Birmingham looks like LA or something from my living room window at the moment. I think it’s those palm trees on the penthouse opposite. That and the sunsets. It’s probably global warming or something.

So farewell then Arthur C Clarke, author, thinker and inventer of the geo-synchronous orbit (more or less). Although I always preferred Asimov myself, I can remember reading and re-reading Rendezvous with Rama and The Fountains of Paradise.

My favourite piece by him was the novella The City and the Stars, possibly the most atmospheric bit of sci-fi I’ve ever read, dripping with alienation, isolation, desperation, and finally hope.

And of course the short story that inspired this:

(With a little help from Stanley Kubrick). And in another collaboration with another underrated genius (in my opinion at least) The Songs of Distant Earth - turned into a cod-new age tranquil hippy chillout whalesong cheesefest of an album by Mike Oldfield, an album that regardless somehow manages to be one of my favourite.

Last of the big three sci-fi writers. We shan’t see his like again. I’m off to take loads of drugs and watch the starchild bit of 2001 again in memory of Arthur (or at least that’s my excuse).

Well, I’m going on holiday to Australia and Japan in a few months, stamping my carbon footprint onto the crying face of the earth.

While I’m there I’d love to take some holiday snaps, firstly to annoy people at work by emailing them in while they’re slogging away and I’m on the beach. Secondly, so I can bore people with some kind of slideshow when get home.

Sadly my ancient digital snapper seems to be coming apart at the seams (pretty much literally since I dropped it a few months ago). So I was hoping one of you talented photographers out there could recommend one for me to get. Ideally I’m looking for one that is (in order of importance):

• Cheap - 200 notes at an absolute most, ideally less than that
• Reasonably small, portable and tough
• Capable of taking good quality pictures
• Packed with manual features so I can play around and do arty stuff

From reading one of my gadget-porn magazines it seems like this one might be a decent bet, and cheap to boot, though lacking in the fancy-dan photographical features. Any comments or suggestions?

Wow, it’s so easy to let time slip by without blogging. A week plus on this one, which is bad enough, but more than a month for my pub blog. I guess I’m just too professional to go out drinking regularly.

Anyway, I’m back off the blogging and drinking wagon, so please start reading my pub reviews at Pint Sized again. My latest review is the Bartons Arms.

It was supposed to be a groundbreaking live pub review on the BA’s wifi system but alas, it didn’t work.

Coming up soon, my trip out to Moseley.

Today I was talking to the Black Country Chamber of Commerce about their plans to get the region officially recognised by the Ordinance Survey maps.

The hardest part of the whole business is deciding what and where the Black Country actually is though. Although it’s obviously got it’s own identity - probably more so than the surrounding areas of other cities of similar size.

I don’t know about Gateshead or Salford being so keen to distance themselves from their larger conurbations to nearly the same extent as the Black Country seems to.

I’m a relative newcomer to the West Midlands, so all these references to yam yams, Slade, bostin, faggots and peas, brummagem and the like passes over my head a bit. So someone take a guess, help me out: where does Birmingham end and the Black Country start? And why is it so important to everyone?

Very few, it seems, and certainly nothing particulary tangible. This has already been discussed on some of the usual places but I’ve been writing and talking to people about it all day (see in full here and here), so I’ve decided to stick my oar in anyway.

One thing that seems to come up a lot is that people can’t seem to see any actual benefit to it. From talking to a number of people round Birmingham - and also at the Ironbridge Gorge WH site over in Shropshire, it seems that the only benefits anyone mentions in increased tourism, and some kind of nebulous “community” spirit.

Of course no-one can really predict the effect that the extra exposure this might have on tourism numbers, extra shoppers, that sort of thing, but given that the vast majority of people don’t even know much about what WHSs are, it can’t be that much of a pull. THe head of the Ironbridge WH site even said to me that there aren’t many in the world that this makes any difference to.

And in terms of a community spirit… The WHS classification gives very little actual legal protection or guidance, if any, to an area. In terms of creating and protecting communities in Birmingham, that’s a job for the people that live and work in them, not the UN.

And the most important thing: this is just absolutely not going to happen, apart from anything else. To become a WHS, this would have to be approved by the planning committe, the full council, English Heritage and the Department of Culture Media and Sport, beating the likes of Shakespeare’s Stratford. It ain’t gonna happen. And it’s hard not to be cynical and wonder if this is just a big plug for the Quarter without much intention of it working - viral marketing from the council?

I’m planning to go out there some time soon to re-start the sadly neglected pint-sized blog I write, which was going great guns until work and Christmas just took it over.

Yes, according to professor John Samuels, business professor at the University of Birmingham. I’m interviewing him tomorrow about his new book, described as:-

“a book for football fans who are fed up with reading about the successes, the transfer dealings, the wage negotiations and the scandals of the few ‘elite’ clubs.Why have some clubs hit the big time and so many more missed out?Will the game be up for many more struggling teams, or can they claw their way back to the big time? “The Beautiful Game is Over” argues convincingly and urgently for change”

I’ll be hoping to find out some of the financial reasoning behind the dire performances of West Midlands clubs in recent years, in one of the traditional strongholds of the game.z I’ll also hopefully be finding out what can be done for the future of Villa, Blues, and the rest to help them catch up with the big boys of professional football.

More to come in the Birmingham Post, probably on Monday. Link then.

NB: speaking as an Oxford United fan, the beautiful game is most definitely over for me

Well I’m blogging, eaten a reasonably healthy dinner, haven’t been drinking, went to the gym this morning, thought happy thoughts and hardly complained about things at all. So today at least I’m doing well with the massive numbers of resolutions that will keep me entertained for the next week or two.

I was looking at some Web 2.0 tool that are supposed to help you manage your goals, some with the help of an online community geeing you on.

But having thought about it, I’m not going to share this one with the net. Think personal resolutions, or at least mine, are probably kept private (i.e. off the internet). And at least then, when they peter out about the same time as January does (if that), then no one will notice…

On a lighter note, today I’ve been covering the news that fancy-dan Midlands crisp makers Tyrrells have got the go ahead from the planning permission guys to set up a vodka distillery at their farm in Herefordshire. Cue lots of workplace discussion, and a terrible Warsaw/Walsall joke in a leader column.

In the Post tomorrow, on the web at some point in the future, as always.