# Bristol Culture



## Doctor Carrot (Jun 7, 2014)

By that I mean this website.  Has anyone else looked at it? I follow them on Facebook in the vain hope I'm gonna get some information about stuff going on in the city but instead it's just a constant stream of 'this hipster cafe has opened, look at this street art and oooh isn't it quirky.'  This article in particular really got my goat because it just reads like a press release for a business.  It mentioned nothing of the community project but had a big wank over the business proposals instead.  To me it just looks like more bland hipster wank.  Yeah I know it's Clifton but if anyone needs a bit of community spirit it's Clifton and I'd love a cinema in Whiteladies road, I'd actually use it if it was affordable. This won't be, this will just cater to that usual wealthy hipster crowd.

I could go on because it's infuriating and I'm only picking on this site because they annoy me the most but it seems every website about Bristol is along these lines.  I desperately, desperately miss Venue .  Yes I'm repeating my call for a website/magazine that's similar to it, has interesting articles and has Bristol's listings in one place but I'm still none the wiser!


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## paninaro (Jun 7, 2014)

Bristol culture is dreadlocks and ketamine init?


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## strung out (Jul 1, 2014)

Bristol Culture (the website) is fucking awful. As one of my twitter friends asked them on Twitter, do they have a clue about anything that might be going on in Hartcliffe, Knowle, Lockleaze, Southmead? Do they fuck.


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## DaveCinzano (Jul 2, 2014)

I have read it since it started, and never really got on with it - it always felt like it could be so much better. Yet in some respects the chap who runs it does manage to get a lot of stuff into it, such as reviewing pretty much every new pub or restaurant. But given that for the past few years that means the whole gentrification/hipsterisation of St. Paul's, around Stokes Croft etc (all of which he appears to be in favour of), it does grate somewhat.

On the whole it's like the online equivalent of one of those free glossy local lifestyle magazines you find yourself reading in an overpriced Clifton café - enthusiastically filling up space, but not necessarily with anything worth saying. And full of PR guff. (Like some of the food blogs he's on shitloads of press lists.)

That said, he puts in the legwork, going to municipal events (mayor's question time etc) to cover them - but again, almost always uncritically (wrapped up as ‘objectivity’), particularly when it comes to anything related to Team Ferguson.


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## DaveCinzano (Jul 2, 2014)

strung out said:


> do they have a clue about anything that might be going on in Hartcliffe, Knowle, Lockleaze, Southmead?



I'd aver that pretty much anything done through Knowle West Media Centre gets a plug


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## DaveCinzano (Feb 15, 2015)

The man behind Bristol Culture, Martin Booth, is now editor of Bristol 24-7.

B24-7 was a news and culture website originally set up by Chris Brown, a journalist on the _Western Daily Press _who was laid off in one of several rounds of cost-cutting by the paper's _Mail _group owners. He sank his redundancy into setting it up, and over a couple of years garnered some awards, thanks to scooping better established news outlets like the _Post.
_
Then last year some kind of an 'angel' package was put together to enable B24-7 to grow; this involved some rich and worthy types bunging in cash. It also involved said worthy types sticking their oars in in other ways.

Said oars were then used to batter the crap out of Brown, who was unceremoniously jettisoned by the 'Angels' from his own creation before Christmas, and replaced with Booth.

End note 1: Brown's version of B24-7 was noted for its willingness to do hard news, and to cover local politics, particularly that relating to Mayor George Ferguson, in a critical but non-partisan manner.

End note 2: Booth, on the other hand, is much more sympathetic to Ferguson, applying 'food blogger rigour' to his meagre political coverage on Bristol Culture ('hey isn't it great all these new craft beer emporia and stylish eateries displacing boring poor people around Stokes Croft and Bedminster, Bristol must be thriving!' level of analysis). His uncritical coverage of early public 'Mayor's Question Time' events - essentially ignoring Ferguson's contemptuous refusal to answer questions from members of the public - no doubt helped him snag the job of 'chairing' one of the later MQTs.

End note 3: Some of the 'Angels' who dumped Brown and pumped Booth are political, financial or personal allies of Ferguson. Though obviously the changeover in the editor's chair is completely coincidental to the drop-off in any stories critical to millionaire failed architect Ferguson!

End note 4: Anyway, who needs boring old political reportage to hold the council and mayor to account, when you can fill up the website with ad-friendly puff pieces about multi-millionaire buy-to-let rackrenters?

http://www.bristol247.com/channel/n...ol_favourites/my-bristol-favourites-del-brown


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## ddraig (Feb 15, 2015)

boooo! hope the angels amount was more than the amount the originator put in, not that that's the point or even covers a bit of all the work put in by the originator of course


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## DaveCinzano (Feb 15, 2015)

Booth's journalistic instincts are well-illustrated by how he was invited back in early 2012 to take part with other bloggers in a joint investigation into a procurement-and-contracting scandal relating to Bristol City Council parks. Despite indicating his interest, and having a very specific way in which he could have contributed to the investigation, he instead did nothing.

It was only with support from local scandal sheet _The BRISTOLIAN_ which returned to the city's streets a year later that the investigation was able to move forward; a version of the story appeared in June 2013. Its accuracy was never challenged by any of those named as involved in the scandal.

http://thebristolian.net/2013/06/11/revealed-the-kiosk-cafe-fiasco-that-bled-bristols-parks-dry/


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## Doctor Carrot (Feb 15, 2015)

This is spot on, Dave.  I got talking to Chris Brown's wife who told me the same thing after she saw me commenting under one of B24/7 posts on Facebook about how shit their listings are. I thought Bristol Culture and B24/7 had joined forces and therefore thought it would improve but instead it's exactly as you describe.  It's now just a more jazzed up looking version of Bristol Culture and posting the same old shit I mentioned in my OP.  They treated Chris Brown appallingly by all accounts.  I actually hope they fail now, which kinda looks like they will because they're just awful.  As well as the buy to let landlord cheerleading (something that's been thankfully universally panned on Facebook by all those commenting) They've done articles like this:

http://www.bristol247.com/channel/lifestyle/homes-and-gardens/inspiration/airbnb-home-from-home (Apparently Booth has business interests in airbnb)

This gem that really made my blood boil: http://www.bristol247.com/channel/n...-white/not-an-open-or-shut-case-for-libraries

and not to mention the woeful unprofessional and ethically shady naming of Charlotte Bevan before the police or any other news outlet had named her. 

I think I'm gonna keep badgering them on Facebook until they either improve their content or block me.


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## butchersapron (Feb 16, 2015)

Is that Chris Brown of Booted and Suited?


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## DaveCinzano (Feb 16, 2015)

butchersapron said:


> Is that Chris Brown of Booted and Suited?


No


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## DaveCinzano (Feb 16, 2015)

(I had to google that, I've got the original edition which is under a different title)


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## Doctor Carrot (Feb 25, 2015)

I think I'm beginning to be a nuisance to them now as I just highlighted the fact it was pretty crass to talk about homelessness awareness week on the same day they review a news artisan pizza place opening in Easton. Don't think they can see the connection.


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## Geri (Feb 25, 2015)

Ooh, where is the pizza place?


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## Doctor Carrot (Feb 25, 2015)

On the high street, you gentrifying scum bag [emoji14]


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## Geri (Feb 25, 2015)

Hey, I live in Eastville. Gentrification has yet to reach this far up.


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## JTG (Feb 25, 2015)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I think I'm beginning to be a nuisance to them now as I just highlighted the fact it was pretty crass to talk about homelessness awareness week on the same day they review a news artisan pizza place opening in Easton. Don't think they can see the connection.


Fuck, where?


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## Doctor Carrot (Feb 25, 2015)

JTG said:


> Fuck, where?


Address is 2b high street apparently. I don't really know easton that well but apparently it's round the corner from no12 which is a poncy deli isn't it? Anyway, if you fancy some marinated tofu and rocket garnished pizza with artisan sour dough and cheese from Cotswold Friesian cows all washed down with wine from a small French vineyard then you are in luck!


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## JTG (Feb 26, 2015)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Address is 2b high street apparently. I don't really know easton that well but apparently it's round the corner from no12 which is a poncy deli isn't it? Anyway, if you fancy some marinated tofu and rocket garnished pizza with artisan sour dough and cheese from Cotswold Friesian cows all washed down with wine from a small French vineyard then you are in luck!


 I'll let them know if I do


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## William of Walworth (Mar 28, 2015)

DaveCinzano : Do you ever check Pints West? As a frequent BS visitor, I love that quarterly (printed version -- grab it in the Seven Stars etc) for ale and pub and brewery focussed information, but of late there's been a shedload of PR guff in it.

Bigging up various beer-friendly enterprises/pubs in and around Bristol very,very uncritically


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## xenon (Mar 28, 2015)

I am an unrepentant lager drinker. Tonight though I had a few bottles of cider. Normal size bottles I mean. There, I am doing my bit.


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