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16 February 2001
[film] Film Unlimited reviews Hannibal. ‘So much has happened since Dr Hannibal Lecter murmured his farewells to agent Clarice Starling over the phone in 1991. Jeffrey Dahmer, the most prominent of America’s un-charming, un-cultured serial killers, has been beaten to death in Portage state prison, Wisconsin, by another inmate, without benefit of chianti or fava beans. British enthusiasm for psychological profiling as the new rock’n’roll came to an embarrassed halt with the collapse of the Colin Stagg prosecution over the Wimbledon Common murder.’
17 February 2001
 [comics] Diamond Previews interviews Dave Sim just before the final story arc of Cerebus debuts… ‘I’m very aware that I could still end up in jail — I’m pretty sure that Cerebus #186 qualifies under Canada’s “hate literature” laws. “Directed against an identifiable societal group” — in this case feminists. I’m sure it qualifies enough to get an indictment returned against me. Or I could end up dead, but that’s been part of the deal all along. One of the first things I expressed to God in my mind. “You know where I’m going with this. If at any time you find it necessary to hit me with the bus (laughter) everyone keeps talking about, believe me, I’ll understand completely.” Of course, it could be much worse than that. I could have to live to the age of ninety in a progressively more feminist world. To me, that makes any bus look like very small potatoes. “No! Please! The bus! The bus!”‘
[politics] Interesting profile of Sebastian Coe — William Hague’s close personal friend. ‘”It is fair to question the judgement of any leader whose chosen confidant is Sebastian Coe,” the Tory grandee Max Hastings has said somewhat archly. It is a verdict apparently shared by Coe’s peers. The year before he was booted out of the House of Commons in 1997 he was voted by fellow parliamentarians to be among the “least impressive MPs” of those first elected in 1992. “He is an amiable non-person politically, harmless, content-free, a political vacuum,” said one. “And over-promoted,” said another. “It doesn’t reflect well on William.”‘ [ Related Links: Guardian – Running battle between Christie and Coe, BBC News – Linford Christie: Polishing his pride]
[comics] Now this is bonkers… Bill Sienkiewicz did storyboards for a Thomas the Tank Engine film… [ Related Links: More of his work — Comics, Books and Magazines, Film and TV. At amazon.com – Elektra: Assassin.]
[tags: Comics, Movies][ permalink][ Comments Off on Bill Sienkiewicz Storyboards For Thomas The Tank Engine]
[WTF?] Nice bio of David Icke on Everything2… ‘Many of Icke’s wildest claims are contained in his book “The Biggest Secret”, which states that nearly all of the rulers, leaders, presidents, and other major figures throughout history have been part of a global conspiracy (again, involving pretty much every group that has ever existed) to preserve their genetic heritage, which is reptilian. The British Royal Family, the Crowned Heads of Europe, the Presidents of the USA, George Dubya Bush included, have all appearently been descended from reptiles. ‘ [ Related Links: Icke on Disinfo]
19 February 2001
[sex toy] The Furby Hooker Network… ‘Furby Hookers can communicate with each other! Through infra-red “eyes” they can transmit messages to one another. This means that if you’re good in bed, all the Furby Hookers in the neighborhood will know it. THEY’LL BE FLOCKING TO YOUR DOOR WANTING TO SLEEP WITH YOU!’
[tv] Nice Spaced fan site… ‘Tim is still a skateboarding, baggy trousered, sci-fi loving, comic reading graphic artist but since we last saw him, he seems to have mellowed slightly. No longer driven by the bitterness of being dumped, Tim is enjoying being a single male. Happily ensconced in his new surroundings, he is heartily living a life denied him by the shackles of a comfortable loving environment.’
[fantasy tv] Ali G interviews Optimus Prime ‘Is that why this fight started then, because Galva-whatsit called your mum a slag?’
20 February 2001
[comics] Salon provides a nice overview of The Hernandez Brothers’ Love and Rockets… ‘When people talk about the Hernandez brothers, they mention how much their work is like that of Gabriel García Márquez in comic book form, and how, in the early ’80s, they virtually invented the alternative graphic novel as a pleasure for art kids and “mature” readers who would never, ever have picked up a comic book. They mention how they chronicled Latino culture, from the barrio to below the border; and punk rock culture, and women’s wrestling long before these things became part of mainstream American culture.’ [ Related Links: Love and Rockets at Fantagraphics]
[film] Interesting profile of Sir Anthony Hopkins in the Independent… ‘Curiously, for an actor not much given to self-revelation or confessional performance, one of his most candid recent roles is that of the actor Anthony Hopkins – delivered in Barclay’s ill-fated “Bigger is better” adverts. In the ad Hopkins was seen in a variety of Los Angeles locations, always alone and hymning the virtues of size. No one is interested in the little picture, he says at one point, and no one wants to make it little. It was, in its way, a personal declaration of independence – from British restraint and constrainment, from personal reticence.’ [ Related Links: Hannibal at IMDB, Hannibal Lecter at E2]
[comics] Following up from the profile yesterday… Salon has an interview with Los Bros Hernandez… ‘We want comic books to reach a new audience, to keep getting better and better, to get more perspective, and when we are old men, we want to see new, young comic artists whose work is taken as seriously as any novel. We hope to see that in our lifetime. On the other hand, the comic books are in their own neat, kitschy, junky world that is unique to comics. We like that too. We like that it’s outlaw. You can’t repair comics, you can’t hang them in a museum and say, ‘This belongs next to the Mona Lisa.’ It’s the whole squirrelly factor, like early punk: There is the sense that this is bad, and we want it to be bad.
[film] Simple, disturbing… I’d never seen this before… the trailer to The Shining. [via WEF]
[cannibal comics] In the real world Hannibal does comics… *sigh*… Japan’s own “Cannibal” tries his hand at comics ‘Among the contents of Sagawa’s book is a passage that translates, “When I picked up her flesh in my fingers, it was the consistency of ‘toro’ (the fatty underbelly of the tuna, considered the prime cut). Caucasians are tasty indeed.”‘ [via Plastic]
22 February 2001
[news] The Guardian profiles the Daily Mail… ‘Dacre was watching the one o’clock news with his narrow eyes: on it were the bereaved couple, with messier hair than before, wearing tracksuits and trainers, smoking: not the Mail’s sort of people at all. The editor, who is 52, spotlessly shirtsleeved, brisk in his diction, with hair like a cerebral Tory minister, was heard to growl. Then he spoke: “These people couldn’t bring up a fucking hamster!” Real life tends to disappoint the Daily Mail.’ [ Related Links: Daily Mail Website]
[politics] The Independent interviews Tony Benn who will stand down soon after 50 years in the House of Commons… ‘”Thatcher was a teacher. I didn’t like what she taught. But it wasn’t her legislation that was important, but the fact that she bumped a lot of awful ideas into our minds. “For fun, I once drafted a bill called the Mrs Thatcher Global Repeal Bill. It was a one-clause bill in which everything she’d ever passed was repealed. And you realise that if it was carried it would have practically no impact on the Thatcher legacy, because it was what she talked about that had a profound and permanent influence on the minds of a lot of people. Some are now rejecting it, but the ideas are still the conventional wisdom of the British establishment, aren’t they?”‘
23 February 2001
[voicemail 2 email] I’m probably going to regret this… but it’s Friday so WTF… Leave me a message on my XIOP number — UK: 08700 290953, International: +44 8700290953 (include an email address if you want a reply).
[tags: LMG][ permalink][ Comments Off on A Really Stupid Idea…]
24 February 2001
[weblogs] New comics related weblog — GLITTERDAMMERUNG! from Chris at Not Enough of Me… ‘I buy comics for “It.” It is that feeling you get when you discover a really good comic, when you discover something so stunning that you can hardly believe that it’s just ink on paper. No other medium can give me that exact feeling, that “warm, fuzzy glow.” They can create other special feelings within me, but nothing quite like the one that I get from comics – that’s utterly unique. And that is why I buy comics, and that is why I’m doing this blog.’
[all your base] When Gamer Humor Attacks — Wired News analyses the ‘All your base are belong to us!’ meme… ‘Parody? No. It’s the Dada “reality” of a medium that refuses to be tamed into predictability. Armies of marketers toiling for years can’t figure out how to grab Web-users’ attention, and then a flash file with screen-shots from an outdated arcade game accompanied by clumsy subtitles conquers the world. Is it any wonder no one can figure out how to make money off the Web?’ [ Related Links: All Your Base… Flash movie]
[tags: Internet][ permalink][ Comments Off on Wired on the ‘All your base are belong to us!’ Meme…]
26 February 2001
[film] Frank Sinatra is Dirty Harry… maybe in an alternate universe… ‘The script, Dead Right, was first offered to Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman. Sinatra nearly had the role, but had to turn it down due to a wrist injury prior to filming. Newman was concerned about the political message of the film, and is said to have suggested Eastwood for the part. It’s also rumoured that the role was intended for John Wayne, but that he declined due to the violent nature of the film. The original character of Dirty Harry was that of an older, New York cop nearing retirement. After the role went to Eastwood, the part was rewritten to accommodate more action sequences.’
[comics] Slashdot looks at webcomics… lots of interesting links and commentary… From a posting: ‘This all holds fairly well with the subversive traditions of the comic. The web is reinforing those traditions and bringing them to the fore more than they were. This is a golden age for comics – they are being reborn.’
[crime] Blood Money — more proof that life is vastly weirder than any Guy Ritchie movie… ‘Well, somebody tipped off The Sweeney – Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad – that at least some of the 6,800 gold ingots stolen from the Brink’s-Mat high security warehouse in Heathrow on 26 November 1983, had been hidden underneath farm buildings or a cabbage patch in a Sussex village called Ore. Would Ore be the place where Kenny stashed his gold ingots? Bit obvious, eh? Not if you know that whenever you walked into Kenny Noye’s old mansion in Kent, Shirley Bassey’s rendition of ‘Goldfinger’ blasted out of the stereo.’
[tags: Crime][ permalink][ Comments Off on In Search Of The Brink’s-Mat Gold]
27 February 2001
[comics] Another long, fascinating Alan Moore interview this time from 1998 which was published in the Idler… ‘I can’t conceive of vapour culture. I might not survive it. But that is where we are heading. I don’t know quite what I mean by my own metaphor, but I have feeling, it may bring in an even greater, faster space of fluid transmission, where no structures, as we used to understand structure, will sustain itself – we will have to come up with new notions of structure where things can change by the moment. I’m talking about physical structures, political structures, I can’t see coherent political structures in the traditional sense lasting beyond the next twenty years, I don’t think that would be possible.’ [via BugPowder]
[tv] Revealing portrait of Esther Rantzen in the Independent… ‘When she appeared on In the Psychiatrist’s Chair in 1993, Anthony Clare asked her: “How would you describe yourself?” “As a human being, do you mean?” she replied. “Well,” he said, with concern, “what else are you, Esther?” “A series of functions,” she answered. This is a woman with no inner life. Despite being so conscious of her image, Esther Rantzen is not the least bit introspective. “Introspection is a very narrow landscape for me,” she has said. “I don’t turn my attention inwards.” As a result, she doesn’t always see beyond the surface of the effect she is trying to create so as to discern the impact she’s actually having.’
[comics] Tintin in Thailand — a complete set of scans from the “lewd” comic strip which “shocked Belgium”… [via lukelog]
28 February 2001
[tv] Sympathy for the (Jersey) Devil. Salon looks at the start of the third series of The Sopranos… ‘…the first season’s cunning plot architecture rested on the clash between Tony’s patriarchal mob world and his matriarchal family world. At work, Tony was a virile thug; with women, he was soft. His mother pushed his buttons, Carmela nagged him to be a modern, sensitive father and Melfi forced him to get in touch with his freakin’ feelings.’
[distractions] Apocamon – The Final Judgement. Play Pokémon with characters from the Bible’s Book of Revelations… ‘All contents copyright © 80 A.D. St. John the Divine. All rights reserved.’ [via clog]
[comics] Queueing up to make superhero movies. It went under ‘WTF?’ a couple of months ago but Ang Lee *is* going to do a Hulk Movie… ‘…the allure of the Hulk’s irradiated tantrums for Ang Lee appears less clear-cut – until you recall just how unlikely the idea of such a subtle director making a martial-arts movie once sounded, and how sublime the results turned out. Indeed, many of the motifs of Lee’s films find an echo in the story of wide-eyed scientist Bruce Banner struggling to control his over-sized inner child. For a start, there are the strong female characters (in this case, Betty Ross, daughter of the US general intent on eliminating the Hulk); and the indifferent hand of fate as the hapless physicist finds himself increasingly consumed by his strange powers. Most persistently, there is the creeping sense of isolation; or, as the Hulk himself once put it, the knowledge that where he walks, “he walks alone!”.’
1 March 2001
[hutch] Louis Theroux meets David Soul… interview from The Idler. ‘What do you want to be in life? I want to be happy, I want to be happy, I want to be happy, I want to be happy! You push push push push push. Happiness, it seems to me, is you kick back and you say “I’m happy!” It’s not something that you make, it’s something that you realise, that you come to. And it can be in a moment, it can be in a relationship, a day or a lifetime, but we’re not always happy, so why do you try to be happy? It’s trying! Trying! Pah! Don’t!’ [ Related Links: Everything I ever needed to know I learned from Starsky and Hutch]
[life] Things fall apart — The Guardian looks at the complexity of life in Britain in the aftermath of the train crash yesterday… ‘Complexity is the world we live in. People still think it isn’t. People still think that when they go to a supermarket and buy a pound of meat it’s exactly the same thing they used to do 30 years ago when they went to a shop up the road. In no respect is it the same. The meat has gone through the hands of 75 different people. It might be a French sheep, slaughtered in Belgium, butchered in Germany, part sent to Saudi Arabia and part sent here. I blame the training of today’s managers. They’ve not been trained to think about robustness and stability. They’ve been trained to think about efficiency. Efficiency, to a modern manager, means that every conceivable component is just about to break down.’
[tags: Life][ permalink][ Comments Off on The Guardian On The Complexity Of Life]
2 March 2001
[a-team] Mr. T vs George W. Bush. For no reason at all… the voiceover on the opening credits of the A-Team… ‘In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. They promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no-one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.’ [via GLITTERDAMMERUNG!]
[puke] Louis Theroux remembers his greatest vomits. ‘This, I realised, is the paradox of the puke: that it is a provocative act and yet at the same time utterly involuntary. It’s like Tourette’s Syndrome made physical. I wanted nothing more than to be in bed with a cup of sugary tea and yet here I was instead staging weird, almost avant garde actions, spraying the walls of my friend’s parents’ toilet with regurgitated carrot.’
3 March 2001
[comics] Pow! Wham! Permission Denied! According to Lingua Franca DC Comics rountinely deny reprint permissions to academic writers which write about Batman’s sexuality… ‘DC’s rejection of York’s request fits an apparent pattern of resistance to gay interpretations of Batman. In 1991, Routledge published an anthology titled The Many Lives of the Batman, which includes an article on Batman as a camp icon. Permission to reprint art was denied. In 1993, The New Republic ran a satiric cover cartoon in which Batman and Robin exchange terms of endearment. DC immediately asked for, and received, an apology.’ [thanks to John at Linkworthy]
[the last link] Ending the first year of LMG on a high… Check out Bjork Remix Web. Simply amazing music…. I’m listening to the Magical Mystery Man Mix of Big Time Sensuality… [via Memepool]
4 March 2001
[lmg year zero] Well…. it’s LinkMachineGo’s first birthday. Come sit with me a while… as I bouce the little tyke on my knee and it farts and burps out a years worth of favorite links…
March 2000: A favourite quote of mine from Grant Morrison’s Animal Man: ‘What’ll it be next? Choice extracts from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations? Trotting out the Nietzsche and the Shelley to dignify some old costumed claptrap? Probably. Sometimes you wonder, in an interconnected universe, who’s dreaming who?’
April: I wonder: Would you get baptised just to please your dying father?
May: Barbara Cartland dies…. and I do a few link tributes to the mad old bitch…. ‘Men have always made a fuss of me. I still have several admirers who send me jewellery and chocolates. So I must be doing something right’ – aged 96.
June: There are certain things that a simple man from Norfolk should not be exposed to…. I see Keith Chegwin’s knob on TV. Meg from NotSoSoft provides a photo… from then on I will get four or five referrals a month from Google about… Keith Chegwin Nude.
July: A classic quote from Preacher: ‘I mean look at me: My head looks like a penis, I’ve got one leg, one ear, one eye, and my cock’s been replaced with a rubber tube.’
August: I wonder about the important things in life: How many degrees of seperation between Blakey from On The Buses and Kevin Bacon? ‘I’ll get you Butler!!’
September: I play My Name is… Frank Butcher.
October: Nishlord sums up Paula Yates: ‘Some of us are born great. Some of us achieve greatness. And others have a pop star’s cock thrust upon them.’
November: The desperate search for meaningful content continues…. I begin to rip off quotes from various authors… ‘On page 39 of California Living magazine I found a hand-lettered ad from the McDonald’s Hamburger Corporation, one of Nixon’s big contributors in the ’72 presidential campaign: PRESS ON, it said. NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN TAKE THE PLACE OF PERSISTENCE. TALENT WILL NOT: NOTHING IS MORE COMMON THAN UNSUCESSFUL MEN WITH TALENT. GENIUS WILL NOT: UNREWARDED GENIUS IS ALMOST A PROVERB. EDUCATION ALONE WILL NOT: THE WORLD IS FULL OF EDUCATED DERELICTS. PERSISTENCE AND DETERMINATION ALONE ARE OMNIPOTENT. I read it several times before I grasped the full meaning.’
December: Christmas pictures of Ann Widdecombe and her cats — Pugwash and Carruthers! ‘ Goodness gracious, what is that? It’s Mr. Pugwash, my black cat. Goodness gracious, are there others? Yes indeed, my cat Carruthers.’
January 2001: A long weekend expressed as links…. Friday: Blog, Oxford Street, Selfridges, Starbucks, Marks and Spencers, MyHotel, drink, Move on to Soho — more drink, Japanese food, drink, back to MyHotel, drink, cab, home, Try to Blog… too pissed, Sleep. Saturday: Badly hungover, 4 * Nurofen + time = feel better, hungry, read Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl?, Eco, Sexy Beast, Blog, Sleep. Sunday: Blog, More Powers, Cast Away, National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation, Baddiel’s Syndrome, Blog.
February: Darren’s Circumcision — I have a rather Disturbing Search Request.
Thanks to Chris, Phil and Andy. LMG Year One starts here…
[bomb] Metafilter discusses the bomb at the BBC (with a contribution from me). There are also some postings from Dave at Brainsluice and Vaughan at Wherever You Are. From my posting on Metafilter: ‘As a friend of mine said about a previous bomb explosion in London… ‘This is far to close to home’. I use the White City Tube station and main entrance to BBC Television Centre every weekday to get into work … the servers I administer are about 5 floors above where the bomb exploded… ‘
5 March 2001
[moz] The death of Diana predicted in Morrisey’s music… ‘Morrissey’s lyrics to THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT from THE QUEEN IS DEAD concern: two people on a date at night in the city driving in a car fantasizing about getting killed in a car crash gripped by fear in an underpass. Over a decade later we have Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed: two people on a date at night in the city driving in a car getting killed in a car crash in an underpass.’ [via Barbelith Underground]
[politics] Guardian Unlimited wonders… Why is the Labour Party so Dull? ‘After almost four years in power, with the largest majority in Labour’s history, and the Conservatives empty of rival ideas, all the prime minister had come up with was another cautious summary of the Third Way. Taylor is rather ruder about it: “The ridiculous, fatuous claim that a mild form of Christian democracy represents a new politics . . .” His smooth, media-ready voice rises with the disappointment. Without sounding terribly regretful, he adds: “I’ve fucked my peerage.”‘
6 March 2001
 [tv] The On The Buses Drinking Game… God forgive me… I’ve always liked On The Buses. I’m a child of the 70’s… I have no taste. From the Amazon review: ‘There was always something faintly dirty about On The Buses–and not just the humour, which was simply more of the polite strand of “blue” that British audiences had come to expect in the mid-1970s. It was the whole look: grey and miserable. And the setting: a dismal suburban bus depot, and an equally decrepit family home. Or perhaps it had something to do with Olive, and her lank greasy hair, and the knowing leer of Jack, Stan’s lecherous fellow conductor and partner-in-crime. A working-class comedy, one step up from the Beckett-like squalor of Steptoe And Son, it starred Reg Varney as Butler, a larrikin bus conductor with a hopeless romantic track record, and Stephen Lewis as “Blakey”, the inspector who tries valiantly to bring him undone.’ [ Related Links: Blakey On-Line]
[tags: TV][ permalink][ Comments Off on ‘You get that bus out, Butler!’]
[expletive deleted] BTopenworld CE insults Net users ‘A senior exec at BT has slurred the good name of British Net users describing their online activities as a “passive and sometimes rather weird kind of entertainment”. BTopenworld CE, Andy Green, delivered his insults during a debate organised by the Parliamentary IT Committee (PITCOM) on the White Paper on the Regulation of Telecommunications.’ [via Digitaltrickery]
[comics] Chick Comic Theater does some amusing analysis of Jack Chick’s best work: Don’t Try Suicide, What Do You Expect In A Town called Sodom?, Rock Music…Inside Satan’s Boombox, Dungeons and Dragons…Geeky Pastime, or Gateway to Hell? ‘…if I’m not mistaken, that demon on the right side of the bed is whacking off! I feel sorry for Lance’s Mom. Not only does she have to discover her dead son swinging like a Pinata, but she’s got to clean up the unholy demon spew from his bed, too.’ [via Venusberg]
7 March 2001
[words] According to Everything2 these are the twelve most powerful words in the english language: YOU, MONEY, SAVE, NEW, EASY, LOVE, DISCOVERY, RESULTS, HEALTH, PROVEN, GUARANTEE, FREE.
[tags: Weird][ permalink][ Comments Off on The Twelve Most Powerful Words in the English language]
[HTML] For some reason I’ve made LMG HTML 4.01 compliant. It’s not that hard… at least not on a page this simple. Does it break any browsers? Let me know.
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[apple] Rip, Burn, Mix. If you’ve got the time or bandwidth… a great Apple TV commercial. [via Scripting News]
8 March 2001
[budget] Steve Bell on Gordon Brown’s Budget…. ‘The Poor Box’. Simon Hoggart’s sketch of the Commons yesterday: ‘The Tories were thunderstruck by the chancellor’s boast, as if their entire air force had, so to speak, been destroyed on the ground. Michael Portillo looked utterly miserable. Oliver Letwin and Francis Maude seemed positively distraught. Ann Widdecombe’s eyes bulged alarmingly, as if her corsets had come to life and were squeezing the breath out of her. Michael Ancram, the normally ebullient party chairman, gave the impression of a man who has just detected a ferret climbing his trousers, north towards his Y-fronts.’
[monkees] Think Diffident. Nice profile of ex-Monkee Mike Nesmith (the one with the wool hats and sideburns)…. ‘The news media, it’s true, sticks to Nesmith’s Monkee-ness like gum on a go-go boot. Never mind that Nez helped invent MTV and country rock, that he published a novel and pioneered a home-video distribution business, and that he cut 13 post-Monkees albums and produced cult film classics like Repo Man. And never mind that Nesmith – who could choose to be as ostentatious and narcissistic as the next gazillionaire rock star – instead carries on the philanthropic traditions of his mother, Bette Graham, the inventor of Liquid Paper typing-correction fluid.’
9 March 2001
[globalisation] Delhi Calling. Call centres go off-shore — when you call your bank or mobile phone company you may well be talking to somebody half-a-world away. ‘Each computer screen shows Greenwich Mean Time and the temperature in the UK, in case a staff member feels the urge to reveal that India is enjoying yet another day of blue skies and sunny weather. “We find showing new staff videos of Yes, Prime Minister is particularly effective,” says Raman Roy, Spectramind’s sleek, pipe-smoking chief executive. “They get a two-hour seminar on the royal family. We download the British tabloids every morning from the web to see what our customers are reading. We make our new staff watch Premier League football games on TV. And we also explain about the weather, because British people refer to the subject so frequently. It is a science,” he adds, proudly.’
 [tv] Old BBC interview with Louis Theroux… ‘…Weird Weekends rested on the tremendous generosity of the Americans – they love British people, and don’t regard Britain as a threat. I’m actually half American but I have an English accent, and I capitalised on the reservoir of kindness and goodwill towards the British. I interviewed the Aryan Nations in Idaho, an ultra-extreme, radical right group, who talk about how there’s going to be a race war, and have swastikas all around their church. They wouldn’t let an American in there to interview them, but because I was British the guy let his guard down and talked about how much he loved Are You Being Served?’
10 March 2001
[comics] I can’t recommend this comic enough…. Berlin by Jason Lutes. ‘Jason Lutes has set this captivating story in Germany during the twilight years of the Weimer Republic. Placing them against the backdrop of the real events of the time, Lutes has created a cast of fictional characters with a particular focus on the lives of two individuals, Kurt Severing and Marthe Muller. Following these people over the course of five years leading up to 1933, Lutes meticulously documents their hopes and struggles, and the dark shadow history has cast over their lives.’ [ Related Links: Ordering Information, Preview Pages of Berlin]
 [comics] Eddie Campbell discusses Finishing From Hell…. ‘Eight years! 500 pages. Must be the longest single work Alan’s done on both counts. The astonishing thing is that he had the whole thing planned from the beginning. All the reference photos for the epilogue were shot in 1988. When Alan phoned me to offer me the gig he gave me a rundown of all the chapter titles, including prologue and epilogue. I don’t think he changed any of them as we progressed, although for a brief time ‘Blackmail or Mrs Barrett’ almost became ‘The Harlot’s Curse’. Any extra material that came to mind was fitted within the existing chapters without changing the total pattern, or structure. That word ‘structure’ sums up what Alan does best in all his work. In From Hell the structural idea behind everything is the architecture of time’ [ Related Links: On-Line Preview of From Hell, Buy From Hell]
11 March 2001
[what hath god wraught?] Blogs and SMS messages merge…. SMSblog. ’13:30 via SMS: On our way to the match. Here we go, here we go, here we go! 14:53 via SMS: We’re at the ground, fantastic!’
[jimmy] Jimmy Saville – You ask the questions. The public are let loose on Sir Jimmy of Glencoe… On Paul Merton’s ‘snide remarks’: ‘When you are well-known, all sorts of people say all sorts of things about you. It’s something that goes with the job. Most times it doesn’t matter but it did when your name was John Lennon or Jill Dando. It’s one of the occupational hazards of standing up in front of millions of people.’
12 March 2001
[comics] Oni Press have produced a free PDF version of of the first issue of Whiteout. Well worth the download… ‘If you haven’t read it, you are stupid and it’s no wonder you’ve got no girlfriend. Official’ — Warren Ellis. [via Barbelith Underground]
[tv] Tony Soprano must die. Another interesting profile of the next season of The Sopranos. ‘There’s more symmetry in the resemblances between the Feds and the wise guys: each have their rituals, their uniforms, their beer guts, their professional argots, their codes of masculinity and their fatal delusions. And both value systems, Chase suggests, are equally full of shit, with Tony whacking whoever needs to be whacked and the FBI breaking the very laws they’ve sworn to uphold in order to nail their man. Their crudity and invasiveness very nearly puts us on Tony’s side.’
13 March 2001
[history] Old (1997) Danny O’Brien email looking back on his experience of Wired UK: ‘So, I’m sitting in Louis Rosetto’s brand new giant office in SOMA with Louis, Kevin Kelly, Jane Metcalfe, and John Plunkett (Wired’s designer). Kelly asks me what the UK scene is like. And, I’m thinking “well, it’s Cix, and it’s demon.local, but I fucking hate them because they’re brain-damaged jabbering fools who think it’s the height of sophistication to express their crippled emotional needs in terms of Blackadder quotes and I’m fucked if I’m giving this to them”. (You know what I mean.)’
[crippled emotional needs] My email .sig circa 1994: ‘My every path is shrewn with cowpats from the devils own satanic herd.’ — Edmund Blackadder.
 Shoved through the letterbox… the answer to all my crippling emotional problems?
[comics] The Trials of a Comic Book Hero. Proof that what goes around comes around — Stan Lee gets fleeced… ‘The white-haired comic book legend may be the head of an Internet entertainment startup, but he still hasn’t quite figured out how to work his computer. “This is how you save a file,” the twentysomething assistant begins. “And I double-click?” Lee asks. “No, you only have to click once.” Lee’s naiveté would be touching if it weren’t symptomatic of a potentially bigger problem: gullibility.’ [via Comics Journal Message Board]
14 March 2001
[gun fish barrel] So bad it’s good — Julie Burchill on Celebrity Big Brother. ‘The pathos of the short-term presenter is summed up heartbreakingly in the persons of Anthea Turner and Vanessa Feltz, the twin occupants of the lowest rung of the Big Brother ladder; as they fall apart – Vanessa messily and swiftly, Anthea more photogenically and professionally – it is horribly compelling, like watching a John Cassavetes film or hearing your neighbours’ marriage break up in gory detail through the wall. They are the flimsiest, most damaged and most compelling creatures in the house, with none of the confidence born of talent that Dee and Sweeney possess, or the dumb macho swagger of Eubank and Duffy.’
[distractions] Ah… the Muppaphone. So distracting and clickable…. [thanks to Brainsluice] and Safeplaces — a ‘digital playground’. [thanks to Chris]
15 March 2001
[credit] Finally, the homepage of the amazingly rude tube map which I saw on Usenet a few months ago… [via tsluts]
[world domination] Starbucks To Begin Sinister ‘Phase Two’ Of Operation. ‘Though the coffee chain’s specific plans are not known, existing Starbucks franchises across the nation have been locked down with titanium shutters across all windows. In each coffee shop’s door hangs the familiar Starbucks logo, slightly altered to present the familiar mermaid figure as a cyclopean mermaid whose all-seeing eye forms the apex of a world-spanning pyramid. Those living near one of the closed Starbucks outlets have reported strange glowing mists, howling and/or cowering on the part of dogs that pass by, and electromagnetic effects that cause haunting, unearthly images to appear on TV and computer screens within a one-mile radius. Experts have few theories as to what may be causing the low-frequency rumblings, half-glimpsed flashes of light, and periodic electronic beeps emanating from the once-busy shops.’
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[tv] The Sopranos – easily the best thing on TV at the moment…. ‘Uncle June and I, we had our problems, with the business. But I never should’ve razzed him about eating pussy; this whole war could’ve been averted. Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this.’ — Tony Soprano. [ Related Link: Ray Liotta Turned Down ‘Sopranos’]
16 March 2001
[music] Guardian Unlimited interviews Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett about Gorillaz — their ‘Virtual Band’. ‘Tank Girl didn’t even make Hewlett rich. “I made some money,” he says. “You got screwed, mate,” Albarn tells him. “I didn’t get screwed, I mean, Jesus,” retorts Hewlett. “The comic industry just collapsed. But we got to spend the best part of a year hanging out in LA. And we got paid a big lump of cash for it.” Despite a good deal of hype, the 1995 film starring Lori Petty bombed. “I think we always knew it was going to be dreadful.”‘ [ Related Link: Gorillaz Website]
[comics] Dave Sim want to have a boxing match with Jeff Smith. ‘Having had a year to try to figure out how to explain this to a largely feminist, largely feminzed crowed I figure the best bet is a (may God forgive me) movie analogy: Do you remember in the movie The Color of Money, the sequel–make that, the “sequel”–to The Hustler where the Tom Cruise character tells the Paul Newman character that he “threw” their big championship game, so he could “clean up” on side bets? And the Paul Newman character corners the Tom Cruise character and challenges him to a game, a for-real game? And he says to the Tom Cruise character, “Let’s clean this up”? That’s what I’m doing here. You can’t “clean up” a mess like this in a circus atmosphere. Jeff, I am saying, flat out, that you have lied. In lying, you have made a mess–a non-masculine mess. You have made a mess. Publicly. Let’s you and me, man-to-man, clean up the mess that you have made. Privately.’ [ Related Link: cerebus.org, Hey, kids!! It’s the Dave Sim Misogyny Page!]
[politics] BBC News reports that the infamous ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ poster was a clever fake. ‘After the election Lord Thorneycroft, Tory party treasurer at the time, claimed that the poster had “won the election for the Conservatives”. When, in the 1980s, unemployment began to soar, the poster stayed in the public spotlight – this time as a prime example of both political hypocrisy and, just as importantly, the ability of advertising to sell almost anything.’
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17 March 2001
[amis] Martin Amis examines the US Porn Industry. ‘It is barely 10 o’clock in the morning, and I am, I realise, experiencing the kind of anxiety that usually precedes a mild ordeal. A line is about to be crossed. I shouldn’t be here. None of us should be here. But we all have work to do. Fifteen minutes later, referring to the achievements of Lola, Chloe stabbed a hand through the air at me, and shouted with joy and triumph (Chloe is the director, remember, and she was thrilled to have this scene in the can): “That’s the kind of blowjob I was telling you about yesterday!”‘
[tv] Mob Rules. Interview with Sopranos creator David Chase. ‘The one big problem with a TV series — and let’s take The Sopranos out of it, because one hopes this doesn’t apply to it — is that the leads of a TV series aren’t going to die. They just aren’t. And they’re certainly not going to die after the fifth week. So once life and death is taken out of a story about life, how pressing is it? In our lives, there’s life and death all the time. We’re afraid we’re going to get sick, we’re afraid we’re going to get hit by a bus, or someone we love is going to die. But in television that fear doesn’t exist, so the whole thing becomes rather . . . uninvolving. You have cops running around getting shot at, but by and large you know that these cops are not going to get killed.’ [via Guardian Weblog]
[comics] My Obsession With Chess — I’ve been meaning to blog this for ages — a terrific on-line autobiographical comic from Scott McCloud.
18 March 2001
[comics] The Dave Sim Misogyny Page — the text of Cerebus #186… Hopefully, my final link about Dave Sim and Cerebus for some time. ‘I am alone, said Viktor Davis. I am not lonely. There is a big difference. I have not had a Merged Permanence in my life for five years. It took at least three of those five years for my brain to start functioning properly again. In the aftermath of being part of a Merged Void, all that is left for some time is Void Residue: Emptiness, Fear and Emotional Hunger. It is these three and the endless, fruitless search for a Permanent Cure that the Emotional Female Void calls Love. If you merge with that sensibility, you will share in its sickness. No matter what you pour into it, it remains empty; no matter how you reassure it, it remains afraid; no matter how much of yourself you permit it to devour, it remains hungry. If you look at her and see anything besides emptiness, fear and emotional hunger, you are looking at the parts of yourself which have been consumed to that point.’ [BTW, Merged Permanence = Loving Relationship in Bizzaro-Dave World.]
[men] My Ideal Woman. ‘If you are or know of someone who meets these requirements, email me. Chances are, though, that I will miserably fail her requirements for a man. Hence, I am most likely going to remain a bachelor.’ [via Wacky Brit]
19 March 2001
[interview] The Independent interviews Chris Eubank. ‘Chris’s head looks as if it’s been largely achieved with plane and spirit level. Actually, it’s more as though a sculptor got this big, fat square of glossy dark stone one day, started chiselling, but then lost interest before rounding anything off. Everything is hard, geometric angles, apart from his nose, which isn’t. His nose is a big soft, squidgy splodge. As a kid, Chris hated his nose. “I used to. Get ridiculed,” he says, talking in his odd, precise way, articulating every syllable and putting in full stops wherever he fancies. “I used to get called. Names.” Such as? “Hoover. But now I’ve come to love it. It’s made me a great deal of money because when it’s hit, it goes flat. It doesn’t. Break. It’s a marvellous instrument I have here. My nothe.”‘
[comics] Popimage previews comics arriving in May. It’s Grant Morrison’s month as DC reprint some of Animal Man, Marvel reprint Marvel Boy and the new X-Men series kicks off. On Animal Man: ‘Grant’s run on the book was a serious high point in his career. He managed to merge politics, satire, superhero fun, and good old-fashioned Grant wackiness together without running the book off track or losing his readers attention. Good job reprinting this DC, lets just hope more DOOM PATROL is next!’
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[search requests] The number one search request on LMG has always been ‘ Charlie Dimmock Nude‘ but recently ‘ Danniella Westbrook Nose‘ has been cropping up a lot…. Unfortunately, I never had a link to a picture…. until now. [via fneh.net/simon]
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20 March 2001
[comics] Master of the Universe — Wired has a great article about Neal Adams and his slightly off the wall ideas about science. ‘Adams has been fascinated by science for as long as he can remember, and he travels between disciplines like a car zigzagging on the freeway. For him, the notion of a growing Earth is just a starting point on the way to debunking not only a core principle of geology – plate tectonics – but the very underpinnings of geophysics, cosmology, particle physics, even Einstein’s assertions about the speed of light. If the Earth is growing, he insists, this means the total amount of matter and energy in the universe is increasing – which means matter is infinite, not finite like big bang theorists believe. Adams doesn’t even believe there was a big bang. It was more like a whimper, a birthing cry to herald what’s really been going on ever since: Matter is being created all the time, in astounding quantities. The Earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the entire universe – it’s all growing. Not just expanding relative to one another through space. Growing.’
[music] Dotmusic have got the video to Gorillaz’ Clint Eastwood on their website… some excellent animation designed by Jaime Hewlett. [personally, I always thought Philip Bond was vastly superior to Hewlett… but what do I know?] ‘Created to accompany the lazy splendour of ‘Clint Eastwood’ from the forthcoming Gorillaz album, the video is the work of Tank Girl mastermind Jamie Hewlett and animators Passion Pictures. Though the project is known to involve Blur’s Damon Albarn and hip hop producer Dan The Automator – responsible for cult favourites Dr Octogon and Handsome Boy Modelling School – the identities of the other members of the band has not been disclosed.’
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[tv] Anne Robinson: Cruella of prime time — a interesting profile from the Independent. ‘Anderson, then a junior hack on the Echo, remembers Robinson as “gutsy” even in the hard, recovery years. He recalls the moment she discovered her copy was being “blacked” by sub-editors because she was not a union member. Sheweighed barely six stone at the time. Anderson says she tottered up to the sub-editors on platform heels. “She stood in the middle of these guys and demanded to know who was blacking her copy,” he says, with some fondness. “Suddenly they were all taking great interest in their shoe laces.” There was never a problem with her copy again.’ [ Related Link: Anne Robinson Version 3.0]
21 March 2001
[masons] The Guardian profiles the Freemasons who have just hired a PR company to try and improve their image… ‘The editor of The Square, “the independent magazine for freemasons”, devotes his editorial in this month’s issue to the important question: “To eat or not to eat”. “Any masonic group which sought to eliminate my choice of whether I dine or not can do without my presence,” he thunders in a vigorous defence of the “festive board” against the “Nazis of the masonic world” who want it reduced or eliminated. It is, he explains, “one of the big topics of conversation in masonic circles”.’ [ Related Link: The Grand Lodge of England Website]
[comics] Running A Publishing House Out Of The Front Room — a five page Alec comic from Eddie Campbell. ‘The Alec stories are, it can finally be revealed, the autobiographical escapades of Eddie Campbell himself. From Bill “Saturday” Knight in The Days Of The Ace Rock’n’Roll Club to Alec MacGarry, to the unmasked Eddie Campbell in the most recent work (appearing in the monthly Bacchus comic), Campbell manages to find in the minutiae of everyday life the source of grand entertainment.’
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[fanfic] Internet fan fiction never ceases to amaze me… The Frog Brothers (the comic shop owning vampire hunters from the Lost Boys) have their own fan fiction…. ‘”I’m telling you, the Superman number one-eighteens do not belong with the two hundreds,” Sam Emerson complained. On this warm, summer evening, the Frog brothers were entertaining their friend inside the family-owned Frog’s Comics, the best comic book store on the Santa Carla Boardwalk. “When are you guys going to get that straight?” Sam continued his gripe. “Sorry, Sam,” said Edgar in the gruff voice that was his trademark. “We’ve been too busy ridding the world of evil to arrange our shelves to your liking.”‘ [ Related Link: Lost Boys Fan Fiction]
[cartoon] Steve Bell on the Foot and Mouth Crisis. ‘Ask yourselves – is the timing of this particular cull entirely appropriate?‘
22 March 2001
[politics] The Guardian interviews Tony Benn and Sir Edward Heath about their 50 years of service in the British Parliment…. ‘Heath remains silent. As an Oxford student of modest origins and progressive instincts, he took himself off to Germany to inspect Hitler at close quarters. Making his way to Nuremberg in 1937, his memoirs report, he witnessed the Führer walking to the podium, “his shoulder brushing mine as he went past”. “This experience subsequently dominated my political life,” Heath would one day write, confirming him as an anti-appeaser, later (after he had returned to Germany in battle) as a passionate European, convinced that only a Europe “united, free and democratic” would be safe from the demons of ultranationalism.’
[movies] The Independent interviews James Coburn. ‘James Coburn is 72, Gwyneth Paltrow is 28: what else is there to say? James Coburn isn’t likely to be fending off asteroids or refighting the Second World War at a multiplex any time soon. Nor will he be modelling underwear in Harpers & Queen. Older audiences may have fond memories of his outings opposite Steve McQueen, or his collaborations with Sam Peckinpah on Major Dundee, Cross of Iron and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. He may still be a terrific actor, with his rich bass-baritone voice, his magnetic blue eyes and thick white hair, and his dogged application of technique learned over more than 40 years. But the hard truth is that most of Hollywood’s key marketing demographic, the 15- to 24-year-old age bracket, has never heard of him.’
[distraction] If you want a serious laugh check out… Cliff Yablonski Hates You. ‘jesus christ, you whiny little bitches need to go out and get a life for gods sake. all I get is “WAH, CLIFF, UPDATE YOUR PAGE, IM TIRED OF JACKING OFF TO THE ABC NEWS ALL DAY, WAH, UPDATE YOUR PAGE.” fuck you all. I hate you. Ive updated my fucking page, so shut the hell up you mongrel bastards.’
23 March 2001
[distraction] The McSweenifier. ‘A Method for Formatting Arbitrary Text In the Style of the Popular Internet Journal “McSweeney’s”.’ [via FOAF]
24 March 2001
[comics] Disinfo has the transcript of Grant Morrison’s interview with Richard Metzger (which has on Channel 4 a couple of months ago). ‘WOOOOOOOOOW! Here we are! Right! Fuck man, I tell you when I was a kid I read Robert Anton Wilson and all this shit and here we are, we’re standing here, talking about this shit and it’s real! OK, I’m pissed (Holds up red beaker.) and in half an hour I’m gonna come up on drugs, so watch for it!(Audience laughter.) I guess, I don’t know, is there any practising magicians in the audience? Put your hand up if we got any? Yeah? Come on! (Puts his hand up.) Bold! OK, a few. OK, by the time we finish this you’re all going to be practising magicians. This shit’s easy right?’ [ Related Links: Grant Morrison’s Website, TimeMachineGo, Barbelith]
[movies] The Independent profiles Steven Soderbergh just before the Oscars on Sunday Night. ‘Chances are it is Monday morning, not Sunday night, that Soderbergh is most looking forward to. With him, it is always the work that counts, nothing else. (As he once wrote: “The fun part is making them. The rest is crap.”) He’s built quite a reputation for himself as the ascetic about Hollywood ? working constantly, focussing everyone’s attention on the film and the film alone, dodging the studio politics, shooting fast with relatively few takes, coming in on time and under budget, doing the publicity rounds quickly and politely, and then moving on to the next project.’ [ Related Links: Soderbergh at IMDB, Ocean’s Eleven at Upcoming Movies]
[collectibles] The Onion reports that Everything In Entire World Now Collectible. ‘Rarity, once a prerequisite for an item to have collector’s value, is no longer relevant. An early sign of this shift occurred in the early ’90s, when Marvel Comics encouraged fans to pre-order multiple copies of the much-hyped “Todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man #1” because of the book’s anticipated collector’s value. The issue sold more copies than any comic book in history, but fans still hoarded multiple copies in special dust-proof Mylar bags, in part because of its unique status as the least rare comic book ever. “Rarity is nothing. Do you have any idea how many Beanie Babies are out there?” asked Barbara Mason, editor of Beanie Baby Illustrated. “Let’s put it this way: There are approximately twice as many Scoop The Pelican Beanie Babies on the planet Earth than there are actual pelicans. And they’re worth more, too.”‘
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26 March 2001
[tv] The Guardian interviews Mary Whitehouse. ‘On Wednesday mornings, the hairdresser visits. And at lunchtime, the dining room of the Essex nursing home is a sea of high set curls. Mary Whitehouse surveys the wispy throng with a gimlet eye, then leans across the table. Her huge bead necklace swings precariously close to the plate of brown stew and swedes boiled senseless. “Some of these dears don’t have much hair to do,” she whispers.’
[religion] Is this the face of Christ? ‘The BBC used a combination of 2,000-year-old Jewish skulls and ancient religious images to generate what it claims is the first “true-to-life” picture of Jesus Christ.’ [ Related Links: Large image of Real Life Christ, Metafilter Posting]
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[comic] Some great postings on Dave Sim Vs. Jeff Smith at the Comicon message board from industry insiders like Colleen Doran, Stephen Bissette and Rick Veitch…. Doran’s comments are particularly insightful (click on the linked pages and scroll down looking for postings from “Colleen”). Doran: ‘What is the essence of Dave Sim? What is at his core? This man wants to be history, not a footnote in history. He wants to be big. He wants to be important. He is terrified that Cerebus, his life’s work, the primary focus of his waking hours for decades, will be marginalized, dismissed, stuck on the back shelf. Dave’s immortality is Cerebus and he is terrified he will not live forever. He is apalled that others, whom he perceives to be less worthy, will. That includes people like Picasso and Hemingway.’ [ Related Link: Cerebus Fan Site]
27 March 2001
[blog meme] Write your URL on a Fiver Day! ‘is it a criminal offence to write on money? i dunno. possibly. but i remember reading about a bloke who wrote on a five pound note, spent it and got it handed back to him 300 miles away when he was on holiday.’
[movies] The truth about Kubrick. ‘…although one of the few critical remarks is Woody Allen’s statement that he was utterly baffled by 2001: A Space Odyssey the first time he saw it. Introducing a new 70mm copy of the film in London earlier this week, Harlan tried to help out. “On a bad day Kubrick wouldn’t answer the question. But on a good day I think he might have said the film was made by an ignoramus about the unknowable. He might have said – if he didn’t think it was too pompous – that he wanted to take the audience into a place that he actually couldn’t imagine himself all that well. He was really a self-taught and very learned man and he guessed that, even then, he knew very little. He wasn’t at all religious but he had a very strong sense that there were mysteries, within and outside our world, that he could never begin to solve.”‘
[politics] tothepolls.com launches…. a ‘Balanced News Filter for the UK General Election’.
28 March 2001
[conspiracy] It comes as no surprise that David Icke has plenty to report on the Foot and Mouth Crisis… ‘Here we have yet more evidence that the Foot and Mouth “crisis” has been manufactured from the start. The question is…did the UK government call these timber merchants because they already knew that there was an outbreak long before it was officially revealed, or because they knew one was about to start through artificial means? I strongly suspect the latter to say the least.’ [ Related Link: Foot-and-mouth ‘cover up’ denied]
[cartoon] Steve Bell on the Foot and Mouth Crisis…. ‘Contented Farmer at Twelve O’Clock!’
[movies] Another memoir about Stanley Kubrick — this time from Wendy Carlos who did the soundtracks for The Shining and A Clockwork Orange…. ‘You can understand why recent attempts since his death to paint a revisionist (revisionary “historians” — right out of Orwell — feh!) image of Kubrick as some kind of warm and fuzzy fond old uncle are both ignorant and bizarre. The world has plenty of avuncular supportive seniors already. What’s in short supply in the world is Stanley Kubricks: artists who will spare no effort to do work of the highest caliber. Yes, it’s impractical, and not a role most artists are able to inhabit with comfort, unless you command the respect and financial support system he needed.’ [thanks Luke]
[comics] 90 Christian Comics Tracts by Jack T. Chick! on sale at Ebay…. ‘I remember … reading 70 tracts in one sitting and being completely convinced I had wasted my life and was going straight to hell. … It’s a truly powerful experience to have this guy yelling at you for 70 tracts.’ ? Dan Clowes, comic book artist. [ Related Links: This Was Your Life!, Chick Publications]
[politics] As the UK elections approach it’s important to know which party the major cartoon characters are supporting. (By the way, Porky the Pig was slaughtered and burned earlier this week… so I suspect he’s not supporting Nick Brown any longer.) [thanks to Marcia]
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29 March 2001
[comics] Jack Chick vs. Freemasonary. There can be only one winner…. JESUS!
[politics] Dogged as does it — interesting profile of William Hague from a reporter who followed him around for a week…. ‘Hague works his way around the room, shaking hands, signing autographs, having his photograph taken next to candidates for the local council elections. I overhear a woman say, ‘Taller than you think, isn’t he?’ A man with a pound sign in his lapel says: ‘Isn’t that Seb Coe over by the door?’ It is. When I wander over to join Coe he says, ‘I’ve just remembered I was once kicked out of this bar when I was a student.’ (Drunken revelries, apparently. These Tories never pass up a chance to show that their formative years were ‘normal’.)’
[comics] Who’s hotter? Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis? Let the fans decide…. ‘I suggest you take this down. Now.’ — Ellis. [via WEF]
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30 March 2001
(Manually Published yesterday)
[services] Blogger is down so don’t expect any updates today….
[random link for no apparent reason] On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. ‘He had a lot of guts’ — James Bond.
What a nightmare updating by hand is… I’m going back to bed. :)
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31 March 2001
[comics] Superheroes are evil ‘Let’s start with Superman. The Bible never mentions life in other planets. But Superman is not from Earth; he is from Krypton. This fact alone goes contradicts the Bible. And the horror continues. Superman is raised on Earth and grows up to become a superhero. People all over the Earth start worshipping this mysterious character. And where is Jesus in this picture? Superman never mentions God or Jesus. He is probably an atheist. And people in Metropolis see him as their Lord and Savior.’ [thanks Pete]
1 April 2001
[tedious autobiography] Doing a linklog is very difficult sometimes… I often have Weblog Performance Anxiety*…. but if you spend the day drinking champagne cocktails in a bar with Mini-Me your tedious life becomes easy to blog… Goodnight! ‘Talk to the hand… ‘cos the face ain’t listening…’
* The anxious feeling a weblogger gets when other blogs they read casually update through out the day and all the sufferer of WPA can come up with is a link to a story about interest rates or something equally boring…
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 [weblog performance anxiety] I love it when a plan comes together. Actually, a random drunken post comes together…. ‘In soothing tones, they will be ready to assist you with a selection of web links of various types – witty, profound, bizarre or even “all your base are belong to us”, if you’re really at the end of your mental tether with desperation. They can also be consulted about the news stories that you should be commenting on, or give you advice on how far you should go into details about various aspects of your personal life (rest assured that the trained advisors have a selection of metaphors or suitable quotes to hand, which you can use to comment knowingly but without fear of giving away sensitive information). In short, it’s the essential service for any tired and emotional blogger.’ [thanks to Vaughan]
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2 April 2001
[chat] The Barbelith Underground has returned…. the bulletin board for ‘cool egghead stoner motherfuckers’.
[comics] Another comic-related weblog ComicGeek. Looks pretty comprehensive…
[politics] The Guardian interviews Michael Helseltine — another politician retiring at the next election…. ‘If you push your hair forward, how far would it go, I ask. My bet is that it would hang off his chin. “I haven’t the first idea.” Go on, try it. “No, I shan’t. I certainly won’t try it.” Go on. “No, not at all. “I didn’t always want long hair. I just had long hair. There was no conscious decision.” Come off it, hair length is a choice! “You can have a passive choice.” Laziness? “Yeeeeaassss. Indifference.” Indifference!’
3 April 2001
[rail] The Guardian studies the story behind the cracked rail which caused the Hatfield train disaster…. ‘The public mood, so far as one can tell, would like big fish in the net and a charge of corporate manslaughter. That is unlikely; as someone close to the Hatfield investigation said to me, you would need to find a piece of paper with such improbable words written on it as “Do not repair this track, we can’t afford it. Yrs sincerely, The Fat Controller.” More likely is a charge of manslaughter – culpable homicide – against individuals lower down the ladder, or their prosecution for a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act.’
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[blogs] I’ve been remiss in not mentioning that Tom Ewing’s Blue Lines has returned — renamed as Groke…. ‘I’m already having awful template trouble, though. You can’t go home again.’
[hero] Design you own Sports / Super / Fantasy Heroes at HeroMachine. [via PopBitch]
4 April 2001
[soap] Who Shot Me? The Guardian interviews Steve McFadden ( Phil Mitchell). ‘”Working-class interests are not seen as having the same intrinsic value as middle-class ones. Opera is a middle-class interest, and it’s seen as high art. “I don’t see that as being of more worth than getting 20 million people to watch Roy tell Pat that her earrings are horrible.” He is referring to a seminal moment of ordinary pain when, as their relationship disintegrated, Pat Butcher’s husband took her to task over her gruesome jewellery. “I think that’s much more poignant, when a man tells a woman: ‘All this time I’ve lived with your earrings but they do my head in, and I’m man enough now to tell you I can’t cope with them anymore.’ It really took my breath away, that.”‘
[urban myth] Pickled Penis — Is John Dillinger’s 23 inch penis stored at a museum in Washington? ‘The bulge in the center of the photo (Dillinger’s arm) was supposedly mistaken by contemporary viewers of fuzzy newspaper photos for his penis, thus starting the tale of an incredibly well-endowed John Dillinger. (How he managed to die in a fully erect state was a question the public either didn’t ponder or else attributed to some rather strange misunderstandings about the process of rigor mortis.)’ [kinda via Blogadoon]
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