misc - Paradise Circus: A Birmingham Miscellany

The Twelve* ‘Indies’ of Xmas — a last minute Brum ‘indy’ shoppers’ guide

You’ve left it to the last minute to get Christmas gifts, but you’re still a hipster do-gooder at heart. You need independence, it’s a guarantee of thought and quirkiness and doing good for your local community. The fact that there isn’t more than two other shops with the same name is that guarantee. Forget the supply chain, feel the font. Hoist up your beard, batten down your red trousers, tighten your bird-adorned victory rolls, and head out quickly to do your present buying. These shops are all fully recommended by Paradise Circus and will be open on Christmas Eve until late**.

Actually need a present quick? Why not try the new Birmingham: It’s Not Shit the book, or 101 Things Birmingham Gave the World still time to order for Christmas.

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We didn’t just invent Cluedo, you know: 11 Brum Board Games for Xmas

After Christmas dinner cognitive abilities are low and methane levels are high. No wonder then that a fair proportion of people choose not to move from in front of the TV: some just can’t, others think that watching Downton Abbey or Doctor Who is just a bit common. They’re right. And in lieu of any stimulating debate, here’s some recommended Bham-based board games you might want to gather the family round the table for:

Stuck for a present? Why not try the new Birmingham: It’s Not Shit the book, or 101 Things Birmingham Gave the World.

Escape from Weoley Castle the Board Game

Take on the role of an inner city kid: stripped of all of your life chances you face years of brutal class attacks and vicious austerity cuts! OR you can chose to be a Tory politician, producing policies to end social mobility!

Tories must spend the entire game in another room eating lobsters bought with withdrawn EMA grants, ignoring the desperate cries for help from those in the room next door.

Kids must trudge around the board distracting themselves with cheap poppers and pictures of Tulisa in Nuts or Heat. Escape is possible only if a Villa scout sees them put two past Burton Albion for Tamworth, if they put out a dubstep album, or they get past the audition stage of a reality show. Those who are unsuccessful at music and football must pin their hopes on completing a challenge from a Springsteen Card in the final round.

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Your Local TV Christmas listings

In mid 2014 Birmingham got it’s own local TV channel. Chances are that they might not make it all the way to next Christmas, so luckily we’ve been able to get a listing of their test schedule for this year…get out your highlighters now.

Stuck for a present? Why not try the new Birmingham: It’s Not Shit the book, or 101 Things Birmingham Gave the World.

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Barry Norman is Away

As every schoolchild knows, it was Birmingham that gave the world Christmas. This year, in a move to recognise that inalienable fact, and to say Thank You to the city of Birmingham for this annual feast of gluttony, tat-buying and enforced jollity, TV schedulers in the UK have joined together and themed their Christmas movie selection around the city that started it all. Here is the Paradise Circus round-up of the best films that Christmas TV 2013 has to offer:

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Nr. Birmingham

My wife’s great aunt* was born and raised in Sutton Coldfield. Growing up between the wars she and her siblings saw Sutton grow and change a great deal, eventually becoming officially part of Birmingham in the 1970s. The last letter she wrote to us when we lived in Erdington was, as was all of her correspondence, addressed to “…Johnson Road, Erdington, Nr. Birmingham”.

Sutton has never got over the idea that the edge of Brum moved from the Chester Road, B23 to Rosemary Hill Road, B74.

*Watch out for autocorrect on that one.

BrumCamp: the ultimate unconference

Paradise Circus are happy to announce the ultimate Birmingham-themed unconference. #brumcamp will take place downstairs at Starbucks, New St., first Thursday of 2014. If you’d like to sponsor the #cake , #coffee, or any other aspect of #brumcamp please just make a donation to St. Basil’s for that amount. And don’t tell us. Bring your own #cake. We won’t be there.

Ode to a Circle – Birmingham’s Flagship Library sets sail.

A new library opening prompts twenty-first century questions: what is the role of the library in the digital age? Wherefore books? Who now reads what, where? Despite what you may have heard, the paperless library is still a long way off.

Birmingham’s numerous city libraries over the last 150 years reflect the city’s lack of sentimentality about its past: you can now practically renew libraries over the phone. The current regeneration is nearly complete: you can take a look for yourself from next Tuesday. I had a guided tour last week from Mecanoo’s Patrick Arends and the space is amazing. I’ve been reserving judgement on the building for the last few years, feeling it’s only fair to see the interior of a building before forming an opinion on the building as a whole. I’d also like to see it working as a library before completely deciding. There have been many times since 2007 when it has been hard not to become annoyed by the new building: its encroachment into the civic square (itself very recent) seemed invasive and seeing the townscape of the Centenary Square broken up by the towering new building is a jarring moment. The gradual erosion of civic space is painful too: the land occupied by Central Library is being sold to a private company, as happened with Baskerville House. Awful rumours about there being less shelf space than the previous library were later confirmed. Meanwhile community libraries were losing staff and reducing their service – even brand new libraries like Shard End.

Of course, none of this is mentioned in the introductory presentation and indeed it isn’t the place to discuss it. The LoB team demonstrate their clear excitement about the project, and are now itching to share it. Mecanoo’s creative director Francine Houben describes it as an Ode to the Circle that should be seen as a (yeep) People’s Palace. After we’ve been given some shaky local info (Baskerville House is a “1920s building” and Birmingham is “Europe’s youngest city”) we’re ready to go. Things are still being installed and unpacked but there’s no getting around the fact that this is a wildly ambitious, astonishing space. Ascending through its various caverns, corridors and plateaux really is the journey Houben suggests it is. At no point is it obvious where the building you are, and in a library this is a good thing. As was said of John Madin’s windowless edifice: “a library is a window”. There are many moments I can’t work out what I’m seeing. And it’s a thrill that all this is a library: to put learning, reading and research to Birmingham’s fore in this way, after a long period of being marginalised at the expense of commercial spaces, is a reassuring, hopeful moment.

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Birmingham less shit than Manchester or London: Official

A whopping 65% of people in a recent poll said that Manchester was the shittiest city in the UK, beating London into second place. Birmingham, for once, came nowhere—proving that it’s the greatest city in the World, officially. Yes the city famous for its rain and dull football rivalry edged out the home of black snot and fat bicycling Tories to be first place as Britain’s worst place.

Manchester, yesterday (CC: Rachel D)

When asked about Birmingham a whopping 96% of people agreed that it wasn’t shit—4% didn’t answer the question—with 21% getting quite defensive and angry. A person who was not interviewed for the survey, but was asked later to comment on our spun version of the results said:

“Of course Birmingham is better—it’s about time people realised.”

Boris Johnson has black snot. (CC BackBoris2012 Campaign Team)

The full results of the Internet poll, conducted by a website to boost its popularity and newsworthiness, are not available.

What do you think? Comment, please.

Get the Bus

Three don’t come along all at once, we’re never late, we’re never early. We never stop, we pause but we don’t stop. It’s cheaper that way, most repairs can be completed without stopping – dangerous but better than the alternative.

You could automate this, but what’s the point? A job’s a job. There are so few about, that even one that involves hanging off the back of a moving bus isn’t something you can turn down. There’s something stuck around the back driver’s-side wheel, wait for a nice straight bit of road and get out there. I strain from a sweaty chrome handle, one foot jammed against a vent and I can see something flap round. Like some filthy brown bird, it wheezes and waits for its chance then coils and springs round again. I’ve got to catch it before it disappears and dislodge it, set its carcass free.

I grab, miss, grab, miss. It’s getting wound more and more round the axle. If we have to stop, lose time, then we’ll be late and lateness isn’t an option.

Stretching, last chance, push harder away from the bus, swing almost.
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An Urban Fairytale

The locations and dwarf holes mentioned in this tale are based on fact. The people and all the rest are not.

I walk along the canal and look above wondering how much concrete is necessary to prevent the entire elaborate junction from collapsing. The pillars holding up metal and flesh appear to be the legs of giants while the traffic travels along their spines. The graffiti at the bottom gives it the look of elaborately painted nails. Or like a tattoo that marks the owner’s individuality.

I look at my right hand and frown at what I’m holding. Have I been drinking? Focusing on the bottle of vodka it suddenly occurs to me that my mind is in the process of being drowned by a tsunami of ethanol. I look at the water rippling on the breeze. My attention is drawn to the sound of a bell from a cyclist. I move out of the way. The cyclist nods at me. The universal body language of greetings, acknowledgement and thanks. A small attempt to make a connection with a human being that you would in all probability never see again. I walk towards the darkness created by the cavernous arch of a large bridge.

It had always felt like huge cave when we used to play as kids. Billy used to call it the Bat Cave. He was Robin to my Batman and the adventure was always the trek to get here. Granny’s house was on the corner of Wheelwright Road and Gravelly Hill so it wasn’t far. Our parents didn’t mind as when I reached thirteen, I was considered capable and mature enough to look after myself and a ten year old. A different time that seems an aeon away. I smash the bottle against the wall of the bridge. I’m in the dark. I have been for days.

I think about granny and her stories about the building of Spaghetti Junction. Me and Billy always thought the Giant’s Junction was a better name as we never liked spaghetti. Unless it was in tomato sauce that we both did like and that granny always had tins of when we visited. It was during such a meal that we both heard about the dwarf holes. We splashed sauce while eating as we were told about where Copeley Hill is now, there were caves dotted around the landscape. People used to live in them and the caves were there for centuries. Then they built the motorway and were not seen again. Granny kept saying that they were now gone forever but children always have the impression that adults say such things to stop them from exploring. We had already made up our minds that we were going to find them.

Picture of Flyovers above Salford Circus — Spaghetti Junction 1/08 by Ted and Jen

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