#Brum

Birmingham Hyperlocal News

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Nobody wants to have a long-term illness. Unfortunately, many of us will experience chronic illness during our lives. For example, I have already had a long-term illness for seven years. When the weather is changed, I feel pain from my back to my legs. If I can take medication, I will try them. In fact, I ate lots of medication, but my pain is becoming more severe than before .I couldn’t find any miracles or cures from my GP and medication so that I lost my bearings and fell in my emotional distress often.

One day, Amy, my friend who is working in Chinese community centre- Birmingham. Told me that she had been developing a set of courses to help Chinese with long term illness.  There are, hundreds of tips and ideas to help and make life easier and improve the quality, which have been gathered from doctors, health professionals, and more importantly, people who have learned to positively manage their illness in 6 weeks’ courses. Perhaps this sounds great, I decided to try.

When I got into the courses, I didn’t know that they would help me to cope with the chronic illness to live the healthier life and change my life style. I just thought that they were good and might   give me a new hope.

I bare the hope and finished the courses. These courses let me understand my disease. This means more than learning about what causes the disease and what  can be done for it. It also means observing how the disease and its treatment affect me. This is my story. And you? How can you have a long-term illness and live a healthy life at the same time?

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More than 150 people have joined a Facebook group to express their disgust at the organisation of Birmingham’s Christmas lights party. Read the rest of this entry »

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I know Friday 13th isn’t usually associated with good luck but today was a big win for Juliet Spare. Read the rest of this entry »

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One of Hashbrum’s stated aims is to try to fill some of the gaps in conventional news coverage in Birmingham. That could be quite a wide remit, or quite a narrow one. It all really depends how good you think local news is in the city. I’m currently trying to find people who are interested in local news and ask them what they think it is missing. Read the rest of this entry »

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Art of latte
Today we were lucky enough to meet Youri Vlaq of Absolute Coffee. It’s Youri’s job to teach the baristas at Urban Coffee Company how to pour the perfect latte – and, importantly, the skills of ‘latte art’. We managed to get him to show us how it’s done… by creating a teddy bear in a coffee cup!

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11112009142On November 11th every year, a group of people meet, and ride on the number 11 bus in Birmingham. It’s the circular route, and the man behind the project, Jon Bounds, claims its a great introduction to the “real city”.

Hashbrum reporter Caroline Beavon caught up with Jon at the start of today’s journey:

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P1030800 For this second part of my journey through the wonders of Birmingham’s football clubs, I have decided to ditch most of the text and concentrate on colour. This is what has come out of it, I hope you enjoy it.

Villa Park beckons. To understand what Aston Villa is really about, I thought a looking out on Villa Park’s hallowed turf would be a good starting point. On Friday morning I joined the Stadium Tour after paying the moderate amount of ten pounds. As I was waiting in the player’s lounge I was fortunate enough to make some acquaintances among my fellow tour-mates. Now, take a look by yourselves at “the famous ground that boasts traditional heritage with state-of-the-art facilities”. Well, at least that’s what the advert on the website says.

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Since summer I’ve cycled as often as I can around Birmingham. I genuinely love it, but a few close scrapes have led me to looking into how safe Birmingham is for bicyclists.

I recently requested statistics for fatal road accidents involving bikes over the last three years in the West Midlands. It was returned but I’d like to go further than these statistics. I will send another FOI request to see if I can find out more details, but in the mean time, I’d like to push on with my investigation and find out where in the West Midlands these accidents occurred.

This is where you come in – I need you to find any newspapers online or access any record statistics you can find that correlate with those listed below. When you find an accident that tallies up, can you either post the link in the comments box below, or pinpoint the accident on the Birmingham Cyclist Map.

1. Oct 2006 310 Cyclist entering Road from Pavement age 32
2. Nov 2006 310 Cyclist entering Road from Pavement age 71
3. Mar 2007 405 Driver/Rider failed to look properly age 59
4. Apr 2007 302 Driver/Rider disobeyed give way or stop sign age 14
5. Feb 2009 602 Driver/Rider careless or in a hurry age 81
6. Apr 2009 309 Driver rider travelling along pavement age 42
7. June 2009 310 Cyclist entering road from pavement age 13 (Found)
8. Sept 2009 310 Cyclist entering road from pavement age 15 (Found)


View Birmingham Cyclist Map in a larger map

Of course just having a record of fatalities is useful but doesn’t show the full picture. Once I have these pinpoints in place I want to start building up a record of any danger spots for cyclists based on first-hand accounts. This phase will just concentrate on Birmingham. The danger spots, will be marked in a different colour.

I will also record my own cycle routes and interview other people who cycle or promote cycling in the city. If you have any suggestions of how you’d like this story to evolve, again please comment below.

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The Event is a contemporary arts event happening in Digbeth in Birmingham 5th-8th November.

We caught up with Director of one of the venues involved, Eastside Projects, Gavin Wade
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the event

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The Event Talks

Saturday 7 November, 2-5pm at Eastside Projects

This is a programme of talks looking at the role of the artist led festival within contemporary arts practice. Hashbrum went along to liveblog the event.

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About Me

Hashbrum is a news project run by MA online journalism students at BCU (for more information on each of them check out ‘The Team’). Our aim is to dig out the neglected news around Birmingham and find new and interesting ways to present it.

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