[politics] Another long, interesting political profile of Michael Portillo. ‘Moving the political battle on to cultural grounds exposes another division among Conservatives, between authoritarians and liberals. The people who encouraged John Major to go “back to basics” and William Hague to portray Conservatives as “the party of the family” are genuinely shocked that Portillo can suggest it is an area where neither the party nor the state has a role. “None of my colleagues understand the real game,” he complained to friends recently. Intellectual, arrogant, a man who holidays in Bayreuth for the Wagner and Morocco for the ruins, a man viewed with suspicion by most of his political colleagues, his only hold on the party is their desperation to win.’ [Related: Official Portillo Site]

[distractions] Rejected Movie Posters… Kramer vs. Kramer, Autumn in New York, Willy Wonka. [via Comic Geek]

[comics] Girls And Comics – Oil And Water — a for real Comic Book Guy?! ‘I am a keen observer of human behavior and the attitude of a girl in a comic shop is like that of a Vulcan amongst Ferengi. They think they are so much better than comics. Those girls don’t think I’m watching them from my stool behind the counter as I bag and board comics. But I am. I see them in their little belly-shirts acting like they are so above comics. The reality is that girls lack the imagination of boys and cannot comprehend the bold archetypes portrayed in our (boys?) sequential art-form.’ [via Comic Geek]

[books] Stranger than fiction — interview from the Telegraph with Chuck Palahniuk. ‘”In the US we really don’t have a rite of passage from adolescence into adulthood,” he says, “except through acquiring accoutrements – your home, your car, your washer-dryer. That’s how you become an adult in America. There’s a quote in the book: ‘I’ve seen the strongest, smartest generation in all of human history, and they’re working in the service industry.’ And I just felt enormously disappointed in myself and most of my peers; despite all of the things we’d been raised with – good nutrition, good health, the best education – what had our lives amounted to? Pumping gas? Filing? Watching a computer screen? All of humanity has come to this point, and this is the best we can do with it? I just felt this enormous frustration around that.”‘

[politics] ThatcherWeb — Thatcher fan site. Check out the messianic Flash intro… ‘Let me give you my vision: A man’s right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master – these are the British inheritance. They are the essence of a free economy… and on that freedom all our other freedoms depend.’ [via Haddock]

[books] The Face by Garry Bushell — a Digested Read… ‘Witless, plotless gangster pulp-fiction that manages to insult almost everyone, especially the readers.’

[celebrity] Boomtown’s tycoon — profile of Bob Geldof…. ‘Geldof likes to say of his various ventures — be they pop music, television production, internet travel or his latest media and events company — that they arose only out of his anger at the inadequacy of what was on offer to him as a consumer. “I start things because what I see is crap and it makes me angry,” he once said, with his usual memorable turn of phrase. “I started the Rats because all the records I heard were crap. I did Live Aid because what was happening was crap. I started Planet 24 (which produced Channel 4’s money-spinning Big Breakfast tabloid television programme) because everything on TV was crap. And I’m starting the internet company because I am angry at all the crap on the Net”.’

[celebrity] Stars in their Eyes [Part One | Part Two] — Jon Ronson looks at what happened to the original Big Brother contestants one year on… ‘Andy and I entered the offices of Courier Systems. “This is wicked,” said Andy. “I’ve always wanted to be a cycle courier.” “When can you start?” said Paul, the manager. “Tomorrow,” said Andy. “Bright and early.” Paul laughed. He said he’d seen people like Andy before. They come in full of excitement and fanciful ideals about the life of the cycle courier, but reality hits them on the first day and they quit within a week. “Well, that’s not me,” said Andy. “I promise you that.” “Will I see you at Sada’s book launch party?” I asked. “No,” he said. “I’m not going.” “Why not?” I asked. “It would be deceitful,” he said. “I fucking hate Sada.” Andy’s career as a cycle courier lasted for three days. “God it was hard,” he told me at Sada’s book launch party. “And the money was shit.”‘

[quote] ‘In London, where Southampton Row passes Russell Square, across from the British Museum in Bloomsbury, Leo Szilard waited irritably one gray Depression morning for the stoplight to change. A trace of rain had fallen during the night; Tuesday, September 12, 1933, dawned cool, humid and dull. Drizzling rain would begin in early afternoon. When Szilard told the story later he never mentioned his destination that morning. He may have had none; he often walked to think. In any case another destination intervened. The stoplight changed to green. Szilard stepped off the curb. As he crossed the street time cracked open before him and he saw a way to the future, death into the world and all our woe, the shape of things to come.’

[books] Summer Reading Recommendations from…. Seething Hatred, Steps and Wherever You Are. Vaughan: ‘Therefore, that whole reading list may have been a pointless exercise, and a complete waste of time. Bloody hell, isn’t personal web publishing marvellous?’

[stuff] More Random Linkage:

• John Huston looks like this? [via What’s New Pussycat?]
• Simon Bisley does Christ on the Cross.
• Unused William Gibson script for Alien 3… ‘Eight inches of razor-sharp serrated tail plunges out through the back of his suit as he’s lifted off his feet by something we can’t see. Ugly RIPPING noise as the ALIEN withdraws its stinger — blood tidily contained by the translucent membrane of the biohazard envelope. The stinger of a second Alien whips around the neck of one of the other two Marines; the Alien is clinging to the ceiling. He screams.’ [via Memepool]
• Slobodan Milosevic’s wife Mira Markovic: ‘I cannot do anything on my own, without him. He has always been in my life and now I have to look after everything. I still find him cute and likeable. What can I say? He is my hero.’
• Anti-Music on the Open Directory Project… I suspect Tanya visits often.

[tv] Big Mac — why am I linking to interviews with John McCririck?! ‘McCririck says he would be lost without the Booby [his wife]. He can’t drive so she ferries him to race meetings. Nor can he cook, mend a fuse, or do anything else practical, so she has to attend to the business of living. He does a review of the papers on Channel 4’s Morning Line at 9am each Saturday, and you can guess who is down at King’s Cross station at midnight buying the papers. They have no children; or perhaps they have one extremely large child.’

[quote] ‘You come back to the hotel after a gig. You’re knackered. The sex is there on a plate. It doesn’t really appeal to me. I need to feel engaged and stimulated. I need to feel intimacy. To me there’s nothing sexier than having someone knowing you, speaking to you, understanding you, and still wanting to fuck you.’ — Luke Goss.

[science] The Prophet of Reason — The Independent profiles Richard Dawkins…. ‘What about, “why are humans so credulous?” I ask. So happy to pay through the nose for an aura massage or crystal healing. Mustn’t gullibility have an evolutionary explanation too? “I would put it back to childhood and say that there’s a Darwinian survival value in children believing what their elders tell them, because the world is too dangerous a place and it takes too long to learn what you need to learn to survive,” Dawkins replies. “You’ve got to have a rule of thumb that’s built into the nervous system that says ‘Believe what you’re told’. And once you’ve got a rule of thumb like that, it’s like having a computer, which is vulnerable to viruses.’

[movies] The Guardian interviews Timothy Spall… ‘Timothy Spall’s 20-year study of the British soul began with a small role in the 1979 youth culture classic Quadrophenia. “I was the fat projectionist,” he remembers. “A whole generation of actors were in that film: Phil Daniels, Ray Winstone, Phil Davis. All being these sharp mods or cool rockers, and I was the fat projectionist.”‘ [Related: Spall at IMDB]

[stuff] Random Linkage:

• Anthony Soprano: ‘Mother of Christ! Is this a woman thing? You ask me how I’m feeling. I TELL you how I’m feeling. And now you’re going to torture me with it.’ [from Sopranos Sounds]
• haddock.org…. on Blogs. ‘It’s only a matter of hours before all weblogs disappear up their collective meta-arse.’
• An abiding image for 2001? ‘Judge: Mr Milosevic, this is not the time for speeches. As I have said you will have a full opportunity in due course to defend yourself and to make your defence before the tribunal. This is not the moment to do so. This matter is now adjourned.’ [BBC News Transcript]
• Dr. William Minor at everything2.com. Dr. Minor would have been a blogger if he’d been born 140 years later…
• The Washington Post revisits Watergate…. 25 years later (in 1997). Ben Bradlee on Deep Throat: ‘I think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on. ‘

[comics] Brief preview of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men 2001 Annual….

[celebrity] Ginger Snaps — interesting analysis into why Chris Evans left Virgin Radio last week… ‘”The real story with Chris is his friends,” one of his former friends explained. “I think he has a fairly serious personality disorder which begins with him thinking, ‘I am a funny, charismatic bloke, and I want to surround myself with my court’. He’s always done this, ever since he was a teenager. Like every bully, he’s always got a circle of acolytes, a little clique. He bullies people so that he can show off in front of that clique. That’s how he’s sustained himself. But then what happens is always the same. He has fallen out with everybody, even the people who have stuck with him through the worst kind of excesses.”‘ [Related: Sunday Times Profile, Net Notes on Evans]

[tv] Adam and Joe’s list of very Bad Things. ‘3. Making toast or tea in the ad break only to find, as the show starts again, you hadn’t plugged in the toaster/kettle.’

[WTF?] Deeply weird… sexual situation involving chains and a Volkswagon…. ‘Case studies include “The Love Bug,” the weird tale of an airline pilot who sought gratification by running around in the nude while chained to the back of a Volkswagen rigged to drive in slow circles. Called to the scene when a fisherman stumbled upon the grisly tableau, stunned policemen found the pilot’s naked body smashed against the car’s left rear fender. Cops theorized the victim had been trying to turn off the ignition when the chain began wrapping around the axle, crushing him to death.’ [via Venusberg]

[books] Five books I’ve bought in charity shops recently…

• Airport by Arthur Hailey. The novel which made George Kennedy’s career… and the template for every jet disaster movie ever… Classic back cover blurb: ‘AIRPORT. From traffic control to Customs hall, from airport manager’s office to the lay-over apartments in “Stewardesses Row”, the rooms are peopled with men and women whose private pressures and passions match the fury of the blizzard which sweeps the airfield… For seven suspense-filled hours, a blocked runway … suicide … pickets … an aerial stowaway … pregnancy … smuggling … mass demonstrations … and a psychotic with a home-made bomb, build to nail-biting climax…’
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Joins the tiny number of books I’ve never managed to get past the first page on… I read the opening sentence… “Who is John Galt?”, my brain reboots and I go and do something more interesting instead… like sit in a corner and stare at the wall. Purchased for a pound in Shepherds Bush.
• Monte Cassino by Sven Hassel. The all-true (according to this FAQ, anyway) adventures of a German Penal Panzer Division (WTF?!) at Monte Cassino. Hassel’s books — like Richard Allen’s Skinhead series — are 70’s pulp classics well worth picking up if you can find them…. I suspect these have become collectable so you’ll be lucky to find them in charity shops. Another lucky purchase from a charity shop in Kilburn.
• Raise the Titanic! by Clive Cussler. Faced with a difficult decision I often ask myself “What would Dirk Pitt do in this situation?” …the answer is always shoot a Russian between the eyes and seduce the nearest beautiful woman. The book was made into another crap film but it’s entertaining if you can pick it up for a pound.
• The Detective by Roderick Thorpe. I’ve not managed to read this one yet…. but I recommend it mainly because of front-cover blurb…. ‘A Big-City Cop whose public life amid rape, robbery, perversion and murder becomes entangled with the problems of his wife and mistress.’ How can you resist that?

Next Week: Another book list I haven’t though of yet…. although I’m planning on doing a list of the worst books I’ve ever read at some point… Shaun Hutson novels will feature strongly.

[books] I should take a look at the Digested Read’s in the Guardian more often… One For My Baby: ‘”I’m planning a surprise birthday party for your father,” said my mum. “Surprise, surprise,” she shouted as the lights went on. And there was dad with his trousers round his ankles while Lena, the au pair, bobbed in front of him. Funny. I thought it was me she fancied. “I really love Lena,” muttered my dad as I helped him move his stuff out of the house. How do you live with loss? ‘ Nigella Bites: ‘I know that many of you may not have time for the table-laden breakfast, but even the sluttiest person can whip up muffins for 12. Just make the nanny get up at 5.30am to whip up some lumpy batter, spoon it into paper cases and cook for 20 minutes. You can hop out of the bath a couple of hours later and devour them with lashings of buerre de Normandie. By the way, get that nice little barman I once met in Hong Kong to make you a few Bloody Marys to wash it all down.’

[distraction] Bod and Star Wars collide…. Here Comes Darth. [via Bugpowder]

[life] A Lease On Life — the Guardian looks at human longevity… ‘In theory, evolution could have come up with a different design, a human who reached sexual maturity decades later, or who went on having children for longer. But then the sabre-tooth factor kicks in. In mankind’s hunter-gatherer days, the chances were that something would kill you before you reached your mid-30s. It might have been famine, or murder, or a predator, or a nasty bacterium. There would have been no evolutionary point in having a man or woman who was in their physical prime at 70, if they had only a million-to-one chance of surviving violence and illness for that long. We’re a bit like cars. Maybe you could design and build a car that would last 1,000 years. But why would you, if the cars cost a billion pounds each, and were 99% likely to be destroyed in an accident in half that time?’

[comics] Tom interviews Grant Morrison [Part One | Part Two]. Morrison on Animal Man: ‘The Animal Man project began as a four issue miniseries in what he describes with a laugh as the “Alan Moore style – lots of poetic captions and interesting scene transitions”, but it soon spiralled away from this concept. “Half-way through the first four issues I decided that I just couldn’t continue with it. They had asked me to do it as an ongoing series, but it just wasn’t the kind of thing that I wanted to do. Suddenly the idea of the ‘Coyote Gospel’ came to me and that basically set the template for everything that I’ve done since.”‘

[cartoon] Steve Bell on David Trimble’s threatened resignation…

[comics] Popimage has 20 questions with Joe Quesada. Old Marvel vs. New Marvel: ‘…communications between the upper levels of the company and our talent was really disastrous. We also had some very poor hiring methods. For starters we kept hiring editors and assistant editors to write our top books while the competition was recruiting new talent that was really breaking ground. We had no recruitment techniques at all! When we did hire top talent we wouldn’t let them do what they wanted to do, we had a very heavy-handed editorial approach and would make sure that the books were more editorially driven than talent driven. I think that there was also the ego factor, you know “Eff you we’re Marvel and if you don’t like it go work for the smaller companies” and ultimately we were afraid of change. I can’t tell you the fear, concern and jealousy that was felt across Marvel when Marvel Knights was introduced into the system. I could feel it walking down the halls on a daily basis. That first year I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I walked by certain offices.’

[politics] There’s only one person that knows me – and that’s me — long, intriguing, “fills-in-the-blanks” profile of Michael Portillo in the Telegraph… ‘…He still has his detractors. One of Hague’s team says: “William was being shot at from the inside on a daily basis. Michael often didn’t return emails or pick up the phone. He’s impossible to get close to, he’s such a big secret. He has a grandeur and aloofness that William lacks.” Another says: “It was like living with Princess Diana.”‘

[distractions] Another really addictive game… BLiX. ‘Is BLiX just a pixel in someone else’s game?’

[comics] I was a lot younger when I read this the first time… (WTF! 1990?!) Endless Summer by Philip Bond. ‘…a little sappy for you? never mind, there’ll be something much more moronic next week.’