[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[?].

[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.’

[comics] The greatest ever comic scandal: Photographic proof that Grant Morrison is Alan Moore! [Related Links: grant-morrison.com, TimeMachineGo]

[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.’

[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.”‘

[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.

[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.’

[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]

[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.”‘

[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’

[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.’

[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».’

[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] Dirk shows us the fundamental interconnectedness of all weblogs… ‘Captainfez.com contains a weblog. Duh.’ [via Plasticbag]

[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.]

[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.’

[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.’

[distractions] Fantastic Amateur Secret Radio Decoder Outfit [Shockwave] — designed by Chris Ware… [Related Links: Decoder Home Page]

[uk weblogs] Last night expressed as links: Interconnected, Netdyslexia, Threadnaught, Notsosoft, Playing With Cobras, LukeLog, Plasticbag, Popt Art [or is that Poptart? Should have asked!], EC, and Vavatch.

[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]

[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]

[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.’

[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… ]

[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.’

[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.’

[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.’

[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]

[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]

[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]

[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]