August 14, 2008

City of Birmingham confuses UK with US

by Brian Turner

From the BBC: Chiefs admit Brum skyline mix-up

Birmingham City Council has admitted sending out leaflets which showed its US namesake’s skyline instead.

About 720,000 pamphlets praising Brummies for their recycling were sent around the city at a cost of £15,000.

But instead of showing landmarks such as the Rotunda and the new Selfridges building, it showed downtown Birmingham, Alabama, instead.

I don’t know what’s worse about this story:

- the fact that BCC didn’t even notice the skyline was not of the City of Birmingham but Birmingham, Alabama
- or the fact that they wasted nearly 3/4 million bits of paper to celebrate recycling

If, as the BBC implies, the image was just lifted from Google Images, the BCC may also have an image copyright problem.

Whoops – someone’s going to get a slapping.

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Story link: City of Birmingham confuses UK with US

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