[politics] Tory Thinktank comes up with a Back To The Future scenario for the current Labour government… ‘By 2003, with another election looming, Mr Tyrell ponders deepening economic problems with a government “beleaguered and isolated”. The following year sees strikes, consumer boycotts, demonstrations and “mild acts of mass civil disobedience”. The transport networks are frequently targeted – perhaps indicating how last year’s fuel protests were a taste of things to come. Following Mr Blair’s resignation, Mr Tyrell predicts a political landscape which “resembles Italy in the 1970s and people talk of Britain being ungovernable”.’

[film] Guardian Unlimited reviews Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. ‘In one scene, the brutal clash of fists and weaponry disturbs the birds in the trees and Lee interrupts our view of the fight briefly, in favour of an epiphanic vision of the birds ascending into the sky: a pleasing moment of inspiration which anticipates the climactic fight between Jen and Li Mu Bai as they float through the treetops themselves: in its exuberance and charm, it has to be one of the most beautiful moments in modern cinema. Crouching Tiger adopts the convention of the wu xia martial arts stories: in formal combat, the rules of gravity are suspended, and with them the rules of narrative and ordinary human possibility – bringing into the action genre a delirious new sort of magic realism.’

[underground] Transport Plans for the London Area — interesting if you heavily use public transport in the London Area…

[music] I Hate Music on the Stone Roses… ‘Attitude apparently consisted of repeating what a good band you are three times in every interview, like Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz saying “There’s no place like home”. Oh, and if you poured paint over your bandmates it would help too, though this aspect of the Roses’ attitude has been low on imitators. Pathetic, really, but a generation of lazy geezers lapped it up – you don’t have to be good at anything as long as you give it a bit of front. And they all formed bands, the fuckers. Cue the 1990s, the grisly low point of five ghastly decades of British rock music, and it was all the Roses’ fault.’

[yawn!] Duvet Days — what I could do with right now… ‘duvet days, n, buzzword; a day when employees have the right to stay in bed instead of going in to work, no prior booking required.’ [via Dutch Bint]

[comics] The Mirror of Love — A complete Alan Moore script. He does panel descriptions in caps?! ‘PAGE 1, (PANEL) 1. OKAY, THIS STRIP HAS FIVE PANELS IN EXACTLY THE SAME LAYOUT UPON EACH PAGE: THERE ARE FOUR HORIZONTAL PANELS DOWN THE LEFT HAND SIDE OF EACH PAGE AND A TALL VERTICAL ONE DOWN THE RIGHT. SINCE I’VE HAD TO FIT THE ENTIRE OF KNOWN GAY HISTORY FROM PREHISTORIC TIMES ONWARDS INTO EIGHT PAGES, THERE ARE ABOUT TWO HUNDRED AND TEN WORDS ON EACH PAGE AND SOME RATHER LARGE CAPTIONS. SINCE THERE ARE NO BALLOONS I FIGURE YOU’LL BE ABLE TO LAY OUT THE PANELS TO ACCOMODATE THESE. THE HORIZONTAL PANELS ALL RECOUNT SCENES AND EVENTS FROM GAY HISTORY, WHILE THE VERTICAL PANELS ARE DIFFERENT.’

[underground] Extremely rude alternative map of the London Underground — I apparently live in “Bell End”. :)

[weblogs] Interconnected has some interesting thoughts on Google and weblogs: ‘This explains why weblogs rank so high in Google. The integrity of PageRank relies on the fact that you only own your own page, so you can’t force much linking to your ‘site to up your rank. The weblog community has several features that break this model: The tendency for links lists to be on every weblog page (and there are often many pages of archives too), and the large amount of reciprocal linking. The community appears as a very highly connected network, and this effect is magnified because of the large amount of the links on weblog pages compared to other ‘sites on the web.’

[travel] One of Philip Greenspun’s Web Travel Reviews — a short city guide for Las Vegas. ‘Personally I never wanted to learn how to win so I don’t gamble. If I were to gamble, I would do it at Binion’s Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas. Binion’s has all the grit of old Las Vegas, before so many Disneyland-esque hotels were built on the Strip. The founder, Benny Binion, is a legendary figure. His son Ted was murdered on September 17, 1998 by his girlfriend and her lover. The girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, was an former topless dancer half Binion’s age. The death was arranged to look accidental, with Binion taking an overdose of Xanax, a prescription tranquilizer. Binion’s sister prompted an investigation: “That was not Ted . . . Ted would be the first one to tell you that his drug of choice was heroin.”‘

[y2k] Interesting profile of Peter de Jager — the man who spent a decade fighting the Y2K computer problem — on how he feels a year after the non-event. Unsurprisingly, he’s not a happy man… ‘On the evening of New Year’s Eve, Mr. de Jager kissed his wife and boarded the transatlantic flight. At 10 seconds to midnight the pilot began his countdown. “Understand, I was living and breathing Y2K,” he says. “I had absolutely no concern.” The New Year hit, the plane stayed aloft. “I’m officially unemployed,” Mr. de Jager proclaimed to a reporter who was on the flight with him. Early on New Year’s morning, Mr. de Jager awoke in a London hotel room to the ringing of a telephone. Another reporter. “So it was all a hoax!” the reporter said. Later, interviewers alleged he was a shyster.’ [via Slashdot]

[comics] Roger Sabin reviews some of the best graphic novels of last year… Talking about Joe Sacco: ‘For example, he is unafraid to put himself at the centre of the story, thus challenging our notions of objectivity. Sometimes, he admits, this could be too much: “I wanted out, out of there… I wanted to put a million miles between me and Bosnia, between me and those horrible disgusting people and their fucking wars and pathetic prospects…”‘

[politics] Thatcher — started as she meant to go on… ‘Margaret Thatcher’s first recorded intervention in Edward Heath’s cabinet was to propose the imposition of borrowing charges on library books, and the abolition of free school milk for children over seven, which earned her the nickname Milk Snatcher. The new education secretary told the cabinet in September that “she had been able to offer the chief secretary, Treasury, rather larger savings than he had sought on school meals, school milk, further education and library charges”‘

[watching] The Sopranos ‘Unlike Francis Coppola’s operatic dramatisation of Mario Puzo’s Godfather epic, The Sopranos sustains a poignant, even mundane, intimacy in its focus on Tony, brought to vivid life by James Gandolfini’s mercurial performance. Alternatively seductive, exasperated, fearful, and murderous, Gandolfini is utterly convincing even when executing brutal shifts between domestic comedy and dramatic violence. Both he and the superb team of Italian-American actors recruited as his loyal (and, sometimes, not-so-loyal) henchman and their various “associates” make this mob as credible as the evocative Bronx and New Jersey locations where the episodes were filmed.’ [Related Links: Official Sopranos Site]

[weird science] The Observer looks at another attempt at creating a viable fusion reactor — a great piece of journalism about science. ‘…the human culture surrounding the Machine attempts to mimic the Machine itself , which is trying to mimic the universe. The mannerisms of the Machine become the mannerisms of its minions – people rage and tyrannise, overheat, relent, synergise, procreate, vanish, and recur. One idea seems brilliant and fails, while another may start as a quail but then, compressed by other ideas – electrons stripping off, ions colliding – transforms into something sharp and fast, something agitatingly, beautifully right. And then, of course, it is shot into the Machine to see if it is.’

[film] Hoffman Proves His Character — BBC News profiles Philip Seymour Hoffman. ‘And perhaps the most conclusive assessment of Hoffman is that offered by Schumacher: “The bad news is that Phil will never make $25m (£17m) a picture,” he told reporters. “The good news is he’ll be working all his life. He’s quite possibly the best character actor of his generation.”‘

[warren ellis] The Sermon On The Mount — Warren Ellis’ final column for Comic Book Resources. ‘And you know what? Eventually, one day, when you come to your local comics store, regular as clockwork on delivery day, to pick up your pile of cheap superhero comics that you really don’t read any more anyway, that really don’t change anything, that only ever get good for a little while and never ever end? You’ll come in alone.’ [Related Links: Tom Coates thoughts on the Column]

[y2k] Another look back at Y2K — this time from Matthew Fort. ‘A year that marked more debate over the role of alcohol in social violence even witnessed a spot of bother at a tea dance: a 77-year-old grandfather sent a 71-year-old rival to hospital with a broken wrist, broken nose and cuts after being accused of interfering with the ladies. The would-be pugilist was given a suspended sentence, but left court defiant, saying, “I am a gentleman and, anyway, I’m impotent.”‘

[politics] Politics is boring. LMG wants more Christmas photos of Ann Widdecombe and her cats — Pugwash and Carruthers…. and little poems as well: ‘Goodness gracious, what is that? It’s Mr. Pugwash, my black cat. Goodness gracious, are there others? Yes indeed, my cat Carruthers.’

[alan moore] Alan Moore on William Blake…. ‘Friday 2 February, 19.30 Tygers of Wrath. A spectacular finale to the exhibition, featuring music played by Alex James (Blur) and Simon Boswell, Jah Wobble, and Billy Bragg, and readings and performances by Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore. This event takes place at the Criterion Theatre, Piccadilly, W1. Tickets: £10 – £20’

[y2k] Jon Ronson looks back at Y2K…. On Tony Martin: ‘Martin had, for 18 months before the shooting, worked himself into a frenzy. He had sealed his windows, patrolled his property with a loaded gun and yelled at passers-by, “I’ll blow the heads off thieves and machine-gun Gypsies.” But as a metaphor he became a downtrodden rural Englishman protecting his castle against the worst sort of foreign invader, a Gypsy. Hague assured the Gypsy-haters that under a Tory government the “floods of Kosovars and Romanian Gypsies swamping soft-touch Britain” would be locked in detention centres.’

[comics] Warren Ellis on Stan Lee: ‘That man wanted himself completely identified with Marvel and completely beloved, and did everything short of breaking into peoples’ houses and fucking them in the night to do it. To be honest, I’m sure he considered it and was talked out of it by nervous assistants. “By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth! I’ll do it! I shall dramatically decant myself into the beds of my best beloved brethren, the Mighty Marvel Mavens nationwide, and bring them all to outstandingly overwhelming orgasms with the purposefully pulsating penetrations of my — “‘

[year-end] The Guardian ponders the big questions for 2001… ‘Any chance Oasis will finally implode for good? British record companies should have a plaque reading “no more heroes” nailed over the front door. Whenever the biz trumpets its latest world-shaking phenomenon, you can guarantee it’ll go straight down the plughole. Richard Ashcroft has tumbled dramatically from rock’n’roll bard to po-faced bore. Ronan Keating has embraced premature middle age with disastrous consequences, and Oasis are only managing to cling on to the gossip columns for all the wrong reasons. Spectators relished Liam Gallagher’s yobbish spats with Robbie Williams and Patsy Kensit’s tearful reports of her life of misery. But the live album, Familiar To Millions, might more accurately have been called Dimly Recalled By Dozens.’

[film] Where in the world is Tyler Durden? Subliminal Tyler Durden’s from Fight Club…

[meat] Give me a Big Mac – but hold the beef. The Guardian takes a look at McDonalds in India… ‘As the stand-off between anti-globalists and multinationals continues, India has become the last great battleground. If McDonald’s can succeed here, without beef, it can succeed anywhere, so the reasoning goes. To woo customers, McDonald’s has devised a unique marketing strategy. India is the only country in the world where McDonald’s does not offer beef. With 140m Indian Muslims, pork is off the menu, too. This leaves chicken and mutton – the ingredient of McDonald’s flagship “Maharaja Mac”. There are other additions to the menu specifically designed to lure India’s middle-class – such as the tantalising McAloo Tikki burger. All foods are strictly segregated into vegetarian and non-vegetarian lines. Even the mayonnaise has no egg in it, so as not to offend India’s vegan sensibilities.’

[comics] The Slush Factory has a interesting interview with Evan Dorkin… ‘This entire industry is made up of fans… very few people come into comics form outside of comics. We get the best creators, retailers, marketers, and salesmen that the comics fan base can provide. That’s limiting a lot of people. Graphic designers, we are getting some of the best people… sometimes we get some terrific people. Most of the time we get “I was always a fan, I always wanted to have my own store. I was always a fan, I always wanted to have my own comic.”‘

[comics] Kathleen reads Watchmen for the first time… ‘On Christmas Day 2000 I finally read Watchmen for the first time. I tried to stretch out the book over several days but I found I couldn’t put it down for more than an hour at a time. I became anxious and snappy whenever anybody interrupted me from my reading for matters as inconsequential as eating. That’s because ten years late I have learned what everyone else in the world already knew: Watchmen is fucking good.’ I was lucky (old) enough to pick up the original issues. There was the longest delay between issue 11 and 12. Waiting for that last issue almost killed me…

[weblogs] The Haddock Directory redesigns…. it’s been around for yonks… and I’ve been ripping it off for links for as long as I can remember. ‘This directory is compiled from URLs posted to the mostly-London-based Haddock mailing list since September 1996. There are currently 8129 links (not counting those known to be broken) and each is accompanied by a comment from the person who posted it.’

[war is hell] Playing with Cobras comes up with a great link covering the life and work of Sven Hassel…. writer of many great books about War…. ‘Sven Hassel’s novels have a major effect on one’s outlook vis-à-vis life. Take a quick read through one of the books and you will find that you suddenly have absolutely no respect for authority, a rabid distrust of anything political, religious or dull and a healthy craving for beer, cheating at cards and very large ladies. Your culinary skills will suddenly be in great demand and you will never want to go to sleep again. You will not consider Saving Private Ryan to be in any way a realistic interpretation of war.’

[LinkMachineOff]. Right… Happy Christmas everybody…especially to all of LMG’s regular readers and anybody coming off Google searching for websites dealing with nude pictures of Amanda Holden or Charlie Dimmock. You won’t find any of that here but I extend my hand in Christmas greetings…. as long as you wash yours first. That’s it. Back next week….

[weblogs] Luke’s Christmas Message: ‘…a bodypainted woman wearing a large box walked up. Some vampy number was played, and she proceeded to take off the big box, revealing three smaller, strategically-placed boxes which were, in turn, removed to reveal naught but naked flesh. All well and good. It wasn’t until she pulled a yard of tinsel out of herself that I started to worry.’ :) :)