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London Bloggers [Comic Blogs][Other Blogs] | 16 March 2001
[politics] BBC News reports that the infamous ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ poster was a clever fake. ‘After the election Lord Thorneycroft, Tory party treasurer at the time, claimed that the poster had “won the election for the Conservatives”. When, in the 1980s, unemployment began to soar, the poster stayed in the public spotlight – this time as a prime example of both political hypocrisy and, just as importantly, the ability of advertising to sell almost anything.’
 [comics] Dave Sim want to have a boxing match with Jeff Smith. ‘Having had a year to try to figure out how to explain this to a largely feminist, largely feminzed crowed I figure the best bet is a (may God forgive me) movie analogy: Do you remember in the movie The Color of Money, the sequel–make that, the “sequel”–to The Hustler where the Tom Cruise character tells the Paul Newman character that he “threw” their big championship game, so he could “clean up” on side bets? And the Paul Newman character corners the Tom Cruise character and challenges him to a game, a for-real game? And he says to the Tom Cruise character, “Let’s clean this up”? That’s what I’m doing here. You can’t “clean up” a mess like this in a circus atmosphere. Jeff, I am saying, flat out, that you have lied. In lying, you have made a mess–a non-masculine mess. You have made a mess. Publicly. Let’s you and me, man-to-man, clean up the mess that you have made. Privately.’ [Related Link: cerebus.org, Hey, kids!! It’s the Dave Sim Misogyny Page!]
[music] Guardian Unlimited interviews Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett about Gorillaz — their ‘Virtual Band’. ‘Tank Girl didn’t even make Hewlett rich. “I made some money,” he says. “You got screwed, mate,” Albarn tells him. “I didn’t get screwed, I mean, Jesus,” retorts Hewlett. “The comic industry just collapsed. But we got to spend the best part of a year hanging out in LA. And we got paid a big lump of cash for it.” Despite a good deal of hype, the 1995 film starring Lori Petty bombed. “I think we always knew it was going to be dreadful.”‘ [Related Link: Gorillaz Website]
15 March 2001
[tv] The Sopranos – easily the best thing on TV at the moment…. ‘Uncle June and I, we had our problems, with the business. But I never should’ve razzed him about eating pussy; this whole war could’ve been averted. Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this.’ — Tony Soprano. [Related Link: Ray Liotta Turned Down ‘Sopranos’]
[world domination] Starbucks To Begin Sinister ‘Phase Two’ Of Operation. ‘Though the coffee chain’s specific plans are not known, existing Starbucks franchises across the nation have been locked down with titanium shutters across all windows. In each coffee shop’s door hangs the familiar Starbucks logo, slightly altered to present the familiar mermaid figure as a cyclopean mermaid whose all-seeing eye forms the apex of a world-spanning pyramid. Those living near one of the closed Starbucks outlets have reported strange glowing mists, howling and/or cowering on the part of dogs that pass by, and electromagnetic effects that cause haunting, unearthly images to appear on TV and computer screens within a one-mile radius. Experts have few theories as to what may be causing the low-frequency rumblings, half-glimpsed flashes of light, and periodic electronic beeps emanating from the once-busy shops.’
[credit] Finally, the homepage of the amazingly rude tube map which I saw on Usenet a few months ago… [via tsluts]
14 March 2001
[distractions] Ah… the Muppaphone. So distracting and clickable…. [thanks to Brainsluice] and Safeplaces — a ‘digital playground’. [thanks to Chris]
[gun fish barrel] So bad it’s good — Julie Burchill on Celebrity Big Brother. ‘The pathos of the short-term presenter is summed up heartbreakingly in the persons of Anthea Turner and Vanessa Feltz, the twin occupants of the lowest rung of the Big Brother ladder; as they fall apart – Vanessa messily and swiftly, Anthea more photogenically and professionally – it is horribly compelling, like watching a John Cassavetes film or hearing your neighbours’ marriage break up in gory detail through the wall. They are the flimsiest, most damaged and most compelling creatures in the house, with none of the confidence born of talent that Dee and Sweeney possess, or the dumb macho swagger of Eubank and Duffy.’
13 March 2001
[comics] The Trials of a Comic Book Hero. Proof that what goes around comes around — Stan Lee gets fleeced… ‘The white-haired comic book legend may be the head of an Internet entertainment startup, but he still hasn’t quite figured out how to work his computer. “This is how you save a file,” the twentysomething assistant begins. “And I double-click?” Lee asks. “No, you only have to click once.” Lee’s naiveté would be touching if it weren’t symptomatic of a potentially bigger problem: gullibility.’ [via Comics Journal Message Board]
 Shoved through the letterbox… the answer to all my crippling emotional problems?
[crippled emotional needs] My email .sig circa 1994: ‘My every path is shrewn with cowpats from the devils own satanic herd.’ — Edmund Blackadder.
[history] Old (1997) Danny O’Brien email looking back on his experience of Wired UK: ‘So, I’m sitting in Louis Rosetto’s brand new giant office in SOMA with Louis, Kevin Kelly, Jane Metcalfe, and John Plunkett (Wired’s designer). Kelly asks me what the UK scene is like. And, I’m thinking “well, it’s Cix, and it’s demon.local, but I fucking hate them because they’re brain-damaged jabbering fools who think it’s the height of sophistication to express their crippled emotional needs in terms of Blackadder quotes and I’m fucked if I’m giving this to them”. (You know what I mean.)’
12 March 2001
[tv] Tony Soprano must die. Another interesting profile of the next season of The Sopranos. ‘There’s more symmetry in the resemblances between the Feds and the wise guys: each have their rituals, their uniforms, their beer guts, their professional argots, their codes of masculinity and their fatal delusions. And both value systems, Chase suggests, are equally full of shit, with Tony whacking whoever needs to be whacked and the FBI breaking the very laws they’ve sworn to uphold in order to nail their man. Their crudity and invasiveness very nearly puts us on Tony’s side.’
[comics] Oni Press have produced a free PDF version of of the first issue of Whiteout. Well worth the download… ‘If you haven’t read it, you are stupid and it’s no wonder you’ve got no girlfriend. Official’ — Warren Ellis. [via Barbelith Underground]
11 March 2001
[jimmy] Jimmy Saville – You ask the questions. The public are let loose on Sir Jimmy of Glencoe… On Paul Merton’s ‘snide remarks’: ‘When you are well-known, all sorts of people say all sorts of things about you. It’s something that goes with the job. Most times it doesn’t matter but it did when your name was John Lennon or Jill Dando. It’s one of the occupational hazards of standing up in front of millions of people.’
[what hath god wraught?] Blogs and SMS messages merge…. SMSblog. ’13:30 via SMS: On our way to the match. Here we go, here we go, here we go! 14:53 via SMS: We’re at the ground, fantastic!’
10 March 2001  [comics] Eddie Campbell discusses Finishing From Hell…. ‘Eight years! 500 pages. Must be the longest single work Alan’s done on both counts. The astonishing thing is that he had the whole thing planned from the beginning. All the reference photos for the epilogue were shot in 1988. When Alan phoned me to offer me the gig he gave me a rundown of all the chapter titles, including prologue and epilogue. I don’t think he changed any of them as we progressed, although for a brief time ‘Blackmail or Mrs Barrett’ almost became ‘The Harlot’s Curse’. Any extra material that came to mind was fitted within the existing chapters without changing the total pattern, or structure. That word ‘structure’ sums up what Alan does best in all his work. In From Hell the structural idea behind everything is the architecture of time’ [Related Links: On-Line Preview of From Hell, Buy From Hell]
[comics] I can’t recommend this comic enough…. Berlin by Jason Lutes. ‘Jason Lutes has set this captivating story in Germany during the twilight years of the Weimer Republic. Placing them against the backdrop of the real events of the time, Lutes has created a cast of fictional characters with a particular focus on the lives of two individuals, Kurt Severing and Marthe Muller. Following these people over the course of five years leading up to 1933, Lutes meticulously documents their hopes and struggles, and the dark shadow history has cast over their lives.’ [Related Links: Ordering Information, Preview Pages of Berlin]
9 March 2001  [tv] Old BBC interview with Louis Theroux… ‘…Weird Weekends rested on the tremendous generosity of the Americans – they love British people, and don’t regard Britain as a threat. I’m actually half American but I have an English accent, and I capitalised on the reservoir of kindness and goodwill towards the British. I interviewed the Aryan Nations in Idaho, an ultra-extreme, radical right group, who talk about how there’s going to be a race war, and have swastikas all around their church. They wouldn’t let an American in there to interview them, but because I was British the guy let his guard down and talked about how much he loved Are You Being Served?’
[globalisation] Delhi Calling. Call centres go off-shore — when you call your bank or mobile phone company you may well be talking to somebody half-a-world away. ‘Each computer screen shows Greenwich Mean Time and the temperature in the UK, in case a staff member feels the urge to reveal that India is enjoying yet another day of blue skies and sunny weather. “We find showing new staff videos of Yes, Prime Minister is particularly effective,” says Raman Roy, Spectramind’s sleek, pipe-smoking chief executive. “They get a two-hour seminar on the royal family. We download the British tabloids every morning from the web to see what our customers are reading. We make our new staff watch Premier League football games on TV. And we also explain about the weather, because British people refer to the subject so frequently. It is a science,” he adds, proudly.’
8 March 2001
[monkees] Think Diffident. Nice profile of ex-Monkee Mike Nesmith (the one with the wool hats and sideburns)…. ‘The news media, it’s true, sticks to Nesmith’s Monkee-ness like gum on a go-go boot. Never mind that Nez helped invent MTV and country rock, that he published a novel and pioneered a home-video distribution business, and that he cut 13 post-Monkees albums and produced cult film classics like Repo Man. And never mind that Nesmith – who could choose to be as ostentatious and narcissistic as the next gazillionaire rock star – instead carries on the philanthropic traditions of his mother, Bette Graham, the inventor of Liquid Paper typing-correction fluid.’
[budget] Steve Bell on Gordon Brown’s Budget…. ‘The Poor Box’. Simon Hoggart’s sketch of the Commons yesterday: ‘The Tories were thunderstruck by the chancellor’s boast, as if their entire air force had, so to speak, been destroyed on the ground. Michael Portillo looked utterly miserable. Oliver Letwin and Francis Maude seemed positively distraught. Ann Widdecombe’s eyes bulged alarmingly, as if her corsets had come to life and were squeezing the breath out of her. Michael Ancram, the normally ebullient party chairman, gave the impression of a man who has just detected a ferret climbing his trousers, north towards his Y-fronts.’
7 March 2001
[apple] Rip, Burn, Mix. If you’ve got the time or bandwidth… a great Apple TV commercial. [via Scripting News]
[HTML] For some reason I’ve made LMG HTML 4.01 compliant. It’s not that hard… at least not on a page this simple. Does it break any browsers? Let me know.
[words] According to Everything2 these are the twelve most powerful words in the english language: YOU, MONEY, SAVE, NEW, EASY, LOVE, DISCOVERY, RESULTS, HEALTH, PROVEN, GUARANTEE, FREE.
6 March 2001
[comics] Chick Comic Theater does some amusing analysis of Jack Chick’s best work: Don’t Try Suicide, What Do You Expect In A Town called Sodom?, Rock Music…Inside Satan’s Boombox, Dungeons and Dragons…Geeky Pastime, or Gateway to Hell? ‘…if I’m not mistaken, that demon on the right side of the bed is whacking off! I feel sorry for Lance’s Mom. Not only does she have to discover her dead son swinging like a Pinata, but she’s got to clean up the unholy demon spew from his bed, too.’ [via Venusberg]
[expletive deleted] BTopenworld CE insults Net users ‘A senior exec at BT has slurred the good name of British Net users describing their online activities as a “passive and sometimes rather weird kind of entertainment”. BTopenworld CE, Andy Green, delivered his insults during a debate organised by the Parliamentary IT Committee (PITCOM) on the White Paper on the Regulation of Telecommunications.’ [via Digitaltrickery]
 [tv] The On The Buses Drinking Game… God forgive me… I’ve always liked On The Buses. I’m a child of the 70’s… I have no taste. From the Amazon review: ‘There was always something faintly dirty about On The Buses–and not just the humour, which was simply more of the polite strand of “blue” that British audiences had come to expect in the mid-1970s. It was the whole look: grey and miserable. And the setting: a dismal suburban bus depot, and an equally decrepit family home. Or perhaps it had something to do with Olive, and her lank greasy hair, and the knowing leer of Jack, Stan’s lecherous fellow conductor and partner-in-crime. A working-class comedy, one step up from the Beckett-like squalor of Steptoe And Son, it starred Reg Varney as Butler, a larrikin bus conductor with a hopeless romantic track record, and Stephen Lewis as “Blakey”, the inspector who tries valiantly to bring him undone.’ [Related Links: Blakey On-Line]
5 March 2001
[weblogs] This is interesting… Neil Gaiman is updating a journal about a new book via Blogger and Warren Ellis is doing a what strongly looks like a photo blog…. [via Blogadoon and WEF]
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