Something for the Weakened

Merry evensong lads and otherwise. Thought I ought to pass on the news that the site may be unavailable at some points over the next week or so. My ever helpful administrator Rob (Uber) (wish he’d update the blinking thing) is in the process of moving things to a different provider or some other such technical gubbins what I don’t quite understand. Should you be unable to get through, here are some things that have made me chuckle online recently which should at least keep you busy during any downtime we might experience.

A few days ago, artist extraordinaire Eddie Campbell pointed his readers in the direction of Robot McGee Explains Fine Art. Campbell’s blog will probably only be of interest to readers of a comical mind bend, but Robot McGee is worth a look by all. The site features the titular mechanoid distilling various fine art pieces down to a simple explanatory sentence. Well, I found it funny anyway.

Another comics related blog I’ve taken to frequenting belongs to King Hell proprieter Rick Veitch. There he’s recently posted a fake advert. he created which originally appeared on the back cover of the first issue of the 1963 mini-series from image. I remember laughing like a drain throughout a forty-five minute bus ride when I first read it, and took it as evidence of Alan Moore’s comic genius (for it was he who wrote the comic itself). I was surprised to discover Veitch was the actual writer and feel that linking here assuages any guilt I may have felt.

Graham Linehan’s work should be familiar to you all, what with Father Ted, Black Books and The I.T. Crowd beiong the most weel known. I’m not entirely sure if this is his work or if he’s just pinched it from somewhere, but I found it utterly hilarious.

Finally, I seem to remember that I mentioned Brendan McCarthy a couple of months ago, bemoaning the lack of a proper web presence. A couple of days later I discovered that someone was now irregularly blogging on his behalf. I’d urge you to bookmark that one, as the images that fall out of the man’s head can be truly spectacular. One that’s no longer linked from the homepage can be found here which I only mention due to the strange resonance it has with my own family name.

And yes, I did balls up the post slightly, so please ignore the muck situated directly under here. See you on the other side!

http://www.robofdoom.co.uk/uber-rob/ http://www.rickveitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/boleo.jpg http://fineartexplained.blogspot.com/ http://brendanmccarthy.co.uk/uploaded_images/TURVYAVATAR-723135.jpg http://www.brendanmccarthy.co.uk/ http://eddiecampbell.blogspot.com/ http://whythatsdelightful.wordpress.com/ http://whythatsdelightful.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/the-pi-of-rick-astley/

For the first time in nary a decade, I’m trying to exist without an alarm in the mornings. For as long as I care to remember, I’ve been awoken every weekday morning by tiny TV switching itself on. Back in the days when there were remotely watchable things on at such an unpleasant hour, I would gaze at them through the sleep in my eyes or at least listen to whatever drivel was being spouted (I can’t actually think of any examples of this elusive ‘good’ breakfast television (Big? Perhaps), but feel sure there was some at some point). Up until recently I’d just hit ‘Mute’ and listen to The Today Programme. Nothing prepares you for the day better than the sound of Humphries disagreeing with any point put to him. But this era is at a close, for the time being at least, as I usher in an age of time keeping gone commando. Well it nearly works as a metaphor, so I’m going to stick with it. What you going to do about it?

The Why;- my diddy television has been put out to pasture (temporarily), as I’ve had to move in slightly larger telly. This one has no alarm system, so the chance to be woken by BBC Breakfast is no longer viable, save through a system of ropes and pulleys that would make Heath Robinson blush. My stereo is also bereft of any clockage, so I can’t be conned into conciousness by Naughtie coming in my ear. I possess a very aged alarm clock, so strangely battered that it has to be kept at ninety degree angles to fully function. I could use this, were it not for the alarm itself, which woke me for many years while I was still at school and is now ingrained in my mind as one of the single most unpleasant noises on earth (beaten only by chalk on a blackboard and the sound of chewing dentures). The annoyance the alarm sets off within me may well be the cause of it’s strange battering. There’s also the alarm on my phone, but it’s frankly rubbish and will only end up being as Pavlovianly frustrating as the other one in the end, so I’m not going to go down that road either. Leaving me with no alarms. So how will I survive?

The How;- no one gives a shit when I arrive at work.

Really?;- well, alright I might exaggerate a little there, but it’s not far from the truth. And for the past six months I’ve been awakened most mornings before any alarm sounded. Living on the ground floor, in the front room of a house on a moderately busy road means pedestrian and automated travel normally starts to be loud enough to wake from my fitful slumber by 8:30, if not before. Combine that with the fact that everyone else in the place has to be out before me, me being directly next to the front door, means I’m pretty much guarenteed consciousness before 9:00. On top of this, there’s the wooden floor of the room above me, upon which I can hear most any activity. Oh yes, any. No, regular readers, it’s not anywhere near as bad as the rut-fests documented around these parts around twelve months ago, though it’s still a little off putting. Anyway, as I say, my consciousness guarenteed, I feel an alarmless existence should not be a hard or late one.

In Practice;- I tried this for three days last week. I was only ‘late’ on one of these days. There might be some glitches, but I’m sure they can be worked over. That or I shall be sleeping an awful lot more.

I’ve been wasting far too much time over the past couple of weeks trying to locate somewhere from which I can download Simon Munnery’s League Against Tedium radio series. I know that it has been out there in the past – I’ve found plenty of dead Sendspace links which has been hopelessly annoying. I imagine it’s available at a number of members only file sharing sites, but having nothing myself to offer to said sites, or any desire to leave my computer on to seed all day, I never really imagine that they’ll allow me on long enough for my rubbishy connection to allow me to find what I’m looking for. I have however managed to find a glimmer of hope amongst my narked failure. It’s here at what appear to be forums for Andy Hamilton’s always excellent Old Harry’s Game. I don’t know, I’ve not had time to look at the homesite as I’ve spent too long perusing this one page of the forum. And why, you may ask. As it’s teeming with links to dozens of wonderful archive radio classics. I, in a single evening, have now managed to find links to all three series of The Masterson Inheritence and have leads on the first series of Down The Line (which is currently commercially available, so I might skip that on moral grounds). Again, there are dead links amongst the gems, but I plan on spending a few more hours seeing what I can pinch from the ‘public domain’. Which most of these sort of are. Until the BBC set there whole archive free for the nation to plunder whensoever they may wish, the majority of these recordings nestle in a sort of legal grey area. There’s no way that you can buy them from Auntie, so you aren’t forcing the participants into poverty. The majority are probably home recordings, making this the digital equivelant of doing a tape to tape for a chum of what you heard on’t radio last night. Except for the ones currently available from the Beeb’s shop. Should you have any qualms about depriving Charlie Higson of his forty pence from the sale of something, have a look there first. I might.

Seen those new direct line adverts? The ones with the stuff exploding in slow motion with a pleasingly ambient soundtrack? Did it seem familiar in any way? Probably not, though it has in fact been entirely ripped off from the last scene of Micaelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point. Have a look. Don’t worry if you haven’t seen the film, this bit has no relevance to any previous plots apart from the fact hat the girl survives. If you skip along to about 3:30 then things do start blowing up, but if you make straight for about 5:00 you’ll find where the admen have been plagiarising from. And the music they’ve pinched, homogenised, jingleified and slapped onto the commercial? The original’s actually a track called Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up by an obscure beat combo called The Pink Floyd. Only ever officially released on the soundtrack to he film, the piece eventually evolved into One Of These Days off of Meddle. So if you had been enjoying the advertisements, please stop it now.

While I’ve got it here, I might as well see if this works. I shall either discover a new found ability to embed things or we will all have the pleasure of looking at some unpleasant computery text. Here we go then – How was that then?

Yes, there probably ought to be some punctuation in the title of this post, but frankly you should all be paying homage to my arse anyway.