033302&z=15&iwloc=A”>here~~). If you came last time you are always welcome to come again. Please sign up by clicking here

just so we know how many folk may turn up.

The original surgeries run by Pete Ashton may be thinner on the ground this winter – unless of course more of us pop along to keep them going – but you can still find him at Rooty’s.

Custard Factory Blog: Big City Plan summarised

2008-11-18T15:21:29+00:00

The Birmingham Central blog is currently going through the council’s Big City Plan and producing some very useful summaries of the notions contained therein. Part 3 is particularly of interest to us as it deals with the connectivity issues across the city centre and the various options for the quarters under development including Digbeth / Eastside where the Custard Factory resides.

it also has some nice diagrams. If you like diagrams.

via D’log

Created In Birmingham: More on the Big City Plan

2008-11-18T15:14:34+00:00

As far as the Big City Plan is concerned, so far there’s been plenty to talk about but nothing in writing to pick apart. Birmingham Central have picked out highlights of the

City Centre Masterplan (Big City Plan) Report from Acting Strategic Director of Development at Birmingham City Council to the Cabinet meeting on the 24th November

There follows multitudinous charts, maps and options. Worth a read if you’re interested in what’s being planned. (via D’log)

In fact, if that floats your boat then you might be interested in the next Creative Republic event. They’ve rescheduled the Creative Masterclass with Michael Wolff for Thurs 27 Nov at Fazeley Studios. The aim will be for Michael to

take on the challenge of developing a fantasy brief for that imaginary role, a creative director for Birmingham

Attendance is free but you’ll need to sign up via their website.

Birmingham Post News Blog: Angry MP Complains About Being Silenced (In A Long Speech)

Jonathan Walker — 2008-11-18T15:12:36+00:00

MPs are angry that they only have 90 minutes to debate plans for new regional Commons committees, which will oversee the work of Government in regions such as the West Midlands.

Sir Patrick Cormack (Con Staffordshire South) has led opposition, with an impassioned speech accusing the Government of stifling debate.

He said: "We make a mockery of this place if we do not have time to debate important issues."

So far, he's been talking for 35 minutes. As I write, the actual debate on how we run our region hasn't begun.

Created In Birmingham: Tweedeleededeedee, Sir Ru Barb and the Green Wolf

2008-11-18T14:50:13+00:00

‘Tweedeleededeedee, Sir Ru Barb and the Green Wolf‘ is the next project from The Destroyers and is an ‘urban folk opera written by Paul Murphy with a score by Frank Moon’.

Set in no particular time this opera draws freely from past, present and future to create an upbeat cautionary tale for discerning audiences of adults and children

It’s a family affair by the looks of things, and will be taking place on Sat 6 Dec at the Town Hall between 11am and 1pm. The first 45 mins will be a workshop to prepare the kids for singing roles in the chorus for the performance, which will start at 12pm.

Pete at Spaghetti Gazetti reminded me of this. His post also has the flyer and a story about Paul Murphy from back in the day.

Custard Factory Blog: News in brief

2008-11-18T13:51:32+00:00

Items of interest found around the Internets

New Birmingham Studios to offer homes to creative firms. - Lots of information in this Birmingham Post article about Fazeley Studios.
City councillor wants Birmingham to celebrate creative communities - Birmingham Post - With the Creative City Awards coming up Councilor Neville Summerfield bigs up the creative industries:
“As a civic leader Birmingham City Council has to establish and nurture progressive partnerships with all sectors of industry, within its city walls and outside them. It is our duty and our proud responsibility to create a culture of communication, recognition and mutual respect from which a healthy marriage of the private and the public sectors can be free to build the roads to future successes.”
Plus+ Roundup - Who said what about the design festival.
Birmingham Creative City Awards finalists - The contenders for the council’s annual awards are up featuring a number of Custard Factory and Big Peg tenants. The ceremony is on Saturday November 29th.
Time for Birmingham to support the independent arts - Helga Henry of Fierce Earth and Creative Republic, calls on Birmingham to extend the support given to the CBSO et al to smaller independent outfits. It does sound like she’s talking about Digbeth here…

Custard Factory Blog: New Substrakt site

2008-11-18T13:06:23+00:00

Something of a spate of website redesigns at the moment. Must be the time of year. Here’s Substrakt’s new site:

By The Way...: Here be pirates...

Benjaminbrum — 2008-11-18T12:50:59+00:00

It's always a bit weird when I read about pirates taking a ship or stealing something.

I still have visions of a galleon with canons, sails in the wind, peg leg, parrot etc. Curse you Johnny Depp, curse you and your bad theme park based films!

I was reading yesterday about some pirates taking a tanker and all I could think was: yehaaar, me hearties.

*shakes head*

Here's the latest: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7734733.stm

Custard Factory Blog: New Fused site

2008-11-18T12:50:43+00:00

Fused launched their new website last week, intended to compliment their quarterly magazine and extend it’s mission. Looking good!

Celeste H: Further Adventures with the NHS

C Hutchins — 2008-11-18T12:39:18+00:00

I went today for a psychiatric assessment. I spend a lot of time being evaluated, alas. This one was at a Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust medical center. It seemed like most of the other people there were for more body-focused medical stuff. It didn't have the kind of security that Dutch mental health centers have. Indeed, the doors opened automatically as I approached.

My appointment letter was for "Ms Celeste," which is better than Miss, at least. The receptionist looked at the letter and looked at me and asked who the appointment was for. I said my name. She looked at me a long second and then said ok and told me to sit.

The shrink was youngish. He had a student sitting in, a man about my age. I said I was ok with that. "Just ignore him" said the shrink. Right.

He had me go on and on about my childhood. Which, frankly, is not that interesting. Any fascinating memoir of my life would start later. I mean, the first time a gender shrink asks you about your childhood, you get to construct a narrative of yourself in regards to gender. Did you always know something was different? Were you blissfully unaware? Did others point out locations of difference that you didn't see for yourself? All of this tempered by the understanding that the receiver of said narrative is a hurdle between you and hormones/surgery/whatever you've come for.

So I banged out a narrative for an hour about how I'm a totally reasonable sane person. He wasn't a gender specialist, so when I said FTM, he asked what that stood for. So gender issues weren't even that present in the conversation. He did use the phrase "Gender Identity Disorder" though, and it got my hackles up a bit.

I don't like being called disordered. At all. The catholic church calls homosexuality "intrinsically disordered," which is a value judgment that I'm not keen on either. Why must every location of difference be called a disorder? Could it be a condition instead? Some other medical phrase? I'm proud of who I am. Indeed, to be different means that you have to be proud or be crushed. My identity is not a disorder, it's just atypical.

Then funding came up. He asked me when my student visa expires and started talking about "planned elective surgery." Which, I mean, Tower Hamlets is not awash in cash. It's one of the poorest boroughs in London. Why should they allocate their tax money to a foreign student? I don't know how NHS funding works, but it seems to be geographically divided. Are the residents of Tower Hamlets the main funding source for their primary care trust? Or does it come out of a large pot and then is distributed by population?

In order to change my documents in California, I need to get top surgery. Also, to be able to go swimming or wear a T shirt ever again in my life. So if the NHS won't fund it, I can . . . wait or self-fund. I don't think it's reasonable to try to get it too far from where I'm actually living, so surgery in California is not a good plan unless I move back there. It's possible for people in the UK to "go private" which means pay themselves for stuff rather than wait for the NHS to decide to pay for it. I have no idea how much this would cost here, nor if it would effect them covering my T prescriptions or anything else. Aside from whether or not I could afford it, there's issues about recovery time. It's long. I won't be able to lift things for weeks. This sort of situation requires close friends and I've only lived here since August. So even if I got NHS funding, it still might not be a reasonable plan. So maybe I'm destined to wait years no matter what.

When I do get it, if I still have savings, the first thing I'm going to do is buy the bike jersey I've been wanting, which I so can't wear right now.

Birmingham Post News Blog: Are we all getting a Christmas bonus from the taxman?

Jonathan Walker — 2008-11-18T10:45:39+00:00

Gordon Brown has been hinting again that the Government is planning to cut taxes when it presents its pre-budget report on Monday, November 24.

He told the Commons that "fiscal measures" were needed, in order to "help businesses and families now."

The Conservatives are trying to push the argument that the money to pay for tax cuts will have to come from borrowing - which will need to be paid back.

Tory leader David Cameron urged the Prime Minister to "be straight with the British people" and admit the cash will eventually have to come out of our pockets, in the form of higher taxes in years to come.

But this is a little disingenuous, as the Tories must have noticed that the Government has said more or less that.

Birmingham Hall Green MP Steve McCabe, a Government whip, said openly that the money will have to be repaid, when he spoke to the Birmingham Post & Mail recently.

Employment Minister Tony McNulty has said the same.

It's not quite certain that this will mean higher taxes, as tax revenues will rise once the economy starts to grow again even if tax rates remain the same, assuming spending is controlled.

But Labour have made no attempt to deny that taxes could eventually have to rise, and with good reason.

Mr Cameron is probably right in his prediction. But Labour are gambling that voters won't worry to much about the future if they get some extra cash in their pockets now, and if they are convinced it is all for the benefit of the wider economy as well as themselves.

What may be a problem for Mr Brown, however, is that he has raised expectations to such a level that people will be expecting a give-away mini-budget next week.

If his vaunted "fiscal measures" amount to an increase in tax credits for the low paid and a bit more on the winter fuel allowance, families on average wages who are feeling the pinch but aren't poor enough to qualify for the windfall may feel hard done by.

Online Journalism Blog: Lessons in community from community editors #7: Angela Connor of WRAL.com

2008-11-18T09:46:57+00:00

I’ve been speaking to news organisations’ community editors on the lessons they’ve learned from their time in the job. Today, Angela Connor, Managing Editor/User-Generated Content WRAL.com and GOLO.com

1. Acknowledge good work

As a community manager, it is important to make your members feel valued and appreciated. When you come across a great blog, interesting comment or great photo, send your compliments to the author, and do it publicly on their profile page or directly on the content.

Remember, you’re the community leader and your opinion matters a great deal. So don’t be stingy with it. Positive reinforcement goes a long way, and it will make that member feel valued and vested. Once that happens, they’re in for the long haul.

2. Ask for help

As the person responsible for the well-being and growth of the community, it’s easy to feel and operate like an island, putting all of that work on your own shoulders.

But as the community grows, so does the number of stakeholders. Use them to your advantage.

Contact your top posters and most involved members and ask them to greet and reach out to new members. Ask them to work on a community-driven FAQ. Tell them what kind of content you’d like to see more of and ask them to help you build it.

Not everyone will jump right in, but you may be pleasantly surprised by the level of response.

3. Know when to walk away

Community management is a tough job and there are days when it can be extremely stressful. From trolls running rampant to direct abuse from visitors and an overflowing inbox filled with pettiness, sometimes it can really take its toll.

When you find yourself feeling like your head is going to explode or as though you’ve reached the end of your rope, get up and walk away. Or better yet, log off the site and just take a deep breath.

Find a message board for community managers and vent with like-minded souls familiar with your plight. And remember, there’s always tomorrow.

Lessons in community from community editors: #1 Shane Richmond I've been speaking to news organisations' community editors on the...
Lessons in community from community editors #2: Mark Fothergill I’ve been speaking to news organisations’ community editors on the...
Lessons in community from community editors #3: Andrew Rogers, RBI After the first two of my interviews with news organisations’ community...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

D'log: Detroit accelerators

2008-11-18T08:44:46+00:00

Detroit — a city not unlike Birmingham in its post-war dependence on large car makers — has commissioned a New Economy Strategies consultancy report (PDF link) on…

“the best practices strategy of large creative accelerators“

…for the purposes of growing creative clusters. As studied in: London; New Zealand; Australia; Winston-Salem (USA) ; Providence (USA); Orlando, Florida (USA); and Charleston (USA).

The 29-page report is available here (PDF link), and there’s also a podcast…

“Chris Ilitch of Ilitch Holdings, Inc. and special guest Kelly Lee, Executive Vice President of Innovation Philadelphia [...] speak with guest host Sabrina Keeley, Vice President of Detroit Renaissance, and discuss the benefits of a creative economy accelerator.”

“creative sector businesses are now eligible for state ‘mega tax-breaks’ in our state” (Chris Ilitch)

Given the recently expressed concerns of the Custard Factory’s Bennie Gray, Detroit’s findings seem as though they might be both timely and potentially transferrable.

D'log: 75 comics currently being made into films

2008-11-18T08:31:26+00:00

A big list of 75 comics currently being made into films. The problem being, of course; how many comic-films can you remember rising above simple forgettable entertainment? Nausicaa (an animation)? X-Men 2? American Splendor? And er… that’s it, to my mind. But even if all but five of the 75 are likely to be dross at best, I have some hopes for any feature-film featuring the Marvel icons Doctor Strange and Nick Fury.

D'log: Big bits

2008-11-18T08:12:05+00:00

Birmingham Central picks the meaty bits off the City Centre Masterplan (aka The Big Plan).

D'log: Reverse geocoding

2008-11-18T08:02:08+00:00

Birmingham’s Subtrakt (kudos to them for recently winning a gong) point to a fascinating new ‘place-shaping’ ability for a Flickr/Google Maps API mashup…

“Flickr recently made a loads of interesting geo information available, by plotting the outside edge of geotagged photos they’ve managed to roughly show where a ‘place’ is according to people who have taken photos in that area.”

And they show an example of Digbeth. The reverse geocoding can be done via the Shape of Alpha API, it seems.

D'log: Morning Travelogue

2008-11-18T07:03:31+00:00

Morning Travelogue, a video-blog by a London bloke who’s decided to try walking to work.

Warning; sea-sickness inducing wobbly camerawork. He really needs a tripod (probably tricky in Central London, if you don’t want van-loads of police suddenly jumping on you) or a camera with video stabilisation. Or else he needs to practice for a steadier hand in fairly static shots and pans, and then to run the videos through freeware such as Deshaker before he puts them online.

D'log: C:Cubed

2008-11-18T07:01:05+00:00

The Arts Council are launching their Digital Content Development Programme for the West Midlands (previously piloted in South Yorkshire from 2005) at the ill-fated The Public building in West Bromwich on Thursday 4th December 08.

It’s a three-year programme, overseen by Steve Manthorp, and in South Yorkshire its remit was…

1) give annual research and development (R&D) awards of up to £50,000 to leading artistic, media and technical talent to explore the creative and economic possibilities of innovative content for new and emerging media platforms.

2) [smaller] awards help you take proposals from initial concept to pilot or prototype stage, where they could attract further development funding, production investment or full commissioning.

3) [enabling] creative and digital companies and individual practitioners to work with partners anywhere in the world.

At the West Bromwich launch there’ll also be talks by the already-launched 4iP, and ideas-generation activities…

“This is your chance to find out about [...] 4IP and the Digital Content Development Programme. Meet the funders and find out what they are looking for. The day will bring decision-makers from key regional arts organisations and digital agencies together [...] Up to three winning ideas created at C:CUBED will be awarded £1,000 development grants”

It’s on a Thursday, so I can’t go even if I had an invite — but it seems that the event is to be webcast…

“This event is invitation only, but sessions will be webcast live and available online.”

[ Hat-tip: Dave Harte ]

Antonio Roberts: The Shape of Digbeth - A Cat

2008-11-17T22:52:02+00:00

I saw this (via here):

And I instantly saw this:

The Shape of Digbeth, ladies and gentlemen, is a cat. If you should encounter this cat please have a supply of catnip with you.

The Coffee Grounds: The Great JezUK Computing Lab Infrastructure Rejiggle of 2008 - A Noisy Fan

2008-11-17T22:17:55+00:00

The noisy fan belonged to Animal, my email and subversion server. It was never the quietest machine and it had gradually become noiser and noisier over the years. In the past few months, it had started intermittently clattering. Now one noisy cooling fan doesn't a impending catastrophic hardware failure make, but it was a constant nagging reminder that the machine was ever more aging. Rather than wait for the box to eventually keel over I decided, in a non-specific mañana kind of way, to preempt it by doing an infrastructure makeover.

Over the past year or so, I'd toyed with buying another Linkstation, reflashing it to turn it into a proper little computer (rather than a dedicated fileserver) and set that up to handle the email. It's sounds like a fun little project, but the seemingly non-stop changes in hardware and the necessary knock changes to software make for somewhat of a moving target. Plus I'm naturally inclined to laziness.

Clattery-clattery ... but I had to do something. I had, after all, decided. I just needed something to come along and magically make rejiggling less faff, while simultaneously avoiding the risk of breaking anything that already works. And where do you find something like that ...

[Add a comment]

By The Way...: Ikon Gallery new exhibition.

Benjaminbrum — 2008-11-17T22:16:50+00:00

http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/

*wonders if Deirdre Alden will make a fuss about this one*

If she does then she's at least consistent.

If she doesn't then she's an opportunistic fame seeker.

There's certainly one exhibition which should catch her all seeing, shock seeking, swivelling eye. The Madonna and Child. Only it's not Mary, it's a chimp. D'you see what the artist did there? Clever stuff. Bet no one will threaten to blow up the ikon, smash it's windows, bet there won't be angry protests about having this sort of filth so close to Christmas... won't someone think of the children!?

Should be good for the Daily Mail/Birmingham Evening Mail letters page.

Of course, yours truly won't be commenting. Oh no.

Digital Rant: WordPress gets high honours

2008-11-17T21:23:00+00:00

I was very impressed to read WordPress’s accessibility out of the box. There are a few issues to iron out before AAA is reached but that’s pretty good going I think you’ll agree! So if you are looking for a blogging engine or a simple CMS go for WordPress.

Created In Birmingham: Creative City finalists

2008-11-17T20:16:09+00:00

Here are the Creative City Awards finalists, with thanks to Big Cat (who provided the list) and Dave Harte (who provided the links):

The Regional Outstanding Business Development Award:
Bubblequest Ltd
Internet Arrow
Digital Native Academy Ltd

The Birmingham Outstanding Business Development Award:
Electric Cinema
Substrakt Limited (blog)

Innovation Award:
Adwords Expert Ltd
LHM Media (blog)
IE Design Consultancy Ltd (blog)

Outstanding Market Development Award:
Fierce Earth Ltd (blog)
D A Recordings Ltd (blog)
Fused (blog)

The Best Brand Award:
D A Recordings Ltd (blog)
Violectra trading as Unison Strings Ltd
IE Design Consultancy Ltd (blog)

Creative Industries Award:
D A Recordings Ltd (blog)
Stan’s Cafe (blog)
Fierce Earth Ltd (blog)

The awards themselves are on 29 Nov.

Firstly, congrats to all the peeps nominated - no matter your opinion on awards generally, a bit of free publicity and a £2,000 cheque is reason enough to try and win one of these. A few thoughts on the nominations though:

Does SEO (Internet Arrow) count as ‘creative’ these days?
Just how is business consultancy (Bubblequest) ‘creative’?
Pay-per-click advertising (Adwords Ltd)? ‘Creative’? Eh?

3 of the 14 companies nominated (21%) have got me scratching my head and wondering why they’re there. No offence to the companies nominated, of course, but did the organisers not receive any more relevant applications? Is that why there’s only two nominations for the Birmingham business development award?

*Update* - Parboo (not her real name) has noticed that there’s been no announcement of nominations for the Newcomer Award.

© Chris Unitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us digg
Who's linking ? Technorati BlogPulse Google
Want more on these topics ? Browse the archive of posts filed under Awards.

Katherine and David Goodwin: Silly CentOS

2008-11-17T18:24:45+00:00

CentOS 5.2 ships with a bug that stops it booting as a guest KVM image, but only for X86_64 on AMD chips - you'll see a kernel panic, and wonder WTF is wrong.

Solution - use an older version from the vault (e.g. 5.1) or presumably wait for a newer version to come along

(This problem won't affect VMWare guest images)

Podnosh: Social Media and Social Housing

2008-11-17T17:58:45+00:00

This afternoon I spoke at the National Housing and Disrepair Forum annual conference. 100 or so council officers, solicitors, barristers, housing association types and others worrying about just how much money is spent on compensating council tenants for repairs that haven’t been done. This is a link to the presentation: Talk is cheap – so use it more.

I was invited by Kate Priest, the head of the legal department at Birmingham City Council that deals with such matters. Kate had heard me talking about local government, social media and the changing democratic relationship in one of my sessions at the Institute of Local Government.

A £3,000 pound compensation bill for a tenant could mean a £15,000 bill from their lawyers – and all that comes out of the repairs budget. So it’s worth exploring other ways to stop this.

I wanted to get across the idea that this can be thought of as a problem of trust. Lawyers thrive where trust does not. The challenge I wanted to throw to the group was how can they understand this as more than a problem of record keeping, accountability and process? Instead can they involve their people in sincere networks of trust within neighbourhoods.
The presentation is simply designed to offer examples of how and where the social web builds real networks of trust – ones which can make things happen. It was intended to give them a sense that trust is worth hard cash. The tenant who trusts their council worker and so negotiates directly with them could free up thousands for work of public value. The tenants who are part of a wider network of trust may even be able to help negotiate priorities.

Thank you for a big chunk of input on twitter (image here and here of the 19 comments). Here is what you suggested:

“By presenting an authentic face to tenants which listens and responds to their concerns and issues and by helping to link tenants up to find others in their situation, or who have resolved issues to share experience and connect” Dave Briggs.

“Listen to people where they are already talking about you (good and bad stuff)” Paul Henderson.

“Any way of improving two-way communication must surely help” Catnip.

“Councils need to improve / review their relationships offline before making a difference online” Stuart Parker.

“One easy win would be for blogs to be set up for individual estates – the council can keep tenants fully in the loop of developments, the tenants would be able to have their say, but also that blog could help develop & bind the community of the estate itself together. wins all round, for minimal financial investment, really.” Simon Gray.

“Not a council tenant, but as a private one an answerphone and email address would be a start!” and “I think the question’s wrong: maybe, ‘what are the problems facing council tenants’ and keep soc media in mind when addressing them “ Michael Grimes.

“This is helping in some respects, esp with young people on 1st tenancy http://www.inliving.co.uk ” John Popham.

“If social media is ‘informal’ it will help get over the “stigma” of phoning somone or appearing in person.” Paul Jennings.

“Human face and interaction with two-way content. Would also bring tenants into contact with each other as well as council.” Nicky Getgood.

“I think councils are way off social media. Difficult to control comms leads to degraded service. Also privacy issues and challenge of delivering service using tools and channels that are external. Eg what if Twitter down? Ian Edwards.

“Google alerts for blog posts about “dog sh*t” or “broken paving slab” + their ward, then follow it up. That’s only a semi joke”. Jon Hickman.

“Blogging for different estates. Would get people to know each other and get them talking about issues that matter to them.” Antonio Roberts.

“Works t’other way- CLG wants tenants 2 have a role in mgmt- better way 2 engage than endless meetings (although meetings r useful)”. Nick Drew.

Toronto based Michael Cayley also asked: “ pls share some references used for trust & social capital session aimed at lawyers who defend councils from housing repair claims.

I used very simple examples. I was facing an audience of 100 people, none of whom blog, only one had heard of twitter. Even though I was amongst many lawyers only a smattering had come across Linkedin. I needed to show how building networks of trust can help make good things happen. I used the example of the Birmingham Bloggers group and the Social Media Surgeries. I used the volunteer effort that mysociety can apply to ventures like fixmystreet (and not a soul in the room had heard of the site). I also talked to them about the open innovation exchange experiment and how it’s model of open collaboration to pitch for contracts is using trust to disrupt existing ways of doing business and improve the outcome for the public.

Responses were mixed. Some went for the very human (my favourites) such as getting good at saying sorry, takings flowers when you’ve messed up and having street meeting with contractors. Others talked specifically about procedures and software to track transactions. One reported how law firms use facebook to recruit people for court cases.

Overall I tried to emphasise that I wanted people to go away not so much thinking about the internet, but appreciating that whatever they can do to build trust should ultimately reduce their need to fight fruitless court battles with the very people they exist to help.

We’ll see what comes next.

The Coffee Grounds: [linkfarm] Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery

2008-11-17T16:17:54+00:00

Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery - You should be wearing a helmet
Funny, in that because-it's-true way.
[Add a comment]

Daniel Davies: Setting up a Django Web Server (Part 2)

2008-11-17T12:45:30+00:00

The last post setup a basic Linux environment with secure access for administration. This post will now turn that basic install into a web and database server. I'll be using Apache 2 and Postgresql to achieve this. Both are very simple to setup, especially on Ubuntu.

Apache 2

```
$ sudo apt-get install apache2
```
Will install Apache, configure it all and start it running.
```
$ sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
```
This will open up the firewall on port 80 for Apache.
To verify that Apache installed correctly open a browser and type in your IP to the address bar. You should see "It works!"

"It works!" is the default Apache page, that lives inside the default web folder. You can change this page in /var/www/. Because this server is going to be hosting multiple sites I won't actually be using the /var/www/ folder, every site is going to be accessed with a unique hostname (URL).

I'll go in to this more in the next post, but for now there's a couple of things that can be done to Apache to make it a little bit quicker and prepare it to host Django.

$ sudo mv /etc/apache2/mods-available/rewrite.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/

This enables mod_rewrite for Apache

```
$ sudo mv /etc/apache2/mods-available/expires.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/
```
Enables expiry-headers to be used, reducing bandwidth consumption and page loading times
```
$ sudo apache2ctl restart
```
Restart Apache2 to apply the changes

Apache is now ready to begin hosting projects, but we still need a database, and a way to sendmail.

Postgresql

MySQL vs. Postgresql is well debated across the web, so I won't go in to that here, its really just a matter or personal preference in most cases (mine included). Django's ORM can use a range of databases with great ease (I develop with Sqlite and deploy with Postgresql). I find Postgresql so much easier to setup and manage so I'll be going with this. Most of what is here comes from this guide. I've amended it slightly for Postgresql 8.3, but the guide is great none the less.

```
$ sudo apt-get install postgresql
```
Install the database server, and starts it up for the first time.
```
$ sudo su postgres -c psql
```
This provides a Postgres interface.
```
# ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD '<password>';
# \q
```
This sets the postgres admin password, so you can manage your server.

Managing Postgresql is easiest with the pgAdmin interface. Its available on Windows, Mac and Linux and is really easy to setup and configure. Visit the pgAdmin site and download the version for your system.

There's a couple more things to do to be able to actually connect to the database server though.

```
$ sudo vi /etc/postgresql/8.3/main/postgresql.conf
```
This is the main Postgresql config file, edit the following.
```
#listen_addresses = 'localhost'   ->   listen_address = '*'
```
This will tell Postgresql to listen on any port, allowing external connections.
```
#password_encryption = on   ->   password_encryption = on
```
This will tell Postgresql to listen on any port, allowing external connections.
Close and save the file. Next you'll need to know your IP address, visit www.whatismyip.org to find this out if you don't already know.
Find:
```
# TYPE DATABASE USER IP-ADDRESS IP-MASK METHOD
```
and add, directly below:
```
host    all         all         <you-ip address>          <your-subnet>  md5
```
Your subnet is most likely 255.255.255.0, use Subnet Calculator to work yours out if its different.
```
$ sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql restart
```
Restart the Postgresql server to apply the changes.
```
$ sudo ufw allow from <your-ip-address> port 5432
```
Open up the firewall for your IP to connect to Postgresql.

Sendmail

Almost ready, but its really easy to forget that most websites need to send some kind of email. Django will automatically email admins when a 500 error occurs, so its worth setting up an MTA. The quickest way is with Sendmail.

```
$ sudo apt-get install sendmail
```

Summary

The server is almost ready. We can access it securely, and most of the default Apache modules are ready to go. In the next post I'll be setting up Django and Python to run on the server.

Discuss Comment