Paradise Circus

No agenda, other than to have fun, have interesting conversation with interesting people. We’re not that fussed if you “blog”, or “twitter” or anything, it’s just nice to hang out with people that you don’t have to explain “the Internet’ to once in a while.

Please come along and meet people “off of the web”, feel free to bring some new people- we’re not a clique, bring some money for your drinks — there’s no agenda, no sponsors and nothing except friendly chat. (And some of the nicest loos in Birmingham)

Time: from 6pm till chucking out time.

For more information about Bluu Bar go here. (Be sure to click on Birmingham, wouldn’t want you ending up somewhere else completely). EDIT: bluu is closed. We’re In après next door.

One for Ben to chalk up for failcamp

Map to the venue.

Since we’ve always tried to keep the bloggers group fast moving and democratic, we never decide anything untill the last moment. That led to the meets gravitating to the end of the month – as no-one got round to oranising them.

Since the lovely, but sort of overlapping, Birmingham Social Media Cafe is meeting regularily in the last week of the month I think we should go for the second week. This is also good to not get all muddled in December and Jan.

So, in an unexpected rash of planning ahead I think we should set dates in advance and I’m proposing a rolling Mon-Thurs thing second week in the month.

Which would make November’s meet Monday 10th November and December’s  Tuesday 9th.

Maybe we should fix venues too? Any thoughts?

I’ve written in the past about how I’m not entirely convinced about the proposed new location for the Academy (or Hummingbird, for those of us who’ve been here long enough to remember…), but at the same time pointing out the uncharitable attitudes of some of the people they will be neighbours to once they’ve moved.

Another perhaps-soon-to-be neighbour has managed to secure a court appearance in order to appeal against the licensing application:

But that licence is now under threat after Patrick McCrossan, who lives at nearby Clydesdale Tower, claimed having the venue on his doorstep would infringe his human right to a decent night’s sleep. He said the additional noise from the crowds, cars and cabs leaving after a night of live and loud rock music would make sleep impossible.

The ‘plight’ of people who move in to a house next to an airport, church, farm, or pub and then start complaining about the noise coming from them is, of course, well known.

But this is taking that situation to new extremes; an entertainment license is tied to the person running the venue rather than the venue itself, but the venue still has the use which can be made of it laid down in planning consent – the Dome has planning consent to be a nightclub, so whoever owns it, unless they are successfully granted change of use consent, the building will only ever be used as a nightclub.

Presumably when it was being run as the Dome itself Patrick McCrossan never had any trouble getting a good night’s sleep. If he did, he could have applied for a noise abatement order against the place.
So how will the site continuing to be used for the purposes it has been consistently used for for at least 30 years infringe his human rights?

When we came up with the bright idea of having a picnic in Moseley Private Park for the next meeting during the 3-day heatwave of early May, we didn’t foresee being in the middle of a wetwave, so hastily made a backup plan of the Prince of Wales.

As well as myself, the following people also turned up at various points during the evening (in approx order of appearance):

Nick Booth, Jon Bounds, Clare Edwards, Simon Gray, Andy Mabbett, Mark Steadman, Kevin Rapley, Danny Smith, Matt ?, Stuart ?, Ana Milgram, Nikki Pugh, Chris Unitt and friend, Stef Lewandowski, Emma Jones, Antonio Gould and friend, two random Polish ladies and Caroline Charlton. (Feel free to fill in the gaps peeps)

The venue was quite good because it has a back room which was a good size for the group with room to grow a little. Drinks selection and prices were good. They serve food and also have a kind of delicatessen out back which is quite incongruous, but good nevertheless. The management are friendly. The day we went, a Wednesday, happened to be quiz night, which we took part in and was quite fun, we even got a curry chucked in with the £1 entry fee. No public wifi. There’s a bit of free parking on the road in the evenings.

As well as the usual general meeting interesting people and socialising, the following ideas came out of the meeting:

This website, Paradise Circus.

Jon reckoned that technology is just about ready for a live phone-in show on the web. Mark, Danny and Kevin agreed and they’re hoping to get together soon. It will no doubt be very rude!

Stuart chatted to people about wanting to break down divides around the use of social media by adults.

We learnt a Polish song about drinking too much beer that went something like “Storya! Storya!”

Please add anything I’ve missed in the comments. I’ve created a new WordPress Page to put venue reviews as this could be a really useful resource. Any Pages (as opposed to individual Posts) could act as a wiki, ask if you want a login.