linkmachinego.com

31 December 2009
[funny] The Perfect Billboard‘My God, it even has a watermark.’
[crime] Madeleine McCann… part of a series on Icons Of The Decade from The Guardian

Late in 2007, Gerry McCann gave an interview to an American magazine and talked about the decision to publicise the eye defect. “Certainly we thought it was possible that [the publicity] could possibly hurt her or her abductor might do something to her eye . . . But in terms of marketing, it was a good ploy.”

It is this unsettling mix – of the incredibly intimate and the coolly tactical – that has made the mystery of Madeleine McCann arguably the biggest and most extraordinary child abduction story in history…

30 December 2009
[london] Evening Standard Headline Crisis 2009 … another years worth of the best of the headline boards from the Evening Standard – and probably the last due to it going free …

images of the evening standards headline boards in 2009
Click on the images for the full set

29 December 2009
[blogs] The Annotated Weekender … a blog of doodles all over the Weekend Guardian / Observer Magazines. [via qwghlm.co.uk]
[meme] What Are The First Three Words You See On This Grid? … Bail, Kick, Past.
[golook] Go Look: A Gary Busey Family PhotoWonderfully Done Recursive PhotoHow The Internet Works.
28 December 2009
[motivational] Kurt Vonnegut Motivational Posters

Kurt Vonnegut Motivational Poster

24 December 2009
[twitter] Tweeting Too Hard … a blog collecting the most self-important tweets from Twitter … ‘fan belt light came on in the 911 so now I’m driving the Cayenne Turbo S – the backup, backup car. Trying not to think about the Tesla…’ [link]
23 December 2009
[comics] Robert Crumb Thinks God Might Actually Be Crazy … another Crumb interview promoting his Illustrated Book of Genesis‘As a Gnostic, yeah, I would say there’s a bigger design. Sometimes you have a split-second glimpses of it. For a second you catch the greater meaning, but then it’s lost.’ [via Neilalien]
[movies] Great Overview Of The Best Of Asian Cinema … my friend Steve has been looking at Asian Cinema from some time now on his blog Things Fall Apart. His review of progress so far is a great jumping on point … ‘The blog has not run the way I thought it would. I started with a list of 15 movies. I still have to cover my favourite 7 (Oldboy, My Sassy Girl, Infernal Affairs, Uzamki, Battle Royale, Suicide Circle and Kairo). I have at least another 20 movies that I know I want to talk about.’
[funny] Go Look: Spiderman Missed His Train At Kings Cross.
22 December 2009
[comics] Mike Sterling On Watchmen: ‘…there’s a part of me that wishes the Watchmen film had been an enormous hit, enough so that a sequel would have been inevitable, and that even possibly new comic book follow-ups and tie-ins would have been published. Because really, the fanguish that would have caused would have been epically awesome.’
[comics] Dave Sim Goes Partially Print On Demand; Industry To Follow? … this makes a lot of sense for Sim – and it fits in with his past as a champion of self-publishing … ‘The important thing to take away from this is that POD is now being used for comics as a way to keep backlist available, without having to print thousands and thousands of comics at a time that may take years to sell through. That’s about the best use of POD I can think of, actually, following up a high-quality print run with digital copies for latecomers.’
[comics] Complete Set of Opening Credits to the Marvel Cartoons of the 1960s with Lyrics‘The musical intros to these cartoons have left an undeniable splash on American pop culture. Now, as a case in point, I have a 6 year old nephew and he knows the words to the 1960s cartoon Spider-Man theme song. How is that even possible?’ [via Metafilter]
21 December 2009
[tv] Thomas The Tank Engine Attacked For ‘Conservative Political Ideology’‘In one episode, Thomas whistles impatiently at a police officer and is replaced with a different engine as a punishment for showing dissent.’ [via Graybo]
[comics] A Dave Sim illustration of Malcolm X

Dave Sim's Malcolm X
20 December 2009
[funny] Go Look: Fuck You, I’m Batman / The Best Wireless Network Name Ever / The Eyes Have It
19 December 2009
[amazon] Amazon Buying Tricks … some useful tips from Martin Lewis … ‘While Amazon lists free delivery on some products, you have to select the ‘super saver’ delivery box at the check out. If not, the default delivery option is expensive 1-2 days first-class.’
18 December 2009
[tv] Let’s Enhance Montage‘Lock On and enhance the Zee Axis…’ (more…)
16 December 2009
[comics] Go Look: Top 75 Most Iconic DC Covers of All-Time.
15 December 2009
[history] The Magnet … a mostly-complete archive (scroll to the botton of the page) of the famous weekly boys story paper that featured Billy Bunter along with many other similar papers. [via Metafilter]
[funny] Go Look: The Morgan Freeman Chain Of Command. [via Robot Wisdom]
14 December 2009
[funny] I Am Locking the Wikipedia Article On Our Sex Life‘Locking the article has also become necessary to prevent the constant reinsertion of a section with the heading “Like a Cowardly Slug That’s Just Spotted a Pile of Salt,” detailing at length the uncharacteristically unsatisfying night we shared in a Paris hotel last summer. As I made clear several times on the talk page of our sex life, that was a completely unrepresentative occasion…’
[music] Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast” compressed over and over as an MP3 666 times… If you listen to this you will bleed goats blood out of your ears – FACT … ‘and if u r wondering, YES it does lose quality each time it is compressed.’ [via Kottke]
13 December 2009
[comics] Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns on Batman‘He’s kind of a dick.’ (more…)
12 December 2009
[curtis] Dubai 1975 … Adam Curtis digs up some intriguing footage of Dubai in 1975 from the BBC Archive‘It is a glimpse of Dubai just before it started to become the strange fantasy world it is today. It has a great creepy British under-secretary for foreign affairs, plus very good tartan fashions.’
11 December 2009
[comics] Time Lost Batman is on Twitter: ‘You don’t get it, Pharaoh. This isn’t a desert. It’s an operating table, and I’M THE SURGEON!!!’ (more…)
10 December 2009
[comics] The Comics Reporter’s Holiday Shopping Guide ’09 … great selection of comic gifts to buy this year … On A Drifting Life: ‘Very few if any reviews of this massive autobiographical work from the great Yoshihiro Tatsumi note how completely mad it is on a certain level to follow a young man around as he reads and draws comics over the space of several decades. This book more than has the courage of that particular conviction, and I’ve never seen any artist invoke the relationship-warping monomania of creativity as well as Tatsumi does here.’
9 December 2009
[funny] New Study Reveals Most Children Unrepentant Sociopaths

“The most disturbing facet of this ubiquitous childhood disorder is an utter lack of empathy,” Mateo said. “These people-if you can even call them that-deliberately violate every social norm without ever pausing to consider how their selfish behavior might affect others. It’s as if they have no concept of anyone but themselves.”

“The depths of depravity that these tiny psychopaths are capable of reaching are really quite chilling,” Mateo added.

8 December 2009
[batman] ‘Hey Batman, What Are Your Parents Getting You For Christ-‘

Hey Batman, What Are Your Parents Getting You For Christ-

7 December 2009
[morrison] Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods Trailer … a bunch of comic-types try to sum up Grant Morrison … (more…)
[comics] The Best Comics Of The ’00s … from The A.V. Club. On Morrison and Quitely’s All Star Superman: ‘…Morrison puts a fresh spin on old Superman ideas-Bizarro, Jimmy Olsen’s monstrous transformations-and introduces some of his own, including a story in which Superman is secretly responsible for the world you’re living in right now. It’s enough to send even the most jaded comics fan outside to look up in the sky.’
4 December 2009
[interesting] The 50 Most Interesting Articles On Wikipedia … including… ETAOIN SHRDLU: ‘The letters on Linotype keyboards were arranged by letter frequency, so ETAOIN SHRDLU were the first two vertical columns on the left side of the keyboard.’
3 December 2009
[comics] Counterculture Comics Hero Grant Morrison Gets a Biopic … Wired cover a new documantary about Grant Morrison … ‘Morrison has lived a very full life, from playing in rock bands to experimenting as a transvestite to becoming, like Alan Moore, a chaos magician. There’s a lot of fertile ground in his personality alone, to say nothing of his sometimes autobiographical comics. In the process, Morrison has become a counterculture icon primed for mainstream crossover.’
2 December 2009
[google] Autocomplete Me … a blog revealing oddball search requests via Google’s autocomplete feature … ‘monsters are… real and ghosts are real too. they live inside us and sometimes they win.’
1 December 2009
[bdj] Meanwhile… Belle de Jour on Celebrity Big Brother? ZOMG!!

belle de jour on celebrity big brother

[bdj] Yes, the bozos who claimed I was Belle de Jour were completely deluded! … Stewart Home’s reaction to Belle de Jour revealing her identity … ‘One thing I am absolutely certain of is that I didn’t write the Belle de Jour blog and books despite the claims to the contrary made by various conspiracy nuts.’
30 November 2009
[comics] Go Look: Bill Sienkiewicz art for the 1980’s Dungeons and Dragons cartoon(more…)
29 November 2009
[books] In Cold Blood, Half A Century On … revisiting the senseless murder of four people, Kansas and Truman Capote …

For Truman Capote the outcome of his sojourn in west Kansas was decidedly mixed. In Cold Blood, which he immodestly heralded as a new form of non-fiction novel, was received with delirious approval; Norman Mailer dubbed Perry as one of the great characters in American literature. The book earned its author more than $2m, which he used to buy homes in Manhattan, the Hamptons, Palm Springs and Switzerland. But by all accounts such heavenly success also went to his head, and contributed to his downward spiral in a haze of lavish parties, drink and drugs. He failed to write another substantial work, and died in 1984.

27 November 2009
[comics] Skin … The Forbidden Planet blog remembers Skin the long out-of-print comic from Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy‘McCarthy’s art is astonishing, from the brutal leer on Martin’s face in one scene to the psychedelic, drug-fuelled sex scene with the young skinhead and some hippies (aided in no small part by Carol Swain’s brilliant colouring) which is a great example of how bloody amazing McCarthy’s art often is. Both art and story combine perfectly to tell a powerful tale of a disturbing subject and do so while denying the reader the normal emotional crutch of having a loveable but put-down hero to root for…’
26 November 2009
[comics] Go Look: Jack Kirby’s Inglourious Basterds Comic Book Adaptation!
25 November 2009
[books] Is James Ellroy The Best Judge Of His Own Novels? … James Ellroy on The Cold Six Thousand‘Ellroy was already there, sitting on a dais, dressed casually – khaki jumper with suede elbow pads, chinos and surprisingly fashionable shoes – more geography teacher on a field trip than “the demon dog, the foul owl with the death growl”. But there was nothing ordinary about Ellroy’s voice. Deep, rhythmic and gruff, his voice imbued the opening passage from American Tabloid with such ferocity and menace it was pure visceral theatre.’
[simpsons] The 14 Most Awesome Fake Products From The Simpsons‘Krusty’s low standards for product endorsement have resulted in a slew of hilarious products. One of the best is the Krusty Home Pregnancy Test (warning: may cause birth defects).’
24 November 2009
[funny] Internet Vices‘YouTube is shots of tequila. “Just ONE” to humor your friend quickly turns into 4 or 5…’
23 November 2009
[bbc] Melvyn Bragg history show In Our Time to go online in BBC Archive‘The show, which chronicles the history of ideas, is among the first BBC programmes to have its complete archive made accessible online…’
[goog] Mystery Google … the results are what the person before you searched for. I got MLIA.
22 November 2009
[quote] ‘I worry. I mean, little things bother me. I’m a worrier. I mean, little insignificant details – I lose my appetite. I can’t eat. My wife, she says to me, “you know, you can really be a pain.” ’ — Columbo.
21 November 2009
[bdj] Circumstantial Evidence – Belle de Jour “Signed” Her First Post … as also noted by Troubled Diva

Circumstantial Evidence - Belle Signed Her First Post As Brooke

20 November 2009
[bdj] For Whom The Belle Tells … another old-time UK blogger breaks cover and admits he guessed who Belle de Jour was … ‘The first blog to link to BDJ was in fact this humble blog, Parallax View. And the lead? An email from a fellow blogger casually asking whether I’d noticed on the UK Blogs aggregator a blog by a prostitute. The blogger? Oh, you’re ahead of me… Dr Brooke Magnanti.’
19 November 2009
[bdj] How Belle de Jour’s Secret Ally Googlewhacked The Press … First personal post I ever do makes the front page of the Guardian. Never again … ‘The sympathetic online diarist, who gives his name only as Darren…’
18 November 2009
[bdj] The Belle de Jour Googlewack … this screengrab was taken in 2005.
[bdj] Reg hack beats ‘Belle de Jour’ sex rap‘The stigma of suspected blogging followed [Andrew] Orlowski until yesterday, when Dr Brooke Magnanti, a Bristol research scientist, outed herself in The Sunday Times. Today our man, who is rarely mistaken for Billie Piper, declined to comment from his North London brothel.’
17 November 2009
[bdj] Add a blog to the updated list? … The original email Belle de Jour sent asking to be added to the Updated UK Blogs List.
16 November 2009

Me and Belle de Jour – “Could it be Brooke?”

Let’s break out of this self-imposed link blogging format for just one post… it’s not every day the biggest secret you’ve ever kept gets revealed on the front pages of the national press.

I have an admission to make about Belle de Jour.

It’s time for me to admit that I solved the puzzle of her identity almost at the very start after she (as Belle) sent me the link to her new blog to add to the list of Updated UK Blogs. Sending the link to me implied somebody who knew quite a lot about how UK blogging worked at the time and I found it hard to believe that an escort that had starting blogging would use me to announce the blog to the world. Then, after BdJ proceeded to knock the ball out of the park in the blog writing department, I started to seriously consider if it was somebody I knew.

In late 2003 I was well placed to guess Belle’s identity. I’d been blogging myself for three years at that point, I had met many London bloggers and briefly read most of the UK-written blogs during 2000 and 2001. UK blogging was (and still is) full of young, smart people and anyone of them might have written Belle’s blog. I never believed that a professional writer could be BdJ – apparently effortless blog writing takes practice, and required an understanding of a new medium which not many people had at the time. So I asked myself: which blogger is it?

A couple of months went past, and after Belle de Jour won the award for Best Written Blog from the Guardian and the whole BdJ phenomenon kicked off, I had my eureka moment – I was sitting on the tube one morning and suddenly thought: ’Could it be Brooke?’

Brooke at the time ran a couple of blogs – A link blog called Methylsalicylate and another science blog called Cosmas. She also had done a few short, smart pieces of writing online – The Autopsy, What The Dead Remember and one called Malted. Malted was about whiskey and was the bit of writing that gave it all away. I remembered reading Malted a few months previously and realised the style and content was reminiscent of Belle’s and was suddenly convinced I had the answer.

I then spent the first three months of 2004 “internet stalking” Brooke Magnanti, collecting together a whole bunch of circumstantial evidence that Brooke was indeed Belle. I also slowly became aware of the heightened stakes, as Belle became increasingly famous and obviously wanted to maintain her pseudonymity.

For a while I believed that Brooke would get outed immediately – but it turns out the British press could not investigate anything not handed to them on a plate, and were never looking in the right place – the small clique of people who starting blogging in the UK in 2000/2001. Belle de Jour remained pseudonymous and the mystery remained intact even after two TV series based on her books.

During this time I published a googlewack hidden in my blog – the words “Belle de Jour”, “Brooke Magnanti” and “Methylsalicylate” were published and available in Google’s index on a single page on the internet – my weblog. This “coincidental” collection of links could in no way reveal Belle’s identity. But I wondered if anybody else knew the secret and felt that analysing my web traffic might confirm my strongly-held belief. If someone googled “Belle de Jour” “Brooke Magnanti”, I would see it in the search referrers for LinkMachineGo.

I waited five years for somebody to hit that page (I’m patient). Two weeks ago I started getting a couple of search requests a day from an IP address at Associated Newspapers (who publish the Daily Mail) searching for “brooke magnanti” and realised that Belle’s pseudonymity might be coming to an end. I contacted Belle via Twitter and let her know what was happening. I didn’t expect to hear anything back.

And then early last weekend I received an email signed by Brooke that confirmed that she was outing herself in the Sunday Times because the Daily Mail had discovered her identity.

It was finally over, the secret was out. I no longer have to worry about inadvertently revealing her identity. If I’m honest, solving the puzzle of the biggest literary and blogging mystery of the last six years has been fun and exciting. I’m just really disappointed I don’t get to dig up a gold hare as a prize!

One last thing: Good Luck Brooke, I’m very glad you’ve managed to maintain some control over how and when your real identity was revealed to the public. I think I probably owe you a bottle of your favourite whiskey. Let me know what you like and I’ll see what I can do. – Darren/LMG.

Update #1: Belle has confirmed the story in the comments to this post.

Update #2: Googlewack Screengrab Published

Update #3: How Belle de Jour’s Secret Ally Googlewacked The Press – the Guardian cover the story.

Update #4: The End

[bdj] Now that I’m Not Anonymous — Belle de Jour outed herself yesterday in the Sunday Times. Old time UK bloggers may remember her other blog Methylsalicylate from 2000/2001. The Times described it as a “science blog” but as I remember it was a link blog in the style inspired by Jorn Barger. That’s right… I’ll say it again: Belle de Jour was a LINK BLOGGER.