A long long way from Home

 goodness me, words  Comments Off
Mar 182012
 

This just struck me as mildly interesting. Look at the relative distance between the ‘Home’ and ‘World’ tabs on the BBC News & Fox News websites. First BBC:

Right next door. Even before ‘UK’ and ‘England’. Top billing.

Now Fox:

Whoa, that’s a good old gap. On Fox, ‘World News’ is even further away than ‘Leisure’. It’s the “and finally” tucked away at the end, just before the Sports. It’s the crazy stuff that happens off the edge of the map. Don’t worry too much about it. Just some people in silly hats shouting “wakalakalaka”.

I’ve forgotten the statistic about the number of Americans who don’t have passports. I’m going to look it up. [Looks it up]. January 2012 figures: roughly 62% of Americans don’t have a passport. Just under two thirds. The ones that do? Mainly soldiers.

 

Enjoying a Jimmy Riddle

 goodness me  Comments Off
Dec 172010
 

I just remembered, with a visible cringe, a conversation I had years ago in an art gallery with the lady at the front desk.

ME: Gosh, you’ve been in the wars.
LADY: It’s a skin condition.

Falling off a cliff of small talk. And nothing at all to do with that moment is the moment when you suddenly realise you’re a fan of something. Like I’ve never had with sweet potatoes or Roy Orbison. I’ve just had it with Jimmy Riddle. And you’re about to have it too.

Brave New Socks

 goodness me, jumping  Comments Off
Sep 062010
 

I’ve never been quite brave enough to wear bright white socks with bright black shoes. I mean, it’s not as if this is a gauntlet that’s daily thrown down before me by my wardrobe, a challenge from which I have ever slunk trembling, I’ve just quietly avoided the combination. Like going out wearing a hockey mask and a blood-spattered butcher’s apron, it’s just something I don’t do. But now, finally, I’ve been shown how it’s done. My doors of perception have been flung open by Aldous Huxley and his snowy ankles.

Here’s the full photo of Huxley:

He’s leaping at the behest of Phillippe Halsman. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book until just now. Considering how much I love books about people jumping. What was it Huxley said? “Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.” Two of which are jumping, and discovering books about people jumping.

Bloodhound SSC versus UltraSpeedMAX-FLASH

 goodness me  Comments Off
Jul 192010
 

Wowing the crowds at this year’s Farnborough International Air Show is “The Bloodhound SSC” (where SSC is short for SuperSonic Car). The Bloodhound team are aiming “to confront and overcome the impossible using science, technology, engineering and mathematics”, by which I think they mean “to achieve the possible…”

I have to admit, the car looks pretty snazzy:

Snazzy yes, but SuperSonic? No. It turns out that what’s been wowing the crowds isn’t the Bloodhound SSC itself. It’s a model. The Bloodhound SSC doesn’t exist. They’re just hawking for backers. The latest, according to the Bloodhound Team is that: “50% of the fuselage build now secured thanks to key product sponsor Hampson Industries”. All that exists right now is a snazzy model. And a sales pitch. Which makes me think that I should be over in Farnborough wowing the crowds and rattling a tin myself, with my design for the UltraSpeedMAX-FLASH, a wave-powered supercar that can do 10,006 mph. Check it out:

Damn, I forgot to label the leather driving wheel. Oh, and a should say, 50% of the leather driving wheel funding is now secured.

The Water Tower of Impending Doom

 goodness me  Comments Off
Jul 112010
 

Oh my. I’ve gone all giddy. I’ve got butterflies (like it was in those early days with Armin Meiwes). I’ve fallen in love again, and this time it’s with Stuart V. Goldberg — the criminal trial attorney, author and screenwriter, who has just become Lindsay Lohan’s new lawyer (having, I presume, just finished representing the ghost of Liberace in the Case of the Rewired Sunbed):

Immediately do this – go to his website, and watch his video, in which he explains how he grew up in fear of an exploding water tower, how he taught “ediquamentally handicapped kids” (?? – it’s a word I’m not familiar with), and how he yearned to represent the “have nots” as a lawyer.

The video explains how lawyering wasn’t feeding Goldberg’s soul in the right way, so he sat down and wrote “for 568 days straight”, and produced his novel, The One and Only. But how? How did he manage to create such a masterpiece…?

“and it was this Leonardo de Vinci moment. They asked him ‘how did you make those statues?’ and he said ‘I just put my hands in the clay and they came out’.”

I think that’s roughly how he applies his make-up in the morning.

This is Goldberg musing over his typewriter (which, if it’s not in the Smithsonian by now, surely must be on its way):

And here he is, looking every inch the trustworthy defence attorney:

Stuart V. Goldberg. Top trial lawyer by day, top romantic thriller author first thing in the morning. And by night…?

Popped Clog: Sebastian Horsley

 art, bad things, goodness me, popped clogs  Comments Off
Jun 182010
 

Tonight, if the sky is clear, look up into the orange, and there amongst the stars you’ll see it sparkle, placed there anew by the trembling hand of Lucifer, bright as a hooker’s eye, more beautiful than all the other stars in heaven (it thinks), shimmering like a hooker’s shoestrap, a silver drop of infected semen to shine down upon us forever, for alas – the thinkable has happened – Ô blasphème de l’art! ô surprise fatale! – Sebastian Horsley is dead.

L’éclat de ce soleil d’un crêpe se voila! as Baudelaire put it, thinking, no doubt, of Horsley as he wrote.

So that’s it. Game over. Horsley, the fool, has gone to shoot up with Jesus in the big whorehouse in the sky. And the world just got a little more boring. Although, on the plus side, there’s one fewer enormous arse living in it.

Damn, I’m actually sad. I can’t believe I’m sad.

I can’t quite figure out why. But perhaps it has to do with Horsley only just now turning his life around. Laying aside the crackpipe, putting down the hookers, and earning an honest living. The ink upon his contract with ExxonMobil barely dry. And only one tie-in product out on the garage shelves: a litre bottle of Horsley Ultra -

I will buy it tomorrow in his honour.

And drink it.

And, blessedly, to wrap up my Fox obsession

 goodness me, varnish  Comments Off
Nov 082008
 

Picture 8.png

I look forward to that.

So – Barrack Obama – tasked by a weary nation with cleaning up the White House. Not the first black man in history who’s had that job. I’m so relieved I could spit. It’s been a long one. Giddying. I was up all of Tuesday night. I think it was the scallops. They were reduced, but they smelled sort of ok. They go lilac when they’re cooked, right?

People are saying that a tired Obama looks a good 2 years older now than when he began campaigning, 2 years ago. But he must be feeling energized, and I can’t wait to see what he almost manages to get done. I want to know details. Obama has so much promise but will he fulfil that promise? – and if he does, I want to know exactly how many bullets will strike him, and in which city? Not long now, I guess. But it’s the waiting…

…with Brian Laycock.

 goodness me  Comments Off
Oct 162008
 

This may work. We’ll see. I’ve just made a podcast using technology (mainly) and some other stuff (I had a Double Decker halfway through). It’s a bit ramshackle, and… well, it’s my first one so I’m cutting myself some slack. It may not even work anyway.

I’m going to try and upload it.

THE NEWS WITH BRIAN LAYCOCK.

Does that work?

[I can't quite tell if it has or not. I've either totally wasted the last 3 hours, or almost totally wasted them..]

Hang on – this is the same thing as an MP3 file, without the nice picture of the bus:

THE NEWS WITH BRIAN LAYCOCK (MP3).

 Older Entries