[LMG]LMG RSS Feed 
[Search][Projects]A Moment Of MooreMe and Belle de Jour TimeMachineGo Evening Standard Headline Pictures [UK Bloggers]
London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 13 August 2000
[profile] The Observer profiles Guy Ritchie. ‘He is irritated, for a start, by the way the press have attacked him for having an affluent background and a cockney, or ‘mockney’, accent. Too many jokes about his ‘manor’ having a gravel drive and a swimming pool have made him cross. ‘I never said I lived in the East End for 30 years,’ he complains.’
 [comics] Interesting usenet interview with Dave Sim the creator of Cerebus from 1992. ‘Nothing frustrates me more than the twentieth century adherence to the notion that you can find out what ‘actually happened’ and that it is necessary for fiction to set out a linear, quantitative and absolute reality for the readers consumption and assurance. I think EVERYTHING is like the Kennedy assassination(s); riddled with inconsistencies, false trails, overlapping stories and considerations; distortions wrapped inside fabrications and coated with lies. The sooner we get over the idea that reality isn’t like this, the sooner we’ll be able to put together a world that fits our circumstances as they are; not as they never were and will never be. I’m not holding my breath.’
[big brother] Hours of fun with DIY Big Brother. ‘Big Brother is worried that things are getting dull, so he summons the housemates to have a mass debate about sex. After far too many cans of cider, Sarah admits that she likes to be spanked on the arse with a Bowl. Chris says he never wears condoms because they make his willy sore and Neil agrees. Joanne goes into a rant about how none of the other housemates have ever enjoyed a true orgasm because they’re all boring heterosexual bastards. Nicky sits in the corner, quietly eyeing up Neil.’
[adrian mole] Adrian Mole is the best thing about the Guardian on a Saturday… ‘Ivan went on saying to my mother, “This is an authentic working-class experience, isn’t it, Pauline?” His eyes were shining with excitement. He is turned on by vulgarity. It is why he fell in love and married my mother. My mother drew heavily on her St Moritz menthol fag with the gold-rimmed filter and said, “Ivan, I’m no longer working class. I read the Guardian and buy coffee beans now, or hadn’t you noticed?”‘
12 August 2000
[weblogs] Barbelith is up to something interesting… 23, 22, 21, 20… ‘I know this is the first time that we’ve really seen each other in like two or three years, but it’s great to see you. Which reminds me, there’s another fundamental reason we must meet up again. When’s the X-men movie coming out?’
[big brother] This is London pits UK Big Brother vs. US Big Brother. ‘So far there has only been one US drama when Karen, the oldest woman in the group, publicly dumped her husband in front of the TV cameras as she entered her temporary home. But there is little of the nastiness and sexual tension which makes watching the British gang so compelling.’
[comics] Tom Spurgeon writes disturbingly about his life, family and comics in You Can Lead a Messiah to Water, But You Can’t Make Him Walk. ‘In 1990, I was arrested for drunk driving and grand theft auto. I told the officer in charge I was borrowing the stolen car to meet my friends, “Maggie and Hopey.” The first place I drove a car was Bright’s Book Exchange on Highway 332, where I bought the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The day my friend was murdered I spent buying comics at Comics Carnival, including that issue of Cerebus where he throws the baby.’
[comics] Fantagraphics have released Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde a 240 page comic book about the war in Former Yugoslavia. ‘The New York Times about Sacco’s coverage of the war, referring to Sacco’s journalism as “a searing and amusing look at the motley collection of reporters, war profiteers, criminals, soldiers and hapless civilians trapped in a war zone? Sacco’s drawings are stark, realistic visions of the gray, depressing world of a land mangled by artillery shells and deformed by poverty.”‘
11 August 2000
[Mr Blue] Excellent Edward Bunker retrospective in Crime Time ‘But apart from his friendship with Louise Wallis, Bunker continued to hang-out with low lifes: pimps, whores, dope-addicts and boosters. He tried heroin and then began selling crudely-harvested marijuana. While out on a delivery a police pulled up alongside him, indicating him to stop. Bunker drove off but crashed into a car and a mail truck. Apprehended by the law, he was sent to LA county jail.’ [via Beesley]
[big brother] GuardianUnlimited profiles ‘Nasty’ Nick Bateman. ‘On Wednesday night’s show, the voiceover wrapped up incredulously, “Nick is now the most popular man in the house,” and Caroline and Nichola, those two “brainless rooks”, were captured on the Big Brother sofa, sharing a tender word about him. “Poor Nick,” said Caroline. “He’s so delicate.” Shakespeare himself could not have wrought a better intrigue. Recall Edmund’s defiant cry: “I grow; I prosper: now, gods, stand up for bastards!”‘
10 August 2000
[young william] A Guardian reporter follows in William Hague’s footsteps around Rotherham attempting to drink 14 pints in the process. Not surprisingly he gets a little drunk… ‘”He was in my class at Wath Comprehensive and he was a prat even then,” says Sharon, when the incredulous laughter finally subsides. “A prat. The first week of school, he stood in front of the class – nobody else did this – and his mum was standing beside him, and he said, ‘I would like to introduce myself. My name is William Hague and I’m looking forward to being at school with you all.’ I never slept with him,” she adds, as if it would have been only natural to have wondered. “He’s trying to be a Rotherham man,” says Liz, “and all Rotherham men drink a lot.” It is becoming increasingly clear that I’m never going to pass for a Rotherham man.’
[comics] Fandom.com reports that Rick Veitch and DC Comics are in the process of making up over their long running disagreement regarding Swamp Thing #88. Rick Veitch on DC Comics: ‘I would have to say that I sense there is a change up there from ten years ago. There seems to be more openness and a willingness to solve some of these longstanding problems and to focus on the future. All of us who do comics recognize that we have to rebuild this industry from the ground up, and certainly, I think that the ABC line can be one of the pillars of the foundation.’
[my inner child] The Law of Playground is one of those sites you can spend all day looking at… ‘”I’m watching a series of programmes on bullying on the BBC2 learning zone, and I feel really fucking bad. People hang themselves about the stuff we laugh at, for god’s sake!’
9 August 2000
[young william] What’s the big political story in the UK at the moment? Apparently William Hague used to drink 14 pints a day when he was a younger man. ‘Leading PR man Max Clifford said the opposition leader was “trying to get away from the image of the sweet, precocious, 16-year-old cherub who stood up at the Conservative Party conference.” But added: “It won’t work because it is obvious – you don’t look at him and see a 14-pint man.”‘ [Related Links: Wonderful Steve Bell Cartoon, Guardian Article]
[comics] If you visit one comic related website — make it this one: NeoMcCARTHYISM. A tribute site to Brendan McCarthy one of the best (and strangest) artists to work for 2000AD.
8 August 2000
[uk weblogs] Okay. I’m not working today. It’s raining. I’ve got nothing to do till five o’clock… let’s surf some GBBlogs: notsosoft redesigns. Bloglet finds that williamhague.com has unexpected content. KitchBitch wonders if engagements are the new relationships and LukeLog premiers the Crack Whore Fistmonkeys Of Doom?.
 [bacon] How many degrees of seperation between Kevin Bacon and Detective Chisholm (from Minder)? [Related Links: Patrick Malahide’s website, Minder fan-site]
[britney] Elizabeth Wurtzel talks about Britney Spears in GuardianUnlimited. ‘The signifier and the signified have gone their separate ways, as is always the case in current semiotic thinking. Men with long hair might vote for Tory MPs, guys with earrings – I mean in both ears – are usually not gay, Princess Zara has a tongue stud, Prince William wears an Eton vest meant to look like something out of Austin Powers, and a ring in the nose is a passing teenage fad that has nothing to do with worshipping Kali or Vishnu. There are hippie capitalists, there are millionaire computer programmers in Silicon Valley with purple hair. And so it has been for quite a while now. What, in this day and age, is really subversive?’
[simpsons] The Interactive Ralph Wiggum ‘”I saw Principle Skinner and Ms. Hover in the closet making babies, and I saw the baby and it looked at me”‘
7 August 2000
[distortion] Phony Blair — amazing 3D distortion of Tony Blair, requires Pulse Player. [thanks to Yungee]
[big brother] Nick has a heart-2-heart with Big Brother. ‘”Everyone has a certain amount of selfishness,” he replied. “Everyone has a slight devious streak in them. In this environment it can just bring those to the surface because we’re all here to enjoy ourselves primarily. But secondly we’re all here to take part in a game show that has an ultimate prize at the end of it.”‘
[money] fool.com has a great article on how to get out of credit card debt. “Spending money you haven’t earned yet is like using up years you haven’t lived yet.” [via Camworld]
6 August 2000
[weblogs] And just like that, she was naked.
[crazy world] Kids — Just say no to drugs and spiders. ‘roommate bitten on the penis by a spider. spider is a tarantula and did draw blood. victim’s breathing is fine, however he is very afraid. victim: aaron jarva. upon arrival of ambulance 162, victim stated he had taken 2 grams of crystal methamphetamine.’
[simpsons] The Observer takes a look at ten years of the Simpsons. ‘Perhaps drawn by the show’s numerous highbrow cultural references, it attracts the attention of rhapsodising academics and literati worldwide. Edinburgh’s Napier University, for example, now runs a course in its Cultural Studies module entitled ‘Having the Donut and Eating It: Self-Reflexivity in The Simpsons’. The writer Gilbert Adair declared that ‘The Simpsons is a chef-d’oeuvre to which the work of no currently practising English-language novelist is comparable in importance or greatness.”
[comics] Tom Spurgeon tells us how comics made him fat. ‘I take consolation only in that while I may be fucked, portions of this essay will be re-posted on the Internet after my inevitable obesity-related death.’
5 August 2000
[big brother] This has got to be a blow to a man’s self-esteem: ‘When the news finally arrived Andy’s face said it all – he couldn’t accept the awful truth that the public wanted him out. But 68% of more than a million voters wanted him go. And as his confidence crumbled at the sound of his own name Andy’s face was complete shock. All he could say was: “Fuck.”‘ And Thomas does not really help: ‘”Look on the bright side,” he told him, “at least you can go home and have a good wank.”‘ [Other Links: BBC News report, notsosoft, Barbelith.]
4 August 2000
[comics] newsUnlimited takes a look at comics being turned into film after the sucess in the US of X-Men. [Includes quotes from Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, Dave Gibbons and Kurt Busiek] ‘Grant Morrison agrees: “Comics have shrunk into comic shops which now look like porn shops and people are frightened to go in there. When Superman was selling between 4m and 6m a month, you could buy them anywhere, in any shop. One of the things they must do is get them back on the streets, back in the hands of children, out of the hands of weird 35-year-old men who collect them and sustain the industry.”‘
[online comics] Scott Mcloud’s Zot Online. ‘Although it was a superhero series, Zot! quickly became known as “the superhero comic for people who hate superhero comics” — which isn’t the best sales strategy in the world, come to think of it… When people asked me to describe the series, I said it was “a cross between Peter Pan, Buck Rogers and Marshall McLuhan” which, uh, wasn’t much better come to think of it…’
 [on the buses] How many degrees of seperation between Kevin Bacon and Blakey (from On The Buses)? ‘I’ve got you Butler!“
|
