Despite being on holiday, I had to go in to work today to get a couple of things sorted out. I took the opportunity to go along the canal route – at least from Bordesley as far as the Aston railway station.
I still have to do the dreary (and traffic-heavy) Stratford Road from Hall Green, but once you get on the canals, it’s a nice ride.
The above picture is taken here (Google Map) just as I’m about to go under the railway lines.
If you want to follow the map, I keep going along the canal till I hit Aston Junction, take a right and carry on till I get to Holborn Hill, where I get back off the canal, go along past Aston Villa stadium, and up towards the university.
It’s a bit of a hike, so I dawdled, and took some photos along the way.
I like this shot. It makes it look like there’s a gloriously sunny day waiting for me at the other end of the tunnel. It wasn’t. Today was very grey, cold – and on the way home, I got snowed on.
I’ve been doing a bit of cycling this past week in anticipation of my new bike. The old bike might be creaking and struggling a bit, but it can still do the rounds, so I’ve been taking off in different directions each day.
Today I was pleasantly surprised by just how many parks, ponds and green areas there are around here. I started by cycling around Trittiford Mill Park and then up to Swanshurst Park, where I cycled around the Moseley New Pool (a sort of manmade pond – pictured above).
I also had a go at cycling around Moseley Bog, which is a lovely nature reserve not far from here, but it turned out not to be such a great idea. The clue’s in the name.
Left to my own devices today, so I went to a local farm I’d found out about the other day. They’re open to visitors, have a tea room (mug of tea 70p), and you can get up close with the animals.
It’s about a 45 minute leisurely bike ride away, so it’s nice to stop and sit for a while before coming back.
Took a few photos, so if you’re interested in cows, pigs, goats, chooks, ducks and ponies, knock yourself out.
They were holding auditions for Britain’s Got Talent at the Hippodrome in Birmingham earlier today. I know this, because I rode past it on my bike.
I utterly despise Britain’s Got Talent. And X-Factor. And Pop Idol. I think shows like that are not only exploitative, cruel and patronising, but also largely to blame for the insane and poisonous idea that the reason to make music is to become famous.
It also perpetuates the ridiculous notion that the way to make money from music is to run the risk of ritual humiliation in front of an audience of millions in the hopes of being ‘discovered’ by a powerful man who’ll sign you to an even more exploitative record contract and thrust you into the full glare of the media spotlight so you can pose alongside other vacuous celebutards on the pages of Heat magazine.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of how cross this crap makes me. As spectacle, this is our modern day equivalent of the public execution (only in this case, the contestants are willingly lining up to be hanged) – and no better in my view than paying homeless people to beat each other up on camera. It’s utterly hateful, and probably the best thing about it is how ‘clever and witty’ my friends on Twitter are when they’re being nasty and spiteful in their personal attacks on the contestants. It just brings out the worst in everybody.
On the plus side, there didn’t seem to be that many people queuing in the hopes of touching Simon Cowell’s robe. Perhaps it’s all wearing off – or maybe I was just early.
A couple of months back, I received an email from a young guy who’s producing and performing music in the Bahamas. For a while I couldn’t really figure out what he did (he describes himself as a ‘vocal producer’), but he’s one of a new wave of young Bahamians making smooth R&B and succeeding in getting local music played on local radio in his hometown of Nassau.
Bizarrely, his girlfriend lives in Wolverhampton (they met while studying in Jamaica) and he was over visiting, so we met up for a coffee and a chat, and I showed him around some of the nicer bits of Birmingham city centre.
Really interesting guy, particularly given that he’s possibly the first to incorporate traditional Bahamian sounds into contemporary R&B – and had a number one hit in the process (a song called ‘My Candidate’).
Novel’s a rapper and a singer as well as a vocal producer, though the majority of his recorded output since dropping out of medical school to pursue a music industry career has involved the vocals of others. He wrote and co-produced the track you can listen to above, and also provided the rap. His friend Sketch (Christopher Carey) is the singer.
So… not my usual musical territory, but a really talented and interesting guy, completely sold on the possibilities of digital social media for independent music. You should visit his website here.
I floated the idea of a possible Un-Convention Nassau, and he seemed to think that might be quite a good idea. Something to explore – and certainly something I’d be up for…
I went for a bike ride again today. Followed my nose for about half an hour, and then turned around and came back again. This was where I ended up at the end of that half an hour.
It was in a place I’d never been before (there are a lot of those around here). As soon as you take a turn off the main road, you seem to pretty quickly end up tootling along country roads, which is lovely.
I turned off Stratford Road (the main road I live near), then found myself heading past Major’s Green, down through Whitlock’s End, to come to a stop outside Tidbury Green Farm. I’d never heard of any of these places.
Clutch took me along to the Rammstein gig tonight. We were on the guest list, because his friend Jon was involved in the amazing staging, and scored a couple of comps for us.
The show was incredible. It would not have occurred to me to go to a Rammstein concert, but I would thoroughly recommend it, even if you’re not a fan of the music. Such incredible pyrotechnics, stagecraft and a little bit of high camp magic showmanship.
And, of course, stuff blew up, there were huge towers of flame, face-mounted flamethrowers, exploding laser babies (really), and there was a cannon that shot foam all over the audience. What more could you ask for?
