He goes on to say how Farmers Markets are a nice cultural thing. Or something. Have a listen anyway:

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I hadn’t been particularly struck by the outside of the building, but now I’ve been inside I see the external fabric in a much more forgiving light. The interior is completely unrecognisable to anyone who was familiar with the building before: it’s light and airy, has a lot more public space, is wheelchair accessible and has lifts to the upper levels; there’s free wifi throughout, big windows with fabulous views of the park, movable seating in the theatre, a fantastic gallery space… I could go on and on.

We were even given samples of the food, which was amazing; I forgot to photograph it, but essentially it was high quality canapes. I expressed a concern that the food has upped its game too far, and out of the comfort zone and pocket of most people; I often used to go to the mac precisely because I could get no-nonsense grub – stew, fish and chips, lasagne – for three or four quid. I was assured though that the menu is still in that price bracket, but more inviting.

I also hadn’t realised how close to the budget they were, with only a fraction still to raise. And I’m told that apart from the setback of a few months when they discovered that the lido underneath the building was still there and needed removing, the project was delivered on schedule.

I took a load of photos (on my iphone I’m afraid) which you can flick through here:

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Simon Gray just tweeted a small but important change that would vastly improve accessibility for visitors:

“My advice to the custard factory, btw – a big sign in the window saying ‘reception’ would be a massive bonus for visitors…”

And that’s just one thing that would make a big difference: I’m sure there are many more. I think it’s high time we compiled a list of little but important changes that could be made, and then lobby for them to happen.

So if you have any please add them in the comments below.

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The last time we played Market Pong we had a handful of people, and I wondered wistfully how great it would be if we could fill the whole market. Our chance is upon us, as Nikki has announced another game of Market Pong for the August Bank Holiday Monday.

There are at least 32 tables: let’s try and fill them all! Tell your friends, and turn up with bat and balls.

Market Pong: table-tennis in Birmingham's outdoor market

Tip: ping-pong balls from places like the Pound Shop are worse than hopeless, so it’s worth spending three or four quid in a sports shop. Balls come in packs so club together with another player if you need to bring the cost down.

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As a crude record of what I wrote, what follows is my Twitter stream for that event. All I’ve done is take the html from Twitter Search and pasted it here without its stylesheet. The tweets appear in reverse chronological order.

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Nikki Pugh steered me there. I’m not sure I’d have found it otherwise. It’s one of those incredible places that sit politely out of the limelight but are full of cool stuff: in this case, nibs, nibs, nibs, ink bottles, nibs, nibs, nibs, nibs and old typewriters. But honestly, it’s well worth a visit.

In their own words:

‘Birmingham, England, was the centre of the world pen trade for more than a century, employing thousands of people, pioneering craftsmanship, manufacturing processes and employment opportunities especially for women [...] Located in a former pen factory, The Pen Room recalls the history of some of the companies involved in the trade’.

Visit The Pen Room

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Nikki and Charlie, who facilitate the BARG events, organised a bunch of us to meet at the vegetable market yesterday afternoon (it’s empty – and relatively clean – on Sundays).

Table-tennis on Birmingham's market stalls (Photo by Nikki Pugh)

We bought sets of bats and balls from a pound shop, but quickly discovered that the balls were useless. No matter how hard you hit them they seemed to give up after the first bounce. As Antonio pointed out, “when the ball starts going backwards you know something’s not right”. So we splashed out on some better quality balls, which worked a treat.

There were about nine of us altogether, but we were joined by at least three passers-by who wanted to play.

There are at least 32 tables though: imagine filling them all with games of table-tennis on a Sunday afternoon?

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I’m looking for fifty people in Birmingham who are in the public eye but who seem to wield very little power.

I’m doing this in three steps:

1. You give me some names (using the comments form at the end of this post);
2. I put the names to the vote;
3. We discuss why those people are well-known but powerless, whether they should be either, and what needs changing to rectify the situation.

Please note: The point of this is to scrutinise Birmingham power a bit more, not to get personal or belittle people.

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Actually that’s not quite true: Nicky doesn’t actually have a shop. What she does have is a website, a Flickr account and a load of junk.

It was rather an unsual shop because it didn’t sell anything. You see, everything in that shop window was a thing that somebody had once lost and Nicky had found…

That bit is true. Nicky finds junk lying around the streets of Digbeth and blogs about it.

…And brought home to DiGpuss. Nicky’s cat DiGpuss.

Actually the cat in question is called Flossy, but hey; the point is that Flossy now has a lot of junk. You can see her latest acquisitions here.

I keep meaning to write about this (now spurred into action by spotting that Nicky Getgood has finally blogged about it too) because it’s partly my fault that DiGpuss exists. It was the brainchild of Shona McQuillan many moons ago – although of course Nicky’s been collecting her rubbish for some time – and I promised to turn it into something visual. Five months later I finally came good on that promise.

I say ‘good’; the images don’t display properly in Internet Explorer and the links don’t work in Opera, but everything’s ok in Safari and Firefox. One day we might fix that. It’s all done with HTML and CSS; no scripting except a bit of php to pull the rss feed from Flickr.

But it’s fun. So go on, pay a visit to DiGpuss.

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The site of the old BBC studios has been clear for more than four years. The University has plans for a Science and Technology Park which is apparently due in 2015, but the only pages I found on their website with any dates refer to nothing later than 2006. And (at the time of writing) the Birmingham City Council‘s search engine is broken, so not very fruitful.

I’ve posted a question to the new Help Me Investigate website (currently in private beta, so for now you need an invitation to join), in case anyone has light they can shed on it.

Knowing me I may have been completely oblivious to frenetic development activity, and that there’s actually an enormous glass cathedral of science now sitting where the BBC used to be. Hopefully though I haven’t missed much, and this blog post is still relevant.

So are we still to expect a glossy university science building bang opposite the Nature Centre (handy for medical experiments), or may we use the waste ground to play on?

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