New Birmingham City University City Centre Plans unveiled

Birmingham City University (My Univeristy) has unveiled it’s ambitious plans for its city centre campus, and I have to say it looks stunning! Typical that as I’m almost out the door this is happening, especially considering my faculty will move here!! 😦

The official website says this:

“Birmingham City University’s planned new City Centre Campus aims to be an educational powerhouse – creating a centre for cultural and creative excellence with an international reputation.

The ambitious new campus plans will be part of the ambitious Eastside project – Birmingham’s biggest physical regeneration scheme.”

A Day In Hand

Same-sex hand holding (sshh): our silent revolution

A Day in Hand supports same-sex couples to publicly hold hands across the globe.
The project heralds a revolutionary way of making the world a fairer
place: a revolution in which anybody, on any day, can be a part of.

The idea is simple: to promote love and equality through the simple act of holding hands.

From the Day in Hand website:

Where?

•   The world: your local area.

When?
•   The first international Sshh! Saturday will be September 26th.

What?
•   On Saturday September 26th we are asking people to find someone of the same gender, and hold their hand in public. It may be for only 1 min or for the whole day!  We would love people to have their photo taken holding hands and upload it to our website by sending to yourstories@adayinhand.com.

Who?
•    The population (gay or straight, all faiths, genders, races, abilities, single or in a relationship). Celebrities Brian Paddick and Boy George, author Paul Burston, MEP Michael Cashman, Mayor Boris Johnson and activists Peter Tatchell & Cleve Jones (Harvey Milk’s aide) have already endorsed the A Day In Hand campaign and many more will be holding hands on the first Sshh! Saturday.

You can be gay or straight, committed or single, just…

1) Find someone’s hand of the same gender
2) Take them outside on Sat 26th September
3) Send your pictures to yourstories@adayinhand.com

Jade Ewen – My Man – Out Now!!

Jade Ewen – My Man is out now!!

Make sure you get it now!

iTunes – £1.49

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=138213061175&h=CJXUh&u=Uh7Tn&ref=nf

1. My Man (Radio Edit) – £0.79
2. My Man (Cahill Radio Edit) – £0.79

Or

Get it off 7 Digital and get two more tracks!

7 Digital – £1.99

http://www.7digital.com/artists/jade-ewen/my-man-1/

01. My Man – £0.79
02. My Man (Cahill Radio Edit) – £0.79
03. My Man (feat Bashy) by Jade Ewen / Bashy – £0.79
04. My Man (Perempay Radio Edit) – £0.79

Micheal Jackson’s This Is It Movie Trailer Released!

Movie Watch: District 9

So I was informed about a movie I hadn’t even heard was coming out called District 9 by a friend on twitter. Having watched the trailer it looked awesome and couldn’t believe this had fallen off my radar?

Out now in the US but on 4 September 2009 for the UK, district 9 tells the story of an extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth after their ship crashed. A government agency called the MNU was set up to look after their needs. However all is not what it seems as the government seem to have alterer motives…..Here’s the trailer

How good does that look

Great looking graphics and a really clever and unique storyline to the film. It is very believable too as I can quite easily imagine the government using this to it’s advantage to better themselves……not thinking of the consequences or what the rest of the world wants?

Well the movie excitement aside, this films has some excellent online marketing via fake websites that have been set-up:

• The MNU’s “official” site giving information on what they do

• A MNU training site to see how the MNU deal with the aliens. To play the game you have to print of a card and show it to your webcam, now that’s technology! 😀

• A site made by humans called MNU Spread Lies who feel that the “Non-Humans” should have rights too and not be locked up in quarantine. It has a great translate feature in which a whole fake language has been created and we can translate it into English, awesome!

This is really clever and makes it seem so more real and something that is or could quite easily happen now, in this day and age.

Really looking forward to seeing this!

REVIEW: Coco Lounge, Nottingham

So another new place I went to earlier this week was The Coco Lounge in Hockley, Nottingham.

Hockley is an area in the city centre that has some of the high-street names like Lloyds to great chic and unique bars of like Tantra, which I will be doing a review on later. It also has some nice independent restaurants ranging from Thai to Indian to some posh pub grub.

So onto Coco Lounge – When I walked in the great interior was the first thing that took me by surprise, with rustic wood floor but with mixes of contemporary steel and metal, including a feature fireplace. The rafters above also looked nice lit and the palm tree, yes palm tree, set it all of nicely. It even extended into the bathrooms with some really cool mirrors that were like ligthboxes and cubicle doors which were like saloon door closing to make one door…..odd but very cool 🙂

They have some great student deals too with 2 cocktails for £5, and they were soo good! The staff were very efficient at serving us and making the cocktails meaning we was able to sit down and have a good chinwag on the nice leather plush sofas and seats.

This is a bar I would definitely recommend as a great starting point for the beginning of your night or as the finishing place. For us it was kinda quiet, however it was a Tuesday night? I can imagine on a Friday or Saturday it’s buzzing and especially on Student Night, Thursday.

Make sure you check it out!

Here are some funky photo’s I found on the internet of The Coco Lounge

LOI(Link of Interest): Viral Video Chart

The Viral Video Chart is a great little resource to see what’s happening in the world of online video in terms of it’s impact virally.

Listing the top 20 videos you get to see whats hot at the current time of looking! So check it out now to see whats buzzing around the cyberspace.

Thanks to this site is found the little beauty that is the JK Wedding Entrance Dance:

Which has also been parodied in a JK Divorce Entrance Dance:

Life ain’t no drag!

If you know me enough now you will know that I love Drag Queens!

I did a 5 minute radio piece for my Radio Production module entitled Life’s a Drag

I also created International Drag Day this year which was fun and went beyond my expectations in terms of coverage and take up including being supported and interviewed by guidetogay.com and getting a mention on gay podcast Feast of Fools.

Anyway what I wanted to talk about is RuPaul’s Drag Race which appeared it premièred in the US on February 2, 2009. It follows a contest in which Drag Queens compete to be the “next Drag Queen Superstar” and take over RuPaul – They also received $20, 000, be the face of the Absolut Vodka Pride tour across the USA and appear in a Eye Works ad campaign. They also received $5,000 of MAC makeup.

WARNING Spoilers below….

The show was amazing to watch and had some real catty and bitch moments as well as some very serious and revealing ones too, especially with Ongina. Some of the Queens had many years of experience performing as Drag Queens such as Shannel, Victoria & Nina Flowers. However it was Bebe that won in the end. Bebe was a credible winner showing an arrange of diverse looks and had a great presence on and off  the stage…..she knew how to throw shadows…

However my favourite, who sadly didn’t win was Shannel.

Shannel as "Storm"

Shannel was at times arrogant and very confident in who she was yet I believe she had reason to be….as a self proclaimed “Las Vegas Showgirl” she really knew what it took to be a Drag Queen….and her body was to die for! especially her ass! :O

I would encourage anyone thats loves drama, fashion faux pars, cat fights, shocks and overall fabulouness to watch this show!! If not for the contestans but for the wonderful RuPaul who hosts! She is a true Viva Glam star!

Here’s a song Champion off RuPaul’s new of the same name, I LOVE IT! 😀

Skittles Vodka!

A friend during BirminghamPride introduced me to the wonders of Skittle vodka!

It was amazing! Skittles vodka uses each of the skittle flavours to create different vodkas. i.e. Strawberry Skittles creates Strawberry Skittle vodka, and is great for shotting specially if you hate vodka straight like I do, or you can simply sip it, it’s soo tasty! lol.

Check out the tutorial here!

REVIEW: Strada

So on Tuesday I went out to celebrate my friend Jess’ Birthday, after a not very successful bowling trip on the Monday ending up in a car crash, we were alot more optimistic about this….

So we decided to go to Strada, which I personally have never been to before and was pleasantly surprised. The staff was very welcoming and attentive and gave us some lovely complimentary bottled water to go along with our 2 bottles of wine that we brought.

Starter

For starters we shared three baskets of their pizza bread, “Schiacciatella”, one with the tomato and pesto the other two with garlic and rosemary, they were great, especially the pesto one, delicious.

Main

Form my main I had the “Pollo alla Milanese” which was Pan fried chicken breast in grana padano and lemon zest breadcrumbs with roasted new potatoes and onions, green beans and cherry tomato and basil sauce…….it was very tasty! All cooked beautifully and presented nicely on the plate as well. The waitress assured us that our second bottle of wine was chilling for us, so when we wanted it we could, we said now lol. The girls had the “Saltimbocca di maiale” (Fillet of Pork with sage and parma ham with a potatoe pureé and green beans in a white wine sage and butter sauce) and the “Linguine alla Pescatora” (Pasta with tiger prawns, mussels, clams, squid in a white wine garlic and chilli sauce). They informed me that it was tasty, especially the pork which Stacey said was the best meal she had ever had.

Desert

Finally we indulged in a oozing chocolate pudding and ice cream delish!

So all in all I would definitely recommend that you go there for a meal. We used the 2for1 deal on the mains which has unfortunately ended now, however it meant it all came to a very resonable price for a three course meal with two bottles of wine……

Cornerhouse Card

Strada nottingham is within the cornerhouse so you can use the Cornerhosue card to get 20% off! The card is free to get here. How easy is that!?

They are also doing a Pre& Post Theatre Dining Offer 2 Courses just £9.95 or 3 courses just £10.95!