Tuesday, May 1, 2007, 12:13 AM
Camden High Street, Monday 12.12am
Hanover Street, Monday 4.05pm
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Friday, April 27, 2007, 12:19 AM
I am very pleased and excited to report that this site can now carry YouTube videos without having to link to other sites. No time to dig out anything novel at this point, but I thought I would kick things off by posting my favourite movie moment, taken from the peerless 'This is Spinal Tap'. I have possibly laughed more at one or two other movie moments, but this one has the most staying power. At least you will understand it next time someone tells you that a device can be turned to 11.[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Wednesday, April 25, 2007, 12:53 AM
As newspapers rail against gang culture, police try to take knives off the street, and shopping precinct managers try vainly to ban kids in 'gang' look from their premises, it seems that hoodie culture is here to stay. What is quite interesting is that these gangs have actually borrowed the hoodie look from mother nature.
As anyone who has handled cobras will tell you (I haven't yet got round to it), a cobra without its hood up is a relatively unthreatening animal. The moment it switches to 'hoodie mode', then any creature that knows what's good for it should get well out of the way. The hood makes it somehow look bigger, more daunting and threatening. It may also ensure that the snake is not caught on CCTV as it makes its exit.
Not scary; cuddly, even
Much more scary - best move on
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Tuesday, April 24, 2007, 12:00 AM
I have to get something off my chest here.The Virignia Tech killings are a week old now, but then this site has never made the claim 'the latest news as it happens'.
What seems to have slipped by most commentary I have seen is that people have lost sight of what this young man Cho Seung Hui was looking to achieve with his short, confused little life. Like many nobodies that went before him, whether they were Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Michael Ryan or even the likes of Mohammed Atta and Mohammed Sidique Khan, they all had something in common. Their aphrodisiac in life was the thought of their fame in death. The front page infamy that they knew they would achieve was what drove them on. Little matter that they would not be around to enjoy it - they delighted at the thought that they knew something that the indifferent world around them had no idea of.
If the press suddenly found themselves banned from reporting the identity of these maniacs, then the atrocities would dry up. If Cho Seung Hui for a moment doubted that his video and pictures would get the airing that he so craved, then maybe he would have thought again. If Islamic mentalist suicide bombers imagined that they would die with the same obscurity they held in life, the allure would probably not be as strong.
Sure, it would be frustrating for everyone to be denied the identity of the perpetrators of a vile crime. However, in the same way that we accept the fact that courtroom appearances cannot be filmed, we would be very understanding if we thought that such a law would deter the next Cho Seung Hui from taking as many innocent passengers as possible on his descent into oblivion.
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Wednesday, April 18, 2007, 11:38 PM
We humans have an inbuilt instinct to find babies of virtually any species cute. We could probably even find it within ourselves to find baby sharks and pythons cute. In a piece of visual psychological coding that is beyond our understanding, baby animals just look... well... sweet.
We can't bear to see it when a baby zebra is hauled to the ground by a lion, or when a little penguin doesn't quite escape the gnashing jaws as it attempts to slither back onto the ice. Nature's unblinking ruthlessness seems a bit too cruel sometimes.
So it is with wonderment that I encourage you to watch this National Geographic clip here.. It's not on YouTube, and it takes a little while to load, but it is worth the time to leave it loading in the background as you get on with something else. Just click on the story marked 'Unlikely surrogate', and you will see the story of Legadema the leopard and the baby baboon. Remarkable.
[ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Back Next