What the hell is going on. Is that a joke? No, I’m telling you; its a joke. BBC News at 10… where are they getting their graphics from… ITV?
We just got our Satellite dish fixed, so I can watch CNN again… at least it doesn’t pretend to be over-important flashy uber-news; CNN are the original over-important uber-News. And they seem to be the only channel that’s calmed down since 9/11, the whole colour scheme has gone neutral, un-offensive white. One thing I’ve noticed, since my last CNN period (about 6 months ago) is that Becky Anderson is devoid of all emotion these days, and appears to have taken the 24-hour-newspresenter course again; learned to completely ignore natural gaps in speech and sentance structure, replacing them with some mental CNN-speech. You really need to check her out, its actually very funny.
Richard Quest is still formidable. He should have his own show. Did I tell you I once saw an ad on CNN for a Power Station. Yeah… pff.
Chris Morris made a radio series in 1997 called Blue Jam. It was on Radio 1 very, very late at night. It became Jam on Channel 4.
This is a late night show, I give series one to you nowto William really, but its downloadable elsewhere so pff. Do Not listen to this during hours of light, except twilight and no-light.
This is a late night show. There is some fantastic music in it, some Chris Morris original, and some ‘comedy’ the like Radio 1 has not the balls to ever re-broadcast.
One of the eppisodes was pulled off live air during playback apparently, weeks after Princess Diana’s death Chris Morris thought it funny to mash together clips from her funeral with some inapropriatisms… I’ve not heard it yet. 38.3MB, .zip. If you like this, you’ll also like “On The Hour”, the radio series that lead to “The Day Today”. You can bittorrent “On The Hour”, here.
Remember, this is a late night show. If its still a PM its too early. It won’t make sense if your sober to the daily realities. Go on, have a drink or two, or a pill, or a fight with a Bonobo.
Update: I recognise Ivor Cutler as the crazy Scottish poet, btw. This is how Billy will sound in 60 years. I always thought, I compiled a CD for Bill before he went to Nepal with Ivor on it, does he remember – did he thank me. pff.
I was listening to some fella mouth off about the problems in schools on the radio the other day. What made his zany right-wing “bring back hanging for pen thievery!” sputings worth it was a real gem of an idea for teaching history, so great an concept that I thought it worth writing down. His idea: start from yesterday and work backwards.
Rather than jump back 150 years to the Clearances, then 400 years back to American Independance and forward again to the Slums of Glasgow… don’t miss that (fairly important stuff) out, just bring it into context.
Lesson One: Why George Bush is a Mental
Lesson Two: “The Big Board” – The Cold War
Lesson Three: It’s! The 60’s.
etc. (I’ll come up with more later, the “Comments” on this one is Open)
Now, I know this would confuse “Modern Studies” with “History” with “Religious Education” – but the News isn’t divided by such Subject names, nor are the broadsheets …or real life. Oh, another great idea; the first lesson (ignore above) should involve each student going back home and asking his/her parents about their family history, where the family came from, what their grandparents did etc.
A great-grandfather of a friend tells the story of his grandfather: “he used to sit us down and tell us about an uncle who faught in the great battle of culloden”
I know, a bit involved… but JESUS-TAP-DANCING-CHRIST. Culloden! That’s “Flower ‘o Scotland” times, times of old. Not that old it would seem.
… Speaking of Cheney, maybe before we get too pumped up about impeaching our sorry excuse for a President, we might want to consider that order of succession thing, hmmm? Don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t think for a second that the hack from Halliburton hasn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t done that fucking math. Every one of Dick?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s wet dreams starts with George getting dragged before the Senate. And we do not want that fucker mainlining presidential power. If you think it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s bad now, imagine if we didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t have that time lag between Cheney?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s lips and W?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s ?¢‚Ǩ?ìbrain.?¢‚Ǩ? #
Annotated Rant is a perfect example of where main-stream American satire will be if it should only grow up, I mean bite me. I mean; from the same mind that brought you “Fuck The South” and “Fuck Christmas” Here’s a fine reason the world should be a big fuckload of hyperlinks.
Nature is the real deal. Ten minutes jouney from your computer screen is grass (not the Camden variation), an hour from your sofa is blue sky (unless its snowing), a couple of miles from the moment your mobile signal drops you’ll find a track, down that track you will find reserves of strength you never had access to in the office. Through the wide open miles you’ll discover clarity and open-mindedness that would render any bullshit ?Ǭ£400 a day motivational speaker speechless.
Strip your life from concrete and box-rooms, dispel schedules, the lies of politicians and advertisers… its so simple, its so possible.
The world of TV and High-Streets is here to stay, we call it progress – but it seems to me half-baked. We have books and the internet, we know where paradise is (on earth) we call it “the Florida Keys” or “Phuket” but we’re not there. If this global society has discovered these places and shown us how it is – why haven’t we dropped all the bullshit that we built up to make the discovery and got our asses over there.
If society really worked, surely we’d be up for culling a few billion to live the good life on that little island, or in that penthouse. Oh, y’know what? We don’t need to do any culling – nature will do it for us, via Ice Age, Bird Flu, AIDS or Famine, nature knows its balancing point and the equilibrium will be restored. Hopefully the next round will set off from some de-evolutionary starting block; will could devolve* in terms of our grasp of society – if we had less capacity to think about others we’d probably stop starting wars, creating clans – moving on to the next bit of dirt, island or continent. If we had tails it’d be pretty sweet, smaller heads = smaller hats and all that.
Ach, what shit. Here’s Ewan McGregor reading Anton Chekhov’s “The Bet” (11.4MB MP3). Translated by Ronald Hingley. It is one of the most read files on my hard disk, I now pass it on to you.
