Created in Birmingham

Metropolis Birmingham

Chris Unitt — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:48:45 +0000

Beautifully put by Jon over at Birmingham: It’s Not Shit:

Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis is set in “the extraordinary Gothic skyscrapers of a corporate city-state, the Metropolis of the title. Society has been divided into two rigid groups: one of planners or thinkers, who live high above the earth in luxury, and another of workers who live underground toiling to sustain the lives of the privileged.”

Birmingham 2008 has parallels according to this clip on the ol’ YouTubes:

Vid made by vjdelsyd.

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Artsfest 2008 announce their programme

Chris Unitt — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:29:06 +0000

With just (only just) over a week to go before Artsfest the programme of events has just been released on the website.

With 500 or so events scheduled, picking through the programme isn’t easy but there is at least a ‘recommended’ section on the homepage. When I get a chance I’ll have a flick through and pick out the bits that I think look most interesting.

Volunteers are still needed, by the way.

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Rhubarb Radio is live

Chris Unitt — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:51:04 +0000

Pop on over to Rhubarb Radio to check out the live stream for Birmingham’s newest radio station.

For the time being you can’t listen through your web browser, but will need to use your media player of choice (iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp, whatevs).

There are plenty more bits and pieces to come on the site; this is a very early version with the music being provided automagically - at the moment I’m listening to a dubby-breaksy kinda mix.

There’s still plenty of time to get involved with Rhubarb Radio and you can check the development on the Rhubarb Radio blog which is providing a really interesting insight into how a collaborative project can come together.

Congrats to Mark Steadman who’s put the site and live stream together.

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Balena Project and Hello Digital

Chris Unitt — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:25:24 +0000

I’ve been feeling a bit off-colour the past couple of days, so apols for the lack of decent posting. If anything’s going to raise my spirits it’s the prospect of a sodding great whale and a huge robot both turning up in the city. It’s like Power Rangers or something.

The former comes courtesy of Claudia Losi’s Balena Project as presented by Ikon Gallery (and previously alluded to). A 25ft cashmere whale will be deposited by the escalators in The Mailbox from 24 Sept to 26 Oct. This is what it looks like:

Hmm, so it doesn’t look like a fearsome, city-levelling villain, more like me flopped on my sofa feeling sorry for myself.

Meanwhile, flyers for Hello Digital (a mere 6 weeks away and still no-one knows quite what it is) will apparently be distributed around the Bullring tomorrow by a giant robot. Brilliant!

I’ll write something about Hello Digital when I know what’s going on but details have been trickling out:

It’ll be happening predominently at Millennium Point and will be free to attend
SCAMP will kick things off on the first night with an “electro-acoustic and live visual performance”
An international digital conference called ‘Hello World’ will take place on 23-24 October
There’ll be an interactive ‘Field of Light‘ from the Plus Expo people, controllable via a microsite (this sounds dead cool)
Capsule’s ‘Home of Metal‘ project will launch at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on Saturday 25 Oct
Baskerville: The Animated Movie will get it’s premiere
Killriculum seems to involve getting kids to watch scary short films while lying in coffins
Digital Storytelling is “a touching vision of the world we live in”. Hmm, sounds very worthy
The Light House in Wolverhampton, in association with 4Talent, will be screening “contemporary and classic film from the Film4 back catalogue”

So far the Hello Digital blog and Twitter are up and running and the main site is due to go live any minute now. Meanwhile here’s the flyer:

Birmingham Book Festival 2008

Chris Unitt — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:22:57 +0000

The Birmingham Book Festival starts 1 October with a programme of events that will cover fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as a series of workshops and seminars. The festival ends on 24 October.

There’s a few big names listed in the festival diary - the ones that stand out for me are Mark Thomas, Will Self and Kate Adie.

For local interest, there’s the first public performance by Birmingham’s 13th Poet Laureate and 4th Young Poet Laureate and a talk from Catherine O’Flynn. There’s quite possibly a lot more local involvement but, semi-literate philistine that I am, I’m not sure who to give a shout to.

Something I like very much about the festival’s website is the way they’ve split up the listings in the left-hand sidebar into different categories, throwing in a wild-card ‘Something Different‘ category too - that’s useful for someone like myself who might want to try something out but might not know what to go for.

Speaking of bookishness, the Lichfield Literature Weekend, a spin-off from the Lichfield Festival, will be held mainly at The George Hotel, Lichfield starting with a literary dinner on 26 September with two guest authors - Gaynor Arnold (whose ‘Girl in a Bue Dress’ from Tindal Street Press is Booker Prize longlisted) and Stephen Robinson.

Links for September 1st

Chris Unitt — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:52:48 +0000

Call and Return : ludogeography
Nikki Pugh’s new project looks like being the Emergent Game writ large, although I’m wary about second-guessing this - one of the strategies is ‘take nothing for granted’, after all. Missions will be announced on 19 September but the time to sign up is now. Workshops will be taking place in Japan soon (told you it was writ large)
Craftspace shortlisted for a national award - Audiences Central
“Craftspace have been shortlisted for this award in recognition of their work with ‘The Project Group’ (an arts social enterprise) and the Quilters’ Guild of Great Britain”. I can’t find a mention on the Craftspace website but congrats to them all the same
New First Light Movies Studio Award Deadlines Announced
“With the First Light Movies Studio Award organisations with experience in collaborative filmmaking with young people can apply for up to £30,000 to fund the production of between two and four short films”. Deadline for applics is 14 October
New book from Tindal Street Press
Spaghetti Gazetti report that “Tindal Street Press is delighted to launch their latest book ‘Never Never’ by David Gaffney”

Bloco Louco

Chris Unitt — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:42:47 +0000

I’ve had a nice email from Sam about Bloco Louco, which I’ll let him tell you about:

Bloco Louco is a samba band/community making some awesome music - arguably some of the best unamplified beats in the city. We were started with Lottery funding, and since that happened a year and a half ago we have gone from strength to strength. Now we are in a position to more than double our numbers, from about 10 currently to a veritable army of 30 drummers.

We rehearse every week at the Ladywood Arts Centre, B16 8TR
7:15pm - 9:45pm every Tuesday
Check out http://www.blocolouco.com/ for more info.

Also to launch this new growth phase, we will be playing 4 SETS at the Birmingham ArtsFest. This will be an amazing extravaganza of talent - among other things there will be a world record attempt during DholFest, so be there!

Thanks, Sam.

The Eternal Now - Andy Warhol at Ikon Eastside

Chris Unitt — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:24:00 +0000

From 4 September to 19 October Ikon Eastside will present The Eternal Now: Warhol and Film ‘63-’68, organised with the Warhol Museum, Pittsburg:

Key films by Warhol and his collaborators are presented, from the earliest period of the Factory when Warhol announced he was no longer making painting

Some of Warhol’s series of Screen Tests will also feature, these were short video portraits of visitors to the Factory:

Ikon presents several reels showing individuals such as Lou Reed, Marcel Duchamp, John Cale, Edie Sedgwick, Billy Name, Lucinda and Ondine

This is the last event of the Ikon Eastside’s season - I think I’m right in thinking it’ll open again (in the same venue) in May 2009. The closing party goes by the name ‘Here & Now & The Future (Do you want to dance and blow your mind?)‘ and sounds fun:

Paying an affectionate homage to ‘The Exploding Plastic Inevitable’ and The Velvet Underground and Nico, “the most infuential and unpopular band in history”, there will be performance, film, light, oil wheels, music, dancing and marshmallows. Dress code is strictly black and white.

That’s on 31 October from 7.30pm til late.

The Mayor of Happiness & The Butler of Joy

Chris Unitt — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:34:03 +0000

These are a series of short films (each around the 30 second mark) produced by the Eccentric City folks to celebrate their third year. There will be 24 in total, the first four are up on the Eccentric City YouTube account and also here:

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

Episode 4:

Stay tuned for more…

Birmingham Comedy Festival 2008

Chris Unitt — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:22:23 +0000

Comedy escapes CiB’s notice most of the time so here goes a mention of the Birmingham Comedy Festival 2008, featuring an impressive list of talent, including the Edinburgh Festival’s newly crowned Perrier (or whatever) Award Winner, David O’Doherty.

Holding up Birmingham’s end are drag duo Patrick and Bernadine (Solihull Arts Complex, 4 Oct) and a whole host of local folk at ‘Wrote Under and Friends Comedy’ at the Kitchen Garden Cafe on . There’s possibly a few more localers too, but none I recognised on the festival’s listings page.

The Old Joint Stock Theatre is also hosting a day dedicated to Tony Hancock at the Old Joint Stock Theatre on 11 October.

It’s the big names that will stick out, of course, and there are plenty of those this year. As long as Dylan Moran, Mark Steel and Ted Chippington get the attention they deserve all will be well.

The festival starts on 3 October and ends on 12 October. Visit the Birmingham Comedy Festival website for more info.

The Cobweb Collective

Chris Unitt — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:31:31 +0000

Thanks to Peter Bacon for emailing me about this - the Cobweb Collective is “a voluntary organisation promoting innovative live improvised music in Birmingham” and they have a website that I rather like:

They put on regular live events and also put out a monthly podcast called the Cobcast (downloads coming soon). They’ve also made a short documentary with bits of interviews, live footage and so on that’s worth a gander:

Home of Metal

Chris Unitt — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:24:54 +0000

Capsule are after folks to volunteer their time to put together a ‘people’s archive’ celebrating Birmingham and the West Mids as the home of heavy metal:

I spoke to Jenny from Capsule about this last week and she made the point that discussions about the Birmingham music scene (or lack of) tend not to mention Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Godflesh, Napalm Death and Led Zep’s Robert Plant - all of whom had a huge impact on a massive, international musical genre.

If you want to get involved go to Capsule’s Home of Metal page.

Incidentally, Capsule have got a few more events lined up, the next one being Pelican & Torche at the Factory Club on 17 September. See the Capsule event page for details.

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Links for August 29th

Chris Unitt — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:08:55 +0000

Digbeth Is Good - ACE dance and music’s classes
“ACE dance and music’s classes for all ages resume in September. All are based at their studio on Floodgate Street.” Nicky points to the details
Donald Savage Says….: Final announcement before disappearing on 28th August 2008
“Blog formally disappeared on the 28th August 2008.
Birmingham in the United Kingdom remains changed.”
Class.
Project X Presents - Welcome support from the Arts Council
Some good news for the PXP people and a nice fillip just a couple of weeks before their next event (at BUSK on Saturday 13 September - tickets are a just a tenner)
Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands
After declaring August to be a bit pants (my words, not his) Russ L rounds up a lot more fun activities for September. He likes Travis though, so take it with a pinch of salt (joke!)
thejazzbreakfast
Peter Bacon has just overhauled his blog and would like to say hi - he writes about jazz for the Birmingham Post and is also an arts administrator and saxomophone player
Commercially Inviable Records - Moseley Folk Festival, Special Offer
“To celebrate the festival we are offering both the Friends of the Stars and James Summerfield albums for a special, one-off festival price of £12 (including postage).” Or a tenner at the Polar Bear stall at the festival itself. James plays on Friday, FOTS play on Sunday
Welcome to 4mations
The city’s animation talent might be interested in this - it’s in beta (ie a pre-release version) at the moment but you can upload your films (and games) already
Hunt Emerson’s “The Owl and The Pussycat” online
Hunt Emerson’s adaptation of Edward Lear’s nonsense poem was featured in the Beano and can now be seen online. Apparently it’s success means further adaptations are in the pipeline (via D’Log)

LTD Edition is back on Sunday

Chris Unitt — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:06:17 +0000

Should you be looking for an affordable art market to visit, it just so happens the second LTD Edition of the year will be back at the Custard Factory on Sunday 31 August along with the Sunday Flea.

This here is by Trav Art who will be there with some prints and t-shirts:

Outer Sight at The Edge

Chris Unitt — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:52:45 +0000

The Metro’s West Midlands Life blog (fresh from giving Artsfest a rather unnecessary shoeing) have reminded me of the Outer Sight film nights at The Edge that I mentioned a while back and completely forgot to follow up on.

The next one is apparently on Saturday and:

the very vague theme is ‘French Fancies & Freaky Kids Flicks’. Expect weird film from psychedelic animator Vince Collins and even weirder music. Entry is £2.50 with invite or £3.50 without; for more information, text OUTERSIGHT to 07887 956297, or e-mail outersight@live.com to join the mailing list

So if you’re not listening politely to another quite pleasant acoustic act at Moseley Folk Festival then perhaps pop down to this. Speaking of the Mofo Festival (as no-one is calling it, thankfully) it kicks off today and I hear that kids’ tickets have gone. When I bought a ticket the other day (pay in cash at Polar Bear and avoid a hefty booking fee from some other outlets) they were going quick - apparently it looks like Saturday might sell out but there should be tickets on the door if you get down in time.

Rex The Runt - The City Shrinkers

Chris Unitt — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:19:06 +0000

and so the beginning of our benevolent colonial rule of Birmingham began

A passing mention on 7 Inch Cinema’s latest blog post (they’re just back from Tilda Swinton’s Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams) led me to this - an episode of Rex The Runt where Rex wins the city of Birmingham:

John Garghan

Chris Unitt — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:50:31 +0000

John Garghan is a photographer who, to be mundane about it, takes beautiful photos of the details of burnt out cars. He puts it much better:

My aim is to capture the disturbance to surfaces created by acts of joy riding and arson by zooming into disfigured vehicle parts that are occupied in the lifecycle of metals, fabrics, and glass. Their corrosion is a natural process that tries to reclaim human made objects to an elemental state more in line with the energy of the molecules these objects are made of, torching accelerates this journey of returning to the earth and I look to capture, investigate and at times distort results of the advancement of its lifecycle

John also has a blog called ‘You will never think of them in the same way again‘ which gives an interesting insight into what he’s been up to and what he thinks about.

John has a Flickr account too. Happily, Flickr has just made it easier to embed photos and slideshows on other sites (like blogs) so here’s a slideshow of John’s work (not all are of burnt cars):

Thanks to Jon Bounds for spotting John Garghan’s blog and Joanna Geary for the Flickr embed info.

Tales of Creativity

Chris Unitt — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:34:55 +0000

A neat little item this - Tales of Creativity is a collection of video and written profiles of graduates from the various courses run from Screen Media Lab that hopes to give readers an insight into the everday reality of working in the creative industries.

There are 18 profiles from a whole host of disciplines to browse through, with examples of everyone’s work. There’s the odd advert for BCU’s MA in Media Enterprise but the profiles of people getting on and doing their creative thing in Birmingham are really quite interesting. They’ve certainly never been mentioned on CiB before so I might pull a few out on a slow news day.

Birmingham Film Makers meet-up

Chris Unitt — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:36:42 +0000

This is always good to see - following a discussion on the Film Birmingham forum, Rill Marchant and Rebecca Sloan are organising a pub meet-up on Saturday:

If you’re interested/involved in any aspect of filmmaking or media come along and join us on Saturday 30th August 2008 from 5:30 pm at Lloyds Bar on Broad Street.

We’ll bring a home made sign or something to put on the table so you can find us when you arrive and I expect we’ll be there for at least a few hours before (maybe) moving on to another venue.

Nothing heavy - just a chance for people who are into the same thing to meet up and have a chat.

There’s a Facebook group for interested peeps to join too.

Artsfest 2008 - a pre-emptive rummage

Chris Unitt — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:53:59 +0000

I found this summary of Artsfest 2008 over at CLUB:

Friday is funny light show and parade day

Saturday is fireworks day

Sunday is Kerrangfest day with the Levellers

Which is pretty good but, although the official programme’s not out yet, I’ve been having a bit of a rummage about to see what’s on.

Friday

I’ve already mentioned Light Night. One of the buildings to be illuminated is the Town Hall which will be hosting a free event from 8pm on the Friday featuring Manga, Soweto Kinch, The Sub Ensemble and Maylight.

Also on Friday there’s the free Reggae Rockz Festival 2008 from 8pm to 11pm in Centenary Square. Unfortunately on the Facebook event page the organisers spend all their time bleating about a lack of promotion from Artsfest and don’t get round to telling us much about what they’l be doing. The Beat are playing, that much is sure. The Reggae Rockz website manages to be even less informative. Ah well.

Saturday

It looks like Dholfest 2008 is the biggie here - an attempt to break the world record for the most dhol players in one place (currently 314 players in Sandwell in 1999). They’re aiming for 500 this time. This one will be held in Victoria and Centenary Squares.

Meanwhile, the Custard Factory will be hosting a day of hip hop with Mylz from Heducation and Madman the Greatest down to perform.

Sunday

Sunday is Kerrangfest day with This Beautiful Thief and The Levellers the only bands I’ve spotted so far.

Across the weekend

Spaghetti Gazetti has info about the weekend’s poetry performances.

This year the ShortCuts film programme will be extended slightly, with “a more relaxed, experimental programme of films made by local and international film makers” on the Sunday and a set of fims programmed in conjunction with Deaffest across the weekend. There’s more about those in this post from the Artsfest blog.

There’s much more to come and I’ll let you know when I see a full programme lying around the internet somewhere.

Light Night

Chris Unitt — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:04:04 +0000

Light Night is a series of events taking place in six cities around the UK, the first of which will be in Birmingham on 12 September to coincide with the launch of Artsfest 2008. To quote lazily from the website:

Light Night in Birmingham will feature architectural lighting of iconic city centre buildings and iconic landmarks such as:

The newly refurbished £35M Town Hall

The Council House

Museum and Art Gallery

Selfridges building at the Bullring

The Rotunda

Birmingham Cathedral

plus a few surprises!

These landmarks will be beautifully lit to create a visually stunning trail of features around Birmingham City Centre.

The idea of all-night festivals is fairly established on the continent - from the original ‘Nuit Blanche‘ in Paris in 2002. As well as the illuminated buildings there will be street performances, music and the shops will stay open later. It’s meant to be a family affair so the fit with Artsfest makes sense.

What’s more, the people at 383Project have designed the brochure for the event and blogged about it to boot.

You can see more on the Light Night website (which wasn’t made 383Project).

BM&AG receives a £300,000 windfall

Chris Unitt — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:38:54 +0000

D’Log has spotted that the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery have been given some money by the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Improvement Fund to develop new audiences. From the BBC:

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery will spend its £300,000 grant on a new gallery telling the story of the city from medieval times to the present.

48 Weeks… Later

Chris Unitt — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:46:45 +0000

Another week, another MA show with a pleasingly cheap & cheerful approach to internet promotion. This time it’s the turn of BCU’s Jewellery, Silversmithing and Related Products MA Show 2008.

This year the emphasis has been on extending the conventional boundaries of jewellery and silversmithing. 48 WEEKS… LATER demonstrates a variety of approaches to the subject area, including installations, animations, laser technologies and explorations of colour and scale.

Join us on the evening Tuesday 9th September 6-8pm at the School of Jewellery, Vittoria Street, Birmingham for the opening of the exhibition where 14 students will showcase their exciting new collections. The exhibition will be on display until the 26th of September.

For further info fun there’s a MySpace page and a Facebook group.

Hi8us DigiToons talks & masterclasses

Chris Unitt — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:22:24 +0000

Hi8us have teamed up with all sorts of people including the Creative Careers Surgery, Hello Digital (on which more in a later post) and The Brothers McLeod to put on some talks and masterclasses in September.

Digitoons Talks

2 Sept @ The Theatre, Custard Factory with Tobias Fouracre (Tandem Films) and Chris Randall (Second Home Productions)
3 Sept @ The Herbert, Coventry with Greg & Myles McLeod (The Brothers McLeod) and someone from Cosgrove Hall Films (TBC)
4 Sept @ Light House, Wolverhampton with Helene Friren (Tandem Films) and Richard Hayes (Cosgrove Hall Films)

All talks last from 6.30 to 8pm with nibbles until 9pm. They’re all free too but places are limited to you’ll need to book - call 0121 753 7700 or email kate@hi8us.co.uk for that.

Digitoons Masterclasses

In addition to the talks:

The Brothers McLeod, will give six budding animators the opportunity to take part in five masterclasses to enable them to create their own one-minute animations. The finished product will be screened alongside renowned industry professionals at Millenium Point, as part of Hello Digital.

The classes will take place weekly between 16 Sept and 7 Oct 2008. To apply for that call 0121 753 7700 or email kate@hi8us.co.uk.

For more info on the talks and masterclasses see the DigiToons eflyer.

Speak Out from Brap

Chris Unitt — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:49:53 +0000

Russell Hall (who has a blog too) is a freelance graphic designer in Birmingham. He’s been working on Speak Out - a free magazine for an equal opportunities company called Brap.

Here’s the blurb:

Every three months Speak Out will deliver a magazine packed with articles, stories, poems, photographs and comment, and to do this we need your help. Whether you’re a poet, an artist, a writer, a photographer or someone who has something to say send us your work and ideas. It doesn’t matter if you’re aspiring or established, young or old. All that counts is that you want the opportunity to share your work with the whole of Birmingham.

To get in contact with the Speak Out team email speakout@brap.org.uk or for more information go to brap’s website at www.brap.org.uk. Submissions for the next magazine must be received on or before 24 October 2008

The first issue is due out at the start of September and will be partly distributed by Birmingham Library & Archive services. Here’s what issue 1 looks like:

Artists working outside Birmingham

Chris Unitt — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:10:32 +0000

I tend to concentrate on stuff happening in Birmingham on CiB but Matthew Price has emailed with news of Birmingham artists getting recognition outside our fair city:

Moseley’s Tessa Farmer has a work in the current show ‘Wrap your troubles in a dream’ at Lautom Contemporary in Oslo, curated by Power Ekroth. Looks like a great show.
West Midlands-based artist Sally Payen for has been selected for the Shingle 22 Biennale in Rome - a biennale devoted this edition to the theme of war.
West Midlands-based artist Janice Dale opened a show last weekend at The Courtyard in Hereford.
Roger Hiorns has been awarded a major commission by Artangel in London this September which involves transforming “urban housing into large-scale immersive works of art”

I’m not so good at picking up on this stuff but it’s always good to hear about. If you spot something then feel free to send it my way.

What’s your big idea for Birmingham?

Chris Unitt — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:00:04 +0000

On Thursday evening last week, Creative Republic brought together council leader Mike Whitby and head of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, Jerry Blackett to discuss the role of Birmingham’s creative industries in the Big City Plan. Mark Ball (at the lecturn in the pic) hosted.

Rhubarb Radio were there to record the proceedings and have a link to an audio file of the speeches . There are some photos in the gallery on the Creative Republic site and here are Pete Aston’s notes in mindmap form.

What I took away from the evening was that nothing’s yet set in stone and there’s still a lot of work to be done on developing the plan.

The thing is, things are currently at the talking stage. It’s hard to get a sense of what direction things are taking as there doesn’t seem to be anything we can really get our teeth into, dissect and inspect. I think I remember Mike Whitby saying that there might be something more tangible to look at in October. A follow-up event is in the offing.

The other thing that was impressed upon us all is that, in terms of employees and Gross Value Added, the creative sector is comparable in size to the city’s lauded financial sector. There’s a lot of latent power there that could influence the way the city develops.

We were told that if anyone wants to get involved in shaping the plan then there’s no need to wait for an invite. Unfortunately the mechanism for getting involved isn’t that clear, although according to the Big City Plan site, Richard Healy is the initial point of contact for anyone wanting to get in touch. You can call him on 0121 303 3075 or email richard.healy@birmingham.gov.uk.

Helga Henry from Creative Republic said that they would be asking everyone who was there to submit one big idea for Birmingham. They’ll be collected together and presented to the Big City Plan peeps.

To feed into that, and perhaps addressing anyone who hasn’t signed up to the Creative Republic charter:

What’s your big idea for Birmingham?

Whack it in the comments and it’ll be thrown into the mix. I’ll start things off…