Tag Archives: Jon Bounds

Brum Tig: I’m “It”

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In a bid to draw attention to the plethora of interesting Birmingham blogs floating about on’t Internet, Jon Bounds of Birmingham: It’s Not Shit has started Brum blog tig.

The rules, according to Jon, are:

  • Each player starts with an odd, but fun, fact about Brum and one odd, but fun, fact about their blog.
  • At the end of your blog, you need to choose two people to get tagged and list their names.
  • Tag your post “birminghamUK” and “brumblogtig” (the second one is a memetag).
  • People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (with their version of the post) and post these rules (or link to them here). They can tie it in with their particular subject if they so wish.
  • Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

So my Brum fact:

Did you know that the lifts in the Mailbox each have different voices recorded by people from BBC Birmingham? One of them is definitely John Craven, although I’m yet to figure out who the others are!

(As an aside, over the way in Walsall Art Gallery the “voice of the lifts” is Noddy Holder)

And my blog fact:

According to a colleague, I technically could have been fired for starting this blog. Somewhere in my contract – apparently – there’s a clause about not publishing information about my employer, or something like that.

It was lucky that, when I decided to start blogging a little over three months ago, I didn’t think to look at my contract. It was doubly lucky that, when the people I worked for found out about the blog, they supported it instead of giving me my P45!

I’m tagging Tom Lennon and Bunny Bissoux.

Answers: Trevor Beattie

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Well! That was a treat!

The title of Trevor’s talk for the evening as “What is the Big Idea?”. His answer? In advertising there is no big idea, just lots of little ideas that can contribute to a big idea.

It was a talk full of laughs and interesting takes on the advertising industry. It felt like a collection of some of his favourite pictures and videos that he had put together into a presentation while on the train up from London (which he claimed it was).

I’d been warned that he might be a difficult person to interview, but he was warm, lively, open and unprententious. I suppose it wouldn’t be hard to imagine a fiery Irish temper under it all somewhere, but I saw none of it.

I’ve got to save the bulk of what he said for a article for The Post next week. But Stef (who seems to be in a pre-emptive mood) has posted a summary of the answer to his question here and below are answers to the other questions.

But first, a special mention for Jon Bounds and Birmingham: It’s Not Shit, which – unprompted – Trevor bought up during the interview.

He got introduced to the site by another guy from Birmingham who works at his agency BMB and he thinks it’s a great site! He knows all about why it was set up (failed Capital of Culture bid which Trevor worked on). He is a regular reader and a very proud Brummie.

Bounder’s Answer:

“Of course you can advertise a city, don’t be daft. That’s a silly thing to say. Next question!

“But seriously, you can, but its not up to me to do it – it’s up to everyone and we have to be more arrogant about Birmingham. I can keep shouting the message, but everyone else needs to be doing it too.”

Prem1um’s Answer: I’m afraid I got your question a bit mixed up and asked for the first four, which were: balti, race, humour and Balsall Heath (where he was born).

“I am very proud of Balsall Heath – 56 Brighton Road was where I grew up. Everyone in my business knows where I come from.

“All these cities that talk about multiculturalism. Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool – they’re not multicultural. London is now, but Birmingham invented it.

“When I was growing up in Balsall Heath in the 1970s it was just the way it was. On my road there was my family of Irish Brummies, then next door there was Halal butcher Brummie, across the road there were Jamaican Brummies and a bit further down there was some Pakistani Brummies. That’s how I grew up.”