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1 October 2000
[tv] Danny O’Brien thinks PCs are the new TVs… ‘I haven’t had a television for almost two years now. Believe me, I like television. People who don’t have televisions, I continue to believe, mostly wear bow ties and have children who are home-schooled, go to university at the age of 12 and then run away to live off chestnuts in the forest. I know this. Once I’d stopped slumping in front of the telly when I came home from work and moved into the far more sophisticated habit of slumping in front of a monitor, my viewing hours plummeted.’
2 October 2000
[london] Thora Birch describes “My London” in This is London. ‘What was the last conversation you had with a London cabbie? This guy offered me and my mom some pot (which we politely declined) and then told us what every member of his extended family did for a living.’ [ Related Link: Ghost World Movie]
[stringfellow] The Guardian interviews Peter Stringfellow. ‘Stringfellow says 60 is a suitable age to take life more seriously, share his wisdom, help William [Hague] become prime minister. “I have all the toys, man. It’s all here. I have a club full of beautiful girls, eat and drink what the hell I want, go where the hell I want, when the hell I want. If there’s a party I just ring up and say I’ll accept. At the Conservative ball two days ago, it was brilliant, chatting to William. Ffion and Lucy get on like a house on fire. It’s a wonderful life I’ve got.”‘
3 October 2000
[paula yates] nishlord.com pays tribute to the “original pop tart” — Paula Yates. ‘Some of us are born great. Some of us achieve greatness. And others have a pop star’s cock thrust upon them.’ [original link to Nishlord via Notsoft]
[mugshots] The G-Files present a Celebrity Mug Shot Gallery… ‘Like anyone else charged with a crime, celebrities must be photographed by police after being arrested, and those images then become a matter of public record.’
[fungus in space!!] Space Fungus attacks the Mir Space Station. Life will always find a way… ‘Linenger, author of “Off the Planet,” a book about his experiences on Mir, said that he did not see any evidence that fungi or bacteria on the craft caused health problems. But he added that the station had “a strong smell of fungal contamination” – a smell he called “mushroomy” in his book – and that “there were areas you wouldn’t want to stick your hand in”.’ [via Slashdot]
4 October 2000
[rate my blog!!] I’ve tried to resist the temptation, honest — go rate LinkMachineGo…
[king] Stephen King — the early years of bitter struggle… ‘Harry had hooks instead of hands as a result of a tumble into the sheet-mangler during the Second World War (he was dusting the beams above the machine and fell off). A comedian at heart, he would sometimes duck into the bathroom and run water from the cold tap over one hook and water from the hot tap over the other. Then he’d sneak up behind you while you were loading laundry and lay the steel hooks on the back of your neck. Rocky and I spent a fair amount of time speculating on how Harry accomplished certain bathroom clean-up activities. ‘Well,’ Rocky said one day while we were drinking our lunch in his car, ‘at least he doesn’t need to wash his hands.”
[degrees of seperation] Margaret Thatcher has a Bacon Number of three… ‘Margaret Thatcher was in Some Mother’s Son (1996) with David (I) O’Hara David (I) O’Hara was in Link (1986) with Elisabeth Shue Elisabeth Shue was in Hollow Man (2000) with Kevin Bacon ‘ [Related Links: Thatcher at IMDB, Bacon at IMDB]
[useful maps] UK Based Multimap have redesigned — looks good, faster — and have a great London Tube Map.
[countryside] Guardian Unlimited on the Countryside Alliance. ‘It would be easy for the Labour leadership to dismiss the Alliance. This is an organisation with a predominantly Tory membership whose central aim has been to preserve the right to kill foxes and which readily compares Tony Blair to Adolf Hitler. One poster which bore its logo depicted the gay agriculture minister, Nick Brown, as a man “who loves gays and buggers the countryside”. The logo also appeared in the magazine Earth Dog, Running Dog – from which the Alliance distanced itself. The publication described the black MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Oona King, as “typical of her species”, and told her to “direct her talents to advising her scrounging supporters on how to claim more handouts”.’
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5 October 2000
[pizza!] I’ve recently been introduced [thanks, Teresa!] to the the wonderful Eco Pizzeria in Clapham, South London. Highly recommended… ‘The pizzas themselves are formidable. Twelve inchers can look a bit daunting to the faint hearted, but fear not, the dough is wonderfully crisp and light, and the toppings are generous and moist. [..] If you want to eat well without spending a fortune and drink well into the bargain, in a buzzy place that’s – well funky’s what we said, we still recommend ECO for best pizzeria South of the River.’ [ Contact: Eco Pizzeria, 162 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UG Tel: 0207 978 1108]
[weblogs] It’s as easy as falling off a weblog — Guardian Unlimited takes a look at weblogs… ‘Only in the past year has software been developed which allows people to get blogging with the minimum of know-how: Blogger, the most celebrated of these, has just celebrated its first birthday and its 40,000th user. But although Pyra, the company that created it, is rightly praised for increasing the number of webloggers, Blogger has also spawned “link-sluts” – cliquey, second-generation webloggers who link to better blogs in the hope of a link in return. Despite Blogger’s impressive figures, the number of quality weblogs hasn’t quite reached critical mass.’
[saville] Jimmy Saville is Dead — according to Chris Morris. [Requires Sound] ‘The majority if not all of them are extremely relieved that he is now dead although I suspect that some of them will be sorry that he didn’t suffer a great deal more.’ [ Related Links: rethink’s Chris Morris Guff]
[shoes] Two Pairs. No excuses… I’m a simple unsophisticated lad from Norfolk. Untouched by London ways…
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[Lord Melchard] Great interview with Stephen Fry in Guardian Unlimited. Fry on the Daily Mail: ‘There’s a name for my pain – the Daily Mail. It symbolises bourgeois fear: fear of outsiders, fear of anything different. Someone should write a book about how uniquely wrong about everything the Daily Mail has always been. It typifies everything that is most shaming about this country in terms of its lurches towards xenophobia and fear: everything in the name of the family, that horrible capital F for family. It’s become what the state was for a Stalinist: everything that is done in the name of the family is acceptable.’
6 October 2000
[manics] Manic Street Preachers – In Their Own Words ‘To be universal, you’ve got to stain the consciousness of the people. You’ve got to dig out a truth that everybody knows, but they don’t want to hear, then tell it in a manner that’s so articulate and so aesthetically indignant, so beautiful, that they’ve got to accept it back in their lives again.’
[drugs] In the wake of Ann Widdecombe’s proposals Guardian Unlimited asks a number of “the establishment” if they use cannabis and do they inhale? ‘The proposal is miserably retrograde. Cannabis should be legalised. I’ve experimented with it myself, but I’m not telling you if I take it now; if I say that she’ll be round here, won’t she?’ — Martin Amis
 [comics] cnn.com covers Chris Ware and his new book — Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth… ‘Ware was 29 years old, and more than halfway through the writing of the book, when he first met his own father. Their meeting, too, was tentative and awkward — and tinged with anger. “I was probably a little hostile,” said Ware. “There were so many regrets …” His father died a short time later. “I added it all up once — the few meetings we had, the few times we talked on the phone,” said Ware. “In total, I knew my father for just about five hours.”‘
[mallrats] Long, interesting interview with Jason Lee [ Mallrats and Chasing Amy]. Lee On Mallrats: ‘I had no idea. Again, being as far out of the loop as I was – the wide-eyed new kid on the block – I was thinking this was going to be the greatest, most successful film of all time. I had these hopes and dreams, so I was a bit disappointed once I found over the weekend that it didn’t do well – which meant to me, not dollars, but that people didn’t see it. That was a letdown for me. But now it’s gone on to be a classic, in a lot of ways for a lot of Kevin’s fans – and he has many – that’s their favorite movie.’ [ Related Links: The View Askewniverse]
[LMG] I’m changing the oil in LinkMachineGo and giving it a bit of a rest… back next week.
9 October 2000
[letter from america] Alistair Campbell has been covering America for the BBC since 1946… Here’s a classic letter from 1968 — an eyewitness account of the assasination of Bobby Kennedy… ‘Last Tuesday night, for the first time in thirty years, I found myself by one casual chance in a thousand, on hand in a small, narrow serving pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, a place that I suppose will never be wiped out of my memory: a sinister alley, a Roman circus run amok, and a charnel house. It would be quite false to say, as I should truly like to say, that I’m sorry I was there. It’s more complicated than that.’
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[drudge report] Guardian Unlimited interviews and profiles Matt Drudge — The Earl Of URL? ‘”This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he says, taking time between the non-stop ringing of his telephone to talk about himself and his book. “I was never supposed to be this successful. I just got lucky. I had a window of opportunity and I flung my entire body through it. All my dreams have been fulfilled and now I’m waiting for the nightmares.”‘ [ Related Link: Drudge Report]
10 October 2000
[weblogs] weblogs.com redesigns. Not sure if I like it… weblogs is part of my daily surfing routine so any changes looks weird… however, Webloging in the UK remains the same.
[yugoslavia] Guardian Unlimited looks at the corruption surrounding Slobodan Milosevic’s family… ‘Three days ago Marko and his family left Pozarevac, the Milosevics’ home town, in three black jeeps. As he did, rioters looted his internet cafe and destroyed advertising for his disco Madonna. His nearby lurid Disney-esque theme park, Bambiland, has been closed since the summer, thanks to a popular boycott.’
[cartoon] Yet Another fantastic Steve Bell cartoon on Hague, drugs and Widdecombe…
11 October 2000
[eminem] Netnotes asks: Who is Eminem? ‘6. He still faces legal action from his grandmother (for sampling his dead uncle’s voice) and has only just settled with his wife, Kim, who demanded custody of their child and $10m for a song in which he fantasises about killing her.’
[bbc] Nice BBC Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends weekly preview… ‘Louis goes to stay and play with gangsta rappers, body-builders, gurus and the South African far-right. Weird people? Maybe. Great TV? Definitely.’
[music] I Hate Music on Radiohead’s Kid A: ‘Some of you readers may have noticed that Radiohead have got a new record coming out. Goodness knows how, there’s barely been a mention of it on the web or in the music press after all. Oh, wait, excuse me while I utter a weak consumptive laugh and spit bloody bile into a handkerchief. Judging by the ever-growing shitstorm of expectations and expectorations around Kid Arse, you’d have thought a second moon had been seen in the sky and Thom Yorke, pinch-faced poster boy for self-pitying prigs the world over, had been the first man to walk on it.’
12 October 2000
[politics] Reuters profiles Margaret Thatcher on her 75th birthday. Still mad as ever: ‘Last month she won a standing ovation in Washington, D.C. for her reply to a question about what she thought of U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton “I don’t.” Last week she told the BBC that Britain’s war record showed it should not become “entangled” with its European neighbors.”We’re quite the best country. We rescued them,” she said. “We’ve got to keep our own independence. Is that clear?”’ [via Robert Brook]
[this morning] Guardian Unlimited profiles Richard and Judy. I work shifts, so often watch This Morning… totally facinated / scared by R&J… they really are the strangest couple on TV [apart from Cybil and Basil Faulty]. ‘Despite his idiosyncrasies, Judy loves Richard and, like many long-suffering wives, humours his more outlandish behaviour and ideas. She nods and enthuses appropriately and only very occasionally will shoot him a death stare when he is veering dangerously close to Saying Too Much. His response is to throw his arms in the air and adopt a “I’m just an open kinda guy” expression and carry on regardless. Like an embarrassing uncle who cannot see himself as others see him – perhaps because he took too much LSD in the 60s – his behaviour makes hers all the more admirable.’ [ Related Link: BBC News report]
[wierd science] Human cloning. It’s going to happen — sooner than you think: Cult in first bid to clone human ‘The Raelians offered no proof that they had any of the medical skills required to clone, but they last year stated their ambition to make it happen and, according to impartial scientists, there is no longer any technical reason why they should not succeed.’ [via Robot Wisdom]
[comics] Psycomic’s 100 Hot Comics… Plenty I agree with. Plenty, I don’t.
15 October 2000
[this morning deux] Two moments of TV Hell: Richard Madeley as Ali G and an animated photo of Judy Finnigan exposing herself in front of 12 million people. [Judy photo via My 2p]
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[columns] New Kevin Smith column regarding the development on his new movie… ‘Last week, my life became a thrill-a-minute joy ride through the glamorous and exciting world of making motion pictures, and I figure that’d probably be more interesting to share with you guys and gals than a weekly dissertation on what comics I like and why, or who I think is fucking up the comics industry, or whether Hal or Kyle is the one, true Green Lantern. We pretty much all know the answers to those questions (Green Arrow because I’m writing it, anyone who’s thinks the kids will ever come back to this medium, and Hal Jordan), so there’s little point in talking about it.’ [via Sourground]
16 October 2000
[lmg sells out] What has Fish in a Groove got to do with Attachments? ‘Like a sperm whale in a goldfish bowl, fish in a groove is making a splash.’ [ Related Link: Guardian on Beeb.com]
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[comics] Warren Ellis predicts the imminent death of Marvel Comics… ‘Marvel Enterprises doesn’t exist on the money it makes out of comics. It exists on a raft of junk bonds valued at $250 million, lashed together by Morgan Stanley. Oh, and by the way: Morgan Stanley stocks just fell around twenty percent.’
17 October 2000
[film] An HTMLized 2001: A Space Odyssey Program. Amazing photo’s… ‘I was inspired to create this site partly because of the program’s curiosity value for fans of 2001, and partly because it is a stunning piece of late-1960s graphic design. The cover is metallic silver (an actual metallic ink was used) and sections of the text are printed on translucent paper – these novel techniques combine to create a non-verbal experience analogous to the film itself. Certainly, the program’s authors utilised the print medium to communicate as much information about the film’s intentions as the text does.’
[text messaging] Text Message Theatre? Weblogtastic… Tom’s Inbox / Outbox I, Tom’s Inbox II, Meg’s Inbox / Outbox. ‘Yes. Be good. Or bad. Or something.’
[movies] Guardian Unlimited profiles Peter Bogdanovich. ‘[…]only time seemed to separate him from legendary status in Hollywood. But then he fell. “I felt that by the mid-70s I’d blown it,” says Bogdanovich, now 61, sitting in a deserted Thai restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “William Friedkin had blown it, Robert Altman went into eclipse, one flop after another, Coppola went crazy, even Raging Bull didn’t do any business. Everybody kind of blew it in varying shapes and sizes.” ‘ [Related Links: Bogdanovitch at IMDB, Sopranos Web Site]
18 October 2000
[uk weblogs] Oh God…. pictures from last night’s UK Blogmeet… Too early in morning… mouth dry… need breakfast… 13% of sewage is blood… WTF?
[big brother] Ask Nasty Nick from the Independent. ‘If you could make one apology, what would it be, and to whom? I’ve never had to make an apology, so I would apologise to no one.’ [via extenuating circumstances]
[tv] Brief profile of Phil Davis who appears in Channel 4’s new series North Square. ‘On these pages, Mark Lawson has suggested that North Square is unduly concerned with class. Davis, unsurprisingly, doesn’t agree. “It’s only a shock to middle-class people that there is this working-class guy running things for all these middle- class, intelligent barristers. You could say that all English drama is about class to some degree, but I don’t think North Square is about class predominantly: it’s about law, and how it is applied. That’s what is really interesting: in one scenario a woman loses her children and it’s tragic, in another some nutter is stealing underpants and it’s comic; that’s much more like real life, with a tragedy tumbling over a comedy. Plus the career side of it: you’re hoping for a plea on Monday so you can do the big fraud on Tuesday. Of course it goes on.”‘ [ Related Links: Davis at IMDB]
19 October 2000
[pop] Guardian Unlimited has an amusing interview with Jason Donovan… ‘Then, around 1994 when he was 26, he began to go bald. For most men it’s a blow. For Donovan it was a disaster, and his reaction was extreme. But let him tell it: “I’d just finished starring in Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and I suddenly noticed I was losing my hair. If you’re blond-haired and blue-eyed, you think it’s the death of your desirability. You don’t see the big picture and think you might be Sean Connery in 40 years. All I had was the Jason Donovan look, and I thought, fuck. That was a major thing for me, and it started me on drugs.”‘
[history] Vaguely disturbing… Pictures of historical events done in the style of the Sims Computer game. [via Memepool]
[comics] First panel from Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell’s new Zenith — done as Ali G… [via Barbelith Underground]
21 October 2000
[religion] Wonderful feature by Jon Ronson reporting on attending a course designed to convert Agnostics into Christians with emphasis on the holy spirit and speaking in tongues…. ‘James rests his hand on my shoulder. “Oh Jesus, I pray that Jon will receive Your wonderful spirit. God. Please come and fill Jon with … ” It is not working. The spell has broken. I tell James again that I’m sorry, but I’m a journalist. (This is no excuse – the picture editor of a Sunday newspaper is speaking in tongues to my left, as is a producer of Channel 4 documentaries in front of me, for the first time in his life.) So James changes tack. “Oh thank you, Jesus, for Jon’s wonderfully enquiring journalistic mind … please help Jon’s career … no, not his career … his wonderful journalism … and may his journalism become even more wonderful now he is working in Your name, Jesus Christ …”‘ [ Related Links: Alpha]
22 October 2000
[comics] Mars Import provides a list of Eddie Campbell’s view of the best graphic novels. [Out of the list there’s one I would highly recommend — Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds — to just about anybody. If you like intelligent, well written, adult fiction — it’s for you. It has pictures as well! What more could you want?]
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23 October 2000
[tags: Funny][ permalink][ Comments Off on How To Swear In Foreign Languages]
[overheard] “I’ve seen bigger breasts on a pizza.” WTF?
[movies] Brief interesting interview with Darren Aronofsky [director of Pi and Requiem For A Dream] on ign.com… talks about his work on the latest Batman movie with Frank Miller and his interest in comics… ‘I was not a comic book fan at all until…I really never was a comic book fan. I got into the artwork in high school, like late high school and then in college. But before that I never really read ’em.’ [via CiPHER]
24 October 2000
[rubber bands] This is Bill — he has a magnificent obssession about rubber band balls…. ‘The guy who owns my corner market is building the world’s largest rubber band ball. You may think this is stupid, but he doesn’t think it is. He takes his work very seriously. I bring my friends by to look at it. It grows daily. He will tell you about how he is buying hundreds of dollars of rubber bands every week, how he is shooting for more than a thousand pounds, some sort of world record. The thing has got to be three feet across already, and four hundred pounds. You should see the guy sweat when he works on it.’ [via Yungee]
25 October 2000
[quelle surprise!] This internet thing might just have a future… Grant Morrison has launched his own website. ‘Whatever you do, make sure you go right to the top, because you sure as hell can’t piss upwards on people.’ [via Barbelith Underground]
[royalty] Princess Diana and the Vibrator… not porn — actually a very amusing review of Shadows of a Princess by PD Jephson… ‘Diana, Jephson breathlessly confides, returned from Paris in 1992 sporting a souvenir – ‘a large, pink, battery-powered vibrator’. By now she knew she’d never get her hands on an orb or sceptre: this plastic knob would have to do. It had ‘the aim’, Jephson notes with courtly tact, ‘of raising royal morale at critical moments’. But he denies that it was actually aimed at the critical royal part, and insists it was ‘never used for its designed purpose’. Eventually Dodi assumed the role of royal morale-booster, which made the cheeky pink chap redundant.’ [via Beesley]
[file under WTF?] Came here searching for Scooby Porn? Check it out… LMG has high quality Buffy / Scooby-Doo fan-fiction porn links just for you! ‘Velma grinned at Daphne as she pulled her close for a kiss. Daphne wrapped her arms around Velma’s neck and moaned. Velma moved her kisses down to Daphne’s breasts as Daphne’s right hand moved between her legs to caress her clit. Velma moaned and opened her mouth to enclose Daphne’s breast. With her left hand, Daphne reached for the jar of peaches on the nightstand. She removed her hand long enough to open the jar, and Velma whimpered at her loss. Buffy turned to see Xander completely engrossed in the video. Funny, but watching naked cartoons roll around in bed together had given him an erection.’ [ Related Links: Disturbing Search Requests]
[attachments] It’s not everyday that you get insulted by a fictional character… ‘At a guess, bored American teenagers from Buttpoke, Ohio, with nothing better to do than chart their moribund lives through a so-called weblog. Inevitably this consists of some misguided discourse, punctuated with pictures of genital torture, many of them culled from their web community, ie a bunch of equally bored teenagers with a digital camera and too much time on their hands.’ [ Related Links: Everyone Hates Attachments]
26 October 2000
[radio] Guardian Unlimited covers the Today Programme’s new website and webcam…. ‘The presenters will slouch and sometimes slurp; they will gesticulate angrily towards the unseen producers on occasion. They will browse the newspapers. If you want a slick, professional television operation, then watch Jeremy and Sophie on the new BBC1 Breakfast show. Today may be live online – four days and counting; no catastrophes as yet – but it’s still a radio programme, and so it will remain.’ [ Related Links: Today’s Website]
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[eastenders] Good Grief! Sonia’s having a baby… ‘Sonia Jackson is one of a new breed of young soap mothers. She’s intelligent, hard-working, conscientious, and most emphatically not the Town Bike. She allowed Martin Fowler to get a bit carried away earlier in the year, but that’s no reflection on her – Martin would probably get carried away with Mo Harris if the lighting was low.’ [ Related Links: Eastenders]
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[politics] Picking on ugly people is not funny… unless they are British MP’s. [ Related Links: The Ann Widdecombe Shrine]
[movies] Film Unlimited profiles Jerry Bruckheimer, Perl Harbor and Bruckheimer’s dead partner-in-crime Don Simpson. ‘They appeared on the cover of Newsweek in matching black suits. They bought matching black Ferraris and matching black Mustang convertibles. They dressed in black Levis that they wore only once – Simpson said they quickly lost “their essential blackness”. In a final act of power-drunk solipsism, they even hired identical (white) twins as their respective secretaries. “It was so sick!” remembered one of their employees.’ [Related Links: Pearl Harbor Trailer, Upcomingmovies.com on Pearl Harbor]
[uk weblogs] Excellent, new, [at least to me] UK weblog: Cabin Pressure. ‘you should be thinking about how lucky you are. you work in a warm womblike office for a boss that does not get too heavy with you and you have a work load that is easily manageable. you get a computer on your desk that is yours alone and you get access to the internet. you get to download what you want when you want, you get to mess about with new packages for days on end without producing results, you get to wear what you want. your father and your father’s father would have killed for your job. you should be thinking about how lucky you are but you’re probably not.’
28 October 2000
[tv] Blue Peter and Hunter S. Thompson. Stand back. Do not not mix. ‘…who is this, for Christ sakes? Fucker calls himself Groom. Looks like I’m minding the fucking baby today, I figure, well, may as well keep any possible conflict down to a minimum, after all I’m desperate enough to take this faggot job in the first place, I can’t afford another fuck up. Straight away, while the Freak’s talking some crap at me, I notice this damn idiot child badge on his fucking nylon shirt. I don’t like to ask what kind of freakin’ remedial school talisman that is. Probably just some warning badge for the good honest middle class folks to know to KEEP THE FUCK AWAY, MENTALLY DEFICIENT GIANT FREAK APPROACHING. One look back up to his dead-ass eyes. I shiver, and it ain’t the half dozen ‘Ludes I’d picked up in St. Paul’s the moment I came to this damn limey wasteland to steady my nerves. There’s evil in this bitch, I would swear on my fucking mother’s life.’
[comics] BBC News covers 30 years of Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury. ‘The Bush family has been among Trudeau’s hardest critics. George Bush senior said he was “a little elitist who is spoiled, derisive, ugly and nasty”. George W Bush has not been any more complimentary. But to Trudeau, abuse just adds to the fun. “This is what I live for,” he said. “The Bushes think it’s personal, when in fact, for me, it’s never personal. At the risk of sounding like Sonny Corleone, whacking people like them is my job.”‘ [ Related Links: Duke 2000]
[tv] More on Blue Peter… ‘What became of the Blue Peter elephant? She went on to present the national lottery and marry Grant Bovey’ [from Guardian Unlimited’s Notes and Queries]
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29 October 2000
[film] Salon covers two books looking at Hollywood moviemakers durning the 70s and 80s… ‘Both books deliver memorable quotations, the best of them apparently generated at extreme moments of showbiz humiliation and exasperation. One source, describing the Simpson/Bruckheimer negotiating style, says, “It’s not ‘good cop, bad cop.’ It’s ‘bad cop, worse cop.'” Remembering the night his two-timing wife, Ali MacGraw, accompanied him to a party for his greatest triumph, “The Godfather,” the ineffably embarrassing Robert Evans recalls sadly: “She was looking at me and thinking of Steve McQueen’s cock.”‘
[news] The Sunday Times profiles “The Bulger Killers” — Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. ‘The cost of keeping a young offender in such a unit has been estimated at £100,000 a year, and both youths have improved educationally. Thompson passed five GCSEs and has developed talents for design, painting, textiles, computer studies and catering. As a project to create an “object of beauty”, he once designed and cut a wedding dress, sewing and beading it himself.’
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30 October 2000
[arcade] Atari Classics — Shockwave coversions of Centipede, Missile Command, Super Breakout and Frogger….
[news] Guardian Unlimited has an interesting overview of the whole Jamie Bulger case. From An ugly tabloid threat: ‘”The idea that the two boys – now almost men – could soon be free will horrify every parent,” says the Sun, before asking: “Where is the justice for James’s parents?” Then, in a scandalous aside after noting that the lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, had remarked that the boys were “making progress”, the Sun said: “Who cares? After what they did, the idea that they will be corrupted if they aren’t freed is laughable.” In other words, the paper believes that the boys who committed a foul murder aged 10, and who eight years later have shown extreme remorse for their crime and no propensity to violence ever since, should go to an adult jail. It doesn’t matter what happens to them there. The Sun doesn’t care. Let them suffer.’
[eliza] It’s a crazy idea but it might just work… somebody mixes AOL Instant Messaging and Joseph Weizenbaum’s Eliza. The resulting conversations are hilarious…. ‘Using a publicly available Perl version of ELIZA, a Mac with nothing better to do than play psychoanalyst, a few applescripts, and an AOL Instant Messenger account that has a high rate of ‘random’ people trying to start conversations, I put ELIZA in touch with the real world. Every few days I’ll put up the latest ‘patients.’ Names have been changed to protect the… well, everyone.’ [ Related Links: Try Eliza, via Beesley]
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[LMG] Just decided to reorder things so the latest postings are at the top. I think I prefer it that way… What do you think silent readers?
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31 October 2000
[film] Another interview with Darren Aronofsky… ‘Heroin, to Aronofsky, is the least of it. “When you’re chasing after a future you’re never going to get, you create a hole in the present. You use anything to fill that hole, whether that’s drugs, or the dream of a better life. And what happens is, the hole keeps growing until it engulfs you.” Presumably that also goes for a film-maker as obsessive as Aronofsky? “Oh, definitely. Completely. Work fills the hole. Sure.”‘ [ Related Links: Aronofsky at IMDB]
[comics] Warren Ellis reports that Australian Customs haved banned the import of From Hell. ‘Where does this leave Eddie? Attempting to use due process to convince Australian Customs – and, presumably, the OFLC — to unban one of the most acclaimed works in the medium, translated into six languages (Eddie mentioned this, and got the response “I don’t care what goes on in the rest of the world, this is Australia.”). Will they be reasonable? Evidently one Michael Dean, writer for The Comics Journal, has already been on the phone to Australian Customs. I’ll give Eddie Campbell the last word. “The Customs Chappie said that if Mr Dean quoted him in print that I would find no good will there from here on.”‘ [ Related Links: TCJ on the story, Eddie Campbell Comics, Alan Moore Fan Site]
1 November 2000
[tv] The Big Issue reports on what Gripper Stebson did next. ‘At that point, the tabloids swooped, offering the reporter who ran the story vast amounts of money to lead them to Mark. They promised to give the actor even bigger sums if he let them tell his story their way. Mark wouldn’t talk and the Press Gazette ran a story about the reporter Raj Johal’s principled refusal to reveal Mark’s whereabouts, despite the bank notes being wafted in front of him. After shaking off the newspapers and magazines, Mark decided to speak to The Big Issue instead. Between mouthfuls of chicken biryani he jokes about his ‘disappeared’ status. “I’ve always known where I’ve been – apart from the odd lost weekend,” he says.’ [ Related Links: TV Cream on Grange Hill]
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[disney porn] Is Walt Disney frozen in the Magic Castle? Probably not. But there is a shot of a topless woman in a couple of frames of The Rescuers — which I went to see at the cinema many many years ago! Did Disney corrupt my childhood? [ Related Links: Disney at Urban Legends Ref , via Cabin Pressure]
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[music] Guardian Unlimited profiles Tim Westwood. A profile? It’s a turkey-shoot! ‘To the half million British fans who listen to his weekend shows on Radio 1, he is, quite simply, Westwood: the face of hip-hop. The white face of hip-hop. Straight outta Lowestoft, son of Bill, the late Bishop of Peterborough. No, make that the white, faintly wrinkled face of hip-hop, complete with transatlantic intonation and studied lexicon of mad skills and hot goddamn beats. Better yet, the white, faintly wrinkled, public-school-educated face of hip-hop, in his bright red van with his name painted on the side.’
2 November 2000
[comics] Luke follows up on Eddie Campbell’s struggles with Australian customs and apparently gets an email from the great man himself for the trouble… ‘I find it laughable and more than a little worrying that I can go down to my video store and rent Slumber Party Massacre II: The Driller Killer with no worries at all, but an intelligent, well-researched work rooted in history is banned. Something’s wrong here, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of censorship in Australia.’
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[fuel] Guardian Unlimited compares and contrasts the real 1930s Jarrow Marchers with the farmers and hauliers behind the fuel tax protesters. ‘The contrast with the self-employed hauliers and farmers, running the campaign for a 26p cut in fuel duty, could scarcely be starker. Although some of the farmer activists have been hit by the slump in agricultural prices, evidence of other fuel protest organisers’ prosperity can be seen in BMWs, Volvos and Mercedes parked outside their meetings. Protest leaders include Nigel Kime, spokesman for British Hauliers Unite and owner of a £2m haulage firm; Derek Mead, protest coordinator in Somerset, who owns a 1,600-acre dairy farm; and Derek Lynch, who owns a Kent haulage business.’
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[reading] Something Happened by Joseph Heller: ‘I get the willies when I see closed doors. Even at work, where I am doing so well now, the sight of a closed door is sometimes enough to make me dread that something horrible is happening behind it, something that is going to affect me adversely; if I am tired and dejected from a night of lies or booze or sex or just plain nerves and insomnia, I can almost smell the disaster mounting invisibly and flooding out towards me through the frosted glass panes. My hands may perspire, and my voice may come out strange. I wonder why. Something must have happened to me sometime.’ [I’ve attempted to read Something Happened many times in the past but always got smothered by Heller’s / Slocum’s prose. It’s just to much. I’m hoping that by posting this “recommendation” I’ll find the will to finish what I suspect is a brilliant book… ]
3 November 2000
[weblogs] Woo-Hoo! Tanya’s back. From I Hate Music on Manic Monday by the Bangles: ‘There are six other obvious words which rhyme with Monday. Sunday is one. Funday and Runday are not. Oh and Suzanna Hoffs can wipe that grin off her face. This burning isn’t an eternal flame, but it lasts long enough to incinerate your shortarse winsomeness.’
[comics] Warren Ellis talks about children and comics… ‘This has all been kickstarted by a conversation on my message forum. An intelligent and kind woman gave out comics as treats to little Hallowe’en trick-or-treaters. (Our street was full of children drenched in burning lighter fluid and someone yelling “Trick, you little fucks! Trick, I say!” Sounded like me, but I’m sure it wasn’t.) (This is something many of the Forum members did, by the way.) (Gave away free comics, not squirted children with lighter fluid and chucked lit matches at them.)’ [Related Links: Warren’s Message Forum]
4 November 2000
[news] Wonderful stuff… Pravda’s view of Britain — British Society at a Crossroads: Police start to carry guns. ‘Unfortunately, there is no turning back. As the police force arms itself with Walther P990 pistols and Heckler and Koch MP5 rifles, the marginal elements will arm themselves with sub-machine guns, creating a spiral of violence which can easily spin out of control, if it has not already. The violence in modern societies is unfortunately the norm, rather than the exception. The drugs trade is the symptom, but not the cause, of this social cancer. The cause is an inability for people nowadays to enjoy simple values, work for the community, cultivating themselves and others in a spirit of human solidarity. Solutions for this tragedy would be a welcome topic of discussion’ [ Related Links: BBC News story]
5 November 2000
[distractions] Fantastic Amateur Secret Radio Decoder Outfit [Shockwave] — designed by Chris Ware… [ Related Links: Decoder Home Page]
[burchill] Julie Burchill is still on form… ‘”Home” is where the people we love are. And once they’re gone, no cooking smells, stencilled borders or roses around the door will make it home again. It’s time we stopped kidding ourselves otherwise, put down our mindless implements, stopped our endless fidgeting and enjoyed our loved ones while we can.’
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[politics] The Sunday Times discovers evidence of cocaine being snorted within the Houses of Parliament. ‘At least the myth has been destroyed that if people start out on a soft drug, they end up on heroin. That they end up on the Tory front bench is not an enviable fate, but it is not quite as bad as lying in a gutter with a needle sticking out of you.’
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 [reading] My Dark Places by James Ellroy. ‘It went bad from there. It went bad with self-destructive logic. It went bad slowly. The voices came and went. Inhalers let them in. Liquor and enforced sobriety stifled them. I understood the problem intellectually. Rational thought deserted me the second I popped those cotton wads in my mouth. Lloyds called the voices “amphetamine psychoses.” I called them a conspiracy. President Richard M. Nixon knew I murdered my parents and ordered people to stalk me. They hissed into microphones wired to my brain. I heard the voices. Nobody else did.’ [My Dark Places is by turns, a stunning, brilliant and above all a disturbing book. I read it first in 1998 and since then I’ve read it at least once a year… Certainly in the top five books I’ve ever read.]
[weblogs] Dirk shows us the fundamental interconnectedness of all weblogs… ‘Captainfez.com contains a weblog. Duh.’ [via Plasticbag]
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6 November 2000
[mobiles] Nishlord provides an exciting new service for self-important people with mobile phones. ‘NISHLORD.COM’s WAP (or whatever the fuck it’s called this week) service is different. It actually gives mobile phone users the information they need – a constant reminder of what an annoying cunt they really are. Whenever the moment arises, a vital message informing you that no-one, absolutely no-one, is the slightest bit interested in what you have to say, ever, will flash up.’ [via Meg— sorta]
[weblogs] First posts from weblogs. Number 1 in a series…. Barbelith… Tom starts as he means to go on… ‘I am unemployed, almost completely out of money, single and love-free, my flat is a disaster area and I can’t seem to get a handle on the redesign of Barbelith. Still, mustn’t «KVETCH».’
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[radio] Media Guardian takes a look behind the scenes on the BBC’s Today Programme. ‘The corporation has whole armies of executives whose job it is to fret about the output. One old hand said to me, after a piece I did about Mo Mowlam and her problems with Downing Street: “Very interesting. Very controversial. Are you sure you got your facts right?” They worry about politicians. But they particularly worry about the press. Each morning, huge piles of cuttings arrive for each executive, containing every mention of the BBC over the previous 24 hours. Papers are regarded with unhealthy reverence. They are seen as founts of all wisdom when they break political stories and, far too often, criticism of the corporation leads to anguished meetings.’
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7 November 2000
[pictures] An image of Piss Christ — which I’d never seen. I was expecting something a bit more extreme and blasphemous to be honest… ‘Medium: Esoteric medium’
[politics] Guardian Unlimited covers the brains behind Bush. Scary. ‘Olasky also believes that liberal journalists have “holes in their souls” and practice “the religion of Zeus”, which came as something of a surprise to the east-coast press. “What could he mean?” they wondered. Frank Rich, a veteran columnist at the New York Times, and one of those accused of having a hole in his soul, said: “He still hasn’t told me whether the religion of Zeus goes in for Bar Mitzvahs.”‘
[science] I have two brains… one in my stomach! How cool is that? ‘This ‘second brain’ is made up of a knot of brain nerves in the digestive tract. It is thought to involve around 100 billion nerve cells – more than held in the spinal cord. Researchers believe this belly brain may save information on physical reactions to mental processes and give out signals to influence later decisions. It may also be responsible in the creation of reactions such as joy or sadness.’ [via Bloglet]
8 November 2000
[reading] Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Train ’72 by Hunter S. Thompson. ‘On page 39 of California Living magazine I found a hand-lettered ad from the McDonald’s Hamburger Corporation, one of Nixon’s big contributors in the ’72 presidential campaign: PRESS ON, it said. NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN TAKE THE PLACE OF PERSISTENCE. TALENT WILL NOT: NOTHING IS MORE COMMON THAN UNSUCESSFUL MEN WITH TALENT. GENIUS WILL NOT: UNREWARDED GENIUS IS ALMOST A PROVERB. EDUCATION ALONE WILL NOT: THE WORLD IS FULL OF EDUCATED DERELICTS. PERSISTENCE AND DETERMINATION ALONE ARE OMNIPOTENT. I read it several times before I grasped the full meaning.’
[uk weblogs] It’s moving day on gb.weblogs.com… the recently updated UK weblogs list is moving to over to it’s new home on GBLogs [there’s a link to a floating pop up version on this page]. Big thanks to Jen.
[politics] Media Nugget of the Day covers the US Presidential Elections. ‘Any way you cut it, 2000 will go down in history as a classic.’ and the Onion — Bush or Gore: ‘A New Era Dawns’ ‘”My fellow Americans,” a triumphant Bush or Gore told throngs of jubilant, flag-waving supporters at his campaign headquarters, “tonight, we as a nation stand on the brink of many exciting new challenges. And I stand here before you to say that I am ready to meet those challenges.”‘
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[tv] Anne Robinson: “ Matt you are the weakest link. Goodbye” ‘My nadir came in round six, when – even though I had answered all my questions correctly – I was chosen for elimination by my two remaining rivals, the Sun and the Express. A tabloid conspiracy. Now it was my turn to endure the “walk of shame”. Even though I had performed the best in that round, Annie turned to me and declared: “Matt, you are the weakest link.” Compounding my sense of rejection, she turned away even before she got to the final, mocking “Goodbye!” At the losers’ interview, I was asked how it felt to be voted off despite having been the strongest. “It’s a travesty of justice and an insult to my intelligence,” I complained.’
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[politics] BBC News covers the presidential election between Nixon and Kennedy in 1960: ‘The campaign became an increasingly dirty one, with mud-slinging and accusations of dirty tricks on both sides. The Kennedy camp uncovered a story that Nixon had regularly attended parties with prostitutes at the Florida home of his friend Bebe Rebozo. They were about to release the story to the media when they found out that Kennedy had also been a party guest.’
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10 November 2000
[comics] One of my favourite, underachieving [he should do more!] comic artists: Philip Bond — This is Planet Bond. Check out the revamped Betty and Veronica or a sketch of Mick Jagger’s hand[?].
[weblogs] Another first post from a weblog…. LukeLog kicks off with… ‘Well, it’s happened. Thanks to the exhortations of Meg, I’m now a bloggin’ machine. Git on up! So this is the first post. Welcome to my *tiny* world. Next stop? I’m moving to more refined digs soon.’
[reading] Books Unlimited interviews Chuck Palahniuk. ‘For Palahniuk the male protagonists of Fight Club are human spirits in revolt against the deadening destinies society that allots them. Many of his friends are teachers and, like teachers here, they often com plain that education is increasingly about schooling children for niches rather than educating them to create their own place in the world: “They’re taught to accept the world the way it is. I felt that all of my schooling was to get me a good corporate job so I could be a good corporate citizen, pay my taxes, live politely and then die.”‘
11 November 2000
[comics] Bugpower provides a link to a fantastic in-depth interview with Alan Moore. ‘Like, I’d have sworn that my interest in Jack the Ripper started in 1988 but then when my mum died and we went through her house, we found a big suitcase in which there was a load of old books and comics and things that I’d had when I was a kid, including two or three centrefolds from The Sunday Mirror, which were dealing with Jack the Ripper and I’d obviously clipped them for some reason. I didn’t remember doing it but obviously I’d had an interest in Jack the Ripper from the age of about twelve or thirteen. So I guess that these kind of themes, these ideas, they probably run all the way through our lives like a kind of developing music, that the basic kind of chord patterns are there right from the beginning, probably, but they just become more elaborate, or more penetrating or more deeper.’
12 November 2000
[tedious autobiography] Yesterday: sofa bed, a nice cup of tea, Madness – Embarrassment, more tea, Guardian, Vogue, David Grey sickness!, Alpen, Napster, Winamp, produce Teresa’s pre- Dogstar Mix CD, yet more tea, shower, “What is ukbloggers?”, tube, Oxford Street, Selfridges, Top Shop, Starbucks, “ Minogue has tiny deformed ears!”, rain, bus, rain, bus, “You’re always threatning to get your hair cropped but you never do…”, wine – pizza – eco [yum!], More on Minogue’s ears… rain, tube, Rollerball, blog, David Grey – Babylon…
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[politics] The Thrill of Agony and the Victory of Defeat[ ?] The Observer covers what happened next as Gore prepared to concede the election to George Bush…. ”Circumstances,’ he said, once through to the Governor of Texas, ‘have changed. I need to withdraw my concession until the situation is clear’. ‘Let me make sure I understand, Mr Vice-President,’ said Bush. ‘You’re calling me back to retract your concession’. ‘There’s no need to get snippy about it,’ said Gore. Bush replied that his brother Jeb was the Governor in charge of the Florida ballot. Gore’s voice retorted: ‘It may surprise you but your younger brother is not the ultimate authority on this.’ ‘Mr Vice-President,’ said Bush’s voice, ‘You need to do what you have to do.”
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[reading] Jurrassic Park by Michael Crichton: ‘”But we have soothed ourselves into imagining sudden change as something that happens outside the normal order of things. An accident, like a car crash. Or beyond our control like a fatal illness. We do not concieve of sudden, radical, irrational change as built into the very fabric of existence. Yet it is. And chaos theory teaches us,” Malcolm said, “that straight linearity, which we have come to take for granted in everything from physics to fiction, simply does not exist. Linearity is an artificial way of viewing the world. Real life isn’t a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads strung on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way”. Malcolm sat back in his seat, looking towards the other Land Cruiser, a few yards ahead. “That’s a deep truth about the structure of our universe. But for some reason, we insist on behaving as if it were not true.”‘
13 November 2000
[listening] Yesterday I listened to Voodoo Ray by A Guy Called Gerald for the first time in years… ‘Riding on the current trend for Acidy sounding tunes, Voodoo Ray charted back in 1989 rising to number 12. Very distinctive with it’s simple bass line, hypnotic vocals and 808 tinkles.’
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[news] No News is Good News… interesting interview. ‘There are examples on almost every single news programme you ever hear or see on TV or radio. What truly interests these programmes is death and suffering, and the wider the scale of it, the more they’re interested. They ignore ninety per cent of the world unless something spectacularly violent or unpleasant happens there, like a ferry disaster or disco burning down, or something like that. But those are really just hors d’oeuvres. What they really like is something they can wring a lot of juice out of, which means something that happens closer to home. The Dunblane Massacre was the ultimate news-journalist’s wank-fantasy. It had everything — violent death, suffering of the innocent, enormous amounts of emotional pain. Everything they love to linger over and rub our noses in while they wank themselves to orgasm after orgasm of fake sympathy and self-righteousness.’
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14 November 2000
[comics] In the DC Universe Election 2000 has been decided… Lex Luthor Wins! ‘Bruce Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, went on record saying: “I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him; there’s something rotten in Denmark.” Wayne would not elaborate on Luthor’s alleged involvement in Scandinavian domestic affairs, and refused requests for further comment.’ [via Ghost in the Machine]
[movies] Guardian Unlimited interviews Joel Schumacher about his new film Flawless. ‘”Well, my friend David Geffen always says, ‘The devil is the one who comes with the biggest pay cheque.’ And I say to him, ‘You ought to know.'” And what about him? Has he ever felt that he sold out, sold his soul even? “Only on Batman and Robin. There was simply too much pressure, and that breeds fear and conservatism. I was in merchandise meetings with Walmart and K-Mart and McDonald’s, and you’re being told to make the film more ‘toyetic’, which means you can sell toys off the back of it. That was the only time when I felt that the box office was more important than the story.”‘
[cartoon] Steve Bell on the US Presidential Elections… ‘Electile Dysfunction’
15 November 2000
[distractions] Very useful: ‘ Where are the cats?‘ in various lauguages…. German — ‘Wo sind die Katzen?’ or Japanese — ‘Nekotachi-wa do ko de suka?’
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[blogs] The New Yorker article on weblogging is on the web… ‘One day, I met Meg and Jason for breakfast. Jason, who is twenty-seven, is tall, with short hair and sideburns; he was wearing jeans and a Princess Mononoke T-shirt. She ordered a tofu scramble and soy latte, he had real eggs.‘
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[distractions] UK Gangsters and Hardmen Webring. Dave Courtney: ‘I drove to Woolwick station and said to the geezer behind the counter, “can I have a return ticket, please?” “Where to, guv?” he chirped cheerily, so I shot back with my best puzzled look… “back here, you daft bastard,” I said and marched out, chuckling my nuts off.’
[turkey shoot] Rate Vanessa Feltz on amihotornot…. Where’s the zero?
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16 November 2000
[internet] Questions are being asked about the public WHOIS database…. is it right that names and phone numbers are freely available on a globally accessible database if you register a domain-name? ‘Names, e-mail addresses, postal addresses and telephone numbers for more than 24 million domain names are stored in databases called Whois. The information is available to anyone with an Internet connection. It’s like a global phone directory — without the option for an unlisted number.’ [via Slashdot]
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