I am...Editor

My sincerest apologies for not blogging more these last few weeks, but my Uni work has officially taken over! I currently run my own Birmingham-based events website "Arcane Magazine", and with me having to post and update it with new articles almost everyday, I'm finding it hard to do anything but work on that at the minute.

But fear not faithful Twenty-one and Invincible followers, I am back and I have plenty going on this month to keep you interested - and hopefully make up for lacking in the quick witted and humorous story department as of late!

I thought I'd use this post to share with you a little bit about the magazine that is currently taking over my life, in the hope that you will see why I have had to neglect blogging on here recently in favour of pushing myself forward in my budding career as an established Birmingham journalist.

Arcane Magazine has been up and running since the end of February this year, and what started as a print publication with a blog to run alongside as an extra bit of content for the magazine, has now become a full-blown online magazine, updated almost every day with news bites, previews, reviews, interviews, exclusives and features - as well as video and image content and interactive maps to support my written work.

The team consists of myself as Editor, Clare Evans as a freelance writer, and Rachel Powell (from The Life Of A Pee-Pod) as Press Officer. Being that we are a small team, I write a good 90% of the content myself, I have produced all the video/image slideshows and other interactive content myself so far, I designed and maintain the website itself, I manage the email account and liaisons with interviewees/event hosts, as well as producing and maintaining the online marketing of the site (through Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Flickr accounts).

Clare writes a handful of prearranged previews for me every month, as well as contributing her own ideas and articles as and when she stumbles across them. I have recently upped Rachel's input into the magazine by bringing her in on more of the marketing and promotion for the business. She has started by helping with online marketing campaigns, and hopefully over the next few weeks she will be producing press releases and contact lists for event companies and venues in Birmingham which we could work with and report upon.

Arcane covers a vast range of local and hyper local events happening in and around Birmingham, including club nights, drinks promotions, sporting events, dance and comedy shows, music performances, fashion events...and so much more in between that I'd struggle to list it all here.

Arcane also prides itself on the special retrospect events which we cover, which involve any event which could be seen as being a blast from the past; a forgotten pastime, which once thrilled and delighted our predecessors and has become a mere memory as time has moved on. We at Arcane want to bring these great events back to the forefront, and in doing so we hope to bring back the sense of community in the area of Birmingham which, again, over time has been lost.

As part of our strive to help bring back the sense of community in Birmingham, myself and Rachel ran a week-long "I Love Brum" campaign, where we asked people to post and tweet about why they loved Birmingham. The response was great, and Rachel managed to triple the amount of people who followed Arcane online in less then three days!

We had so many great comments about Birmingham, and the campaign really seemed to get people engaged and thinking about why they enjoyed being a Brummie - so I think we achieved exactly what we set out to do, which brought people to the site and created that sense of community that we had been looking for.

As the magazine has evolved and developed, I have already begun to see more interest in Arcane and what we have to offer, as recently I have had people contacting me asking me to write about their events and help to promote them - and people have been more than willing to conduct interviews with me and send me any info and pictures I might need to accompany my articles. This morning I even got up to find an email off a freelance graphic designer asking if Arcane would like to work with him on upcoming projects. To top it all, Arcane is now being promoted on another long-established Birmingham website/blog called Created in Birmingham, which has been running since 2006 and has a vast following online.

I feel like Arcane is fast becoming a legitimate Birmingham magazine, and our popularity and online community is growing daily. For three students who are essentially running this out of their own homes, we don't seem to be doing to bad with Arcane at all. I can't speak for the other members of the team, but this is more than just a final year project for me. This is a chance for me to showcase what I'm made of and show people in the industry what I can produce. But most of all, I feel a real tie to Arcane because I am passionate about Birmingham as a place, and passionate about the great people within it who make these awesome events a reality.

I have met some really interesting and inspiring people since I have been running Arcane, and by helping to promote the great things that they are doing I feel like I'm a part of all the great things that are happening in my local area - a fact which really cements my beliefs about why I'm training to be a journalist, and why I feel I'm in the right profession. Hopefully Arcane will continue to grow and progress over the next few months, and I do hope all who read this will support me in my work. You can visit the site at http://whatsonarcane.com/, so please feel free to stop by and be involved in Arcane.

Saturday TV killed the entertainment star

Though many may deny it, most of us are guilty of becoming addicted to the vast number of reality TV and talent shows that have infiltrated modern viewing. Sitting glued to the box week after week, judging, criticising and gossiping about the contestants and their antics. We enjoy watching B-List celebrities squirm on “I’m A Celebrity” whilst they endure stomach churning Bush tucker trials in order to climb their way back up the popularity ladder – just as much as we enjoy watching fame-hungry nobodies sit around talking nonsense on Big Brother, being mildly amused by the thoughts and actions of a group of supposedly “normal” people doing “normal” things 24 hours a day.

One of our greatest guilty pleasures as a nation, however, is not to indulge in the plight of has-been celebs in the jungle or the antics of “average Joes” on Big Brother, but to spend weekend after weekend glued to a singing competition of gigantic proportions. That’s right, the nation seems to be addicted to Simon Cowell’s greatest (financial) triumph “The X Factor”. Ratings research board BARB recently announced (22/12/10) that the X Factor final – which aired on Saturday 11^th December and saw 27-year-old painter and decorator Matt Cardle scoop the first place spot – pulled in a massive 17.7 million viewers, and has therefore been crowned the most watched television show of 2010.

X Factor can be seen as being a great success not only for it’s ratings, but also for what it can do for the contestants who make it through to the live shows, and especially for those who go on to win the series. X Factor has previously given us Shayne Ward, JLS, Olly Murs, Diana Vickers, Joe McElderry, Alexandra Burke and (unfortunately, some may argue) Jedward, who have all had vast success during the first few years following their stint on the show – not forgetting, of course, the shows most successful contestant to date Leona Lewis (of Series Three), who’s debut album “Spirit” topped the charts in 11 countries and has sold over 6 million copies worldwide.

It could easily be argued that without appearing on X Factor, none of these chart-toppers would have been able to crack their way into the music business, and many would still be singing in pubs and clubs around the country. Talent shows such as X Factor can make worldwide popstars out of ordinary musicians and singers, taking them out of the local social clubs and helping them shoot to fame as the next big thing. X Factor’s motto, or so it would seem, is to seek out the talented members of the public and give them a chance to fulfill their musical dreams.

It would appear to some, then, that the X Factor strives to promote the UK’s entertainment industry, by showcasing the hidden talents of our great nation - but how true is this in reality? The show this year aired on both Saturday and Sunday evenings, from 7.30pm until 10.30 pm – the time that most pub and club entertainers are out performing at venues across the country. If the vast majority of the public are staying in to watch the latest X Factor performances, then who is out watching and supporting the rest of the country’s musicians and singers as they perform?

In the wake of the recession our country faced at the start of 2010, many types of businesses and professions were hit hard, and the UK entertainment and leisure industry was certainly one area to feel the severity of the blow. With the pubic as a whole tightening their belts, a night down the local pub or social club seemed to fall at the bottom of the list for many people – and if the clubs and pubs are losing business, then they simply cannot afford to pay out for performers and entertainers, so both the businesses and the professionals are suffering, not only from a lack of funding, but also – it would seem – from a lack of interest.

The social club scene used to be the place to be of a weekend for many of the generations before us, but the young crowd these days would much rather be on the dancefloor in one of the numerous nightclubs across the country, than down their local social club watching an act perform. So with today’s reality television stealing the spotlight of a weekend, a reported 40 social clubs a week closing down due to a lack of funding (BCC report, March 2010) and the changes in the social nature of the newest generations, the future is looking bleak for all those involved in the UK’s local entrainment industry.

Profile – Peter Jones of Series 1 duo “2 To Go”

30-year-old, Peter Jones – a pub and social club entertainer – appeared in the first ever series of the X Factor back in 2004, as part of duo “2 To Go”. Peter and singing partner Emma Paine made it through to the live shows, as part of Louie Walsh’s category, but were voted off in the third week by their own mentor. Here, Peter talks about his time on the show, how he feels it helped his career and what he thinks should be done about the current lack of support for pubs and social clubs across the UK.

What made you want to audition for X Factor?

The main reason for auditioning was that the X Factor was the first talent show that accepted groups. Previous shows (fame academy, pop idle etc) were only interested in solo acts. Also we thought (maybe naively) that as it was a brand new show it would be a new and refreshing approach to talent contests.

How did you find your time on the show?

It was certainly a great experience. Walking on to the stage with a live audience in the finals is a hard experience to beat. You certainly get a taste of the glitz and glamour. On the other hand you also realise it is not all like that. There's a lot of waiting around, and a lot of staged reactions. For instance, we all new full well that Louis would be our mentor but we had to act like it was the surprise of the century. There was a lot of that sort of thing. But it was a great feeling to get through the auditions especially considering the numbers involved. We were proud to get as far as we did, and the live tour which followed was one of the biggest highlights of our career!

After leaving the show, did you find that people recognised you more?

Yes, we had a lot of people stopping us in the streets. There was a lot of recognition. We still have that today, especially when we're seen together - of course not as much now as it was then.

Did you go back into singing in pubs and clubs?

We never left the clubs completely, it wasn’t right to walk away from our careers to take the chance that we might make it big. In the end, we didn’t get a big break, but when we went back to performing full time we did a lot of great venues, including the Nottingham concert hall, Lincoln castle and Epsom race course. We also started to play casinos and we had lots of corporate events.

Do you feel appearing on the show helped or possibly hindered your career?

There is no doubt the X Factor helped our career if only in a small way. During the two years after the show our standard of gigs was definitely higher than before. As the years went on we found we started to do more clubs again. Inevitably, as new X Factors came and went, our series was put to the back of people's minds, but we are still remembered and the X Factor reference is still a selling point for us.

I wouldn't say it has hindered us but there is no doubt that other finalists have come off the worst for their experience. I believe we were in the bracket of doing well enough to achieve a slightly higher status, but we were never at risk of being dropped or ridiculed by the X Factor as we were never picked up by the record company and we didn't quite get far enough to merit that kind of attention.

Have you noticed the recent decline in the public's interest in going to their social club to watch an act perform? Why do you think this is?

The decline in audiences at clubs is becoming a worrying problem. Contributing factors to this issue are undoubtedly the increasing prices of drinks coupled with the smoking ban. Certainly it is a lot cheaper and easier to stay at home with friends or family and have a few drinks whilst watching Saturday night telly. I don't know whether people are deliberately choosing to not go and see the acts, as I am informed by the club secretaries that the clubs have become less busy in general and not just at the weekends. Also I believe that a lot of clubs will close because they have an outdated principal. It is sad to say, but some clubs are only attended by an elderly audience, and to put it bluntly, when they are gone that will be it. Unfortunately I think the working men’s club ethic has become an old fashioned one and I’m not sure how this can be changed.

I don't know how much the standard of acts reflects in the turn out of audiences, but I will say that there are now a lot of cheap and cheerful acts who are now getting a lot of work as the clubs cut their budgets. I have seen some of these acts and think I would say that there has definitely been a drop in standards.

I say this not only from my own experiences but also from what people tell me in the clubs I perform at. I don't know if this is a contributing factor or not. Having said all that there are still lots of great (and busy) clubs out there, so there is still a club spirit. I am still lucky enough to make a living from the clubs and I am still having great nights working in clubs across the country, so there’s still hope for performers yet!