One year

One year shy a day, one year and a day, one year dead.

Real life rarely hits the mark precisely, it’s all laws of averages and accumulated medians and compromise. That’s just the way it is. Fuzzy logic governed by guesswork and decisions taken always with the benefit of experience but never guided by foreknowledge. Mistakes compounding mistakes, regrets, I’ve had a few.

So let’s call it a year. A dead year.

HonkWatch #041: Pulling (S1E1)

I think that I probably shouldn’t, but I do rather enjoy Pulling. It’s three women past their youth but not yet at middle age coming to terms with the fact that they’re probably not going to change, that they’re stuck with what they’ve got.

The main character is Donna, a somewhat unpleasant passive-aggressive person, with the occasional blast of aggressive-aggressive for good measure. Here we are in the first episode. Donna’s about to get married to her boyfriend Karl when she starts thinking about all the things she wanted to do but didn’t, all the things she wanted to be, but couldn’t. So she dumps Karl. Karl is upset. Karl throws up.

The art of remaking ‘Paper Planes’

There’s been some top remixes and bootlegs built around M.I.A.’s ‘Paper Planes’ in recent weeks and months – in case you haven’t heard them, here’s four of the best, all of which have been caning it on pootie…

• ‘Paper Planes (Big Beat Cut & Run)’ – M.I.A./World Famous Audio Hacker
  
  

WFAH hacks audio, and is world famous. Nuff said. Big up the Oregon massive!

• ‘Under Paper Planes’ – M.I.A. vs Cléan/DJ not-i
  

Cléan was a band I came across in Bristol. They were a lovely group of chaps from Mittel Europa, boasting roots in Switzerland, Austria and Hungary (non-EU status for some of them meant not a little dodging the authorities here in the Yookay when it came to small matters like visas and whatnot).

They put out a couple of albums on local label Sugar Shack Records, gigged loads (they ended up with a big following in Downend, of all places), and toured with The Stranglers. I really liked them, and even got to hear songs they were writing at the early demo stage (which were very different to the finished tracks, almost techno-like in their sleek, pounding way). My girlfriend at the time, who was in a band which shared the bill with them a few times, did think they were a little lazy in the ol’ flyering department, though

Anyway, I lost contact with them, but their tunes were only ever a playlist away, and every so often, when I was putting together a folder of music to share with someone, I’d drop some of their stuff in there. So that’s how I ended up hooking up my bootlegging chum DJ not-i (himself esconced out in Österreich – now that’s synchronicty…) with some good, Cléan fun a few weeks back. And lo ! He liked them enough to put together this rather spiffing mashup!

There’s a postscript – I ended up wondering what happened to the Cléan chaps, and managed to track them down via the magic of MySpace. Seems they regrouped as Temple Thief, who I think are based in *spit* London. Pascal from the band likes the bootleg (I think… These Europeans can be a little difficult to understand sometimes ).

• ‘Paper Planes (Philly Club Remix)’ – M.I.A./DJ Sega
  

DJ Sega is a Philadelphia-based producer whom I came across via the Mad Decent blog. He specialises in this, well, mad decent hybrid of Baltimore Club, back-in-the-day British rave stylings and Boston Bounce which seems to be driving a thriving scene in Philly, with more than a sprinkling of Carioca pixie dust (well, what do expect in Diplo-endorsed tuneage?) colouring things well over the lines.

Listen to this remix and tell me it’s not got a great vibe!

• ‘M.I.A. Wanted Dead Or Alive’ – M.I.A. vs Bon Jovi/DJ Schmolli
  

Damn, these Austrians get everywhere…. This is the Schmollmeister’s beautiful pairing of Maya with Jon. Would sound perfect over the end credits of a really exhilarating yet dramatically satisfying movie, I reckon.

Humphrey Lyttelton: Sleeping under a Mornington Crescent moon tonight

Bollocks

With all the arseholes in the world, the bedwetting, pantysniffing, kiddyfiddling, planet-fucking, wifebeating shitheads out there still drawing breath, and it’s got to be one of the good guys who takes a Friday night tumble down the slippery stairs of death.

HonkWatch #040: The Wire (S1E11)

Not much to say except IIRC this is McNulty seasoning a hospital trashcan after Kima’s shooting in the first series of The Wire.

(And seeing as I’m working through all of Homicide: Life On The Street at the moment, I think I’d definitely give The Wire the points decision over its Bawlmore crime antecedent – the impeccable first two series aside, H:LOTS definitely showed too many signs of sharkjumpage past the third season mark.)

Lakota planning app: this Wednesday

Cheers to Chris at PRSC for the email forwarding this info:

the planning decision for demolition of the Lakota conversion into residential is going to committee on Wednesday 6pm. The delegated report is for approval but it is an opportunity for people to attend and possibly express their opinions. It will take place at the Council house at 6pm on Weds… The lakota is apparently the first thing on the agenda… This is an opportunity for those of us who oppose the demolition of this property to make our presence felt .

In Stokes Croft, in line with the Conservation Area Policy, we believe there should be an overwhelming presumption against demolition of any of the buildings already present. It is our belief that the nature of the current building stock is integral to the special nature of th area. The Lakota is a valid building that is capable of many uses, and to demolish it would be a crime…

This is an opportunity for us to show that the people of Stokes Croft care about its culture, and are not prepared to bow to the pressures which threaten to engulf us.

WEDNESDAY 6PM… THE COUNCIL HOUSE!!!

• Details of application
• Property details
• Online magazine article pointing up the issues

See also…

• Stokes Croft: Striking back!
• The yuppification of inner city Bristol?
• Q: When is an alliance in Bristol not a Bristol Alliance?
• Another year, another Post exclusive…
• Evening Post closes news gap with bloggers to a mere 47 weeks
• The damaging conversion of St. Paul’s?

From Here To Shiternity #006: Southland Tales

So, Richard Donnie Darko Kelly. One-horse trick. The evidence? Firstly I endured the Kelly-scribed Domino, which could have been a fun, exciting film, but ended up a bleached out, bloated beached whale of a Smokin’ Aces rip-off. I mean, posh rich English girl-turned-LA bounty hunter and junkie should be a no-brainer hit, right? Um, well, no. Having Keira Knightley shoot guns, smoke cigarettes and wear delicately applied facial grime is not exactly in-depth characterisation, but we can let that slide, because an armed, nicotine-stained angel with a dirty face gives good widescreen. Stealing the out-of-their-depth soap actor subplot from Go is forgivable, because it is at least done with vim. Wasting Christopher Walken in an over-edited bit-part, that’s no sweat, because it’s Christopher Walken, and you’re used to that, and besides, even Christopher Walken has bills to pay, nobody’s begrudging anybody on that count. No, the problem is when you stitch all these together, along with creditable supporting roles, cameos from the likes of Macy Gray, severed limbs and saddle-faced Micky Rourke, and still manage to make something that is boring. Sure, director Tony Scott has to own up to his share of the blame, but TBH it looks pretty enough, it’s just got no soul, no sense, and no feeling.

And then Southland Tales, Kelly’s cross-media near future/alternate present satire. Except it’s not funny for the most part, its meandering and dull, there’s shonky fx, it’s just redundant frames flashing over light, an idling engine putt-putt-putting its way to the end credits. Energy crisis, war on terror, police state, blah blah blah.

There are some nice bits – Justin Timberlake’s musical number, and the intro, and Jon Lovitz’s homicidal cop, and Dwayne Johnson’s cartoon face and nervous tics – but these do not a whole film make. It’s no Brazil, it’s no Dr Strangelove, it’s not even a Strange Days or a Screamers. It’s a pile of shit. Glossy, fragranced, immaculately presented, but still stinking of anal expulsion.

FFS, even Welcome II The Terrordome has more charm.

But, lest we forget, shit is as shit does. One of the main plotlines in Southland Tales is this war being waged in California between the cops (on behalf of their control-obsessed political overseers) and the Neo-Marxists. In this From Here To Shiternity the police raid a Neo-Marxist safehouse, where they surprise a chap in the crapper with a chestful of lead. He dies with his boots on, but his trousers remain around his ankles. May he wrist in peace.

Piss & Vinegar #008: The Welsh Great Escape

So apparently there was some breakout from a POW camp in Wales during WWII. Seems these German prisoners made a dash for it. One gefreiter hid himself in a bush, where he got himself a midnight shower courtesy of some squaddie staggering home from the pub. According to The Welsh Great Escape, at least.

It’s called gentrification…

Y’all Amos and Andy?!

Just a reminder:

On Saturday 12th April there will be street protests against the gentrification of Central Bristol. There will be two meeting points:

11.00am Albany Green, St. Pauls: Join the ‘Bristol Space Invasion’ Carnival Parade as part of a europe wide weekend of action against the privatisation of public space

Joining with…

2.00pm Broadmead (Centre): ‘Save Stokes Croft from Gentrification’ party parade going to College Green

HonkWatch #039: The Wire (S1E3)

So finally I got me some time to work over The Wire.

I’d been vaguely aware of it as some TV cop show that idiot critics spunked endless adjectives over (gritty, hardboiled, dark and the rest), but it wasn’t till Christmas, when drunk on wine (proper corked bottle shit) I found myself the net between Ignatius and History Mike as they volleyed favourite moments from the series over my clueless head, that I figured it might actually be worth watching. Fucksakes, I pinned my colours to the Third Watch mast, and lordy, did the third to sixth series bite me on the arse for my troubles. Never again. But pedigree-wise, The Wire looked far more promising.

For a start, it’s created by David Simon, the crime reporter whose book about a Baltimore police squad inspired the excellent Tom Fontana/Barry Levinson/Paul Attanasio series, Homicide: Life On The Street. Secondly, like Homicide, it’s set in Baltimore, so no over-familiar NYC or LA locales. And thirdly, it’s not strictly speaking a cop show. As the unusually perceptive Wikipedia page for the show points out, it’s about organisational dysfunction and the failure of capitalism to serve the interests of the many. It just so happens that a lot of the plot hangs on crime and detection, and that a lot of the characters weave in and out of the criminal justice system. Many of the police characters are corrupt, incompetent, lazy, hubristic, indifferent; whilst many of the criminals in the show display strength of character, resourcefulness, honour, loyalty, intelligence. That’s not to say that black hats are wholesale swapped for white, just that individual characters must be judged on their actions at any given moment, rather than defined wholly by their role in gameplay. And that makes for a compelling show.

But enough wittering, I have plenty of Wire-related Motion Picture Motions in the bag to serve as excuse for further self-indulgent word-bilge, so let’s cut the chatter and get with the chunder.

Here we have the aftermath of the first time we see standover man Omar Little in action – having scoped out the routine in The Pit, he waits till crew boss D’Angelo goes on a food run before assaulting the stash house to rob him some Barksdale drugs. Shotgun is fired, belly is emptied. Good result.

Cheers Ignatius and History Mike.

Bristol blog trotting

From p24 of the latest copy of Bristol/Bath what’s-on mag Venue.

Crikey, now that was unexpected. Slightly peculiar description, though. I mean, “old 1980s TV dramas”? What, as opposed to new 1980s TV dramas? And what’s with the Northern Ireland thing? I’ve mentioned old Slab a couple of times, and am interested in Paul Quinn’s murder, but that’s pretty much the size of it, and besides, both of those topics are more related to 26 than 6.

As for the “fixation with people vomiting in the movies”, I’d just like to clarify that it’s less a fixation, more a passing interest, and one which is not confined to puke; it’s simply that I’ve observed an approximate 8:2:1 ratio in favour of sick over piss and shit in terms of screentime. Maybe I’m just not watching the right flicks. More Fassbinder beckons?

Still, a plug’s a plug. Totally.

Tip o’ the titfer: The Bristol Blogger, who himself gets a write-up too, though one which veers into the territory of backhanded compliments – “he’s anonymous and therefore unaccountable…”; “isn’t above editing entries to stop himself looking foolish…”; “leching over French actresses”.

Since I’ve got time on my hands, I’d point out that in the first instance not posting up your full name, passport photo, bank details, phone number and map reference of your home isn’t really anonymity, it’s simply common sense (and besides, the identity of TBB is really not that much of a mystery). Furthermore, anonymity and accountability are not mutually exclusive, just as not being anonymous does not automatically make one accountable.

In the second instance, since when was editing a crime? Now that Venue is locked down in the Grey Lubyanka, presumably its hacks have access to the DM&GT/NN databases with its myriad libel lawyer annotations, so I’m sure the value of discreet rewording is most apparent

And in the third instance, I can only recall a single French actress being mentioned, and besides, according to the nearest dictionary to hand, lechery is the “unrestrained indulgence of lust”. If you really think TBB is by that definition a lechy blog, then I think we may have to revoke your interweb pass for your own safety.

Blogs mentioned in the article:

• Addy P
• Bristol Graffiti
• Bristol Greengage
• Bristol Streetart
• Charlie Bolton’s Southville Blog
• Charlotte Leslie
• Chief Inspector Andy Bennett
• Dialect Radio
• Doppelganger
• How To Turn Your Parents Green
• James Barlow
• Oblong Scone
• OLO Worms
• The Animal Disco
• The Bristol Blogger
• The Freeconomy Community
• The H Factor
• The Police Diver’s Notebook
• The Secular Backlash
• Things To Do In Bristol When You’re (OCD)ead
• Trym Tales
• Vowles The Green

PS One of the authors of the article, Eugene Byrne, has his own blog also.

Stokes Croft – striking back!

From Bristol Radical History Group:

Bristol is undergoing massive attacks on our free spaces and culture by property developers and their friends in the City Council. Across the city green spaces, pubs, clubs and amenities are being closed and sold off with little consultation with the communities affected.

So if you oppose the…

• Threat of closure of the clubs and pubs on Stokes Croft (Clockwork, Lakota, Blue Mountain, Junction)
• The threatened sell off of Castle Park to the developers
• The loss of playing fields and green spaces city-wide
• The ‘private streets’ of Cabot Circus
• The dispersion orders on College Green
• The removal of the Bristol-Bath cycle path
• The loss of pubs and meeting spaces in our communities

On Saturday 12th April there will be street protests against the gentrification of Central Bristol. There will be two meeting points:

11.00am Albany Green, St. Pauls: Join the ‘Bristol Space Invasion’ Carnival Parade as part of a europe wide weekend of action against the privatisation of public space

Joining with…

2.00pm Broadmead (Centre): ‘Save Stokes Croft from Gentrification’ party parade going to College Green

After the parades come along to Bristol Space Invasion Autonomous Zone featuring Art, performance, cinema, open-mic and live music – ALL FOR FREE! – Call 07528 953 230 or 07591 631 230 on the day for details of precise location.

Please show your opposition to the destruction of our places, spaces and culture, before its too late.

See you there….

Save Stokes Croft and Bristol Space Invasion

See also the earlier BRHG cri de coeur:

Save Stokes Croft

The clubs, pubs, cafés, squatted centres and artists’ studios of Stokes Croft have been the core of Bristol’s underground music and art scene for decades. This is the area that brought us Banksy, Roni Size, The Wild Bunch, Massive Attack, the famous Bristol club, free party and punk scene and all the other things that have made Bristol an exciting place to live since the 1960s.

Now all this is under threat as Bristol City Council and property developers such as ‘Urban Creation’ are joining together to culturally cleanse the area in the pursuit of profit. They say we really need housing. They say they want to improve the area with offices and shops. Bollocks. They’re not doing it for our benefit, they’re not even doing it for the stupid bastards who are going to buy their over priced yuppie boxes. They are doing it because the property prices are high and they can make a load of money out of it.

More shops? They’ve just built the biggest and ugliest shopping centre in Bristol’s history. More shops? We are sick of more shops, yuppie flats and offices. Stokes Croft is our place, it’s where we party, where we make music, where we produce art and where we want to be. They don’t want us doing this anymore. They want us buying music from their shops, they want rich trendies wandering around art galleries on Stokes Croft buying the latest Banksy print and posh types discussing the latest share prices whilst eating sun dried tomatoes on chiabatta drizzled in fresh virgin olive oil flown in from Tuscany, in a fake twee café. They want us out of the centre of Bristol and back in our areas where we won’t cause their wealthy customers any trouble.

Lakota, Clockwork, The Blue Mountain and The Junction are all under threat from the developers and their sickening puppets in the council. There are numerous planning applications on other properties in the Stokes Croft area, as every two-bit landlord and developer (who’d slit their grannies throat for a fiver) tries to get their hands on a bit of the action. Make no mistake, they want to sanitise Stoke Croft, to take our culture away and replace it with an empty plastic consumerism.

We made this city great. All round the world we made Bristol famous. Drum and Bass, Trip-hop, Techno, Reggae and even Crusty have all radiated out from Stokes Croft and the surrounding neighbourhoods of St. Pauls and Montpelier to make the ‘Bristol Sound’ famous the world over. This is what makes a place, its underground culture, the real living breathing heart beat of a city, not the banality of endless chain stores and yuppie rabbit-hutches filled with bored consumers.

Time is of the essence. This is how councillors and developers work, letting us know the truth five minutes before they smash our communities to the ground. Over six thousand people have joined a blog on Facebook in a couple of weeks. We have to get this energy on to the streets, it’s meaningless on the internet alone.

What you can do….

1. Get onto the streets.
2. Object to the planning applications.
3. Let everyone know what is happening.
4. Write to your local newspaper or Venue and let ‘em have it.
5. Let your local councillor know what they have to do to get your vote in the May elections. And if they don’t agree tell them you will see them in the streets.

If we do not act now we will wake up in a few years living in Milton Keynes. Think about it….

Who are we?

We are not a political party or any such nonsense. We are just bunch of people who have lived and partied on the Croft for years and are angry about the future that is being decided for us by lying politicians and greedy businessmen.

Contact us at: savestokescroft@gmail.com

(Tip o’ the titfer: El Bonio)

Charlton Heston goes to the big soylent green factory in the sky

Fuck, thought that motherfucker would live as long as Moses. Been rewatching his late 60s/early 70s post-apocalyptic classics lately, they stand up to the test of time. Might do a Cinematych on a Matheson tip in his honour.

Climate change, St. Paul’s-style

It’s fucking snowing. It’s April, and it is snowing in Bristol.

Unacceptable.

HonkWatch #038: Ultraviolet (E4)

Never saw Ultraviolet when it first played back in 98 (a quiet stretch in a TVless Totterdown flat), but reupping torrentside I see it’s actually a pretty decent vampire series. Even Jack Davenport is alright, playing a copper who’s dragged into a top secret counter-bloodsucker unit. Other hon menshes go to Idris Elba (latterly known for American stuff like the Brigadier in 28 Weeks Later and Stringer Bell in The Wire), and Susannah House Of Cards Harker. This Life alumnus Joe Ahearne’s script and direction is pretty damn tight too, and Sue Hewitt’s taut little score – swirling, growling and bass-heavy – makes me wonder why she didn’t pick up more gigs on the strength of her work here.

Anyways, here’s Thomas Lockyer (investigative journalist Jacob) stacking the ceramic (and ouch, if that’s not the cheapest toilet seat in the old Index catalogue).

Stand up comics: Bill Graham reveals all

There’s a great interview with Bill Graham over on the comic site Down The Tubes right now.

Bill who? Well, I thought the same when I first heard about it on the DTT blog, but it turns out that he was one of those unsung heroes of British comics. He edited the likes of Warlord, Starblazer library, Spike, The Crunch, Buddy, Champ and Football Picture Story Monthly for DC Thomson, as well as working on titles like The Hornet, Commando library and The Wizard – as he himself says, “At one time it felt like I was editing about half our output!”

It’s particularly interesting to be able to trace the editorial connections between some of these titles, because in comparison with the papers of rival publisher IPC/Fleetway, in the years I was at my comic reading peak, DC Thomson offered no clue as to the writers, artists or editors involved in their juvenile lines. Instead, the ink-smudge fingered fan had to resort to detective work, devouring whatever books on comic art were available (and in those days, there were not many about), and cross-referencing the anonymous work in DC Thomson titles with attributed work in IPC comics.

The baseline for my early days of forensic comics investigation was the work of Denis Gifford, though in later years there were some useful books written by Alan Clark (sadly not the testosterone Tory). However, most of those writing about comics back then were, unsurprisingly, more interested in the papers of their own youth than the slowly imploding trade of the 1980s or beyond. That said, Gifford did provide bounty in the form of his Encyclopedia Of Comic Characters, a thoroughly useful alphabetised and indexed work which logged many of the most important or memorable characters in British comics right through to the (then) present day. Each entry included a brief précis of the character, a thumbnail picture, and most importantly the name of an artist associated with the character. Given the whole situation with companies not creators owning the characters (a situation hardly that much changed to this day), this did mean that there were blind spots, but that book did shine a light onto the otherwise impenetrable world of DC Thomson in particular. I used the book, borrowed from my local library, to develop a series of notebooks. In these I backtracked from the index to create a dictionary of artists, in which I logged the various strips they were confirmed to have worked on, and to which I added those strips which I myself had identified them to have worked on. I can even remember the specifics of how I went about it, down to the type of pens I used (colour coding developing as I expanded my project to include writers, colourists and others) and the notebooks in which I wrote.

But time marches on, I boiled the marrow out of the book, having renewed it to the max on my ticket, and life moved on. The notebooks went away, and it wasn’t until last year, when I finally bought a second hand copy of the Encyclopedia online, that I came to think of that project again. And now more pieces of the puzzle come together: I get into eBay, through which I’ve managed to fill holes in my collection (a complete collection of Spike, which was one of the few titles of the day to completely elude me at the time; the odd copy of The Crunch and Champ – easily two of the best DC Thomson boys’ titles of the 70s/80s), and this fascinating Bill Graham interview. Because for so long the only voices we heard on the subject of UK weeklies were from that milieu of late seventies freelances working mainly at IPC (your basic Pat Mills-John Wagner-Alan Grant axis), it was those voices which underlaid any attempt at a narrative in the development of British mainstream comics through from the sixties into the nineties. Certain opinions became accepted orthodoxy: writing on girls’ titles was superior to that on boys’ titles until the Battle/Action/2000AD revolution, IPC titles were uniformly grittier than DC Thomson ones, DC Thomson was institutionally dour, and so forth. So it’s great to hear such a stout defence of DC Thomson’s output from Mr Graham. That’s not to say that it’s a complete refutation of those orthodoxies which developed, just that it helps develop a more rounded picture to the fan on the outside.

Sorry, rambling. Basically, a great interview to read for anyone with an interest in UK comics. I suppose it’s yet more incentive to pull my finger out and get on with working on my book And, for that matter, to finish off a blog post on UK comics that I started writing ages back, based around an exchange of letters ages back with (IIRC) Dave Hunt of Eagle. Though both might first require a certain friend to pull her finger out and send me back that book she borrowed… *hint hint*

HonkWatch #037: Kombat Opera (S1E1)

A quick chunder from Richard Jerry Springer: The Opera Thomas’ late developing Attention Scum offshoot, Kombat Opera. This is from the first episode, ‘The Applicants’, which hacks crappy job interview reality show The Apprentice.

The Digest: March 2008

I think things started to pick up a little this month; going out a bit more, weather improving, got through February alive… However, on the other hand, I did discover eBay

The month of March reflected in the BunKRS…

• Teen tribes go to war in Mexico, emo kids get shitty end of the stick, ‘depressed, upset’, UN mediation fails to materialise;
• O noez, The Bristol Blogger has stopped blogging! (Though fear not, he still surfaces every so often, and the comments section has ended up a rather decent little bear pit for assorted municipal party political hacks, non-alligneds and internet mentalists to slug it out in);
• Bristol’s favourite porker Andy ‘Gordon’ Bennett admits he likes young boys and girls in uniform;
• New York tenants and hip hop historians joined together to save 1520 Sedgwick, a social housing project threatened by profiteering developers;
• Oh, and obviously Banksy mania persisted throughout the month…

Recently added to NetNewsWire:

• SGOC – the Standing Group on Organised Crime manages a handy little blog aggregating news stories from around the world on the theme of, well, organised crime: political paramilitaries, blaggers, gangsters, it’s all gravy, baby
• The Zarjaz Journal Of A Hipster Dad – a slightly odd choice, simply some American chap writing about his family, interspersed with the odd comic review; comforting like chicken soup
• the man on the clapham omnibus – designer/artist/clever chap Lee Brimmicombe-Wood’s cosy blog about family and work life (thankfully his work and his family are both interesting). Who’s Lee Brimmicombe-Wood? Well, he was the fellow behind the Colonial Marines Technical Manual, that (now out-of-print) Aliens universe-expanding book which came out in the halcyon days before Alien 3 came out and royally fucked up continuity and canon. He also drew for things such as Space Junkk, which I rather liked, but I don’t think he appreciated being reminded of it
• Global Guerrillas – something of an esoteric oddity, this one’s all about studying contemporary combat paradigms and predicting future trends; written by John Robb (no, not the former Melody Maker journalist-turned-Goldblade frontman… I don’t think), it’s often a very perceptive and dispassionate resource for following ‘global terrorism’ in the one corner, and the ‘war against terror’ in the other. It’s also essential for trainspotters wanting to figure out where in the world the next big sexy war is going to flare up
• Why, That’s Delightful! – see, it’s not just civilians like us who fill up their blogs with inane YouTube vids and witless chatter, Top Television Comedy Writer Graham Linehan does it too! (I spotted him in WHS at Victoria train station once, the little one opposite the cheese shop. He was shabbier and shorter than I imagined a Top Television Comedy Writer would be)

Podcasts blowing the BunKRS speakers this month…

• Ramdom Thoughts – solid mashup show, hosted by Scott Johnson, now into three figures!
• Skip To The End – Musical eclectist Juxtaposeur from WoBcast flies solo before handing over the controls to a guest each episode (guests have included Rasha Shaheen, Kid Carpet, Parasite, Gusset, hoonboy and Sepr)
• Ebrotunes – bootleg producer Essex Boy presents the music of yesterday alongside the tunes of tomorrow, be it dub, hip hop, mashup, electro, pop or summat else

Fuck it, I’m alive. Hoofuckingray.