There is lots of great stuff going on in Birmingham – and one man has taken on the task of finding the best of it.
It is a year since journalist Tom Cullen returned from London to establish I Choose Birmingham, a weekly email about the best things to do in the city, and he said he hasn't regretted it for a moment.
He has built up a 4,000-strong following for his "freemium" product which aims to inform people about the best things to do in the city's bars, restaurants, museums, galleries, exhibitions and other events.
The father-of-one was born-and-bred in the city and said he wanted to be a part of its renaissance.
"I got everything in place after having worked as a writer and editor for 12 years," he said.
"But I was living in London and every time I travelled back I was genuinely depressed that I had to leave Birmingham.
"Meanwhile, I was watching Birmingham improve and improve and felt the time was right to be a part of what the city was doing."
He added: "I called it I Choose for two reasons. Firstly, I chose Birmingham over London and secondly, there is a view in London that people in Birmingham are there because they are stuck there – like it is some kind of holding pattern waiting to go to London.
"It is a way of saying we love it here and we choose to be here because of the brilliant things that are happening."
I Choose Birmingham targets people aged between 25 and 40 in the city and has a series of regular features. Among them is U Choose, where Mr Cullen visits a local restaurant and tries the dish suggested by its chef.
There is also a weekly movie review where only one film a week, deemed worthy of readers' hard-earned coin, is listed.
Mr Cullen said more than half of the people receiving his email opened and read it – which more than three times the industry average.
He added: "I moved back here and the first issue of I Choose went out to 89 people.
"Since then it has grown to 4,000 but I think the bottom line is freemium publishing in Birmingham is only just getting started.
"I see a lot of magazines around where you wonder what is editorial and what is advertorial, and I suspect it is all advertorial.
"In IChoose it if looks like an ad it is an ad but editorial is editorial – there is 100 per cent integrity."
After a year of searching for the best things in Birmingham, Mr Cullen has come across hundreds.
However, his top five things about the city in the past year were the Lee Bul exhibition at the Ikon, the work of food photographer Jack Spicer Adams, street food from Andy Low N Slow, Birmingham-made gin Langley's No.8 and digital photograph operation Brumpic.
Mr Cullen started in journalism at Construction News and worked at FHM before becoming one of a team of only three to start national free magazine Shortlist – a team which eventually grew to more than 150.
He went on to help set up the Shortlist website, which led to a career specialising in digital content.
He got into freemium emails after going on to launch Mr Hyde in London, which went on to have 50,000 subscribers – and now is targeting growth in his home city.
After that, there are plans to focus on other cities outside the capital.
However, he accepted the concept of "freemium" – meaning a quality product you do not have to pay for – still needs to be sold outside the capital.
"The mindset needs to change a bit. In London they have been used to freemium for ages but Brummies tend to worry it is spam," he said.
