Monday 31 October 2005

The Big Book of Calvin and Hobbes

Two articles on the recent Calvin and Hobbes collection. The first indicates that the publishers made a blunder in not publishing enough copies.

The second article is a rebuke by the publishers’ CEO who insists that the article was unfair and inaccurate.

* Andrews McMeel feels the book may be slightly underpriced at $150 because of the cost involved in its production.

* First three weeks on BookScan shows unit sales of 34,329.

* A 250,000-copy print run is confirmed.

* The print run had to be set in December 2004 because a commitment to the paper needs was required at that time.

* We also discover many details about the physical materials that went into that initial print run.

* Total sales of The Complete Far Side: 326,000 copies.

Hand to God That Was Great

Last night’s episode of Arrested Development was absolutely top drawer. All I knew about season two from the beginning was that Buster’s hand gets bitten off by a seal and is replaced by a claw. This was that very episode.

Michael spends this episode attempting to discover if Maggie Lizer’s baby is really his or if that is just the latest in her insane series of lies.

It’s amazing how many jokes the writers can pack into a show 22 minutes long.

The episode was jam packed with hilarious moments.

The reveal that the ‘Welcome Home Buster’ sign was actually a doctored version of the sign from a previous episode which read ‘You’re Killing me Buster’.

The seal with the yellow bow tie.

The digs at the Simpsons’ ‘geek writers’

“Sacremende”

The ‘very literal’ doctor

“What a spanking I gave her in court today.”

GOB’s ‘terminally ill cats’.

The gay cops ‘making out’.

The flashback to the bit we didn’t see last week with Maggie dropping her fake pregnancy belly.

The result of Buster’s salute.

Buster massaging Uncle Oscar while forgetting he now has a hook for a hand.

“Is this our little bundle of... two gay cops’ baby?”

The hot cops music at the end.

Perhaps the funniest thing though was how George Michael walked through the episode with such a brilliant bewildered look on his face. From Lucille at the hospital, distraught over Buster hugging him and crying “You’re the baby of the family now” to his Uncle Buster clinging onto him with his hook hand to his Dad almost getting him shot dead by insisting he break into Maggie’s apartment to him having to sit beside the kissing cops.

The season two DVD should be arriving through my door any day now. I cannot wait.






Beard Contest Week Five

Alasdair suggests it could be the last week of the beard contest. Ooooh, someone is weakening. £15 in the pot and 5 weeks of growth. Personally I could do with trimming mine a good bit, but that's obviously not within the rules.


Friday 28 October 2005

Go on Laugh

Here’s a couple of comedy stories. The first is on the Comedy Store Players and their 20th birthday. The second story is an interview with Shelley Berman, who plays Larry’s Father on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Puskas Auction

A further update on the story of Ferenc Puskas. His memorabilia has been saved from going on auction by a company purchasing the items in order to set up a Hungarian Hall of Fame. Good news since it will still raise money for his treatment but it means that all the items will stay in one place and be enjoyed by other people as well.

The Slow Wonder

I’ve been playing The New Pornographers quite a bit recently and I think I mentioned that a few weeks back. NP mainman Carl (AC) Newman released a solo album, The Slow Wonder, last year and I’ve been listening to that a lot recently as well. You can hear a couple of mp3s from it here. It’s well worth a spin.

Thursday 27 October 2005

Cheery Bananas Gold: Championship Worthless Loser

Back in the early days when Fraser was introduced to Championship Manager it was widely predicted that he would ‘never write another word again.’ How wrong we all were when the game inspired him to knock out this nugget of Cheery B Gold.

Premier Managers Get Game
Computer software designers Eidos, makers of popular football management game “Championship Manager”, have begun designing a game for real Premier League managers to play themselves.

“Championship Worthless Loser” will give the likes of Martin O’Neill and Dick Advocaat the chance to experience life as the kind of useless tosser who spends every spare minute he has sitting at a computer pretending to be in charge of a major football club.

While fans of the popular sports game can transfer players, take training and oversee match performance, the new game will include options like “Go To My Rubbish Job”, “Wank Off To Porn” and “Cry”.

Testing the new game is Hibernian Manager Alex McLeish:
“It’s absolutely fantastic. They’ve thought of everything. Take the other day for example. I spent the day taking my in-form side through a jovial training session, which was fine, but you need to unwind afterwards, don’t you?

I rushed home, cranked up the computer game and found to my delight that I had been given an official warning at work because of my attitude problem. I simply chose the “ Drink To Kill The Pain” option and was fired the next day for turning up hung-over! After training tomorrow I’m going to have to “Explain Actions To Furious Wife”. It’s brilliant.”

Aberdeen’s Ebbe Skovdal agrees: “You can choose from a number of career options like “Call-Centre”, “Biscuit Factory” and “Unemployed”. Currently, I’m “Casual Part Time At The Royal Mail” whilst trying to  “Realise Rapidly Diminishing Potential” in my spare time.  

It was all going fine until I accidentally chose the “Accept Phone Call From Disappointed Parents” option.

Now I have to choose between “Apply For Soul Destroying Full Time Job” or  “ Turn To Heroin”. It’s terrific fun.”
The game is expected to be released in time for next year’s winter break with the first fifty lucky customers set to receive a bonus CD, “50 Great Songs About Failure”.

Wednesday 26 October 2005

Rivers Runs Back to School

This is another post that would normally find a home at Tommy’s site, but here it is here. Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo is going back to school next year to complete his Harvard degree.

And here is his MySpace site where there is an extensive blog.

Cross Swords with Kiss


Here’s a blog post by someone who attended Eugene Mirman’s recent shows in New York. Seems that he’s crossed swords with Kiss.

You listened to his album yet Nicola?

Tuesday 25 October 2005

Drawn to the Truth

Here's an interview with the cartoonist Joe Sacco. He started off as an autobiographical cartoonist before focusing on more political work, like Palestine, The Fixer and his latest War's End.

When is the Watershed not the Watershed?


I’m noticing that the BBC have been chided by Ofcom for showing Pulp Fiction ten minutes after the watershed. Apparently, the scenes of “…seriously offensive language, graphic violence and drug abuse” were too lurid at the time it was broadcast.

So what’s the point in the watershed then? If there are still limits to what can be broadcast after it, why have it at all?

It’s like Larry David’s phone call cut off time. Is after 10.30 ok on a weeknight?

Of course, there are no clear guidelines set. So, Ofcom aren’t telling the BBC specifically what to do, just not to do what they haven’t been clear about again. Understand? Of course you do.

I’m no huge fan of the BBC, but this is on the hoof regulation that ill-behoves the broadcasting industry and does the viewers (a whole 9 of whom complained about Tarantino’s classic) no favours whatsoever.

If a broadcaster wants to show a film with adult content after an imposed nine o’clock cut off point, then that should be the end of the argument and viewers should be prepared to take responsibility for their own television consumption in any case.

The bleating cretins who actually take the time to call up and complain about a piece of art because it has a swear word in it or to express some other, equally absurd grievance annoy me no end, and exemplify a weak-minded, coddled section of the public who expect others to do their thinking for them. Maybe one day we will learn that these "people" are best left utterly ignored.

Where is Bill Watterson?

Here’s an article about Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes. He hasn’t made a public appearance in 15 years and as Watterson himself was unavailable for interview, the article has to content itself with speaking to his parents.

The photograph of him used in the article is almost 20 years old.

The new anthology has now made the New York Times best sellers list as this extract attests.

On the hardcover miscellaneous list, "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes," a thick anthology of Bill Watterson's comic strips, makes its debut at No. 4 - surprising only because, at a list price of $150, it is one of the most expensive books ever to make the Times list. Watterson retired the strip in 1996, and it has clearly been missed. In an interview posted recently on his publisher's Web site, the reclusive Watterson gave some laconic answers to questions posted by fans.

One of them asked what led him to resist merchandising his characters. His response: "For starters, I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo. . . . Actually, I wasn't against all merchandising when I started the strip, but each product I considered seemed to violate the spirit of the strip, contradict its message and take me away from the work I loved."


Here’s an appreciation of Calvin and Hobbes.

And here’s another nice article that tells the story of the day Bill Watterson told Steven Spielberg ‘no.’

Monday 24 October 2005

The Wolf Parade

I recently got hold of Apologies to The Queen Mary by The Wolf Parade and I can heartily recommend it.

Another Canadian band they're being tipped by some as 'The Next Arcade Fire,' who, incidentally, they started out by supporting.

They don't seem to have a proper website as such but on their MySpace site you can hear two cracking tunes in Shine a Light and You Are a Runner and I am My Father's Son. Go listen, I'm sure you'll like them.

Can You Trust Wikipedia?

Since I use Wikipedia a lot to source stuff and to provide links, this article in The Guardian interested me. In Can You Trust Wikipedia? they have picked up on founder Jimbo Wales’s comments that some of their entries are ‘a horrific embarrassment’ and asked some experts to assess entries in their chosen fields.

What it seems to me is that the denser the subject the less likely the quality is to be high. I’d always use it as a decent starting point.

As it’s the internet you can never trust just one source, it’s always best to look around for two or three and see if the information matches and if it does make sure it’s not just been a direct lift from source A to source B.

This entry from The Guardian’s blog goes into the story in more detail and provides several other links.

Beard Contest Week Five

We're into the fifth week of our beard contest now and of course it's down to just the two contestants. Alasdair and myself. There seems to be no let up in this even although both beards are attracting comments from friends and strangers alike.



"Go Get the Palestinians Their State..."

It's not often we get to quote God in a 'Pish headline. Here’s a piece from The Guardian by Norma Percy producer of the documentary Elusive Peace which is on BBC2 tonight at 9pm. This is the programme that quotes President Bush saying he had received a message from God to “go and end the tyranny in Iraq”.

LA Tommy

Tommy is now in Los Angeles on holiday and as such he has set up a holiday blog. So go visit Hollywood Heavy Sedation. So far he’s seen a band from Glasgow play live and is revelling in the number of vegan restaurants there are. He has some nice LA and San Francisco links too.

Sunday 23 October 2005

Dandys Rule OK?

I'm just back in from seeing The Dandy Warhols at the Carling Academy. They were really good. Although promoting their new album they also played the best stuff from Come Down and 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia.

It's the first time I've been at the Academy for a concert (I saw Paul Merton there in March) and it's certainly no Barras, but the sound was all right and I thought it was a reasonable venue.

The songs I enjoyed the most were the infamous Bohemian Like You and a cracking cover of The Stones' The Last Time. Lindsay, who had seen them the last time they played thought they were much better tonight, though Jo who also saw them then wasn't sure. They were pretty solid though and as Courtney Taylor himself said played 'hit after hit'.

My only disappiontment was that keyboard player Zia McCabe didn't do this. She did however swap a fan her harmonica for his lion rampant flag.

Struggling for a Headline?

According to The New York Post Saturday Night Live is worse than it's ever been. Though they've been through this before and indeed they could have thought of a more original headline.

In this great book about the show, producer Steve Higgins says that the 'it isn't as good as it used to be' thing "probably started on show two in 1975." And Tom Hanks points out the 'Saturday Night Dead' headline had been done ad nauseum by the time he was first on.

This is a feature on the sketch group Saturday Night Rewritten, who meet each Sunday and rewrite the previous night's SNL performing their show that night. The seem to be getting themselves a reputation for being even better than the real thing.

And here is SNR writer Dan McCoy's thoughts on both. And fellow SNR writer Rob Bates offers his thoughts on all three articles.

Here's Wikipedia's history of Saturday Night Live.

Saturday 22 October 2005

The Wire Season Two

After I got back from the cinema last night I finished off the second series of The Wire. Season 2 has not been a disappointment. It picks up with most of the same characters from the first season, but adds a whole lot more. It brilliantly handled mutliple storylines and characters throughout the 12 hour long episodes.

There were plenty of little twists and turns and a good few surprises all through the season. The cast especially Dominic West, Chris Bauer, Clarke Peters and Michael K. Willaims were superb.

It's a much more studied show than something like The Shield. The fact that a lot of the crimefighting comes from survelliance and wire taps means that there's a lot less busting down doors and pinning suspects to walls, though there's a little bit of that as well.

I totally reccomend it to anyone who enjoys their American drama. I'm now counting the days for the release of season 3 on DVD. To tide me over in the meantime I may content myself with creator David Simon's earlier series on drug dealing The Corner.

Serenity Now

I went to see Serenity last night, so I can now join the debate. I haven't yet seen the TV series Firefly, though having just bought it I will soon. So, as a stand alone film I really enjoyed it.

Since I'll be addressing Fizz and Tommy's previous comments I guess this post contains slight SPOILERS.

It has a harsher tone than I was expecting and yeah I was surprised that the wisecracking leader of the ship was also a ruthless bastard, that did seem an odd dichotomy.

As for the deaths, I expected a couple of cast deaths somewhere along the line. The film starts off quite brutally, so the tone was set then. Why that tone was set though? I think with TV you can be a braver, if an angle isn't working you can always make changes further in the run, but with a movie you have to lay your cards out a lot earlier.

The Reavers looked a wee bit scary, but yeah as scary as a member of Slipknot coming at you outside the kebab shop.

It had a lot of the elements in it that made Star Wars such a success, with Mal being more Han Solo than Luke Skywalker and with a young precocious woman at the centre of their troubles.

My opinions may change when I see the TV series, but on the whole I'd say it's well worth going to see.

I went with a woman who screamed and waved her arms about at every violent or surprise moment, and there were quite a few.

Friday 21 October 2005

Weak Minded Joke Thieves

This is a really good post from Joe Rogan about joke thievery. I’ve been watching Rogan recently on my Seasons 1 & 2 DVD of NewsRadio and at the tail end of the second series his character is really starting to come into his own.

But the topic here is joke thievery. He talks about why he wanted to be a comedian so much the great parts of doing it and why he despises joke thieves.

He centres on the infamous thievery of one Denis Leary. There’s also been a recent discussion about this on the Chortle messageboards. On Chortle you’ll see some people sticking up for Leary in amongst folk calling him a thief. Here though Rogan has nothing but disdain for Denis Leary and the material he stole from Bill Hicks.

Joe Rogan also has a MySpace site.

Son I’m Odd, Domino's?

Here is an interview with Demetri Martin from the New York blog Gothamist.

He's currently performing his show from this year's Edinburgh Festival - These Are Jokes "a nice solid hour of high LPM" in New York.

The interview also reveals that his next hour long show will be called Dr. Ernest Parrot Presents Demetri Martin. And if you're still unsure if this guy is a genius, read the bit about the Demetrionary.

"I wake up and the first thing I do is play guitar and keyboard, just in case I got better at music while I was sleeping."

Rainbow Tom

Alasdair has been turning this beard contest into an Alex Ferguson/Arsene Wenger style mind game. Or he's been trying at least. He sounds like he's ready to reach for the razor and whip his scruffy beard off.

However he'd like to intimdate me enough to shave mine off first. His latest attempt is mocking up this picture and exciting Landry so much with it that the big daftie might fall off his chair.

I hope you enjoy the picture.

He is Dave Gorman

Dave Gorman’s show in Florida has been postponed due to the forthcoming hurricane. However that’s just a good excuse to go visit his pretty dense website. On it you can discover the history to his famed stage shows, why Smirnoff Ice doesn’t have an vodka in it in America and why there’s no sign language for the word ‘coelacanth’.

Through a link on his site I have discovered that there are only 44 Thomas Brogans in the UK and the Alasdair Rothin that sits next to me at work is the only one in the country.

Thursday 20 October 2005

Tokion's Creativity Now Conference

This is a story about a comedy sketch writing forum that recently took place chaired by David Cross. On the panel were Dave Chappelle’s writing partner Neil Brennan along with two members of renowned American sketch troupes Stella and The State. It is however more photographs than story.

Time to move on?


You know how sometimes you act without thinking? I do it often, mostly to my detriment. You always hear people who have performed heroics saying stuff like: “Well, I’m not really a hero, I just acted without thinking, instinct kick it de blah blah…”,

Just a couple of minute ago at work I opened up a task I was supposed to do. So horrified was I by the prospect of having to do something so mind numbingly dull, I briefly considered cleaning a dirty spoon I have lying on my desk.

By the time I had told myself “Don’t be daft, you’re not skiving off so you can clean a spoon!!” I had instinctively shut down my computer, presumably so that the spoon cleaning I had briefly considered could commence in earnest. That's instinct for you. It’s getting to the point where ANYTHING seems better than my job. Ugh.

Cheery Bananas Gold: Saddam

Since Saddam Hussain and his indignant greeting faced murderous coupon has been in the news in the last day or two, I thought we should feature some of the Saddam related Cheery B funnies. So that's what today's Cheery Bananas Gold is all about.

Saddam Surveillance Photo “Probably Fake” Say Experts

With the Government embarrassed last year by news that their much vaunted “Dossier On Iraq” was largely some guys University Thesis from 1991, it appears that more so-called evidence against Saddam Hussein’s toppled regime has also been gleaned from homework, this time from a British student.

Primary school teacher Lala McGione claims an image recently used by the Government, apparently showing Hussein himself at a secret munitions factory on the outskirts of Baghdad, was in fact a painting done by one of her students, four year old Rebecca St. Swithens.

Experts today confirmed that the surveillance photograph was in fact the work of four year old Rebecca after extensive testing.

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Revealed: Saddam Planned To "Target The Fat"
Chilling new evidence emerged today that deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein planned a major offensive on portly westerners.

Swarthy nutjob Saddam hoped to make millions by enticing westerners to Baghdad to sample his "Saddam Slim" diet plan, but documents (click on image, left) discovered in Saddam's plush hole in the ground hideaway reveal the catch behind the outlandish promises of weight loss.

Even so, several desperate slimmers expressed dismay after seeing their chance to lose several stone in a matter of seconds disappear following the recent arrest of the brutal dictator/romantic novelist.
"I grew so fat I had my jaws wired shut," says wobbly weightwatcher Taloola Manbasket.
"But I still managed to gain weight by drinking chocolate milk shakes through a big straw and having expensive cake enimas. My husband paid for them. If he hadn't, I would have told everyone down the village pub what I caught him doing with his nephew's ferrets. Now it occurs to me that if I'd travelled to Iraq and had my head cut off for being a brazen Western whore, I'd have lost weight instantly and I would now be without the fat face I just can't stop stuffing!"

In related news, former Iraqi national football mascot Beheado has been replaced by Invadie The Freedom Pooch, in a move seen by many as pro-coalition.

Beheado, whose headless figure used to entertain Iraqi children by showering them with fig flavoured blood from a gaping neck wound would appear at half time during matches with less than five scheduled live executions.

Invadie, who will apparently "act American...", is however expected to buck the recent US behavioural trend of blowing foreigners to fuck before telling them how to live.

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Hello, He's Eugene

Eugene Mirman writes a blog in The Village Voice, called Hello, I’m Eugene. In it he tells of what happens to you if you send him hate mail, posts a video of himself as a secret agent and how to find the materials needed to fight an Ogre in Edinburgh.

He posts a lot of his short films and little clips of his stand-up. Here's him talking about his recent Edinburgh Festival dates.

"I was walking up the Royal Mile to my venue and saw three teen punk-rock girls with cardboard protest signs that read, "Go Home!" I understand a certain youthful distaste for tourists and khakis, and it is infuriating to see an American High School chorus, side by side with a tattooed Australian sword juggler.

Still, it was funny that they were fed up with the biggest fringe arts festival in the world, and not, say, war or child alcoholism (a real problem in Edinburgh, and something American officials should bring up when people accuse our public schools of failing).

These girls were like, "Fuck you, people from all over the world pumping shitloads of money into our economy to support weird theater, and help fund our semi-socialist government. Go home! This very touristy block is where we come to break shit, including—ideas, bottles, and dress codes."

Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show

This seems more like a link for Tommy’s site, but here’s a story about Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show. Big Vinny puts on a show that features a few of his little known buddies.

They also have a MySpace site, with blogs etc.

I think it’s also worth mentioning that one of the show’s stars Ahmed Ahmed is about to embark on another tour the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour.

The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour is a show created by 3 of the top Middle Eastern/American comics in the world today - Ahmed Ahmed (Punk’d, Farhenheit 9/11, The Wall Street Journal), Aron Kader (Premium Blend, The Shield, Newsweek) and Maz Jobrani (Friday After Next, The Interpreter, Curb Your Enthusiasm). Like “The Real Kings of Comedy” and “The Blue Collar Tour”, this show features comics who have similar ethnic backgrounds.

However, what makes this show so important is the timing. Given how Middle Easterners are portrayed today in the media, these three comics, who have either been born in the US or grown up here, have taken it upon themselves to show a different face of their people. Having come up at Mitzi Shore’s World Famous Comedy Store in Los Angeles where legends like Sam Kinison, Jim Carrey and David Letterman came up, these comics cross over well to the mainstream.

Sarah Silverman and Ironic Racism

Here’s a feature on the stand-up comedian Sarah Silverman. She recently featured in the film The Aristocrats and was one of the most talked about participants, due to her demeanour being far too serious for some people. Her bit in that film is discussed in the article.

A former Saturday Night Live cast member, she has a nice line in ‘ironic racism’, but see for yourself as several of her routines are outlined in the feature.

"I, this past summer, sent fifteen really fun cowl-neck sweaters to this village in Africa, in really fun colors—expecting nothing, by the way—and they culled their money together, whatever they call it, and bought a stamp and sent me a postcard thanking me, and it said thank you and that they had enough sweaters for every single member of the village to get one and that they were delicious.”

Wednesday 19 October 2005

Beard Contest - John is Out!

The Beard Contest is now down to just two contestants, under pressure from his girlfriend John caved and reached for the razor. John lasted a paltry 25 days. I had hoped that folk would hold out for a couple of months before they shaved.

If you see the teapot in the background you'll realise that John was always more interested in holding tea-parties for his dollies than he was in manly pursuits such as beard growing.

The battle is now on between myself and Alasdair.

Tuesday 18 October 2005

Cheery Bananas Gold: The War

Around four years ago you may remember a wee bit of bother between some terrorists, the US and Afghanistan. Cheery Bananas responded to the situation with laughs and plenty of them. Today's Cheery Bananas Gold is a selection of our war articles.

Here’s One to Keep the Home Fires Burning For, eh Girls (and Gay Lads)?

Sadly, Soldier X’s name is classified as is his unit, his rank and his “vital statistics” - sorry girls (and gay lads)!

However, It hasn’t stopped the burly hunk from starring in “Special Forces Bloopers!” a fantastic new out-takes video featuring all those hilarious botched US Special Forces operations you’ve heard about but never believed were really true, including outrageous footage of “Operation Restore Hope” in Somalia which left 10,000 people dead*! “It’s all in there,” our six packed stunner told us, “The whole thing was a lot of fun to make.”

Well, all we can say is if we were going to be slaughtered by soldiers from a brutal foreign army, we would want the “payload” delivered by you Soldier X, right girls (and gay lads)?

* CIA Estimate

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US Fly-Boy Disciplined After “Cock Bombing”


US Airforce pilot Nance Durggen was yesterday relieved of his command of a US $6BN Stealth Bomber after he admitted to bombing the shape of a “spunking cock” on a military target in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

“I was just so damn angry,” said Captain Durggen (44). “That, whatistname, Bin Ladder guy, put a blight on my country and I wanted to do the same to his, really rub his face in it, and this...this seemed the best way”.

Psychiatric help will be offered to the airman after it emerged that this was not the first time he had used the image of a climaxing phallus to express his rage. “He spray-painted a “thingie” on the front door of my house when he found out I was fooling around.” claimed former girlfriend Yasmin Munch. “ I thought little of it at this time and now this. Who would have thought?”
Durggan’s Commanding officer Colonel Flip Dipper admitted he felt partially responsible for the incident. “I suppose I should have noticed that there was something wrong with Nance when he kept suggesting that we change the nickname of his squadron to “The Spunking Cocks”, expressed a desire to be known within the squadron as “Spunking Cock” and repeatedly defaced his airbase with crude drawings of a spunking cock. I thought it was all high spirits but looking back, I guess I just misread the signs.”

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Nation’s Doom-Saying Cranks Bask In New Found Respect


Britain’s top bookmakers have slashed the odds of evil prevailing over good, with evil now a strong favourite to triumph in the eternal battle for the soul of humankind. Both William Hill and Ladbrokes have installed evil, regarded as a dark-horse outsider until the world recently went mental, as favourite after it emerged that Osama Bin Laden may have access to nuclear and chemical weapons.

Cheeky Little Flutter on Evil
“Things may be looking black for mankind,” Tipster Hugh Stovvies told us, “But a cheeky little flutter on evil could make it a great day for your adventurous punter.” Meanwhile Britain’s thousands of doom-saying cranks are reporting a marked downturn in being spat on and laughed at since it emerged that US terrorist target Bin Laden may have a nuclear capability.

With a nuclear holocaust looking increasingly likely, sandwich board wearing “end of the world is nigh” nut-jobs are basking in the grudging respect of people now convinced that they were right all along.

“I used to laugh in the face of people who would tell me my unclean soul was going to hell if I didn’t repent,” said office manager Jemima Trugwad. “Now I’m gathering as many leaflets as possible about how Jesus can save me before we’re all killed and it’s too late.” Deranged homeless loon Frank Pie has been babbling fire and brimstone nonsense outside his local Safeway for twenty years and is delighted he’s finally being listened to. “I’m not one to say I told you so…” he laughed, before threatening to stab us for “looking funny” at the tinfoil helmet he used “...to communicate with the Almighty” .

Puskas Cash

Here's a wee update to a post from last week. The organisers of the charity match in aid of Ferenc Puskas have announced that they are to pay an additional £56,000 into his trust fund. Still an awful lot less than Real Madrid's reported appearance fee of £892,000.

The Gas Suck Ass and Other Gripes


I seem to be having a wee streak of bad luck right now, not with anything too serious; technology mostly.

Firstly our boiler at home, which we paid a fair amount of scratch for is knackered less than 2 months after it has been installed. No biggie, despite the no heat no hot water thing.

The manufacturers are coming out to see it today to try to fix the botch job Scottish Gas made of fitting it. My fairly unforgiving wife is on the case. She’ll kick ass if she has to.

Also, my portable hard drive gave up the ghost after a week and a half of action. I’m in the complex and arcane process of returning it. I lost maybe 50 Gbs worth of TV shows and movies, so a bit of a bummer.

Hopefully this is the third thing and my run is broken.

The systems here at work are kaput, under sustained attack from a spammer apparently.

While this isn’t exactly bad luck for me just now, as I have nothing to do, it will eventually catch up with me when the systems come back on line and I have two days worth of work to catch up on.

Ho Hum. Nothing you can do about a run of bad luck but ride it out I suppose.

Incidentally, my new favourite snack chocolate appears to be Maltesers. I had previously favoured the Mars Bar.

Forgotten Silver

I was talking with my friend Jade, who resides in Auckland about New Zealand films. She mentioned the earlier works of Peter Jackson and I was reminded about a film of his that I saw a few years ago.

Fogrotten Silver is a documentary about a legendary (and forgotten) New Zealand film-maker called Colin MacKenzie. Except it isn't. It was a spoof, though wasn't presented that way when aired on New Zealand television.

My favourite bit in it was the story of his biblical epic whose only funders were the Russians, therefore it was turned into a pean to Communism.

This excellent website fills you in on the film and the furore it caused along with links to other articles about it.

Comically in 'Kleined'

Here’s a little bit on Jerry Seinfeld’s comedy hero Robert Klein and his upcoming 8th HBO special. It’s an interesting article where he discusses his objections to the use of profanity in comedy and has some criticisms of Chris Rock.

Klein influenced Seinfeld as it was only when Jerry saw him perform that he felt professional comedy was something he could do. Because Klein was funny but seemed like a real guy and not an expert performer like Jonathan Winters Jerry thought ‘I could do that.’

And while we’re on about Jerry, here’s a review of Jerry Seinfeld live in Denver.

Beat Jeremy Coon

Jeremy Coon is a movie producer. He produced Napoleon Dynamite. Rhys Southern was at college with Jeremy Coon. Rhys Southern speaks of himself as “somewhat of a genius”. He’s slightly put out that a lesser talent in his eyes should have produced a successful movie. So he’s set out to beat him. And beat him by the time their 2007 High School Reunion comes around. So he’s set up his Beat Jeremy Coon website.

Perhaps the most amusing thing on his site is the repeated attempts at analysing the flaws of Napoleon Dynamite.

Speaking of Napoleon Dynamite, did you know that in addition to writing and directing short films, Aaron Ruell who played Kip is also a photographer? Go have a look at his site.

Top 40 Magazine Covers

The American Society of Magazine Editors have chosen the top 40 magazine covers of the last 40 years.

This image of John Lennon and Yoko Ono photographed by Annie Leibovitz on the day he was killed tops the poll.

Other images included Muhammad Ali, The Twin Towers and Princess Diana.

Here is the complete list and the covers. The majority of the covers make some sort of social or political comment, from Esquire to Time, Life to Entertainment Weekly.

I imagine if there were a similar list of British magazine covers we’d have to choose from pictures of Jennifer Lopez or Abi Titmuss or Shell from Big Brother.

Glossy magazines in Britain were never really about good journalism, but in recent years you wouldn’t even have thought the two cohabited. The American versions of GQ and Esquire still feature journalistic articles but it’s very rare for the British versions to do so. Unless it’s some writer attempting to be a gambler or pass himself off as a big time playboy.

British glossy magazines are virtually indistinguishable from one another these days. Couldn’t one of them attempt to be a little more challenging? It’s a shame that British publishers have taken something that could have had great cultural significance and chosen to trash it, just to get a few more readers.

Art Spiegelman who designed the New Yorker cover with the silhouettes of the Twin Towers, (which you can see much clearer on the link) has a graphic art book called In The Shadow of No Towers, which you can pick up from bookstores. I say this cos I spent some time in Borders the other week looking at it.

Monday 17 October 2005

Cheery Bananas Gold: Filth Soup

Today's Cheery Bananas Gold comes from the mighty pen of Cheery B's resident cartoonist Iain Laurie. Then known simply as Iain Laurie he now rejoices under the moniker of One Neck. Or occasionally The Knight.

Anyway here's a selection of Iain'’s Filth Soup Cartoons. Cartoons of which he is now embarrassed, to see how rudimentary his drawing style was then. However I happen to think most of this era holds up pretty well to One Neck's stuff.

He drew a lot of this while at his desk at work and the Jimmy drawing in particular had me and several other people in fits of laughter while his superiors made their way over to see what all the commotion was about.







Beard Contest Week Four

So we begin the fourth week of our beard contest. Now down to just the three contestants and with the pot standing at £11 everyone is settling in to their new hairy faces.

Alasdair has been told his beard makes him look 'more hot' and John is confident that the beard will be in place at Christmas. So from below Alasdair, me, then John.



ID-iots


My main reason for being opposed to ID Cards remains the fact that the Government have no right to know where I am and what I'm doing every minute of the day.

Neither should they be able to deny me access to the NHS if I refuse to play along.


Of course not having a card that is a load of pish would also be a bonus.