Okay, after those one, two, three posts on blogging about Birmingham it’s time to actually start doing something with the idea.
Some notes before hand though.
1) I have no real concrete idea how this is going to work in the long term. This is not a problem. Currently my vision of Birmingham is limited to that which I know. As I start to write about and explore the city this will change and hopefully grow. So no predictions about content.
2) At the same time, no wild expectations on the outset. I don’t expect to be doing anything radical to begin with – that will come with time.
3) No trying to set up a group blog. Given the above it’ll be hard to lay down commonly agreed rules and guidelines so best not to bother. That’s not to say some kind of collaboration might emerge in the long term though. Also, I’ve become aware of other people planning vaguely similar things. Hopefully we can spur each other on and develop a community that way.
4) There’s a rather nice paradox to this whole thing. My motivation for starting this is that there isn’t a decent site that tells what’s going on in Birmingham. However, to produce one I need to know what’s going on in Birmingham. But the reason I want a site like this to exist is because I don’t know what’s going on in Birmingham. Hello brick wall. Then, assuming I get over that brick wall and find myself knowing exactly what’s going on in Birmingham, what is my motivation for continuing the site? (The latter is, of course, silly talk – I’ll never know everything and it’s always changing, but the former is something of a stumbling block.)
So here’s the plan. I’m going to start blogging about Birmingham on this blog. This will initially be in self contained posts comprised of a few links, a bit of commentary, some news and other bits and bobs. Some of this I’ve been doing already (such as the occasional upcoming gigs posts) but there’ll be more of it and it won’t just be about music and photography. Okay, initially it’s just be music and photography but I intend to expand out from that.
Each post will be suitably flagged (so non-Brummies can ignore it) and normal Pete-blogging will continue alongside. So don’t all un-subscribe just yet. This is just an experiment, running for a month or so, to see if this might be viable and to force me to hook into local activity I’m not aware of.
If it is viable then I’ll spin it off into its own blog, with all that entails, some time in the new year.
Actually, in a moment of pure coincidence, Diamond Geezer’s recent Cultural Update for London is pretty much the sort of thing I was thinking about. (As well as being the best thing he’s written for a while.)
It all starts, ooh, some time tomorrow I guess. right now!
Presumably you will be accepting entries from others (particularly covering spheres of activity outside your current remit)? I don’t mean group blogging, more the way you often pass on e-mailed links in the linklog. i.e. Give a “ta” for information received.
Personally I look forward to the commentary more than the “what’s on” aspect of the concept. But we do all need to share what we know of the city’s activities and resources. A while back I really enjoyed your essays on the old Science and Industry Museum site – more of same, please!
As a nostalgia buff (it’s the age thing) I would love to see some “now and then” comparisons. These tend to be over shorter periods of time than you might expect. Digbeth is about to be regenerated and there will be lots of opportunities to see how much is going to be lost that shouldn’t be lost. If nothing else, a Birmingham Blog might keep the developers and planners a little more honest. Well, there’s always hope for a miracle.
Damn, I hope my Cultural Update isn’t the best thing I’ve written for a while.
But it is probably the most useful thing I’ve written for a while, and the most varied, and maybe also the most relevant to others.
A Birmingham Blog is a great idea, and long overdue. At the moment I know more about life in the Outer Hebrides from blogs than I do about Britain’s second city, and that can’t be right.
Looking forward to finding out more…
“Best thing” was probably the wrong term. It did strike me that, having not lived in London for three years with no plans to visit in the forseable future, I found it fascinating all the way through, so for me it was the best London-centric thing you’d written for a while. It sort of brought the city alive for me in a positive, vibrant way.