Sunday at the flicks
The Kid - Charles Chaplin (1921)*
London's poverty transposed to Hollywood by the black-listed genius. Charlie Chaplin, co-founder of United Artists, had to wait till he was in his eighties for permission to re-enter the U.S, for a long-overdue honorary Oscar.
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* Click CC to select subtitles in various languages or to turn off subtitles
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Saturday, June 07, 2008
America & China: two berserk
China and America: "Just Good Friends" : June 2008 : Richard Spencer : Foreign : Telegraph Blogs
"According to the US Justice Department, giving evidence to Congress no less, not only were Chinese officials allowed to go to Guantanamo to interrogate muslims from Xinjiang, China's Uighur-dominated western province, who were held there, but American military personnel 'softened them up' first by using a sleep deprivation tactic they jocularly called 'the frequent flyer programme'. This involved them being woken up by soldiers every 15 minutes." [That's supposed to be funny? With funny like that, who needs sadistic bastardo.]
McCain - you were a P.O.W. Would you stop torture? Obama - let's hear more than "business as usual": it's all very well looking and sounding cool, but when it comes right down to it, how do we know that you're not a bigger hawk than McCain? You're not a shoo-in, old bean, so you better start walkin' the walk sometime soon. (I mean talk is cheap.)
Zoz
"According to the US Justice Department, giving evidence to Congress no less, not only were Chinese officials allowed to go to Guantanamo to interrogate muslims from Xinjiang, China's Uighur-dominated western province, who were held there, but American military personnel 'softened them up' first by using a sleep deprivation tactic they jocularly called 'the frequent flyer programme'. This involved them being woken up by soldiers every 15 minutes." [That's supposed to be funny? With funny like that, who needs sadistic bastardo.]
McCain - you were a P.O.W. Would you stop torture? Obama - let's hear more than "business as usual": it's all very well looking and sounding cool, but when it comes right down to it, how do we know that you're not a bigger hawk than McCain? You're not a shoo-in, old bean, so you better start walkin' the walk sometime soon. (I mean talk is cheap.)
Zoz
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Ask Mrs Haverty
Personal, social and work problems of every kind. Quick results. Evil charms? Pursuing the wrong Anti-Christ? Trouble with the opposite sex? Possessed by demons? I guarantee to solve the most difficult problems speedily. Curses lifted. Herbal remedies available. Have you tried lesser charlatans and been disappointed? I worked for the late, lamented Fr Santos of St Butholds, r.i.p. Run-down? I have the solution.
Send your questions to Ask Mrs Haverty. Mrs Haverty regrets that due to the volume of correspondence received, she cannot answer your emails individually.
Mrs Haverty
Send your questions to Ask Mrs Haverty. Mrs Haverty regrets that due to the volume of correspondence received, she cannot answer your emails individually.
Mrs Haverty
"We are loonies and we are proud!"
Breakin open the asylum | Society | The Guardian
Doctor Who star David Tennant starred in a hit TV show set in a psychiatric unit but would it be made today?
"Within a year and a half [...] the entire six-part serial had been posted on YouTube in 10-minute chunks, in flagrant violation of Section 512(c)(3) of the US Copyright Act. I was the writer of that serial and had devoted three years of my life to creating it. So you can imagine how I felt when my teenage son brought this gross piracy to my attention. I was delighted." (Donna Franceschild)
No need to slog through the YouTube clips anymore, you can buy the DVD of Takin' Over The Asylumn from June 9th (2 Entertain Video, £19.99). One to watch many times over. Among other delights - cameo from Spike Milligan, a young David Tennant in full spate (see official BBC video clip under the link above or here), the charmingly lugubrious Ken Stott, and a superb cast (invidious to single out) playing unforgettable characters - it has a brilliant soundtrack, including first use of Beatles' tracks ever allowed. The hairs will stand up on the back of your neck when you hear Hey Jude come in, at the end of Nana's episode.
Noël Knowall
Doctor Who star David Tennant starred in a hit TV show set in a psychiatric unit but would it be made today?
"Within a year and a half [...] the entire six-part serial had been posted on YouTube in 10-minute chunks, in flagrant violation of Section 512(c)(3) of the US Copyright Act. I was the writer of that serial and had devoted three years of my life to creating it. So you can imagine how I felt when my teenage son brought this gross piracy to my attention. I was delighted." (Donna Franceschild)
No need to slog through the YouTube clips anymore, you can buy the DVD of Takin' Over The Asylumn from June 9th (2 Entertain Video, £19.99). One to watch many times over. Among other delights - cameo from Spike Milligan, a young David Tennant in full spate (see official BBC video clip under the link above or here), the charmingly lugubrious Ken Stott, and a superb cast (invidious to single out) playing unforgettable characters - it has a brilliant soundtrack, including first use of Beatles' tracks ever allowed. The hairs will stand up on the back of your neck when you hear Hey Jude come in, at the end of Nana's episode.
Noël Knowall
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
It's Bammy versus Magoo
(Come on up for) The Rising - Bruce Springsteen (live, Wembley)
US elections 2008: Barack Obama wins Democratic nomination for president | World news | guardian.co.uk
Yes, we can. (Will-i-am, Scarlett Johansson, Herbie Hancock et al)
Suzanne Goldenberg's report from St. Paul (mp3) (Guardian audio)
Tribute to Sidney Poitier/To sir with love - Lulu
Jacintha's take on it: They call me Mr. Obama
Newsmusic Desk
Have we nothing better to go on about, considering Burma, Sechuan, Darfur, British high streets, Afghanistan and Pol Pot in Rome? Ed
Monday, June 02, 2008
A new frontier
Phoenix Mars Mission - Gallery - Images
Looks like we've lived to see ice on Mars
By the time I get to Phoenix - José Feliciano
Newsmusic Desk
Looks like we've lived to see ice on Mars
By the time I get to Phoenix - José Feliciano
Newsmusic Desk
Saturday, May 31, 2008
All human lifelessness is there
Advert by Gombeen™
Willesden Herald reader spotted in a local pub*
* Picture by Vanessa Gebbie © 2007
Willesden Herald reader spotted in a local pub*
* Picture by Vanessa Gebbie © 2007
Friday, May 30, 2008
Diageo hard liquor advertised to kids on ITV teatime
Diageo Great Britain [sponsors] ITV weather’s UV updates during the early evening news as part of £1.4 million summer marketing campaign
Am I the only one somewhat dismayed at the current campaigns promoting Baileys Irish Cream booze, Gordons Gin and Smirnoff vodka on the ITV early evening news? These ads for drinks mixed with ginger ale, for example (today), are running alongside adverts for kids' soft drinks, sometimes directly after one for a soft drink (the other day). They are creepily oriented in a way that makes them sound like some good old kids' treat. Summer 2008 with lashings of gin and ginger ale: Enid Blyton turns into Edna the Inebriate Woman.
FFS Diageo (and ITV!), exercise some judgement and get behind the watershed. This present manifestation of greedy, unscrupulous, predatory behaviour is really outrageous. It's clearly based on the old Jesuit principle, give me the boy aged seven and I'll give you the man. It's a transparent and evil (there is no other word) attempt to implant a boozy notion of summer into childrens' minds before they are fully able to know they're being got at.
Zoz
Am I the only one somewhat dismayed at the current campaigns promoting Baileys Irish Cream booze, Gordons Gin and Smirnoff vodka on the ITV early evening news? These ads for drinks mixed with ginger ale, for example (today), are running alongside adverts for kids' soft drinks, sometimes directly after one for a soft drink (the other day). They are creepily oriented in a way that makes them sound like some good old kids' treat. Summer 2008 with lashings of gin and ginger ale: Enid Blyton turns into Edna the Inebriate Woman.
FFS Diageo (and ITV!), exercise some judgement and get behind the watershed. This present manifestation of greedy, unscrupulous, predatory behaviour is really outrageous. It's clearly based on the old Jesuit principle, give me the boy aged seven and I'll give you the man. It's a transparent and evil (there is no other word) attempt to implant a boozy notion of summer into childrens' minds before they are fully able to know they're being got at.
Zoz
William Burroughs shot my book
Ridley's Believe it or Not (No. 6)
Finbow on Burroughs, Lit Up magazine
"Another of my prize possessions is a copy of Dear Allen: Letters to Allen Ginsberg by William S. Burroughs 1953-57, Full Court Press, New York City, 1982, signed by both Bill and Allen with the addition of a muzzle-fire graze on the front cover - Bill shot it for me." (Steve Finbow)
Brilliant memoir writing
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Herbert Ridley
Finbow on Burroughs, Lit Up magazine
"Another of my prize possessions is a copy of Dear Allen: Letters to Allen Ginsberg by William S. Burroughs 1953-57, Full Court Press, New York City, 1982, signed by both Bill and Allen with the addition of a muzzle-fire graze on the front cover - Bill shot it for me." (Steve Finbow)
Brilliant memoir writing
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Herbert Ridley
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Disappearing London: Oriental City
"Chinatown in Soho is all very well, but there's a far more genuine East Asian dining experience a few miles up the A5 in deepest Colindale. It's called Oriental City, and it's an unexpected eastern treasure. Alas, it's also doomed. This Sunday evening, at 7pm precisely, the dim sum will stop, the diners will be ejected and the doors will be permanently locked. And all because what this part of London really needs, apparently, is eight blocks of flats, a health and fitness studio and a B&Q. It's a damned shame." (Continues)
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
That's Parsley, right, not Paisley?
John McCain's rabid looney religious pastor
Let me guess, Free Pescatarian?
Zoz
In search of lost art
The Willesden Labyrinth Project
A Community Arts project
at The Gallery at Willesden Green
by Nico Pollen and BAR, Summer 2008
Installation Workshops Exhibition
Enjoy the labyrinth forms constructed outside the library centre from May 19th for two months. Enjoy learning about world labyrinth traditions and making art with an ancient motif, with many creative media resources and a variety of people from around the borough of Brent, in workshops led by local artist Nico Pollen.This project also celebrates the contributions to the artistic and cultural life of the community of the various refugee communities among us. (Brent Artists Resource (BAR) & Brent Refugee Forum)
Workshops Saturdays or Wednesdays in BAR Gallery Space
5 Saturdays – 11am to 2pm 31st May to 28th June
5 Wednesdays – 6:30pm to 8:30pm 4th June to 28th June
Free for unwaged, £30 for series for waged
info {at} brentartistsresource.co.uk
Farewell to Storyville?
Billie Holiday w/ Louis Armstrong. (New Orleans, Arthur Lubin, 1947)
Sources close to Red Woodward have indicated that there will be no more Willesden Herald short story competitions, though Herald editor Feargal Mooney has stated that this is not the case. "I just don't know what to think," said Steve Moran who was chair of the judging panel in the recent unpleasantness, "It's all sort of co[mpet]itus interruptus, isn't it?"
Meanwhile keep on rockin' in the free world. (Bartell Darcy)
Newsmusic Desk
Saturday, May 17, 2008
After the cup final 2008
The game after the big match is always the best
After the cup final, 2008 (Portsmouth 1 Cardiff 0)
After the cup final, 1927 (Cardiff 1 Arsenal 0)
Do the Ayatollah - Cardiff fans (YouTube)
We're on our way - Official Portsmouth FA Cup song 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Evening trees
Looking around in the park
Painting box - Mike Heron (YouTube)
Everything's fine right now - The Incredible String Band
Newsmusic Desk
Monday, May 12, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Loving China, hating its government
Let's support the Olympics 2008, after all. The problem with the protests is that they are stoking up a nationalist fever in China that could prove extremely dangerous, now that inflation is rampant there. The policies of the government of the P. R. China are reprehensible in their entirety, but it is only through support of the people against them that their tyranny can be extirpated. Ill-feeling about the Olympics could become a mainspring for a new threat to world peace.
Zoz
Zoz
Monday, May 05, 2008
This kind of day
The yellow flowers closed and went to sleep early
like kindergarten kids, sleeping on their hands in the afternoon.
Are they primroses?
News summery
Bonnie Secours
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Continuously variable tax rate suggestion
Brown fiddles while home burns
There is no salvaging anything from the 10p tax rate abolition disaster short of reintroducing the 10p tax rate. This is now Labour's Poll Tax equivalent - a tax change that is completely unjust. If they want to recover, they can either say ok we made a mistake and restore it, or they can take another step and go for a continuously variable rate, from 0 to 49%. Have they no insight, no analysis, no initiative? Do something right, you dozy shower.
You might as well incorporate the council tax into it as well, because the Tories may move to abolish that as their checkmate move before the next election. The calculations needed to incorporate local tax into income tax are simple enough for any schoolchild to work out, and shouldn't necessitate any additional bureaucracy. It's just another item on the income tax form.
Zoz
There is no salvaging anything from the 10p tax rate abolition disaster short of reintroducing the 10p tax rate. This is now Labour's Poll Tax equivalent - a tax change that is completely unjust. If they want to recover, they can either say ok we made a mistake and restore it, or they can take another step and go for a continuously variable rate, from 0 to 49%. Have they no insight, no analysis, no initiative? Do something right, you dozy shower.
You might as well incorporate the council tax into it as well, because the Tories may move to abolish that as their checkmate move before the next election. The calculations needed to incorporate local tax into income tax are simple enough for any schoolchild to work out, and shouldn't necessitate any additional bureaucracy. It's just another item on the income tax form.
Zoz
Friday, May 02, 2008
From Stalin to Mr Bean to Mr Has-Been
Letters
It's all rubbish, of course, but I'm applying for a job as Vince Cable's gag writer. The election results coverage on BBC1 now includes pictures of three bloggers sitting at notebook computers like sewing machinists in a sweat shop. What's the bloody point? When everybody has a blog it will be the same as when nobody had a blog. Back to the status quo ante, Auntie. Thank God for real newspapers like the Willesden Herald.
A Genuine Reader, Neasden
It's all rubbish, of course, but I'm applying for a job as Vince Cable's gag writer. The election results coverage on BBC1 now includes pictures of three bloggers sitting at notebook computers like sewing machinists in a sweat shop. What's the bloody point? When everybody has a blog it will be the same as when nobody had a blog. Back to the status quo ante, Auntie. Thank God for real newspapers like the Willesden Herald.
A Genuine Reader, Neasden
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