The Caracas crew in the barrio I’ve been in Caracas since Friday with my friends Jez, Ruth, Alex, Rich, Will and Leo… and I’m at a bit of a loss to describe my experience to date. Amazing, inspiring, and occasionally terrifying would about cover it. We’re here as part of an Un-Convention event being held [...]
Categories: culture,Music,Travel
Tagged: Caracas, Tiuna el Fuerte, Un-Convention
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- April 18, 2012 – 12:01 am
- Author:
- By dubber
Let’s get this out of the way right up front: I like living in Birmingham. I moved here from New Zealand with a job to return to, phoned them after 6 months and said “sorry – I’m not coming back”. That was nearly eight years ago. But I am sick of this city competing for [...]
Categories: Birmingham,culture
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- March 31, 2012 – 3:58 pm
- Author:
- By dubber
As you’ll no doubt already know, it’s traditional to give generous gifts to New Zealanders on Waitangi Day*. New Zealander Taika Waititi is trying to get his film BOY screened in the United States. February 6th is Waitangi Day. I’ve just put those two things together and made a connection. BOY is a fantastic film, [...]
Categories: culture,New Zealand
Tagged: films
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- February 5, 2012 – 7:56 pm
- Author:
- By dubber
All in all, I’ve had an pretty good year that’s taken me to a lot of interesting places – both literally and metaphorically. I thought that rather than go over it here (there’s really rather a lot) I thought I’d talk a bit about where the process of reflection has brought me to. My motto [...]
Categories: culture
Tagged: 2011
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- December 22, 2011 – 1:11 pm
- Author:
- By dubber
I’ve been seeing a lot about Pay A Blogger Day bouncing around the internet today. It’s on November 29th, and it’s a campaign to promote Flattr – a service that allows you to donate small amounts to websites and services you like. I won’t be putting a Flattr button on my site and I do [...]
Categories: culture
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- November 22, 2011 – 5:59 pm
- Author:
- By dubber
I saw the trailer for Marvel’s The Avengers this week, and I said on Twitter something to the effect that this film (due out May next year) is the point that the whole of the history of cinema has been leading up to. Of course, it was treated as hyperbole, and those who bothered to [...]
Categories: culture
Tagged: Avengers, Film
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- October 15, 2011 – 6:15 pm
- Author:
- By dubber
I met up with a few of my colleagues in Birmingham City Centre yesterday. We had some visiting partners from across Europe who are working on a project with us about music heritage, so we thought it appropriate to take them to the Home of Metal exhibition. One of our PhD students, Rob Horrocks, has [...]
Categories: Birmingham,culture,Music
Tagged: Heavy Metal
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- September 22, 2011 – 11:15 am
- Author:
- By dubber
Panic on the streets of London Panic on the streets of Birmingham I wonder to myself Could life ever be sane again? Panic – The Smiths (1986) There’s a lot being said on the internet about last night’s escalation of riots in London and Birmingham (and spreading). So much so that blogging about it feels [...]
Categories: Birmingham,culture,Politics,Technology
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- August 9, 2011 – 8:52 am
- Author:
- By dubber
After getting my turntable repaired at 2007 Sound and Light on the Moseley Road in Balsall Heath (thoroughly recommended – Lonnie and his team are superb and my Technics 1210 has never sounded so good), I thought I’d follow the advice of a comment on this blog made recently by a man named Huw, and [...]
Categories: culture
Tagged: amplifier, stereo
- Published:
- April 9, 2011 – 12:01 pm
- Author:
- By dubber
I first met Nancy Baym on Twitter, and now we’re also friends on Facebook. We’ve talked via email about a couple of things as well. She’s a professor in the US and we have some mutual friends in common, many of whom one or both of us have never actually met in person. She’s written [...]
Categories: culture,Education,Technology,University
Tagged: Academic, Internet, Interview, Music, Social media
- Published:
- September 10, 2010 – 10:05 pm
- Author:
- By dubber