[london] London Walks for your MP3 Player … ‘Forget about guide books and maps. Listen to my description as you walk through London.’ [via Londonist]

[comics] Diesel Sweeties: 128-Bit Encrypted Flirtation.

[blogs] True to Type — the Guardian reviews a number of Edinburgh Fringe shows which adapt blogs into theatre productions … ‘It’s [the] interactive aspect of blogging that needs to be addressed if theatrical adaptations are truly to take off. For now, it looks naive and fairly opportunistic in its approach. Yes, people are turning to the internet to make their confessions – but that doesn’t necessarily mean their words make riveting theatre. Blog-based theatre is a bit like flat-packed furniture: even once you’ve put it up, you still associate it with the box it arrived in.’

[music] Brian Jones vs. Indiana Jones … ‘Indiana Jones fought a scimitar with a whip. Brian Jones crushed butterfly on a wheel’

[tv] Jon Ronson is blogging at Amazon.com and the Guardian’s Comment is Free … ‘It is a Friday in December. I have now been dressed as Santa for five hours. The heating in our house in on full-blast. The costume was itchy when I put it on all those hours ago. Now I feel as if I am covered in ants. “I need to take the beard off,” I say. “No!” yells Joel, my four-year-old son. “I’m getting a rash,” I say. “Please stay with me, Santa,” says Joel.’

[blogger] The New Blogger — Google are prepping a new version of Blogger.com.

[ww2] Any Officer Who Goes Into Action Without His Sword is Improperly Dressed — a summary of the almost unbelievable wartime adventures of Captain Jack Churchill …

‘In 1940, some of the German commanders who were overseeing the push into France began to receive seemingly random reports of soldiers having been killed with broad-head arrows or hacked with a English Claymore. Effective enough weapons it would seem, but archaic even in that day and age. They likely could have guessed the bowman was an English soldier, but they couldn’t have appreciated these as the calling card of the rabid eccentric, Captain Jack Churchill.’

‘Commando training ended with an attack on Nord Fiord, Norway. While the two companies he commanded advanced on their target, Jack stood in the lead craft, and played on his pipes “The March of the Cameron Men”. His report at mission’s end was simply: “Maaloy battery and island captured. Casualties slight. Demolitions in progress. Churchill.”‘

‘In 1944 Jack’s luck and tenacity took a slip when he was ordered into an impossible situation. Most of his squad was killed, and Jack was taken captive. After being hauled to Berlin for questioning, he was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was meant to stay until war’s end. He might have done so, but one night the power went out, and Jack was prepared: he had a rusty can and some onions. It was all that he needed. In the darkness he just walked away and made his escape.’

[comics] Keep On Truckin’ — from the Perry Bible Fellowship.

[comics] Criminal Preview — a few pages from the first issue of Criminal from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

[comics] The New Adventures of Hitler — scans from Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell’s controversial comic about Hitler visiting Liverpool in 1912 … ‘I was born to suffer. There is no end to it. I was born to suffer and I shall surely die here, on this miserable English toilet. I tell you, I have never known a greater enemy than my own rebellious bowels. Traitors! Treacherous bastards! They will be the death of me.’

[ukblogs] Greenslade — Roy Greenslade is keeping a nicely done blog about the British Press and Journalism.

[ukblogs] YouTube: Tom Reynolds, of Random Acts of Reality on ITV’s London News.

[comics] Judge Dredd: Origins — a flash trailer for a new Judge Dredd series by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. [via Jez]

[weird] The Chosen Ones — Jon Ronson meets Indigo Children who apparently are “super-evolved, psychic beings” … ‘I’m curious to know more about the Indigo children – this apparently vast, underground movement. Although Indigos say they communicate telepathically, they also communicate via internet forums, such as Indigos Unplugged…’ [via As Above]

[ronson] Hello Jon Ronson. Yes, the bloggers are watching you… Just be thankful we are not the Secret Rulers of the World.


My advice to you is relax, and perhaps don’t ego-surf so dilligently. I only posted that link to the Chosen Ones two hours ago… Shouldn’t you be working?

[vids] How to Undress in Seven Seconds — this isn’t a lifehack I’d try at home … [via Sore Eyes]

[ukblogs] Jeffrey Archer’s Official Blog … ‘I read in another newspaper that I’m converting to Roman Catholicism. One phone call, and they would have discovered that it hadn’t even crossed my mind.’ [thanks Phil]

[xmas] Only 138 Shopping Days to Go — Harrods opened it’s Christmas Department yesterday… ‘Christmas World was packed, with an ominous background tinkle of shoppers edging past racks of glass baubles. The fairylights were eclipsed by the barrage of camera flashes as tourists immortalised themselves in T-shirts and shorts standing in a glade of £119 slimline artificial trees. “It’s so English,” a Chinese woman said fondly, admiring a £14.95 glass Eiffel Tower tree decoration – made in China.’ [more…]

[comics] 1963 Comics Ads — amusing spoof Comics Ads written by Alan Moore.

[comics] Thrill Power Overload — David Bishop an ex-editor of 2000AD is writing a history of the comic and blogging his progress … On Censorship: ‘Even the most innocuous phrases could cause problems. Both [Alan] Grant and [Steve] MacManus recall a sound effect in Robo-Hunter being censored. Barry Tomlinson had taken over from Bob Bartholomewews the managing editor responsible for passing each issue of 2000 AD as fit for publication. ‘The original speech balloon on Prog 278 had Kidd saying, “Do something, Slade! I’m gonna pop!”,’ MacManus recalls. ‘Tomlinson said you can’t have the word pop on the cover, it means fart.” [via Pete’s Linklog]

[ukblogs] Casino Avenue: ‘As for Anna Mikhailova? She’ll still be bumping along on the Sunday Times, and being asked why every time her name’s entered into Google, it returns a list of pages slagging her off. Add that to your CV, eh?’

[books] Support Abby: Buy Girl With A One Track Mind on Amazon Here.

[books] The Digested Read: Positively Happy by Noel Edmonds … ‘Allowing room for the good things means letting go of the bad. That’s why, although I’m happy to talk about all my other TV programmes, you won’t find a single word here about the Late Late Breakfast Show, in which a member of the public died performing a pointless and dangerous stunt.’

[blogs] Belle de Jour on staying Anonymous — some good, common sense advice for anonymous best-selling bloggers … ‘Trust no one.’

[comics] The Brothers Freud — another interview with Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie about Lost Girls [slightly NSFW] … ‘We are trying to present sex and war as alternatives to one another. The pornography in Lost Girls is a testament to the human imagination, and particularly to the human sexual imagination, and the war that builds ominously throughout Lost Girls is the exact opposite of the human sexual imagination. I perceive war as the ultimate failure of the imagination. When we can’t think of anything else to do, then we kill each other in staggering numbers.’ [via The Comics Reporter]

[soundboard] Curb Your Enthusiasm Soundboard: ‘I might be losing a testicle.’

[lightbulb] Livermore’s Centennial Light — Apparently, the oldest working lightbulb in the world … ‘Age: 104 years and counting (as of 2005)’

[crab] Crab vs. Pipe — old viral video on YouTube … ‘An undersea robot is sawing a 3mm wide slit (1/10th of an inch … remember that width) in a pipeline. The pressure inside the pipeline is 0 psig, while the pressure outside is 2700 psi, or 1.3 tons per square inch. Then a crab comes along….’

[ukblogs] Blogs in focus at Festival Fringe … ‘Blogs are taking centre stage at this year’s Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, with three different productions tapping into the world of online writers. One of them, Bloggers: Real Internet Diaries, is based entirely on British blogs.’

[religion] Hatemail to the Flying Spagetti Monster … ‘PASTAFARIAN?!? that doesn’t even make sense!! why the hell would god be PASTA?!?’ [via linkbunnies.org]