Lynnville

Last post before xmas, so here's something festive: How the Grinch (for the defence) Stole Christmas Vacation.

Natural selection acts on the quantum world

"If, as quantum mechanics says, observing the world tends to change it, how is it that we can agree on anything at all?... every tourist who gazed at Buckingham Palace would change the arrangement of the building's windows, say, merely by the act of looking, so that subsequent tourists would see something slightly different. Yet that clearly isn't what happens.

Because, say the researchers, certain special states of a system are promoted above others by a quantum form of natural selection, which they call quantum darwinism. ...the macroscopic or classical world (which seems to have a single, 'objective' state) emerges from the quantum world of many possible states through a phenomenon called decoherence, according to which interactions between the quantum states of the system of interest and its environment serve to 'collapse' those states into a single outcome."

And if that self explanatory chunk of logic doesn't silence the creationists nothing will.

scratch n sniff

Aromatherapy kills MRSA. No, really, it's on the BBC and everything.

sweet sweet

If you're looking for Hed Kandi on the verbal recommendation of a friend, don't type "head candy" into Google. Unless you want something "designed to create smooth, soft, slippery, cushions between your teeth, and your lover's most sensitive and private parts."

Google beta

Pretty impressive how quick it suggests things as you type your search. Google beta.

w33kly b3ta cull

Three links from the b3ta newsletter which are probably going to fuck you up. The worst one are these photos of a tattooed penis. If they don't make you wince then you're not male. Secondly is a pierced nipple on someone's leg - "Scott was the victim of a mobile home fire at the age of 15 and was burned over 85% of his body. To re-grow skin on his legs they, "Used skin from his chest in a skin graft," as Scott tells it. Hence when the skin grew, "A nipple grew too and I thought it was cool to pierce it," explains Scott.".
Thirdly, Glasses as a piercing.

And if that lot doesn't make you sick, this game will...

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08woe

The lovely 0870 number your lovely bank, ISP, DVLA etc. etc. have given you not only charges at national rate (say around 7p per min as opposed to a 1p local call), but it is possible the company you're calling is taking a cut of the call revenue. Remember that the next time you're on hold for 20 minutes.
OK, it doesn't amount to that much and I'm not gonna be changing my calling habits (i.e. I still won't phone anybody ever), but SayNoTo0870 provides a database of geographic number alternatives for most companies, along with an entertaining discussion forum ("I frequently give out an 0870 or 0871 number as my contact to insurance companies, banks, solicitors and even BT. I've earned around £120 over the last few months in the rebates payable on them.").

something spontaneous to say

The Big Issue in the North has recently replaced Me Me Me with some God awful rubbish called MacArthur Park. Me Me Me's final appearance was typical of the series.



I will sorely miss it, and hope Polyp & Brand will do something else soon enough. I fondly remember Secret Life of Slugs from Simon Bond and Terry Jones' shortlived present to us all Squib, but Me Me Me was even better.
Google hasn't been as helpful as it usually is tonight on this subject; it hardly seems credible for people not to have an online presence that details their complete history and credit card numbers these days, but in Macnhester based Polyp & Brand's case it's apparently true. Chris Brand is evidently some sort of local radio enthusiast, who has a proper job and everything. P J Polyp's other cartoon work is far more satirical, and includes the new internationalist's famous Big Bad World as well as the Starve Trek issue. When the great John Pilger describes your work as "in the finest traditions of political cartoonists. He is incisive, brilliantly ironic and a bit ruthless" and the Coca Cola Company describes your work as "Anti-American, unbalanced and unreasonable", you gotta presume you're doing something right...

Tholos systems

Imagine Walking through Trafalgar Square, you are longing to see a friend who you have not seen in ages because they live in Paris. Wouldn't it be great if you could simply transcend space. You look around. And there it is.



THOLOS technology allows for the simultaneous recording and replay of pictures and sound on one screen at the highest quality. It is based on a patented invention and results on advances in camera technology.

THOLOS thereby transmits life-sized images and clear sound around the globe. It produces a panoramic, 360 degree picture and enables audiovisual communication and real time face to face interaction.



For more info visit the official site

I found out about it at askmen

JJHT Works Do & Faithless

Photos from the works do and the Faithless gig we went to afterwards.





We saw the Prodigy on Monday, and frankly I didn't think Faithless were going to be as dancing inducingly brilliant. They weren't, they were better, and they were better with a message worth believing in. Emotional, or maybe I was just drunk.

Two photos require explanation. The one where I'm mopping my lap is because Elaine spilt a glass of wine on me when she started banging the table and chanting. The one where I'm dribbling water over myself... actually that doesn't need explanation, I'm just dribbling water on myself...

Radical Man

Prandial's unexpected but welcome post on dactylonomy strikes a drunken chord that has been disturbing my thoughts after a few drinks of late (i.e. every night). Infact, it's knocked discussions of time travel off number one spot totally. The question perturbing us is probably a result of too much anime (we recommend Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy BeBop, Akira & Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex; we advise to stay clear of Tank Police and Vampire Hunter D) and goes thus: "How do the Japanese file things?" I mean, they don't have an alphabet, so how can they look anything up. Everything's in pictograms...

The answer, explained in detail by James Breen (but more entertainingly by Mark Rosenfelder), involves a finite number of brush strokes, an infinite amount of argument, and very little in the way of pictograms. It's all logograms, thank you so very much. Although actually it isn't, it's Kanji.
Ultimately the answer to my drunken question is that, whilst dictionaries might not go from Aardvark to Zymurgy (Mmm, zymurgy), they instead may well group all the plants next to one another and have a (usually) self evident etymology (though not self evident enough to confuse self help writers).
On the other hand, there are controversies, disagreements and confusions that us alphabetites don't have to contend with; instead of radicals, why not have pinyin (the system that transforms a pretty topman t-shirt design into a Romanized word like Zatoichi). Or even the business card obsessed Jao Strokes, or some other rival way of transforming the logographs into QWERTY friendly forms.
Not that such cultures rely on QWERTY keyboards, preferring keyboards that enable you to combine keys representing varioys radicals into a logograph.

Of course, I'm sure Prandial, with his GraficEurope visiting, thisisamagazine editing wisdom, can tell you more right off the top of his head, bless him. But for what it's worth, here's a photo of the photo I took of St Malo. All I bought was a plastic likeness of the place. The base was full of sand and leaked all over my suitcase.

"it has an extensive chapter on evolution theiories. This is cool!"

Don't want to turn this site into GreenFairyLite, but The Truth For Youth is just too damn funny not to blog...

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BandAidDilemma.net - Your conscience is clear

"The Band Aid Dilemma....
You want this record to succeed, because you feel for the plight of the refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan and this project is funding aid projects on their behalf. However, you hate this recording and feel your musical ego looming and refusing to be bruised.

The answer?

* Buy as many copies of Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid 20 as you can afford.
* Destroy them in amusing ways, on camera.
* Send us the pictures.

Charity. Violence. You know it makes sense."

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Poade's Birthday 2

I too took some pix of Poade's 29th, on my camera phone...

Pod's Birthday Shenanigans 2004

What I did do do at the weekend. I did go to Wolverhampton and drink alcohol and spend money. Here is some photos of what I did do with what my friend Andrew taken.
1st Page
2nd Page
I did have a lovely time and would go again.
Alan Jones, aged 28 3/4.

Textbook disclaimer stickers

As a response to genuine anti-Darwinian textbook disclaimers currently active in certain American school rooms (as a rule of thumb, check whether the state voted for Dubya), one educator is issuing more stickers which use exactly the same logic. Textbook disclaimer stickers; I may buy a t-shirt.

This textbook suggests that the earth is spherical. The shape of the earth is a controversial topic...

This book discusses gods. The existence of entities with supernatural powers is controversial...

This textbook claims that evolution is not fully accepted by scientists because it is just a theory. The author hopes to confuse you into equating "scientific theory" with "cockamamie theory"...

(some groups are also teaching American youth some surprising things about homosexuality too)

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????FLASH&SHOCKWAVE???

weird japanese lobster game appears to be fucking impossible. I'm sure one of the ntl boys will prove me wrong.

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The Sopranos meets Office Space.

Whack Your Boss

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rather be watching Statik

I sat through the first episode in stunned silence. But I bit my lip in the hope the second episode would find its legs. Even given it featured 'the most remarkable time travelling robotic entertainer on the planet', it didn't. Not by a long shot.

Max & Paddy's Road to Nowhere is worse than the entire Confessions Of... series put together; worse than the entire Confessions Of... series shredded, folded into a curry, eaten at 2am on a friday night after a night drinking blue alco pops in Cheeky Monkeys, then bi-splattered into the toilet bowl via diarrhea and vomit. Whilst Robin Askwith films it.

Utterly, utterly appalling with not a single ray of comedy hope. A series that makes you lose faith in humanity itself.

What Would Bill Hicks Say?

A new project wants to you to tell them What Would Bill Hicks Say? if he were alive today in250 words.

He'd probably do a routine about a president called Bush and a middle east war I'd imagine.

Glastonbury mulls ID card tickets

BBC NEWS : Glastonbury mulls ID card tickets.

And they want festival goer's opinions. Fair enough I say; it'll make a great souevenir.

Human PacMan hits real city streets

Human PacMan hits real city streets: "While virtual reality immerses a user completely inside a
computer-generated environment, augmented reality combines both real
and virtual sensory information to produce a digitally-altered version
of the real world. Human PacMan superimposes a 3D PacMan world on top of [Singapore]'s streets and architecture. Players enter the game by donning a wearable computer, headset and goggles before choosing to play the role of PacMan or one of the Ghosts. Players' movements are tracked using GPS receivers and motion sensors and they are linked back to a central computer system by wireless Local Area Network."

when in Stockport wear your Rockport

It's not often that Stockport is linked to literary brilliance, but I've just read two articles of sublime wit and articulation relating to my home town. Sadly they're both on ChavTowns

in Stockport, socks are important. It started about 1997. A number of scallies rode their stolen BMX's to school. Some noticed it caught their pants in the cogs, so they tucked their trousers into their socks. This was soon un tucked at school. However, one rebel left his pants in. The fashion began. One sock showing. Then, this became two socks. Socks then developed from your usual Adidas and Nike brands to Golf Socks. I dont know when this transition took place, but it was soon replaced with cartoon (cart-une is Stockport) socks. Tweety Pie and Taz were soon a regular sight.

Take a trip along Merseyway, in a triumph of 1960s planning Stockport council concreted over the Mersey and the resulting precinct is a study in provincial English crap, here you can mingle with the local scrote population. Curiously, Stockport actually has some rather pleasant outlying towns and it is as though the town centre is a giant plughole, drawing in all the scum...Stockport by night is an altogether different prospect, think Wild West meets Fallujah on a bad day. Mindless, Stella fuelled fights are the norm and it's really bad when the blokes start. If you can walk from one end of town to the other of an evening without feeling apprehensive then you have either taken leave of your senses or are a prop forward in the SAS rugby team.

All utterly true quite frankly; though there are places to go of an evening to avoid the Chavs and the fights. My own theory, frequently retold to anyone who'll listen, is that Stockport chavs wear Rockport because they're illiterate and confused.

And don't worry, your town's in there too.

Hit game taking over the streets

"Hit game"? "The streets"? Which decade do BBC headline writers inhabit exactly? I'll ask them the next time I meet them for a milkshake at the Beat Poetry night.

Yes, the BBC report on the San Andreas phenonemon they just invented after getting a fax from Rockstar Games*. It's an interesting read, if only because an article you'd think I'd support seems to have been written by someone who not only doesn't get out too much, but doesn't play computer games when they're in.
Aparently the success of San Andreas is "Relying on huge word of mouth". Not the billboard posters, magazine ads and TV commercials everywhere then? Or the track history of Vice City before it? "Computer game sales records may be dismissed as a passing blip from geekdom - barely discussed in mainstream media." Which fucking media are you reading dipstick? Maybe she means they don't talk about it on the Archers.

Oh well, at least the punters the dipstick talks to seems to know what they're talking about.

*Many years ago a magazine I briefly wrote for needed publicity for the launch. The editor invented some survey results and faxed them to the BBC. He was on Newsnight that night for a fifteen minute segment. Magazine still folded. Probably the lousy writing.

ummagummabungo

Being the web wading chap I am I spend rather too much time reading things I was never looking for in the first place. But every web wander will usually come up with a line or two to make me happy. Today's is a quote from a personal website reviewing a book about a club in Birmingham called Mothers 1968-71 (foreword by John Peel):

"There was a time when you didn’t have to go to Wolverhampton to see the best bands in the world"

Indeed. Before these halcyon days.

H. L. Mencken

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. "

orthotetrachidecahedrons

orthotetrachidecahedrons

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worst spokesman ever

Inland Revenue deletes tax records in database gaffe: It said the number of taxpayers whose records were deleted might have been small but it accepted that, equally, it could have been many hundreds of thousands. "We don’t know," said a spokesman for the Revenue.
Despite a year-long investigation, the Revenue has yet to give an indication of how many records were deleted or who might have owed money at the time or might have been due repayments before their files were removed.

no ideas of their own

Gary Megson to manage Wolves after David Jones? They'll be building a fucking viaduct next.
Wolverhampton; I wouldn't if I were you.

flattened finkers

Squashed Philosophers; not as painful as it sounds.

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abo and bk

After the death of Peely myself and the missus decided we should see the first available gig that the man himself would approve of. That gig would be Monday Nov 1st at the Academy 2.
Initial support was ably supplied by the Archie Bronson Outfit, an ear bleedingly brilliant trio who hint at what Beefheart might be inspired to do if he heard death metal. Less a blues explosion and more a blues earthquake, guitarist and bassist scream vocals whilst a rib cracking thumping comesfrom a drummer whose demented, obsessive hammering suggests voodoo mischief of some description. Their album is well worth a listen.
Main act was Akron, Ohio's finest The Black Keys. Tired hack comparisons with similar one drummer one guitarist combo The White Stripes are a bit stupid; this is far more blues orientated than the Stripes, but almost as good and just as rocking.
And the song they played before their arrival on stage was Teenage Kicks, so kudos to them.

Happy Halloween

the aches continue

Glastonbury Festival's new bands tent will be renamed the John Peel Stage

The unique thing about the Peely tributes thus far is they combine universal positivity (front page of many papers) with unflattering honesty. No one's about to release candle in the wind and canonise the chap. Asked by Channel 4 news what impact Peel had had on his career, Brett Anderson replied along the lines of 'he didn't have any effect, he never played a single thing I released'

"John... did not want to talk to people who were not interested in music...
the last time I saw him was when we were covering this year's Glastonbury Festival for BBC Two. I was brought in in case John got fed up with it all and decided to walk off. I [forgot] my ticket and pass, so I had to be driven off site...We arrived back at Glastonbury to find John hanging around outside the festival site. He jumped into the Land Rover and called me a tosser..."
Mark Radcliffe

"I couldn't abide Home Truths.,,John Walters, his late and much-respected producer, didn't care for the show either, nor did Andy Kershaw, who shared their jumbled Radio 1 office."
Telegraph

"I remember John stood in the drizzle with an Eccles cake in one hand and a cup of red wine in the other. He was like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, stood behind a dry-stone wall in the corner of a field."
Andy Kershaw

teenage kicks for number one (it's either that or Cognoscenti Vs. Intelligentsia again, be warned)

nanahiro

Those of you who liked the easy but charming and beautiful problem solving of Samorost will rpbably also like treasure box.

via popisdead

w33kly b3ta cull

changing the titles on movie posters to reflect their illustrations...

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who's leg do I have to hump to get a dry martini

New Series of Family Guy and American Dad come to BBC soonish

Peel Aches

This website and its itinerant occupants would like to acknowledge the passing of our favourite grandfather. John Peel has died. Even given our quartet's disparate musical tastes, every deadmanblogger can trace their taste in someway back to John, for which we humbly thank him. Our love to the Pig and the family.

The Ultimate Warehouse Party

Even in my very limited experience, free parties are not something you can bet on. Sometimes a field, sometimes someone's living room, sometimes a defacto warehouse; all are hyped, all are fun, but few match the myth. The Manchester Warehouse Party of October 23rd lived up to the hype and then some. A warehouse the size of an aircraft hangar managed to fit the ubiquitous Strange Ways crew and a dance crew from Leeds (using the top of some portacabins as a stage, complete with dancers). In a side annex of offices were to be found break beat, psytrance and Jamaican chill, whilst the old caretakers house was playing, well, house music. What else would you play in a house? Allegedly there were a total of 7 sound systems; our wanders found 6 of them and we loved them all.



All in all it pissed on any legal venue going or gone, and is the happiest, friendliest, danciest party anyone can remember (though given the "Calvin Klein" some were taking memory probably isn't what it used to be).

some men crave tuna

saucy codpiece

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Vagina Danish

Porn Bread

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More New Scientist

"Sensors to detect deceleration on NASA's Genesis space capsule were installed correctly but had been designed upside down, resulting in the failure to deploy the capsule's parachutes."...

"Industry has dramatically cut its emissions of pollutants, called volatile organic compounds. But those cuts have been more than offset by the amount of VOCs churned out by trees."

Nude Scientist

Sleepwalking woman had sex with strangers.

As excuses go that's right up there with "No Joseph darling, it was the Holy Ghost, I swear..."

Zoom

I like to Zoom.

P.S. Needs Macromedia Shockwave if you don't already have it installed.

Froogle U.K.

It may be new to us and it may be beta, but Froogle U.K. pisses all over kelkoo. I've tested it with a few items, and it brings back more results, brings back more accurate results, brings back cheaper results, brings back better photos, presents them in a clear uncluttered fashion and doesn't send the service pack 2 pop up blocker into overdrive as it does. Delete links to kelkoo forthwith I say.

Vice City

Just finished the main story arc of Vice City - well OK, Zoe did, but I was really good at collecting cars for Sunshine Autos - just in time for San Andreas to be released (though even with the main story arc complete we've only done 46%), and I was gobsmacked by the Full Cast and Crew that scrawled up when we finally killed Sonny. Having spent the last couple of months thinking what great voice over artists they had mimicking Ray Liotta, Lee Majors, Dennis Hopper, Gary Busey, Kevin McKidd and Luis Guzman, I was even more gobsmacked to discover they were the real people. Though I never guessed Deborah Harry, Fairuza Balk, Tom Sizemore or Jenna Jameson. This is true testament to not reading the packaging.

Anyway, Vice City rocks. And we love the Comet.

Alan Garner Q&A Monday October 18 2004

Alan Garner Q&A Monday October 18 2004

Creep de Radiohead

Creep de Radiohead is beautiful, tho the music always has been.

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Trippy TV

Kudos for this particular bit of Blue Peter meets Drug Culture tomfoolery can go to the Australian Back Packing Hostel and the inhabitants thereof that Zoe spent time with last year.

How to make a Trippy TV from one ordinary widescreen television:

1. Take one toilet roll carboard tube. It is best to wait until all the tissue surrounding it has been used.
   
2. Sellotape or glue a sheet of white paper into the interior of the tube.
   
3. Repeat 104 times, sellotaping each completed tube to other completed tubes to form a honeycomb (legs optional dependent on make of television and its position in your room).
   
4. Place in front of your telly and turn out the lights. Watch at an angle.
   
   Best results are to be found using music videos, adverts or The Simpsons (in which Marge Simpson is found to still be recognisable), though we found it improves pretty much all telly...

A 350kb movie of trippy tv is available via the link, unless you all make it unfeasibly popular and I exceed my bandwidth.

Has Santa been yet?

First of the season...

Red let the dogs out

Cameras show who let the dogs out

A dog has been caught on camera breaking out of his kennel at Battersea Dogs Home and freeing other animals for regular midnight feasts.

Snopes: Son of Spam

Son of Spam isn't an email I've received sadly, probably on account of websense / mailwasher. Damn funny though...

DEAR SIR/MADAM,

THIS IS A PERSONAL EMAIL T0 YOU ONLY. I AM THE SON OF SPAM SPADE, THE FORMER LOAN OFFICER OF NIGERIA, WHO WAS KILLED BY A RUSSIAN LADY WHO WANTS TO MEET YOU. HIS MORTGAGE RATES WERE SUPERB, BUT HIS PENIS WAS TOO SHORT, SO HE ORDERED 60,000,000 VIAGRA PILLS AND BEFORE HE COULD TAKE THEM HE WAS ASSASINATED BY 5 MILLION EMAIL ADDRESSES AT NO COST TO YOU. NOW I HAVE THESE 60 MILLION VIAGRA PILLS AND SEEK YOUR HELP IN TRANSFERING THEM TO YOUR ACCOUNT.

Derek Tastes of Earwax

Are you a synaesthete?

I'm not.

in them days we had nowt but netscape n geocities lad

I've returned from my sojourn to find repeated email demands from plus.net that I somehow stop people viewing my other website or suffer the consequences, and to find the guestbook of my other website covered in photoshopped goatse. My other website doesn't get mentioned by name, cos it was initiated 7 years ago when I briefly wrote for an internet mag and I've done little to it since (or then).

Anyway, the reason for it's sudden momentary infamy is that after seven years of lurking in the ubend of the internet the floater that wouldn't die and calls me mummy has bobbed to the surface. I've been Farked. And I don't even know what that means.

Zoe's Birthday Weekend

We made it to the Gothic Temple in Kedleston...



...and the romantic weekend away went pretty much as you'd expect, with walking and wine and a visit to our neighbour Kedleston Hall...



although the romantic walk home at dusk afterwards didn't go quite to plan...



we eventually made it back, after running through a number of identical corn fields in the dark, a la too, too many bad horror movies...

Zoe's Birthday

Don't tell her, but Zoe's spending her birthday in an 18th century Gothic Temple in the grounds of Kedleston Hall.

fuckr

That boy Prandial has a new project concerning doorbells in Florence.

Uncle Poade

Dylan Jake

Congratulations to Uncle Popisdead

Crafty Brazilian

Hang on, did I just miss Bazzoh's 30th? Why the fuck didn't we do anything?

motorcycle diaries

Searching for more information on the life of Che Guevara after seeing the utterly brilliant Motorcycle Diaries, I stumble on the real reason he went to the San Pablo Leper colony...



To research a multi billion dollar zit cure. The filthy capitalist pig.

now showing The Great Escape

via the continuingly delightful Prandial comes news of what Parisian Wombles are up to - Do Not. try To Find Us.

don't tell barclaycard

#!/usr/bin/girl gets justifiably excited at the delights on offer at Urban Peel, especially the Aquariass.



After 60 seconds of looking at the site I already desperately NEED the Candela, so I guess more perusing of this site will take place outside working hours...

Flatter me, big boy!

Feeling low? Need a pat on the back? A few complementary words?

Feel deprived no more!

GMPTE - GMPTE - Press Releases

The below image represents my life returned to me


Or at the very least my flat returned to me. Stockport Station has reopened.

What Am I Like?

According to the quasi-scientific results of the BBC's What Am I Like? test, I am a Mastermind whilst popisdead is an idealist...

I do.

Fourth one of the year, and for once I had good reason not to be there. Well you try getting to Vegas in 4 hours! At least the king made it...

Oh, it's 15Mb.

Bank Holiday Weekend...

... was spent in the following manner...

Celebrating Zoe's mum's birthday on the razz in Wilmslow on Friday night


Examining egg yolk, buying cool bric a brac and watching a stunt show at Poynton Show on the Saturday

(before getting rat arsed at the night do and dancing on the table to top Indie covers band Monkey Harris)

searching for cows in central Manchester on Monday (33 spotted I think, sadly no DangerMoo-se)

before getting rat arsed on canal Street during the tale end of Pride.

How was yours?

life's greatest question answered

Since he rediscovered his Bahá'í faith Barry 'Bazzoh' Steer has begun asking some fascinating philosophical and spiritual questions both of himself and of the world around him.

Sadly this isn't one of them.

glug glug glug

some random photos of flooding and wig wearing that will interest none of you.

WordGizmo Dictionary

Why not contribute to the WordGizmo Dictionary and give gibberish a definition?

twerectifyv. to correct an erection twice

It's like the meaning Of Liff without the place names.

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Well! We'll show him! Especially for that purple monkey dishwasher remark!

Whilst searching for Purple Monkey Dishwasher, as you do, I came across this rather bizarre site...

Toogle

Toogle searches google images for the keyword(s) you enter then creates an ascii version of the first image it finds using the keyword you entered. Such as georgied for instance...



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FOUND magazine notes

A collection of notes generally found lying around. Courtesy of Foundmagazine and Monkeyfilter

Firefighters in guinea pig rescue

A guinea pig had to be rescued by firefighters after getting stuck inside a toy soldier's car: "We looked at the some of the heavy cutting gear and then decided that undoing the four screws on the bottom would be appropriate"

hmm?

Things I have learnt today:

• break before the corner, especially on wet sand.

Ouch. I think I have mild concussion. I'm slow and groggy, but nobody here can tell the difference.

cough

In an effort to antagonise the missus educate you all I give you smoke free north west and why we want it...

torture ok for English courts

"I am quite unable to see that [the United Nations Convention Against Torture] prohibits the [home secretary] from relying on evidence which has been obtained through torture by agencies of other states," said Lord Justice Laws.

So that's OK then.

Anyone got a giant pin?

At the crack of dawn I stood on a chilly pier, in Bristol, all to see it's annual balloon fiesta.

Pictures

Lost Vagueness plans own festival

Lost Vagueness plans own festival: the Vagueville Festival in Lewes, East Sussex, on 4-5 September.

Somebody or others' wedding

A very Beason Wedding, and doesn't Poade look civilized and handsome?




Once again Nack has eschewed conventional web design and gone for his trademark style of making the navigation system like a puzzle out of the Crystal Maze. Not too difficult this one though, click on the items on the order of the day and you should get a handful of crystals and a days hand glider lessons.

they fuck you up

Haul of rare Larkin poems found

Prozac notion

Prozac 'found in drinking water': "An Environment Agency report suggests so many people are taking the drug nowadays it is building up in rivers and groundwater. "

Last weekend's dog walk

A dog walk around Lyme Park with Chance (dog), Zoe (human), Ali(human) and Al (undetermined).

www.deadmanjones.co.uk

Would you like some chocolate sir? Mmm... bloody

Tast3 th3 S3cr3t

meat shake anyone? gotta love that tune.

(Hang on, Taste the Secret? Is that what league of gentlemen was all about then?)

Japenese Fag Guidelines

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vague paranoia (aka w33kly b3ta cull)

It's been in all the papers, TV and emailed to hell and back, but I've been saving it up because I like my links to have the retro chic that Peasant's Quest has. Anyhoo, preparing for emergencies...

funny cats

biro art

great paper throwing game (no, really, great)

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team america

team america: world police ('from the makers of South Park') looks like supermarionated satirical hilarity if I'm any judge of these things. The unofficial unofficial site contains much more info.
Expect it to completely bomb America.

er, bomb in America I should say, sorry. Oops.

women see red

interesting stuff about how the genders see the colour red...

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Peasant's Quest

Retro chic Peasant's Quest (hosted by homestartrunner who I've blogged before) is a whole lotta fun featuring burning and child abuse. I enjoyed it a lot. Can you win too?

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bubbles

bubbles is a bubble game featuring bubbles

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töø???s

Ikea plans rejected by Prescott

Do you know I've never been to an Ikea? I must be the only person left in the western world. Never get a chance to at this rate. Fat cunt. Back to donkey stone the front step whilst ma bleaches the net curtains and dad polishes the chintz now I guess.

I will now sell five copies of The Beta Band's Three EPs

Beta Band to split.

Who is this?
The Beta Band.
It's good.
I know.

still playing

sonomojojojo?

create your own powerpuff girl

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surprisingly curve

Amateur psychologists might enjoy looking at how people react to WORDCOUNT, "the 86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonality". Barry becomes competitive and wonders how high he is in the rankings; I try to come up with descriptions of people based on the words around their name.

Of course we're both narcissistic enough to type in our names as soon as we see it though...

Crafty sheep conquer cattle grids

Crafty sheep conquer cattle grids: "Hungry sheep on the Yorkshire moors have taught themselves to roll 8ft (3m) across hoof-proof metal cattle grids - and raid villagers' valley gardens."

Might this be the start of a terrifying planet of the sheep? In this announcers opinion, almost certainly yes! And away I go!

you can't play banjo with eczema

A delightful evening in the company of Sprog, Poade, David Rawlings and Gillian Welch at the Manchester Academy. It being Gillian Welch and it being the summer hols bald patches outnumbered hair gel at least 5 to 1, and so much the better.  Click image for photos.

Gillian Welch: This is such a different vibe to the Bridgewater
David Rawlings: Welcome to how the other half live

An evening of stupendous stringed instrument playage, via the God like genius of David Rawlings and the bow busting fiddling of Old Crow Medicine Show. This is one to strike off the list of artists I needed to see before I die (still a long list thankfully).

Thanks to a flyer at the entrance I have now booked my next gig: TMBG. Yes really. Fuck off, I love 'em.

Moor Fest 04

Moor Fest 04: Stockport is having a festival? Acroos the road from my flat? Featuring Mr Scruff, The Fall, Treva Whateva and Crazy Penis? That can't be right surely?

Goyt Valley dog walk

and yes I have backdated this post

K700 Photos

Some samples from the K700's camera...

solarize

panorama

portrait

Sony ericsson k700i

It seems only fair that i post my review blog of my new phone from my new phone. In a word, brilliant. In two words fucking brilliant. It has a camera that takes 640x480 crisp images as well useful effects, an effective light and a grainy night time setting. The radio - with speaker as well as earphones - is superb and the 40meg of memory means you can make full use of the mp3 abilities. As intuitive and easy to use as the t68 it was synced via bluetooth with outlook in minutes, and photos, mp3s or any file you want flit between the two with ease making the phone a very handy storage device. In the absence of a credible 3g phone or network, this clearly deserves to be the phone that dominates the market for the next 2 years.

my arse hurts

Ow. Ow ow ow. Ow. Does anyone have a cushion? The sore arse is tempered by a sense of achievement though.

Yesterday I went on a 40 mile bike ride. Mostly flat, though the A543 between Congleton and Macclesfield almost killed me.

Anyway, the journey took us from Poynton down the Middlewood Way, through Bollington and into Macclesfield, then onto the Macclesfield Canal via the wonderful Bosley Locks down to near Mow Cop, where we parked the bikes and walked a mile and a quarter vertically to Mow Cop itself. Then walked back down again. Then onto back roads (cos the canal tow path between Macc and there is too overgrown to go at any speed on bikes) to Congleton, then onto the afore mentioned main road from Congleton to Macclesfield. Then onto the canal until Kerridge just outside of Bollington, where we swap over to the Middlewood Way and bomb it back to Poynton in time for a hot bath and then bed.

Photos of our cycle to Mow Cop are here...



...and include a portrait of our new religious leader, the Jesus Duck


who walks on the surface of water. Or stands on a rock. But we prefer the first one.


Ten hours of cycling means I have chosen not to come in on my bike today. Really couldn't face it. The newly purchased gloves and mudguards worked a treat though. As Zoe's mud splattered t-shirt and sore hands will testify to.

Great news too; at some point on our little sojourn my T68 has broken, obliging me to get a discounted upgrade on a K700i. Much against my wishes of course... mmm, radio, mp3 and camera... mmm...

thus ruining Zoe's evening television

Police, camera, zapper: "At the flick of a switch, the zapper directs a beam of intensely concentrated radio waves at the target car and makes it stall, safely bringing it to a halt. "

a right tit

"[Father Hector of the Church of the Painted Breast] had put the money into a business exporting snow to Siberia..."

The BBC reports on the website getting revenge on Nigerian scamsters.

hard @ work

After bringing the office to a halt with an excel version of Monopoly, a search for the author brings me to XL-Logic Fun and Games. Go on, IT will never be able to locate these on your desktop and they'll get through the mailfilter!

right to ruin

The BBC reports on the relaunched countryside code and the Countryside Access website and Creature Comforts ad campaign to go with it.

glug glug

'Drink at Least 8 Glasses of Water a Day' - Really?

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pixelated

cool LIGHT BRIX installation

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nu nylon

Graffiti Tag Creator.

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Toilet-Seat Galactika

LED-Toilet-Seat Galactika: luminous toilet seat

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oh ah

A very detailed History of Pirates... don't ask me why I'm blogging it though...

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if the pedaling could charge the mobile too...

Phones power bike rental scheme: "Anyone wanting to use an Oybike signs up and pays a £10 annual fee, then uses their mobile phone to unlock a bike for as long as they need.
The phone receives a pin number to unlock the bike at the start of a journey and a second one to lock it at the end and to determine how much the rider is charged."

OYBIKE CHARGES
0 - 15 minutes = 30p
16 - 30 minutes = 80p
31 minutes - one hour = £2
One to eight hours = £8

OyBike

further glasto moments

The Glastonbury photo gallery has been updated with a select few of Zoë's Glastonbury pix, taken on the two disposable cameras she took. Mud themed mostly.

Les & Ros Johnson

Les retired a few months ago, but he seems unwilling to leave the Johnnie Johnson offices alone. Part of that is to visit me. And now, after a teeny bit of tutelage, you can all view Les's website...

Hair today etc. etc.

Getting rid of Zoe's extensions was, we estimate, a 15 hour joint operation, in which numerous DVDs were watched...

Last shot of the extensions, 14:32 29/06/04...
18:19, well underway, still amused...	23:02, 8 1/2 hours in, a bit tired...
02:11, well in to the job, fucking knackered with a big bag of fake hair...	04:25, hysterical grin from fatigue. we give up for the night...
12:28 the next day, finally finished...	after some time spent in the shower, the princess emerges...

Glastonbury 2004

Wednesday

The drive down; we run out of diesel on the motorway and call the AA. We arrive and pitch tents after midnight...

Thursday

Wandering around...

Friday

Fire twirling, a bit of Hal, Wilco, Nelly Furtado, The Magic Band, Snow Patrol, PJ Harvey, Goldfrapp, Kosheen, Chemical Brothers...

Saturday

Mud monstering, Scissor Sisters, Ben Harper (rubbish, not pictured), Starsailor, Joss Stone (stop wiggling your arse and giggling girl), Black Eyed Peas (bit of, not pictured), The Rutles, Basement Jaxx...

Sunday

Green Field Entertainments, mud monsters, Gomez (not pictured), Belle and Sebastian, Orbital's last gig, more fire twirling, sunrise on Monday...