[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!]

[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.’

[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]

[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!”.’

[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]

[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.’

[comics] Tintin in Thailand — a complete set of scans from the “lewd” comic strip which “shocked Belgium”… [via lukelog]

[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.’

[soap] Frank Butcher’s Philosophical Car Lot has a fine selection of Frank’s Criminal Records… including the classic My Name is… Frank Butcher and Pat n’ Peg ‘You Bitch! You Cow!’

[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]

[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.’

[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.’

[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.’

[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]

[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.’

[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).

[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?”‘

[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]

[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]

[film] Simple, disturbing… I’d never seen this before… the trailer to The Shining. [via WEF]

[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.

[travel] This is so useful… First / Last Trains on the London Underground.

[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] 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]

[fantasy tv] Ali G interviews Optimus Prime ‘Is that why this fight started then, because Galva-whatsit called your mum a slag?’

[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.’

[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!’

[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]

[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.]