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Alan Kearns

@carterbrandon.bsky.social
23 followers 23 following 185 posts

English graduate turned IT tech writer. Traditional folk music, Star Trek and Buffy. Birmingham in general and Cotteridge in particular. Subsidiser of the theatre.

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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
ATOL, though :) I stand by the general point that in a fast-moving world, it's hard to predict what the 'useful' part of a degree is. Doesn't always work though. The 'calligraphy with a carrot' demo in Paleography never came good.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
There needs to be a picture of him and Farage pointing at one another, so it can be captioned "I look trustworthy! No! *I* look trustworthy!"
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
What's more, a couple of friends on our English course a couple of years behind us saw me do it. One (being good at German) went to work at Software AG, and another got to be pretty senior at Microsoft.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
What set me up for a lifetime in IT technical documentation was the computational linguistics module (we did) plus the typography and book design aspects of the Bibliography option of our English degree. It made for better docs than using failed coders, which was the style at the time.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Why aren't the Sheltie Islands in the Dogger Bank?
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I thought it fell really flat. The Birmingham audience, being trawled from the local comedy and arts scenes, were fun and engaged. The London one looked like a bunch of identikit extras who had been told to grin along for money.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
They are way out of town at the NEC. As if any of that lot would bother a multicultural metropolis. They won't leave their Travelodges, Resort World casinos and mid-range chain 'restaurants'.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
No, just that despite Farage's pubby image, they are not involved in normal political interactions in normal venues. They are corralled in plastic venues miles from normality, as befits the weirdos they are.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
'The bars around Birmingham'? The conference is in a shed off the motorway miles from Birmingham, with just a plastic 'Resorts World' for company. Reform were hardly going to trouble the bars and restaurants or conference centres of a multicultural urban centre.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
At that time the Red Lion then was at the Hare and Hounds on the peak Saturday Night slot, run by the top agent (Acorn / Jim McPhee), and got the premier league of folk acts every week. Other major clubs were in Harborne, Edgbaston, and some in the city centre. historyofbrumfolkclubs.uk/hobfc.html
historyofbrumfolkclubs.uk
Birmingham Folk Club History - History of Folk Clubs in Birmingham
A History of Folk Clubs in Birmingham, UK
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Nah. They used to have a proper 'Manouche Jazz Festival'. I remember the posters with Django Reinhardt on them. It was a straight swapout. I used to play folk round Brum in the early 80s when it wasn't cool and Moseley was the only area that *didn't* have a folk club.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Just imagine the reaction of Mac in his pomp. Having said that, they headlined it a few years back. It's the festival for those who don't like folk, but want to be seen as folk adjacent. When jazz went out and folk came in, Moseley ditched the jazz festival for the folk one. It's that kind of place.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I'm irritated by depreciation for deprecation.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Well then there's the Black Country. You know, chainmaking..... It's surprising they went for a chain motif on their flag when it was devised a few years ago.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Indeed. But you seem to be letting Bristol and Liverpool off quite lightly, considering.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Joy Division's last concert. Couldn't be bothered to walk down three flights of stairs. Did some reading and revision instead.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
I know something even better than a table: www.fyldeguitars.com/sm_ariel.html
fyldeguitars.com
Fylde Single Malt Ariel Guitar | Fylde Guitars
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Oh, I get it now! Every reply has to include a mistake. Neet.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Geometry being what it is, the alternatives are either having to walk miles down the platform half the time, or having the whole station cut in half and having to run round the outside of it if you find yourself at the 'wrong' side of the station.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
"starting from the Deep South in America". Ahahahaha!
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
The platforms are *less* hellish, with wipe clean white walls, and direct passenger lifts everywhere. Before, there were only rickety goods lifts where you had to make connecting trips via a truly chthonic sub-basement.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
My leaving vouchers from work never arrived. I thought it a bit pissy to bring it up with the team. Perhaps someone was relying on that.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Muphry's Law strikes again! It's 'Barr'.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
The joke is that Birmingham's pretensions to glamour are ludicrous. The thing is, he also 'visited' Portsmouth and Aberdeen, which had an even bigger gap between glamour and reality, but they rarely get linked to. Funny, that.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
It would still be your good side if you flipped it.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
'Steaming', though.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Mods and rockers were 60s. Around '64. Admittedly there was a mod revival in the late 70s, but that didn't involve beach fights. Not least because there weren't the rockers to fight.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
It shows up in this lyric, which is itself pretty salacious: www.pbm.com/~lindahl/bal...
pbm.com
Ballad: Watkins Ale
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
No, it predates AI video creation by years.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Well, all the numbers around 40% also manage to cross the 60% line on the Y axis, including Birmingham's 25%, which somehow gets a bar barely different in size from the ones around the 40% mark. And the legend is partial, doesn't match at least one of the bars, and represents one colour as a range.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
I'd be more inclined to take your point if the graph wasn't utterly nonsensical.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Ah, but my *personal* guitar hero (and Nic collaborator), who I've followed since 1978, and took time out in the middle of our exams to see, is now in Reykjavík. Doing half English, half Icelandic folk. www.chrisfoster-iceland.com
chrisfoster-iceland.com
Chris Foster - English Folk Musician
English folk musician Chris Foster is a master of his trade. Traditional songs with inventive finger style guitar and potent vocal delivery.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
We booked Nic at the University folk club - you should have come! Saw him at the Old Crown and The Old House in Harborne a few times too. I would sit in the front, glaring at his fingers and trying to keep track of the tuning changes. Had to wait for the web to figure out Canadee-i-o...
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Neck and stick, though.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
That's Spaghetti Junction told...
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
When I was in Liverpool All Saints primary school, and pro footballers needed to prepare for a second career, our trainee teacher placements were Brian Hall and Steve Heighway from Liverpool FC first team. Yes, my teacher's signature was on my Gola boots. And this video pretty much happened.
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Reposted by Alan Kearns
Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 27/06/2026
absolute height of comedy is when they cut to the goal and you see how many kid keepers they've got
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Reposted by Alan Kearns
Gale Sinatra @galesinatra.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
I think we just passed oops.
A timeline of climate change concern.
450173255799
Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Harry Enfield's Charles Charles "Charlie" Charles.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Click 'Improve' and you become superhuman like Scarlett Johansson in 'Lucy'.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
But a walk round Birmingham would have taken you a couple of hundred yards to the cathedral, with its Burne Jones stained glass windows.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
When I worked for a PC manufacturer I bought one of these for graphics work. The mechanical engineers were all over it like a rash, marvelling at how everything just clipped together. I think there was only the one screw.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
The original round room was dull and uninteresting, with paintings too high up. The new layout is welcoming. Likewise the new Birmingham history gallery is better than the two stories of uninteresting glass / silverware in the adjacent craft gallery. They just need to reopen more of the other rooms.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Yes, that's where he said all the bad stuff. It seems New Street was Racism Central then.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
And a stone's throw from the Odeon where Eric Clapton did his thing.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
I heard of two dogs named after the twins of Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux. Castor was well trained and accustomed to responding to his name. His brother, not so much.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
On top of Pebble Mill. Pebble Mill is long gone.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Your way is best. You should only scrape. Rinsing means the dishwasher's advantage over hand washing of low water consumption is lost, plus the enzymes in tablets actually need some food waste in order to work.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
I was once in a bunch of passengers exiting Bournville station, where you turn right for the tidy gardens of the garden suburb, and left for HipStirchley. Guess which way the knob with the unicycle went.
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Alan Kearns @carterbrandon.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Do unto others *just before* they 'do unto' you.
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