Category: misc

101 Songs Birmingham Gave the World

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As part of our making our 101 Things Birmingham Gave the World book, we promised to make an ‘album’ – an album of 101 songs that Birmingham gave the World.

Our rules were simple — the songs couldn’t have existed in this form without the city of Birmingham. That means Brummie songwriters, musicians, instruments, recording studios or subjects. Where the connections are a little more tangential, well we’ll let you work those out, and you can hassle us and each other in the comments. The other rule: it had to be on Spotify, so no Funky Moped, or Brummie moptops The Beatles.

We’re not saying that it’s the best 101 songs that Birmingham has produced*, but it’s a fantastic 6 hour listen — and of course it will finish with Mr Blue Sky.

101 Songs Birmingham Gave The World: Now that’s what I call Paradise Circus.

See the full 101 rundown here:

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The Wilko Report: Copy, right?

This article was commissioned by backers on the ‘crowdfunding’ journalism site Contributoria, but was not published. However as it is CC licensed we are able to publish here. Contributoria members are able to see the article’s production history.

Local newspapers are fighting a war against the web for digital attention — their advertising revenue and their lives depend on it. But are some fighting more dirty than others: reading smaller websites and ripping off their content?

If this were a case of copy and paste it would be solved easily. If it were a case of news stories it would be just what newspapers have been doing to each other since the first coffee house pamphlets — reporting what’s out there, borrowing each other’s exclusives. But this is more insidious: newspaper websites now trade in non-news pieces and ideas and content for these can be taken from anywhere. Possibly you.

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Lolitics: The power of civic satire

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Local councillors often communicate in a torturous combination of management speak and political spin. They share the oratory and obfuscatory ambition of government ministers but lack the support of hundreds of SPADs or the rhetorical benefits of a classical education. But for a time the ruling officials of Birmingham — the largest local authority in Europe — spoke to the city in the simple, grammatically incorrect, language of the internet cat.

A site called Lolitics from 2008 to 2012 took the publicity images — hard hats, awkward grins, pop-up banners and all — of the politicians and added lolcat-style captions, poking a very new type of satirical fun at a group of people who hadn’t quite grasped how communications were working in the world of social media. Council Leader Mike Whitby, a blustering older David Brent in a multicoloured tie, was lampooned as a man who spoke in one noun sentences, while Councillor Deirdre Alden, the most thrusting of a husband/wife/son team on the Conservative benches, became a paranoid princess obsessed with building her ‘shiney (sic) army’ (a group of supporters, most often in hi-vis jackets performing some community good).

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I haven’t walked across the city for a very, very long time

I haven’t walked across the city for a very, very long time. Certainly not since my parents shuffled off this mortal coil. You won’t find many urban ramblers in a city built for cars. But this afternoon I’m going to walk to Kings Heath. If I’m here I may as well see what’s happened since I left. First I strike out at the courtyard of the upside down library, that inverted pyramid of Alpine chocolate that was supposed to say something about the city. Now they’ve opened up three fast food outlets and a truly shocking pub in its atrium, this concrete beast of a building says everything it needs to. I buy a coffee from one of the gaudy takeaways. It tastes cheap and nasty, but I hold on to it, sipping from it as I cross the bridge built over the Inner Ring Road when they started the long job of making the place more pedestrian-friendly in 1989.

Through Centenary Square, avoiding the skateboarders, past the site where the ill-fated Forward statue once stood proudly, like a fat polystyrene gurgle, or a motorway services sign in 3D. Like Birmingham, it was ugly but almost adorable. Almost.

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Start here.

We’re in the paper today as part of one of those broadsheet articles they have about Birmingham these days. We’re actually right at the top of the article, with a link and everything. So this little post is aimed at new people who have come here. It’s a primer in what we’re about.

Firstly, you need to know that we have a manifesto. It spells out what we’re about and how we work.

Secondly, the work. We’ve actually already been around the houses on the generic ‘Birmingham isn’t that bad’ broadsheet feature. That should tune you into our tone. We have a number of recurring features, the main one being 101 Things Birmingham Gave the World (think nuclear war, tennis, Star Wars, the Internet, kettles and the FIFA World Cup).

There’s a lot of other stuff here: short stories, poetic asides, and popular toys such as Birmingham in Real Time – go there to see, in real time, the cost of running the second city – and the Birmingham Transport Strategy Generator.  Our most popular post covered Benefit Street. Oh, and if you’re early interested in that Trojan horse thing, here’s what we have to say about that.

We tweet @paradisecircus.

Thanks for stopping by.

Paradise Circus is backing Birmingham to win the World Cup

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Birmingham’s biggest hyperlocal satirical website is backing Birmingham to take the World Cup by storm — and it’s putting its money where it’s mouth is. In a betting shop, in Paradise Forum.

The team behind Paradise Circus have attempted to devise the most Brummie World Cup bet possible, and they’re staking their all on it — at odds of over 200,000 to 1 — with what they’re calling the Brummie Backing World Cup Accumulator™.

Did they back Germany, three times winners and again one of the favourites? There are connections as ex-Villa star Thomas Hitzlsperger still claims to be 100% Brummie:


But he’s retired.

Did they back Switzerland for the title? After all it’s where Lord Birmingham Digby Jones’ mates probably have their bank accounts. No, as Birmingham itself is unfairly excluded from entering the championship, the bet is all about the players.

First on the team sheet was Villa’s Ron Vlaar who we backed to score the first goal in the Netherlands’s first match against defending champions Spain. As a centre half this might not be likely but the Villa captain has brummie spirit in his bonce and a nod from a set piece is in the plan.

United States and Aston Villa goal-saver Brad Guzan is Paradise Circus’s bet for the Golden Glove award. He might not be first choice between the sticks for Team USA, but that means he’s less likely to let any offensive kickers net past him — right?

England’s potential Golden Boot Winner, Hockley’s Daniel Sturridge is the website’s star man — they’re backing the Brummie to be the top scorer in the whole tournament. His uncle, Birmingham City legend, Simon scored 30 goals for city and the first in the Leyland DAF Cup win against Tranmere in 1991 — so big game experience is in the DNA.

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The Paradise Circus team have already started to mentally spend the money,  possibly on 211,806 vuvuzelas or something. They’re still hip, right?

Thanks to Midge and Harry for help and advice.

House photo CC by: Elliot Brown 

So you want to write a generic ‘Birmingham isn’t that bad’ feature for a broadsheet…

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Spaghetti Junction: subs… to the photo library. CC by: Chris Gin

We know that a lot of local journalists look to us for, ahem, inspiration but we were wondering what we could do to help out the hacks on the nationals. Now, the national press do like to show a passing interest in our welfare, but they only really have limited frames available for their stories. We’ve parsed that through our computers to come up with the basic boilerplate you, the national newspaper hack, need to write about the second city*.

To start, lower expectations: Of Birmingham, not your article, silly. The best way to do this is point out that someone ‘right thinking’ said something bad. You could try doing a Google Books search for Birmingham to see if there are any literary quotations, or you could just use the Jane Austen quote. You know the one:

“One has no great hopes from Birmingham, I always say there is something direful in the sound”

And if you like you can forget that it’s not Jane Austen who said it, but a character in Emma. A Character — Mrs Elton — that Jane Austen wrote as a voice of the fashionably stupid.

And talking of fashionably stupid, you could maybe quote Jeremy Clarkson “There are signs directing you away from Birmingham but nothing enticing you in.”  But quote him ironically while you agree with him really (a joke like on Top Gear), which ties neatly into…

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If new Kingstanding councillor Gary Sambrook was a bit of a prat when he was at school, he hasn’t changed.

Meet Gary Sambrook, he’s just been elected as Tory Councillor for Kingstanding, after quite a few goes. Congratulations, Gary. His mates made him a song.

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He seems to be attracted to road signs.

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Papal account

We asked Danny to do something lighthearted and festive to end the year. Maybe the baby Jesus or the Frankfurt Christmas Market, something like that. He took those themes of religion and dark foreign influence and sent us this. God help us.

I don’t trust this new pope.

I don’t really trust any pope, but this new one, Times Person of the year 2013, Pope Francis the PR pope, I don’t trust especially.

The last pope—the one that looked like an evil ventriloquist dummy made of meat—visited Birmingham, weirdly choosing Cofton Park for his service. I say ‘weirdly’ not only because, it used to be the site of bonfire night celebrations, the most pagan of festivals, but because a few years before a man’s head was found in Cofton Park. I’m not sure if he liked the John The Baptist imagery or had a thing for Rover cars but I’ve had my eye on popes ever since.
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