(Nottingham’s) beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Our friend at Nottingham is Crap – http://nottgirl.wordpress.com – is highlighting a blog comment from someone who did not much like the place. In the interest of balance, here’s a piece of feedback that came in to the council following the bank holiday weekend.

“A couple of friends and I decided (on a whim) to travel to Nottingham for a ‘day out’ last Saturday, not knowing anything about the City Pulse events that were due to be taking place. However, on discovering the various events (in Parliament Square and elsewhere), we were absolutely delighted that we had made the decision to come to your city, as these events were both highly enjoyable and of a high calibre. (Indeed, one of my friends returned on the Sunday.) Similarly, the range of pubs that we visited were also friendly, welcoming and generally of a high standard. Beyond these points, though, the whole city seemed to be a happy and welcoming place (I haven’t been during the daytime for quite a while but have been to quite a few evening concerts / gigs). Indeed, the most noticeable thing about the city centre, that only really struck me a day later after I had returned home, was the total absence of any drunken, ‘dick-head’ behaviour amongst ANY of the throngs of different age groups there, throughout the whole of the city centre, (along with the general friendliness of the people). The events and the demeanour of the people were therefore of great credit to the city. I hope to be back soon!”

Each to their own.

A week in the blogs

Read any good Nottingham blogging recently? I’m interested in seeing more. I’m reading allanadale’s Nottingham Graffiti which this week pointed out that, however well he might think the council does some things, he thinks the council does a good job of putting on events. You can find details of all this summer’s events – City Pulse next weekend, Madness at Splendour on 19th July, the beach in OMS, Riverside Festival, Pride, Mela, Carnival +++ – wrapped around your Topper this week or in What’sOn coming out with the Arrow in the second week of June. Oh and on the website I”ll wager.

As I read these Nottingham blogs I wonder about anonymity. Gareth Gee is clear about who he is on the council-website-spoofing Our Nottingham. But who is NottGirl even if she doesn’t really think Nottingham is crap? And what’s her relationship with questionmarc? Who’s behind the Bent Society? Who am I? (I know who Niles is).

And who’s reading? I’d love to know.

I love boating …

A quick trip out from Nottingham city centre to Trent Lock (that’s Ratcliffe Power station in the photo) and then onto Loughborough and back. What could be more fun?

YouNG Nottingham : Week One

It’s the end of week one of YouNG Nottingham and it’s been snowing. Out in the offline world we’ve been meeting offline young people, here in the online world we suspect a few to have been meeting us. There’s a special section of the council website dedicated to young people www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/youngnottingham with new music audio and petebox video content and we’re active on facebook (Young Nottingham) for the first time proper (well it’s only taken five years) where you can win an ipod – so long as you are a young person. Aren’t we all? 16 to 24s only I’m afraid. Week after next we are live at the Rescue Rooms including a live music afternoon on Friday – win a gig by posting your demo on the facebook page. All good stuff.

Snow joke …

So nice to see that Nottingham’s snow creativity has ramped up a gear in the last 24 hours.  From the obscene to the architectural.  Three cheers for this…

Our new Council House