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1 November 2000
[tv] The Big Issue reports on what Gripper Stebson did next. ‘At that point, the tabloids swooped, offering the reporter who ran the story vast amounts of money to lead them to Mark. They promised to give the actor even bigger sums if he let them tell his story their way. Mark wouldn’t talk and the Press Gazette ran a story about the reporter Raj Johal’s principled refusal to reveal Mark’s whereabouts, despite the bank notes being wafted in front of him. After shaking off the newspapers and magazines, Mark decided to speak to The Big Issue instead. Between mouthfuls of chicken biryani he jokes about his ‘disappeared’ status. “I’ve always known where I’ve been – apart from the odd lost weekend,” he says.’ [ Related Links: TV Cream on Grange Hill]
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31 October 2000
[comics] Warren Ellis reports that Australian Customs haved banned the import of From Hell. ‘Where does this leave Eddie? Attempting to use due process to convince Australian Customs – and, presumably, the OFLC — to unban one of the most acclaimed works in the medium, translated into six languages (Eddie mentioned this, and got the response “I don’t care what goes on in the rest of the world, this is Australia.”). Will they be reasonable? Evidently one Michael Dean, writer for The Comics Journal, has already been on the phone to Australian Customs. I’ll give Eddie Campbell the last word. “The Customs Chappie said that if Mr Dean quoted him in print that I would find no good will there from here on.”‘ [ Related Links: TCJ on the story, Eddie Campbell Comics, Alan Moore Fan Site]
[film] Another interview with Darren Aronofsky… ‘Heroin, to Aronofsky, is the least of it. “When you’re chasing after a future you’re never going to get, you create a hole in the present. You use anything to fill that hole, whether that’s drugs, or the dream of a better life. And what happens is, the hole keeps growing until it engulfs you.” Presumably that also goes for a film-maker as obsessive as Aronofsky? “Oh, definitely. Completely. Work fills the hole. Sure.”‘ [ Related Links: Aronofsky at IMDB]
30 October 2000
[LMG] Just decided to reorder things so the latest postings are at the top. I think I prefer it that way… What do you think silent readers?
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[eliza] It’s a crazy idea but it might just work… somebody mixes AOL Instant Messaging and Joseph Weizenbaum’s Eliza. The resulting conversations are hilarious…. ‘Using a publicly available Perl version of ELIZA, a Mac with nothing better to do than play psychoanalyst, a few applescripts, and an AOL Instant Messenger account that has a high rate of ‘random’ people trying to start conversations, I put ELIZA in touch with the real world. Every few days I’ll put up the latest ‘patients.’ Names have been changed to protect the… well, everyone.’ [ Related Links: Try Eliza, via Beesley]
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[arcade] Atari Classics — Shockwave coversions of Centipede, Missile Command, Super Breakout and Frogger….
[news] Guardian Unlimited has an interesting overview of the whole Jamie Bulger case. From An ugly tabloid threat: ‘”The idea that the two boys – now almost men – could soon be free will horrify every parent,” says the Sun, before asking: “Where is the justice for James’s parents?” Then, in a scandalous aside after noting that the lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, had remarked that the boys were “making progress”, the Sun said: “Who cares? After what they did, the idea that they will be corrupted if they aren’t freed is laughable.” In other words, the paper believes that the boys who committed a foul murder aged 10, and who eight years later have shown extreme remorse for their crime and no propensity to violence ever since, should go to an adult jail. It doesn’t matter what happens to them there. The Sun doesn’t care. Let them suffer.’
[news] The Sunday Times profiles “The Bulger Killers” — Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. ‘The cost of keeping a young offender in such a unit has been estimated at £100,000 a year, and both youths have improved educationally. Thompson passed five GCSEs and has developed talents for design, painting, textiles, computer studies and catering. As a project to create an “object of beauty”, he once designed and cut a wedding dress, sewing and beading it himself.’
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[film] Salon covers two books looking at Hollywood moviemakers durning the 70s and 80s… ‘Both books deliver memorable quotations, the best of them apparently generated at extreme moments of showbiz humiliation and exasperation. One source, describing the Simpson/Bruckheimer negotiating style, says, “It’s not ‘good cop, bad cop.’ It’s ‘bad cop, worse cop.'” Remembering the night his two-timing wife, Ali MacGraw, accompanied him to a party for his greatest triumph, “The Godfather,” the ineffably embarrassing Robert Evans recalls sadly: “She was looking at me and thinking of Steve McQueen’s cock.”‘
28 October 2000
[tv] More on Blue Peter… ‘What became of the Blue Peter elephant? She went on to present the national lottery and marry Grant Bovey’ [from Guardian Unlimited’s Notes and Queries]
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[comics] BBC News covers 30 years of Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury. ‘The Bush family has been among Trudeau’s hardest critics. George Bush senior said he was “a little elitist who is spoiled, derisive, ugly and nasty”. George W Bush has not been any more complimentary. But to Trudeau, abuse just adds to the fun. “This is what I live for,” he said. “The Bushes think it’s personal, when in fact, for me, it’s never personal. At the risk of sounding like Sonny Corleone, whacking people like them is my job.”‘ [ Related Links: Duke 2000]
[tv] Blue Peter and Hunter S. Thompson. Stand back. Do not not mix. ‘…who is this, for Christ sakes? Fucker calls himself Groom. Looks like I’m minding the fucking baby today, I figure, well, may as well keep any possible conflict down to a minimum, after all I’m desperate enough to take this faggot job in the first place, I can’t afford another fuck up. Straight away, while the Freak’s talking some crap at me, I notice this damn idiot child badge on his fucking nylon shirt. I don’t like to ask what kind of freakin’ remedial school talisman that is. Probably just some warning badge for the good honest middle class folks to know to KEEP THE FUCK AWAY, MENTALLY DEFICIENT GIANT FREAK APPROACHING. One look back up to his dead-ass eyes. I shiver, and it ain’t the half dozen ‘Ludes I’d picked up in St. Paul’s the moment I came to this damn limey wasteland to steady my nerves. There’s evil in this bitch, I would swear on my fucking mother’s life.’
27 October 2000
[uk weblogs] Excellent, new, [at least to me] UK weblog: Cabin Pressure. ‘you should be thinking about how lucky you are. you work in a warm womblike office for a boss that does not get too heavy with you and you have a work load that is easily manageable. you get a computer on your desk that is yours alone and you get access to the internet. you get to download what you want when you want, you get to mess about with new packages for days on end without producing results, you get to wear what you want. your father and your father’s father would have killed for your job. you should be thinking about how lucky you are but you’re probably not.’
[movies] Film Unlimited profiles Jerry Bruckheimer, Perl Harbor and Bruckheimer’s dead partner-in-crime Don Simpson. ‘They appeared on the cover of Newsweek in matching black suits. They bought matching black Ferraris and matching black Mustang convertibles. They dressed in black Levis that they wore only once – Simpson said they quickly lost “their essential blackness”. In a final act of power-drunk solipsism, they even hired identical (white) twins as their respective secretaries. “It was so sick!” remembered one of their employees.’ [Related Links: Pearl Harbor Trailer, Upcomingmovies.com on Pearl Harbor]
26 October 2000
[politics] Picking on ugly people is not funny… unless they are British MP’s. [ Related Links: The Ann Widdecombe Shrine]
[eastenders] Good Grief! Sonia’s having a baby… ‘Sonia Jackson is one of a new breed of young soap mothers. She’s intelligent, hard-working, conscientious, and most emphatically not the Town Bike. She allowed Martin Fowler to get a bit carried away earlier in the year, but that’s no reflection on her – Martin would probably get carried away with Mo Harris if the lighting was low.’ [ Related Links: Eastenders]
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[radio] Guardian Unlimited covers the Today Programme’s new website and webcam…. ‘The presenters will slouch and sometimes slurp; they will gesticulate angrily towards the unseen producers on occasion. They will browse the newspapers. If you want a slick, professional television operation, then watch Jeremy and Sophie on the new BBC1 Breakfast show. Today may be live online – four days and counting; no catastrophes as yet – but it’s still a radio programme, and so it will remain.’ [ Related Links: Today’s Website]
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25 October 2000
[attachments] It’s not everyday that you get insulted by a fictional character… ‘At a guess, bored American teenagers from Buttpoke, Ohio, with nothing better to do than chart their moribund lives through a so-called weblog. Inevitably this consists of some misguided discourse, punctuated with pictures of genital torture, many of them culled from their web community, ie a bunch of equally bored teenagers with a digital camera and too much time on their hands.’ [ Related Links: Everyone Hates Attachments]
[file under WTF?] Came here searching for Scooby Porn? Check it out… LMG has high quality Buffy / Scooby-Doo fan-fiction porn links just for you! ‘Velma grinned at Daphne as she pulled her close for a kiss. Daphne wrapped her arms around Velma’s neck and moaned. Velma moved her kisses down to Daphne’s breasts as Daphne’s right hand moved between her legs to caress her clit. Velma moaned and opened her mouth to enclose Daphne’s breast. With her left hand, Daphne reached for the jar of peaches on the nightstand. She removed her hand long enough to open the jar, and Velma whimpered at her loss. Buffy turned to see Xander completely engrossed in the video. Funny, but watching naked cartoons roll around in bed together had given him an erection.’ [ Related Links: Disturbing Search Requests]
[royalty] Princess Diana and the Vibrator… not porn — actually a very amusing review of Shadows of a Princess by PD Jephson… ‘Diana, Jephson breathlessly confides, returned from Paris in 1992 sporting a souvenir – ‘a large, pink, battery-powered vibrator’. By now she knew she’d never get her hands on an orb or sceptre: this plastic knob would have to do. It had ‘the aim’, Jephson notes with courtly tact, ‘of raising royal morale at critical moments’. But he denies that it was actually aimed at the critical royal part, and insists it was ‘never used for its designed purpose’. Eventually Dodi assumed the role of royal morale-booster, which made the cheeky pink chap redundant.’ [via Beesley]
[quelle surprise!] This internet thing might just have a future… Grant Morrison has launched his own website. ‘Whatever you do, make sure you go right to the top, because you sure as hell can’t piss upwards on people.’ [via Barbelith Underground]
24 October 2000
[rubber bands] This is Bill — he has a magnificent obssession about rubber band balls…. ‘The guy who owns my corner market is building the world’s largest rubber band ball. You may think this is stupid, but he doesn’t think it is. He takes his work very seriously. I bring my friends by to look at it. It grows daily. He will tell you about how he is buying hundreds of dollars of rubber bands every week, how he is shooting for more than a thousand pounds, some sort of world record. The thing has got to be three feet across already, and four hundred pounds. You should see the guy sweat when he works on it.’ [via Yungee]
23 October 2000
[movies] Brief interesting interview with Darren Aronofsky [director of Pi and Requiem For A Dream] on ign.com… talks about his work on the latest Batman movie with Frank Miller and his interest in comics… ‘I was not a comic book fan at all until…I really never was a comic book fan. I got into the artwork in high school, like late high school and then in college. But before that I never really read ’em.’ [via CiPHER]
[overheard] “I’ve seen bigger breasts on a pizza.” WTF?
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22 October 2000
[comics] Mars Import provides a list of Eddie Campbell’s view of the best graphic novels. [Out of the list there’s one I would highly recommend — Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds — to just about anybody. If you like intelligent, well written, adult fiction — it’s for you. It has pictures as well! What more could you want?]
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21 October 2000
[religion] Wonderful feature by Jon Ronson reporting on attending a course designed to convert Agnostics into Christians with emphasis on the holy spirit and speaking in tongues…. ‘James rests his hand on my shoulder. “Oh Jesus, I pray that Jon will receive Your wonderful spirit. God. Please come and fill Jon with … ” It is not working. The spell has broken. I tell James again that I’m sorry, but I’m a journalist. (This is no excuse – the picture editor of a Sunday newspaper is speaking in tongues to my left, as is a producer of Channel 4 documentaries in front of me, for the first time in his life.) So James changes tack. “Oh thank you, Jesus, for Jon’s wonderfully enquiring journalistic mind … please help Jon’s career … no, not his career … his wonderful journalism … and may his journalism become even more wonderful now he is working in Your name, Jesus Christ …”‘ [ Related Links: Alpha]
19 October 2000
[comics] First panel from Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell’s new Zenith — done as Ali G… [via Barbelith Underground]
[history] Vaguely disturbing… Pictures of historical events done in the style of the Sims Computer game. [via Memepool]
[pop] Guardian Unlimited has an amusing interview with Jason Donovan… ‘Then, around 1994 when he was 26, he began to go bald. For most men it’s a blow. For Donovan it was a disaster, and his reaction was extreme. But let him tell it: “I’d just finished starring in Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and I suddenly noticed I was losing my hair. If you’re blond-haired and blue-eyed, you think it’s the death of your desirability. You don’t see the big picture and think you might be Sean Connery in 40 years. All I had was the Jason Donovan look, and I thought, fuck. That was a major thing for me, and it started me on drugs.”‘
18 October 2000
[tv] Brief profile of Phil Davis who appears in Channel 4’s new series North Square. ‘On these pages, Mark Lawson has suggested that North Square is unduly concerned with class. Davis, unsurprisingly, doesn’t agree. “It’s only a shock to middle-class people that there is this working-class guy running things for all these middle- class, intelligent barristers. You could say that all English drama is about class to some degree, but I don’t think North Square is about class predominantly: it’s about law, and how it is applied. That’s what is really interesting: in one scenario a woman loses her children and it’s tragic, in another some nutter is stealing underpants and it’s comic; that’s much more like real life, with a tragedy tumbling over a comedy. Plus the career side of it: you’re hoping for a plea on Monday so you can do the big fraud on Tuesday. Of course it goes on.”‘ [ Related Links: Davis at IMDB]
[big brother] Ask Nasty Nick from the Independent. ‘If you could make one apology, what would it be, and to whom? I’ve never had to make an apology, so I would apologise to no one.’ [via extenuating circumstances]
[uk weblogs] Oh God…. pictures from last night’s UK Blogmeet… Too early in morning… mouth dry… need breakfast… 13% of sewage is blood… WTF?
17 October 2000
[movies] Guardian Unlimited profiles Peter Bogdanovich. ‘[…]only time seemed to separate him from legendary status in Hollywood. But then he fell. “I felt that by the mid-70s I’d blown it,” says Bogdanovich, now 61, sitting in a deserted Thai restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “William Friedkin had blown it, Robert Altman went into eclipse, one flop after another, Coppola went crazy, even Raging Bull didn’t do any business. Everybody kind of blew it in varying shapes and sizes.” ‘ [Related Links: Bogdanovitch at IMDB, Sopranos Web Site]
[text messaging] Text Message Theatre? Weblogtastic… Tom’s Inbox / Outbox I, Tom’s Inbox II, Meg’s Inbox / Outbox. ‘Yes. Be good. Or bad. Or something.’
[film] An HTMLized 2001: A Space Odyssey Program. Amazing photo’s… ‘I was inspired to create this site partly because of the program’s curiosity value for fans of 2001, and partly because it is a stunning piece of late-1960s graphic design. The cover is metallic silver (an actual metallic ink was used) and sections of the text are printed on translucent paper – these novel techniques combine to create a non-verbal experience analogous to the film itself. Certainly, the program’s authors utilised the print medium to communicate as much information about the film’s intentions as the text does.’
16 October 2000
[comics] Warren Ellis predicts the imminent death of Marvel Comics… ‘Marvel Enterprises doesn’t exist on the money it makes out of comics. It exists on a raft of junk bonds valued at $250 million, lashed together by Morgan Stanley. Oh, and by the way: Morgan Stanley stocks just fell around twenty percent.’
[lmg sells out] What has Fish in a Groove got to do with Attachments? ‘Like a sperm whale in a goldfish bowl, fish in a groove is making a splash.’ [ Related Link: Guardian on Beeb.com]
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15 October 2000
[columns] New Kevin Smith column regarding the development on his new movie… ‘Last week, my life became a thrill-a-minute joy ride through the glamorous and exciting world of making motion pictures, and I figure that’d probably be more interesting to share with you guys and gals than a weekly dissertation on what comics I like and why, or who I think is fucking up the comics industry, or whether Hal or Kyle is the one, true Green Lantern. We pretty much all know the answers to those questions (Green Arrow because I’m writing it, anyone who’s thinks the kids will ever come back to this medium, and Hal Jordan), so there’s little point in talking about it.’ [via Sourground]
[this morning deux] Two moments of TV Hell: Richard Madeley as Ali G and an animated photo of Judy Finnigan exposing herself in front of 12 million people. [Judy photo via My 2p]
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12 October 2000
[comics] Psycomic’s 100 Hot Comics… Plenty I agree with. Plenty, I don’t.
[wierd science] Human cloning. It’s going to happen — sooner than you think: Cult in first bid to clone human ‘The Raelians offered no proof that they had any of the medical skills required to clone, but they last year stated their ambition to make it happen and, according to impartial scientists, there is no longer any technical reason why they should not succeed.’ [via Robot Wisdom]
[this morning] Guardian Unlimited profiles Richard and Judy. I work shifts, so often watch This Morning… totally facinated / scared by R&J… they really are the strangest couple on TV [apart from Cybil and Basil Faulty]. ‘Despite his idiosyncrasies, Judy loves Richard and, like many long-suffering wives, humours his more outlandish behaviour and ideas. She nods and enthuses appropriately and only very occasionally will shoot him a death stare when he is veering dangerously close to Saying Too Much. His response is to throw his arms in the air and adopt a “I’m just an open kinda guy” expression and carry on regardless. Like an embarrassing uncle who cannot see himself as others see him – perhaps because he took too much LSD in the 60s – his behaviour makes hers all the more admirable.’ [ Related Link: BBC News report]
[politics] Reuters profiles Margaret Thatcher on her 75th birthday. Still mad as ever: ‘Last month she won a standing ovation in Washington, D.C. for her reply to a question about what she thought of U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton “I don’t.” Last week she told the BBC that Britain’s war record showed it should not become “entangled” with its European neighbors.”We’re quite the best country. We rescued them,” she said. “We’ve got to keep our own independence. Is that clear?”’ [via Robert Brook]
11 October 2000
[music] I Hate Music on Radiohead’s Kid A: ‘Some of you readers may have noticed that Radiohead have got a new record coming out. Goodness knows how, there’s barely been a mention of it on the web or in the music press after all. Oh, wait, excuse me while I utter a weak consumptive laugh and spit bloody bile into a handkerchief. Judging by the ever-growing shitstorm of expectations and expectorations around Kid Arse, you’d have thought a second moon had been seen in the sky and Thom Yorke, pinch-faced poster boy for self-pitying prigs the world over, had been the first man to walk on it.’
[bbc] Nice BBC Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends weekly preview… ‘Louis goes to stay and play with gangsta rappers, body-builders, gurus and the South African far-right. Weird people? Maybe. Great TV? Definitely.’
[eminem] Netnotes asks: Who is Eminem? ‘6. He still faces legal action from his grandmother (for sampling his dead uncle’s voice) and has only just settled with his wife, Kim, who demanded custody of their child and $10m for a song in which he fantasises about killing her.’
10 October 2000
[cartoon] Yet Another fantastic Steve Bell cartoon on Hague, drugs and Widdecombe…
[yugoslavia] Guardian Unlimited looks at the corruption surrounding Slobodan Milosevic’s family… ‘Three days ago Marko and his family left Pozarevac, the Milosevics’ home town, in three black jeeps. As he did, rioters looted his internet cafe and destroyed advertising for his disco Madonna. His nearby lurid Disney-esque theme park, Bambiland, has been closed since the summer, thanks to a popular boycott.’
[weblogs] weblogs.com redesigns. Not sure if I like it… weblogs is part of my daily surfing routine so any changes looks weird… however, Webloging in the UK remains the same.
9 October 2000
[drudge report] Guardian Unlimited interviews and profiles Matt Drudge — The Earl Of URL? ‘”This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he says, taking time between the non-stop ringing of his telephone to talk about himself and his book. “I was never supposed to be this successful. I just got lucky. I had a window of opportunity and I flung my entire body through it. All my dreams have been fulfilled and now I’m waiting for the nightmares.”‘ [ Related Link: Drudge Report]
[letter from america] Alistair Campbell has been covering America for the BBC since 1946… Here’s a classic letter from 1968 — an eyewitness account of the assasination of Bobby Kennedy… ‘Last Tuesday night, for the first time in thirty years, I found myself by one casual chance in a thousand, on hand in a small, narrow serving pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, a place that I suppose will never be wiped out of my memory: a sinister alley, a Roman circus run amok, and a charnel house. It would be quite false to say, as I should truly like to say, that I’m sorry I was there. It’s more complicated than that.’
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