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found 88 stories.
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BrownhillsBob 28 Feb 11
Today is the last day of that wonderful Walsall institution, The YamYam. Yes, I’m afraid that the site that was instrumental and continual in support for The Brownhills Blog, is being mothballed.
Walsall will never see a better champion. Tomorrow, without the YamYam, we will all be the poorer…
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News and Views about Pheasey Park Farm 28 Feb 11
The Yam Yam got me into starting this blog. I was looking for news about Pheasey and came across it with it’s wonderful list of bloggers and news stories from Walsall.
Now at the end for today it ceases. It is a massive blow and for people of Pheasey where we get little news about Walsall. We have lost a valuable and much loved resource…
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Derek Bennett The EU-Sceptic 28 Feb 11
If you visit Walsall today and notice flags flying at half mast, it won’t be because the Queen has died or the local brewery has closed, but because one of the best local web-sites in the town is shutting up shop and calling it a day.
For quite some time now the Yam Yam web-site has been giving local news, linking to local blogs of all political persuasions…
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Stuart Williams Bloxidge Tallygraph 28 Feb 11
Today is the end of an era. Walsall’s first, and so far only, online news aggregator – TheYamYam.com – is closing its curtains, shutting its doors, giving up the ghost and turning a proverbial Norwegian Blue.
And while this may not perhaps seem a matter of such moment as when the near-150 year history of the dear old Walsall Observer was callously screwed up and thrown away like so much chip paper a couple of years ago, 28 February 2011 does have some of the feel of the dark day when that sad demise was announced.
When The Yam Yam’s website arrived on the scene, things looked up considerably for local news in Walsall. The Obbo was on its way out, the Express & Star was getting ready to flog off its expensive new Walsall offices and decamp to Wolverhampton and West Brom, and the Advertiser had never really been a Walsall paper in the first place…
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BrownhillsBob 28 Feb 11
I noted with some amusement on Friday last that whilst Peter Rhodes, columnist in the Express & Star, continued his tradition of shamelessly handcrafting a column out of crap jokes, recycled tidbits from the middlebrow tabloids and sub-Littlejohn shock sludge, he also chucked in a fat old urban myth.
Whilst there’s nothing unusual in the tired hack repurposing stuff he gathers from the zeitgeist, this seems to be a nadir, even for him. Any regular reader who’s at least partially sentient will spot on a regular basis stuff trawled from circular emails, Facebook and even Radio Four – Peter’s recounting of a 25 year old American political in-joke is just plain rubbish…
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Bob Piper 28 Feb 11
So, it seems today may well be the last for the The YamYam. If it was just another blogger calling it a day it would be sad. But let’s face it, life’s like that.
People have a burst of enthusiasm, blog dementedly for a couple of years, then move on to twitter, facebook or… just get a life. It happens all the while. But, believe it or not, even when (self-proclaimed?) blogging ‘experts’ and ‘superstars’ like Iain Dale and Tom Harris exit stage left, people respectfully express their regrets and move on. The cemeteries are full of people who they or others thought were indispensable.
But The YamYam has meant something different to a small black country town like Walsall. We are talking of a place that has no newspaper worthy of the name. The nearest you could come to that description is the…
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Jayne Howarth Media 28 Feb 11
So, today sees the end of The YamYam. I – and the growing number of readers who have been drawn to this unique site – will miss it and can only hope that some financial help can be sought to bring it back online.
Where else can you find such a variety of business, news, sport and comment about Walsall online? The beauty of The YamYam is that it pulls news about the borough from a variety of sources – local newspapers, BBC and a growing lobby of local bloggers, who pull no punches when it comes to voicing their opinions about the town and how it is run…
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Nick Booth BBC News 23 Feb 11
Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, clearly seems to understand how hyperlocal bloggers can help hold power to account. He is telling local authorities to let them into meetings and allow them to film (or record?) those meetings.
Today’s news release says:
“Councils should open up their public meetings to local news ‘bloggers’ and routinely allow online filming of public discussions as part of increasing their transparency, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said today.
“To ensure all parts of the modern-day media are able to scrutinise Local Government, Mr Pickles believes councils should also open up public meetings to the ‘citizen journalist’ as well as the mainstream media, especially as important budget decisions are being made…
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Andrew Hollyhead Two cultures, one mind 23 Feb 11
The Health Centre’s up and the Anchor pub’s down
Brownhills Brownhills, it’s a hell of a town!
Ahem..
Anyone who talks to me for more than a minute will know that I am Midlands born and bred. Friends from down south call me “the Brummie Git”, and when abroad natives have looked at me frustratingly and said “I know you’re from England, but which part?” unable to work out quite where.
I am West Bromwich born, went to school in Wednesbury, and lived in Tipton and Darlaston (and a caravan in Shropshire for six months), before settling for fifteen years in what was always optimistically called the ‘village’ of Featherstone – let’s be honest it’s a huge housing estate the likes of which we rarely see built nowadays…
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BrownhillsBob 18 Feb 11
Thanks to several people who alerted me on Twatter and Facebook, I note that the Walsall Express & Star yet again finds itself churning the Brownhills Blog for stories.
First featured here after a discussion on twatter, the article about the preserved bar from The Warreners Arms in Brownhills was published on 4th February, 2011 after Josh Williams kindly granted permission for me to do so…