The last time I was in Birmingham, I stayed out on Broad St. I can’t think of a less cathartic place that that skin-and-bones Travelodge when you need a salve for personal downs. Like everything that requires dogged pulling through, it doesn’t seem so bad in hindsight, but I remember walking straight out of the room and pacing about the street heaving with clubbers, camera in hand, thoughts white with anxiety.

So what is it with Birmingham? I was back there last week, right after another turn in my personal life had thrown me for 6. Is Birmingham where I’m destined to go and lick my wounds? My animals retreat into the brush? I guess it could be worse. Swindon.

The conference I was there to photograph was alright, kept me busy. One of those things where you end up spending two days either in the hotel room, the bar, or the restaurant, never going outside. The shoot came off fine, but the subject matter’s not of great interest to me personally, or you I’ll assume.

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Glasgow Film Festival is due to start. Should be plenty worth watching.

Passing Repositioned the other day, they had an exhibition called “Crash! Present A Better Britain”. I suggest visiting. Words and images combine to good effect  in a project framing Britain’s political and cultural future with humour and absurdity (redesigning motorways along the lines of a Motorhead tour). There’s a serious point to be made, but it’s also good entertainment.

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King Creosote has one of those voices I just can’t get to love. But I’ll persist.

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I got Giacomo Brunelli and Mario Giacomelli mixed-up, so I spent a while searching google images  for “Giacomelli blind dog”, as I’d seen some of his work recently and loved it, and then realised (incorrectly) that this was the same italian who took that incredible shot of a dog. But the search was fruitless. Brunelli photographed the blind dog, not Mario.

Anyway, Giacomelli, who died in 2000, was a fine photographer himself: