Author: Jon Bounds

Jon was voted the ‘14th Most Influential Person in the West Midlands’ in 2008. Subsequently he has not been placed. He’s been a football referee, venetian blind maker, cellar man, and a losing Labour council candidate: “No, no chance. A complete no-hoper” said a spoilt ballot. Jon wrote and directed the first ever piece of drama performed on Twitter when he persuaded a cast including MPs and journalists to give over their timelines to perform Twitpanto. But all that is behind him.

Book lack in anger

You can’t run an economy like a household budget, and you can’t run a library just by having a big stack of books that people can borrow, nothing is that simple. But it doesn’t take a genius — luckily for Birmingham given that opportunities to read books and learn are dropping like leaves from a battered old public library book — to work out the connection between the idiotic economic policies of Tory led government both nationally and locally and the fact that Birmingham now has a landmark library that can’t afford to buy even the latest Jilly Cooper to lend out.

Birmingham Council in language that invites derision insists that the lack of money that’s led local libraries to beg for donations of books, is merely a “pause in the book fund”. With £105 million of cuts passed through council this March it’s the first a noticeable sign of things to come: what is most galling is how much more interested people seem to be in this cut than Adult Social Care cuts that have the potential to kill people. And that the only response is a desire to give books, a response that struggles to make the connection between financial mismanagement and unneeded austerity and the book lack anger.

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8 Brummie games that changed the UK home computer scene

The Commodore Amiga is 30 years old today but while journalists line up to rain plaudits down on this iconic machine the most important part of the story of the Amiga — and all the other classic ‘80s and ‘90s home computer systems — has been lost. We’re talking of course of the role of Birmingham in some of the most important computer games, ever. Read through any top 10 list of computer games during the 8 and 16 bit eras and you’ll find Brum’s fingerprints all over it. Are we talking about hot development houses, based out of tastefully restored Digbeth workshops? No. Are we talking about corporate giants, with satellite offices in a prestigious business park in Bickenhill? No. And anyway, being that near to the airport means they’re in Solihull.

No. We’re talking about the shit tonne of licensing and admin running out of Perry Barr. Yep, Perry Barr is where all your electric dreams were builded.

US Gold were based in Holford Industrial Estate in Perry Barr, former home to the Kynoch Works, and they were responsible for bringing games from American developers such as Capcom into your UK bedroom. These were the unsung heroes who checked all the orders, who filed the paperwork, and possibly moved inventory around, we don’t know. Their work put the power in your hands — the power to save princesses, drive cars, or fight your way to the top. Here’s our rundown on the best computer game admin done by Birmingham temps:

Out Run

Satirical Cartoon: West Midlands combined authority

Lots of fat white men in suits are in a marquee. They are all wearing sashes with the names of local councils on them. Outside the tent is a sign hammered into the ground with ‘West Midlands Combinded Authority’ on it. ‘Greater Birmingham’ has been crossed out.

George Osborne is urinating on the buffet.

The caption: ‘Better inside the tent.’

101 Things Birmingham Gave The World. No. 74: Eugenics

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I’m not a psychoanalyst, but in the case of Francis Galton I’ll have a look. Grandson of Erasmus Darwin (erstwhile Lunar Society member, poet, naturalist, and inventor of the PA system), and hence cousin of Charles who was 13 years his senior, he devoted most of his life to promoting the idea that genius was hereditary.

His other grandfather was Samuel ‘John; Galton, from Duddeston and also a Lunar Society member, who was a prominent Quaker and arms manufacturer who seems to have excelled in many things. Except ‘getting interesting nicknames’ and the pacifist bit of Quakerism.

Francis’s dad, known as Samuel Tertius Galton, wrote papers on economics and his older brother Darwin Galton became High Sheriff of Warwickshire. Can you feel the familial pressure to succeed yet?

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Into the Blue

With cover by 101 Things Birmingham Gave the World artist Mark Murphy, Peter Bourne’s new novel is an ambitious and very real book. We’re happy to share an excerpt.

Set against defining 1980s events like the Falklands War and the Hillsborough disaster and the ever-changing landscape of Birmingham, Into the Blue is the story of a family tree decayed by betrayal, revenge and suspicion. More info here, or buy on Amazon right now.

Carl’s a man of few words. And even fewer on the telephone. The Talking Clock has a wider range of conversation. Carter has never been able to digest his father-in-law’s slow, ponderous and thick Small Heath accent without diverting his brain elsewhere. If Carl was an animal, he’d be a city pigeon. If he was an image, he’d be a monotone visual of a 1980s roundabout. If he was a sport, he’d be crown green bowls. Carl informs Carter with loveless precision that his mother will call him back and let him know if Wednesday night’s suitable. Carl does his pools run on a Wednesday followed by two pints of piss in The Green Horn in Redditch. The one night of the week Carl leaves the comfort of suburban bliss, aside from the twice-monthly trip to the Chinese with Pat. An occasion where Carl doesn’t need the menu. He’s found what he likes and sticks to it. Carl’s a tedious creature of habit.

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No sad songs, an interview with Stephen Duffy

The excuse for talking to Stephen Duffy is the release of the first Lilac Time album in ten years, but that really is just an excuse: we could listen to him forever. Paradise Circus is more named after the Lilac Time album of that name than even the traffic island. That said, No Sad Songs is a wonderful collection that you should head out and pick up right now.

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“Yes, we have always been guilty of self mythologising,” Stephen Duffy tells me, so allow me to build my own. I’m talking to him not sitting on the grass near Nick Drake’s grave, nor in a dappled Digbeth pub where our words would be lit with dusty spikes of light though the stained glass, but over the phone. He’s at home in Cornwall, I’m in an almost quiet enough corner of a conference centre in London that will from now be forever Birmingham.

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Satirical Cartoon: Matt nails HSBC announcement

A man in a suit has a tea tray with one cup of tea in a cup and saucer. He’s bringing it to another man in a suit who sits at a desk, the desk has a ‘Leader of Birmingham City Council’ plaque on it.

The man at the desk is reading a paper. The headline reads, ‘HSBC to move headquarters to Birmingham’.

Standing man says, “OK so they won’t pay us any business rates, but maybe they’ll tell us how to hide our money from Eric Pickles.”

Matt nails it again.

Paradise City #1 – the early adopter edition

Welcome to Paradise City #1. We’re as surprised to be here as you are. We just put a sign up form up for a joke, but lots of you wanted to sign up for… for what? We’re not sure. You are our early adopters. You’ve stood outside our shop from 5pm the night before to get your hands on this newsletter. As you stumble out of our boutique into the street, feeling a little guilty and sick, perhaps, the man from the Evening Mail is there asking you “Why?”. “Why did you have to be here?” he says “What does it mean to you?” “I just wanted to be here” you say “it means everything”. That guy is not very good at interviews, or rather he is so long as what you want is the most banal consumerist platitude.

And then off you go, clutching the prize and you open it and… it’s alright. There’s loads of things missing though, really. It’s like the start of a good idea. They’ll get it right next time, and when they do… you’ll be here. It means everything.

via @ChrisBeanland

Bring Back Kong

There are plans afoot to for NatWest tower to be replaced by temporary giant balloon model of a poodle. If any temporary public art is going up in town then King Kong has the pedigree — if only we knew where he was. (Saved you a click, he’s in Penrith).

Brum, Brum

Bobby Alden has thrown his mane into the ring to be new head twat on Top Gear by suggesting cycling is just for quiche loving tree huggers. By the way, Birmingham Gave The World Top Gear.

Total Eclipse of the Heart of England

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Eastside got a rebranded again as the Solar Eclipse Quarter (via @craigfots) but Sadly City TV didn’t cover the eclipse quite as well as their predecessors did (via @therealsoundhog)

Lost & Found

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She has her father’s eyes, doesn’t she?

Surely it won’t be hard to track down this distinctive looking family of Back to The Futurecosplayers — @just_ade found their memory card on the Parade in Sutton.

Hyperlocal Corner

Infamous Erdington nudist hotel The Clover Spa is having a “clearance sale” — they’re stripping the place bare apparently.

Poetry Column, with EJ Thribb

World Poetry Day

So hello then #WorldPoetryDay
You are a day
For poetry
And also trees
And Downs Syndrome
I wonder what colour they’ve
Lit up the
Library?

BRMB’s kinda town

Occasional author of brummicana Chris Beanland spotted this lovely promo video for the second city — we ran an extract of his book a while back.

So that’s it for now. Let us know if this is the right sort of thing by tweeting us and tell your friends if you liked it.

How Birmingham invented romance

Birmingham is the most romantic place in the world. You only have to look at the ‘love locks’ on the bridge from the back of the Mailbox to Gas Street basin to see that. They are all about permanence of affection, put there by young lovers to represent the unending commitment and ties to Capita of our city council.

Canal from Livery Street to Lancaster Street CC: Tim Ellis

Greetings cards were popularised by a man called Cole (underling to our 101 Things Birmingham Gave the World star Sir Rowland Hill, inventor of the stamp and the post) – he pioneered it with Christmas cards, but it was Valentine’s Day cards that were really to benefit from the anonymity of the postal system. So, without Birmingham you would be forced to do your wooing face-to-face with all the intendent problems that creates (for us Brummies mostly the inability to sound sincere or sexy – known as the Mark Williams effect).

So, from poetry, through lovelorn graffiti, to the thrilling heartache of the futile gesture, Birmingham is the home of romance. Here are ten romantic moments — covering every romantic trope — that wouldn’t have got out of the starting blocks without the ‘big heart of England’.

To celebrate our love for you lonely people we’ve halved the price of the eBook version of 101 Things Birmingham Gave the World until Valentine’s Day — the lucky in love can buy the paperback as a delightful gift.

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Birmingham’s Unanswered Questions, No.3: Are wheelie bins a good idea?

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