LinkMachineGo

[movies] Gene Hackman: 20 Best Movies … The French Connection: ‘William Friedkin had planned on pushing Doyle to the outer limits of acceptability; the filmmaker later said that despite the fact Hackman had gone on ride-alongs with Eddie Egan, a.k.a. the real-life Popeye, his lead was so put off by the ugly places he had to go to that Hackman allegedly quit on the second day of production. He was eventually coaxed back, and struggled to find a way in to playing Egan until one day, he noticed the cop “dipping a cruller into a cup of coffee and then pitching it over his head. There was something in his attitude that made everything very clear: This guy doesn’t give a shit about anything except his work.” Bingo! The role won Hackman his first Academy Award. Everyone remembers the famous chase scene — the actor later joked that maybe the car should have won the Oscar — but Hackman is the engine that drives the whole movie.’

[pets] Are you the owner of a feckless Unemployed Pet? by Darren Cullen.

[gaiman] The Cuddled Little Vice (Sandman) … Elizabeth Sandifer does a deep dive into Neil Gaiman, his work, and the allegations of sexual assault and abuse. ‘In one of his few public comments about the influence of Scientology, Gaiman noted that he “grew up in a world in which being a science-fiction writer was a good thing. As far as my parents were concerned, that was an incredibly esteemed profession.” And now, as he swept the genre awards for that field, picking up nominations for practically every Best Novel award there was and winning the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Bram Stoker awards, the engrammatic patterns implicit in the Gaiman family’s vision of being a famous science fiction writer took hold.’

[comics] Interviewing Alan Moore … A huge collection of scans of Alan Moore interviews over the years with plenty I’ve not seen before. From an early interview in 1981: ‘My greatest personal hope is that someone will revive Marvelman and I’ll get to write it. KIMOTA!!’

[life] Live-updating Version of the ‘What a week, huh?’ Meme [Day | Week | Month | Year] …

[food] This is my final OFM column. Here’s what I’ve learned about buffets, ‘clean eating’ and what not to serve food on … Some advice on food and dining out from Jay Rayner in his final Happy Eater column. ‘Eating alone in a restaurant is dinner with someone you love and a delicious opportunity for people watching. Great food can be found in the scuzziest of places. Gravy stains down your shirt are not a source of embarrassment; they are a badge of honour. Expensive restaurants are wasted on the people who can afford them. And food should always, always, be served on plates. Not on slates. Not on garden trowels. Not on planks. On plates.’

[tetris] Apotris … This is the best modern version of Tetris I’ve found – available on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch and Gameboy Advance. You can play on your phone if you use an emulator like Delta with the GBA version.

[politics] Nigel Farage, Jordan Peterson & co worship each other in alt-right heaven … John Cace watches a Culture War Conference so we don’t have to. ‘Then Jordan [Peterson] moved on to his favourite subject. What the world needed was more heterosexual couples to get married. Homosexuality was a deviation. There was too much abortion and divorce in the world. You’d be hard pushed to hear a more unpleasant rant all year. It was too much even for Nige, who confessed he had been divorced twice. He looked nervously at Jordan before ending by saying there would be more children under Reform. Trying to win over the audience. Still, at least no one asked him about his admiration of Putin. I’ve never seen Nige more pleased to leave the stage.’

[history] Distressed 99 Foot Concrete Portrait of Ferdinand Marcos … More details here: The exploded bust of Ferdinand Marcos… ‘The bust was completed in the early 1980s when Mr Marcos was still in power, but fell into disrepair after he was overthrown in a popular revolt in 1986. He died in exile three years later. This is a real modern-era Ozymandias, the broken remnants of a statue to a powerful man who grabbed command by the throat and rode it until he was overthrown.’

[lists] 25 Dull Lists from Diamond Geezer … ‘Hills in the City of London: Addle, Bennet’s, Cock, College, Dowgate, Fish Street, Garlick, Huggin, Lambeth, Laurence Pountney, Ludgate, Old Fish Street, Peter’s, Primrose, Snow, St Andrew’s, St Dunstans, Tower, White Lion’

[podcast] The Missing Cryptoqueen… Finally got round to listening to this fascinating podcast on the story of Ruja Ignatova and OneCoin from Jamie Bartlett. Recommended.

[herzog] Happy Werner Herzog Valentines to those that celebrate … ‘Valentine, in your eyes I see the light, the heat; also chaos, hostility, and murder.’

[movies] Bad Movies: The 100 Worst Movies of All Time … Following up from yesterday, here’s Rotten Tomatoes list of the worst movies. Jack and Jill (2011): ‘Although it features an inexplicably committed performance from Al Pacino, Jack and Jill is impossible to recommend on any level whatsoever.’

[film] Splat’s entertainment: I watched Rotten Tomatoes’ 40 lowest-rated films to find out which was worst … Rebecca Liu watched 40 of the worst movies so we don’t have to. ‘While good art can be transcendent and awe-inducing, bad art at its best reminds us of our humility and vulnerability and the inevitability of failure. We all feel the desire to create; we all see grand ambitions fall apart. Plenty of the films in this list were corporate cash-grabs and paint-by-numbers productions that could have been generated by AI. Beyond them, it’s those moments of humanity – funny, absurd, too close to home – that will stay with me. That bizarre piece of dialogue; the performance that tries too hard; Nicolas Cage signing up to a questionable script because it would make his brother happy.’

[comics] Unused cover for The Collected Bojeffries Saga … Really lovely painted cover by Garry Leach.

[life] What parking apps tell us about the UK… A deep dive into why digitisation is leading to the eshittification of society. ‘Our 5G is patchy; our internet speeds middling; our websites crash; the train plug sockets are out of action, etc. There are so many hidden costs to digitisation, and most are passed on to the consumer. I call this ‘techno-admin’. Large firms use automation to cut staff and reduce administrative overheads, especially when it comes to customer service. But what they have actually done is outsource the admin work to the customer. We are the ones now form-filling, changing passwords, self-serving, and (this is the worst bit) fixing errors. I sometimes wonder if the UK’s productivity problem – which has flatlined since 2010 – is partly caused by a surge in techno-admin.’

[art] What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men? … I reread this article from 2017 recently about the complexity of enjoying the work of men like Woody Allen. ‘Just as Manhattan never authentically or fully examines the complexities of an old dude nailing a high schooler, Allen himself—an extremely well-spoken guy—becomes weirdly inarticulate when discussing Soon-Yi. In a 1992 interview with Walter Isaacson of Time, Allen delivered the line that became famous for its fatuous dismissal of his moral shortcomings: “The heart wants what it wants.” It was one of those phrases that never leaves your head once you’ve heard it: we all immediately memorized it whether we wanted to our not. Its monstrous disregard for anything but the self. Its proud irrationality.’

[lifehacks] The Most Powerful Life Hacks I’ve Found … I always seem to find something useful in these posts with lists of life hacks. Maybe you will too. ‘Be reliable. You can get pretty damn far in life by just being someone that people can count on to show up and do the work. Reliability is one of the most underrated traits. In the short run, it is much harder to be exceptional than it is to be reliable, and in the long run, being consistently reliable makes you exceptional.’

[comics] Alan Moore And Chris Claremont Speak Out On Writing (from Speakeasy 054) … A real moment of comic history captured here. Moore has just written Watchmen #1 and the Claremont era of the X-Men is in full swing. Moore: ‘I agree that the establishment of invisible character detail, the stuff that is not on the surface, the stuff that is just subliminal – context – is an important thing. With Watchmen we tried to really go in for that. It’s an extension of the technique that I used in Halo Jones, probably a lot different to the clear establishing that Chris was talking about, in that it’s an extension of the idea of teaching parallel languages by dumping people in a room full of foreigners. Okay, the first time it’s going to be hell and the first time it’s going to be incomprehensible, but eventually your understanding of that world will be much more thorough. It’s a long shot, but I think it’s going to work because we have got a lot of space: we’re working on nine panels of page as opposed to the normal six. That gives you half the book again and you’ve got twenty eight pages so, in effect you’re doing a forty two page book or something, which gives you a lot of information. It’s not a very big story either. It’s a story that I could probably have told in three issues, but were telling it in twelve. It’s not going to be padded, it’s just that having twelve we’ve got room to explore all the characters.’

[comics] Green Lantern Theory … ‘Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan, who coined the term, explained that the Green Lantern theory is “the belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics.” The assumption is that the president is all-powerful, and when he can’t get something done, it’s because he’s not trying hard enough.’

[batman] The Batbible … A comprehensive guide to Batman’s character, history, and universe, originally written by Dennis O’Neil in 1989 for creators working on DC Batman projects. ‘Batman is a detective, but not of the genteel ilk– no Hercules Poirot or Nero Wolf, but rather a Marlowe or Continental Op times ten. We should achieve a balance between ratiocination and action, neglecting neither, but perhaps emphasizing the latter. Stories should above all, move. Batman should never do something sitting that he can do running or leaping or jumping off a rooftop. Exposition and explanation should always be integrated with action. Talking heads are to be eschewed. Villains should be larger than life, and preferably grotesque. The Joker and Two-Face are perfect examples of Batman bad guys; they wear their villainy on their faces and they represent archetypical traits (Joker: anarchy and chaos: Two Face: the dichotomy between good and evil that exists in most human beings.) And they are both natural antagonists to a hero like the Batman. Keep them in mind when creating new baddies and you won’t go far wrong.’

[comics] Dave Gibbon’s Early Gigs – Underground Comics 1970-1973 … Go buy a great collection of obscure, early comics from Dave Gibbons.

[life] Wikenigma … An Encyclopedia of the known unknowns. Paracetemol: ‘One of the most widely prescribed drugs in history works by mechanisms which have not yet been agreed upon by the medical establishment. It‘s currently thought that paracetamol acts via more than one neurological pathway…’

[tv] An oral history of Twin Peaks … Lots of interesting details from the cast and co-creator. Mark Frost: ‘When we were shooting in Seattle, we asked our local casting agent to show us some young women who might be right for Laura Palmer. We saw hundreds of photos, then we met with Sheryl Lee and loved her – so much so that we said: “Well, we can’t just have her be a picture on a television set. We have to find a way to bring her back to life.” Sheryl was absolutely perfect and a dream to work with. There’s a lot of serendipity when you’re doing something like this, and on almost every occasion, the right person walked through the door.’

[tv] Adam Curtish – The Ascension of Incomprehension Part 2… Adam Curtish studies the hidden meanings of Camberwick Green, Mr Benn and Bagpuss.

[woke] Wokeipedia … A list of things that the right have claimed are Woke. Chicken sandwiches are woke: ‘Gen Z are almost as likely to include continental cheese (48%) as they are English cheddar in their sandwich. This compares with just over a quarter (27%) of baby boomers.’

[tv] ‘The high point of TV as a medium’: David Lynch’s Twin Peaks may never be bettered … Stuart Heritage on David Lynch and Twin Peaks. ‘After teaming up with former Hill Street Blues writer Mark Frost, he realised what the pair could be capable of together. Frost’s more formalised, drama-driven narrative chops paired well with Lynch’s murky surrealism, and they went to work producing a small-town murder mystery. A girl next door. An idealistic detective. A peripheral cast of oddballs. And The Red Room, an unknowable antechamber connecting the real world to another dimension, that Lynch claimed to have thought up by touching a warm car on a cold night.’

[sonic] Go listen to this Ska Version of Sonic The Hedgehog’s Green Hill Zone Theme …

[doom] DOOM: The Gallery Experience … Take some time to browse an art gallery whilst drinking wine and eating hors d’oeuvres within DOOM!

[web] A great selection of RSS Tricks … ‘Get the feed for the top posts of the month for a subreddit: https://www.reddit.com//r/simpsonsshitposting/top/.rss?t=month (Replace simpsonsshitposting with a subreddit you want to monitor) This gives you the top posts from the month, so it’s not a firehose of stuff flooding your reader–just about a post a day.’

[internet] Remembering Cyberia, the World’s First Ever Cyber Cafe … The story of the first cyber-cafe which opened in London. ‘Linking up with like-minded pioneers David Rowe and husband and wife Keith and Gené Teare, Eva found a spot on the corner of Whitfield Street and launched Cyberia there in 1994. With Hackers-style aesthetics and futuristic furniture, it was based around a U-shaped layout that meant visitors could see each other’s screens. “I wanted women to feel safe, because a lot of the stuff on the net was dodgy,” she explains. Many of Eva’s mates chipped in to help out––architects, interior designers, graphic artists, publishers, and ravers among them.’

[web] Essential tools to make the modern web more bearable … A great list of useful tools to make browsing the web less anoying. ‘The most user-friendly way to block ads on desktop is to use an ad-blocking extension in your browser. The main thing to be aware of is that some ad-blockers use monetization strategies that “soften” their ambitions (search “acceptable ads”). I would recommend uBlock Origin Lite (I assume you are using Chrome). Two additional things about ad-blocking to note: Blocking ads is generally easier on desktop than on mobile, and (at the time of writing) ad-blocking extensions are more effective on Firefox desktop than on Chrome desktop.’

[books] In Search of the Golden Brain … A deep dive into the hunt for Spitting Image’s Golden Brain. The brain is a long-forgotten prize for solving a Masquerade-style spoof found in a Spitting Image tie-in book released in 1985. ‘And just one question flicked across my mind, when I first read all the above in the 90s: is this real? Had they actually buried a golden brain, or is all just a big joke? After all, the very nature of the Spitting Image book was that it was full of silly parodies. Sat next to a stupid advert for products like “The Sinclair We-haven’t-thought-of-it-yet”, or trying to get you to bank with “Natlays Midloyd”, the idea that this might be a real competition just didn’t seem particularly likely.’

[london] Today I learned… that there is a submarine in Camberwell. Take a look inside. ‘Deep below the ground, boilers provide heat for local council estates, with the ‘submarine’ acting as ventilation.’

[blogs] Diamond Geezer’s 2024 Blog Index … A neat roundup of posts of Diamond Geezer’s travels last year. Focused on London, wider travels around the UK and the minutae of DG’s life.

[til] 52 things I learned in 2024 … Fifty-two TIL from Tom Whitwell. ‘The London Underground has a distinct form of mosquito, Culex pipiens f. Molestus, genetically different from above-ground mosquitos, and present since at least the 1940s.’

[2025] FUCK, I Mean Holy Goddamn FUCK, What the fucking, FUCK … Happy 2025! This image might come in useful for the New Year. :)

[2024] 77 Facts That Blew Our Minds in 2024 – The Atlantic … ‘Sigmund Freud said he put his patients on the couch because he could not deal “with being stared at by other people for eight hours a day.”’ [Archive link]

[comics] The Story Behind The Hunt – Again … J.M. DeMatteis tells the origin of “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, considered one of the best Spider-man stories. ‘It was a long road from the first glimmer of inspiration, somewhere around 1984 or ‘85, to the final, published work. If it had been up to me—and thank goodness it wasn’t—the original idea would have seen print as, of all things, a Wonder Man mini-series (Simon Williams—defeated in battle by his brother, the Grim Reaper—awakens in a coffin, claws his way out and discovers that he’s been buried alive for months). But the Story knew better. It knew that it needed time to brew in my unconscious and find the proper form. Tom DeFalco—then Marvel’s Executive Editor—agreed. When I pitched him my Wonder Man idea, he promptly rejected it. But there was something in that “return from the grave” concept that wouldn’t let go.’

[moon] Earthrise … A video about the famous photograph of Earth taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968.

[tv] Alan Partridge to The X-Files: it’s the greatest Christmas TV specials of all time! … ‘Peep Show: Seasonal Beatings (Channel 4) – Sunny Delight and cava cocktails all round as codependent flatmates Mark and Jeremy share a family Christmas from hell. Yuletide delights include Dobby denial, shouty charades, Super Hans gatecrashing as “Father Spliffmas” and Mark putting his dad’s dinner through a paper shredder. Remind us: is cauliflower traditional?’

[focus] The Ultimate White Noise Player … A website that helps you generate white / brown/ pink / more noise which can help with mental focus apparently.

[music] I don’t know who needs this today but here is a cover of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” in Classical Latin.

[food] Turkey Eggs – Why Don’t We Eat Them? … ‘If you haven’t seen a turkey lately, may the above photo be a reminder of how enormous they are (and vaguely threatening […]). Housing such a thing isn’t cheap as they need extra room and food to grow. It’s just not financially viable compared to other domesticated birds in the egg market.’

[moore] Unearthing’s Shooters Hill Walk … Instructions to follow the Shooter’s Hill Walk as described by Alan Moore in Unearthing. ‘Continuing south on Shrewsbury Lane, look right/west down Occupation Lane for a good view of central London. There are quite a few fairly similar views throughout Shooters Hill – including, as the Unearthing notes, from Steve Moore’s second story back window. For this walk, the Occupation Lane view was about the best version.’

[lifehacks] Sort out your life! 100 tiny tricks to help with everything from digital overwhelm to lumpy sugar and unpaid bills … ‘Carry ‘vex money’ – Always carry enough cash to get you out of danger or trouble if other methods fail – a taxi fare at least.’

[vaccines] The Impact of Vaccines … Astonishing infographic showing the effectiveness of vaccines against common diseases across time.

[books] ‘We live in a climate of fear’: graphic novelist’s Elon Musk book can’t find UK or US publisher … Darryl Cunningham struggles to find a publisher for his latest book about Elon Musk. ‘He charts the rise of Musk to the “billionaire class” through his various business dealings including acquiring Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, which he renamed X. Cunningham said: “Knowing what I know about the man, my conclusion is that it’s incredible that such a mediocre figure can amass such wealth, but it was ever thus.”’

[web] Today I learned that Europeans spend 575 million hours clicking cookie banners every year … ‘On average, a user visits about 100 websites per month, totaling 1,200 websites per year. With about 85% of these websites displaying a cookie banner, a user will encounter about 1,020 cookie banners every year. Assuming it takes an average of 5 seconds per interaction with a cookie banner, this amounts to 5,100 seconds per year per user, or roughly 1.42 hours per year.’

[covid] What’s in your Covid Emergency Kit? Some useful tips in this list. ‘Antihistamines: per NIH, “a number of Covid-19 patients improved significantly when on antihistamines due to their antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties. Moreover, antihistamines have shown to be effective in the management of long term symptoms post-Covid-19 infection.”’

[london] Why is London’s phone signal so bad? … Excellent reporting by London Centric on one of the great frustrations about living in London. ‘Astonishingly, tests carried out by London Centric found that in several high-profile areas of the capital the best place to find a fast 5G mobile data connection is now hundreds of feet under the capital in deep tube tunnels. This is thanks to new equipment – known as “leaky feeders” – installed in recent years under a contract with Transport for London. In a damning indictment of the capital’s outdoor mobile infrastructure, if you want to tether your laptop to your phone and work remotely you might be better off tapping into the tube network and doing your work while riding around at 40km/hr underneath London.’

[ambient] A Soft Murmur … Ambient background noise generator to relax with.

[ronson] 10 Chaotic Questions for Jon Ronson … ‘Q: What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done? A: I think I was in genuine danger going to Aryan Nations. I was walking past all these signs that said “No Jews”, “Jews turn back now”, and I was like, “Oh, they’ll be fine with me!”’

[comics] Tegan O’Neill reviews Nemesis the Warlock – The Definitive Edition Vol. 1 … ‘Kevin O’Neill was a distinctive and idiosyncratic presence on the page. His understanding of texture was acute like a nightmare: he was good at drawing flesh and metal both, and he could make both human meat and gleaming machinery seem positively putrid with illness. Nemesis is a tightly drawn strip, and the pictures are unerringly nauseating: vast towers of bone and tendon reaching into the sky, indistinguishable from the metallic armor of the Terminators, refulgent in their carapaces. It’s a universe of vast grotesquerie, from the torture pits in the deeps of the Termight empire to the alien lanes haunted by mature Blitzspears. The British mode of production meant that a single six-page Nemesis strip would have all that magic compressed into a series of half- and third-page splash panels, with heaps of didactic narration to carry the reader along the way. Both Mills and O’Neill get to have their say in the finished product here.’

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