Well, since Jon won’t let me back out and since I’m pretty sure I don’t stand a chance of winning (the blogging / creative / arts world being a small pond in the ocean of Birmingham) I might as well put some effort into it.
Yes, I’m in the running for Brummie of the Year and, modesty aside, I’m dead chuffed about it. So taking a leaf out of Mike’s book having watched him get all melodramatic with his Bloggies nominations over the years I ask, nay urge you to vote for me. And to get all your friends to vote for me. And to then reset your router so you get assigned a new IP address and vote for me again. Is your neighbour’s wireless signal leaking into your flat? Use it to vote for me. And if you’ve got a laptop you can vote from a variety of wifi hotspots and Jon will be none the wiser.
And remember, you don’t have to live in Birmingham or even give a rats arse about Birmingham to vote for Brummie of the Year. (Though if in doing so you check out Jon’s wonderful Birmingham: It’s Not Shit campaign you’ll discover that, yes, it’s actually rather good in places.)
Here’s who I’m up against. My money would be on John Tighe if I didn’t think I was going to walk this.
Pete Ashton – blogging evangelist to the creative community.
Lisa Meyer & Jenny Moore of Capsule – bringing much needed gigs (and cake!) to Brum.
Carl Chinn – larger than life local historian.
Condori : Big Chief Busks With Recorder – on behalf of all our buskers and street entertainers.
Soweto Kinch – Mobo award winner and Town Hall associate artist.
Martin Mullaney – Camcorder Councillor, trying every which way to involve people in local politics.
Catherine O’Flynn – First time novelist who’s wowed the literary world this year.
Richard Pawley – Wants to build a 600 foot tower – and jump off it.
John Tighe of The Spotted Dog – Keeping Digbeth noisy, or so we hope.
Just remember, I’m very clever at the internet so I can tell if you haven’t voted for me using internet trickery. So go vote.
Now.
For me.
Not for anyone else.
‘kay?
Well, you’re doing pretty well so far!
I know, but I got my campaigning in earlier than anyone else so I get the early bump. We’ll see if I can sustain this lead.
Good luck mate. You obviously love Brum and I hope you win!
I’ve encouraged both of my readers to go and vote. That should tip the scales… :)
Hi, Pete. Just a note to say I came across your blog about your worst ever temp job. I am a silver surfer and was looking for temp.jobs which can be done by people like me. Well,there aren’t any and looking at your description I see why. I wouldnt have lasted 5 mins. Employers know that they want male, young and strong if they are not to have lots of corpses on their hands. That would gum up the Health and Safety stats. wouldn’t it? I am sure it was awful at the time but your write-up of it was highly amusing. Cynical ole me concludes that such jobs are little better than slavery. The teaching/supervisory role – for the same peanuts -is a favourite management trick. I am sure you’ve gone on to better things! It’s worth getting qualified and later specialising in something lucrative that you can do til you drop. I found that out too late. All the best.
P.S. I have voted for you, Pete. I see you are just ahead. I thought you deserved it for being Birmingham’s blogging evangalist, and for suffering as you did in 2004.
I live in London. I am old enough to remember the first bit of the M1 London-Birmingham being opened with a great ribbon-cutting fanfare. I forget how quickly we were told how quickly we could then drive to Birmingham; maybe 20 minutes as there were so few cars! I haven’t been in Brum in recent years, so haven’t seen all the newer City Centre construction. Is everyone in the city pleased with the “new Birmingham”?
Was increased long-distance motor travel for all good or bad in the long run, one wonders?
Yay, that’s the spirit! Pimp it, baby!
Dubber – that’s 1 more than me .. lol.