FPI second podcast

After the short, first test podcast a few weeks back my web colleagues Paul, Lee and myself have put together a new show for the second Forbidden Planet International podcast. Lee covers some of the cool merch from the webstore while Paul, our resident dungeon-dwelling game fiend has the RPG segment, as well as editing it all together. It won't surprise anyone to know I have the SF books and graphic novels part of the podcast.



Paul has also created a new homepage for the podcast on the main webstore, with pics of the items we review linked to them on the website, so if you like the sound of something you cna click right through to it and check it out. It can be streamed with the windows media player or you can download it for an MP3 player - hopefully we'll set it up so folks can subscribe to it as they do with many other podcasts, ditto on archiving previous podcasts, but we're still learning as we go and no doubt will pick up and do more as we progress. And thanks to Cory Doctorow for giving us a nice mention on Boing Boing.

Word association

Blimey, been ages since I did the old word association thing from Luna Nina, used to do this regularly:

1. Newspaper :: snoozepaper


2. Crucify :: myself (as in 'why do I...' from Tori's song)


3. Sausage :: and egg


4. Handy :: not really


5. Cloak :: and dagger


6. Drunk :: not often enough


7. Fuel :: crisis


8. Caress :: not often enough


9. Itch :: scratch


10. Vehicle :: road

Albion Imagined

Very interesting series recently begun on BBC Radio 4: Imagining Albion - the Great British Future. Fronted by Francis Spufford (who wrote the charming Child That Books Built and The Backroom Boys - the Secret Return of the British Boffin, which I reviewed on the Alien Online a few years back) it is looking at the history of British SF, with the first episode (still available on the BBC's archive) focussing on utopias.

As well as Spufford Gwynneth Jones and China Mieville made appearances, as did Iain Banks who discussed the utopian aspects of the Culture. Scientist and writer Steve Jones is also included along with John Carey, who edited the Faber Book of Utopias a few years back (one of the first non-fiction books I reviewed online, back in the day when modems were powered by clockwork wound by small, trained monkeys and we posted primitive blogs using new-fangled Difference Engines). Well worth a listen - the second part is due this Thursday and will take the theme of invasions.

Napoleon on ice

I picked up this link via my mate Padraig's live journal; it's a video of a French advert for March of the Penguins, which was titled March of the Emperor in la belle France. The ad depicts a man explaining to his friend about a great film he saw called March of the Emperor on Canal Plus. Of course his friend, instead of visualising a marching Emperor penguin pictures Napoleon. When he remarks there are thousands of Emperors she pictures ranks of Napoleons marching across the ice then sliding on their bellies, being chased by giant seals...

Cameron's rights

Following on from yesterday's post about Conservative leader Tony Blair... Sorry, David Cameron's (hard to tell them apart) ill thought out scheme for the Human Rights legislation I see he has been panned by politicians of all types, lawyers and, most amusingly on the excellent Channel 4 News this evening Cameron's former politics tutor from university commented that it was badly put together and that if he had put these proposals forward in an essay he would have instructed him to go back and rewrite it! Heh.

Interestingly I haven't noticed any of the (London-based) media commenting on the fact that the Scottish legal system is seperate and we passed the rights legislation into Scots law ourselves. Instead they keep commenting about 'British' law in their myopic way, which is sloppy reporting since there isn't really such a thing - even before the return of the Edinburgh parliament seperate acts or amendments had to be passed to make any law valid also in Scotland. But then most of the London media probably aren't aware of that, even the political commentators; then again, many of them are unaware 'Britain' extends much further north than Watford (except for that mystical place they. refer to as 'the North', which to me is actually south).

Human rights, political wrongs

David Cameron, the new Tory leader who enjoys travelling by dog-sled to show us how gree his credential are (after polluting the atmosphere flying to this photo op and back of course) continues to show that he is trying to become Tony Blair. Chillingly Blair commented a few months ago that he would consider 're-writing' the European Convention on Human Rights where incovenient ideas like freedom, liberty and being innocent until proved guilty got in the way of holding people without charge for long periods of time for that old chestnut which some believe justifies any action - for the protection of the realm.

Now Cameron's latest PR stunt is to say that he would consider withdrawing from the Human Rights Act as well and replacing it with some other legislation. Given how many of our senior politicans have displayed a cavalier attitude to civil liberties (for our own protection, of course) does anyone trust these politicians who are so two faced they would make Janus blush to re-write the legal protections for our citizens? Especially as they move to force biometric ID cards upon us - am I cynical to think they would love to re-arrange the Act so they can make more use of the sensitive data such a scheme will allow them to gather on us all? Perhaps I am a little cynical, but certainly not paranoid - when political leaders want to bring in heavy-handed ID schemes and threaten to re-write our civil rights legislation it ain't paranoia, it is fact.

A lot of this, of course, is simple posturing for the tabloid presses to make Blair and Cameron (delete as applicable - if only we could) to make them look tough on crime and potential terrorists (you know, terrorists like those folks the Met keep arresting then finding out much later were ordinary folks - yeah, let's give them more power to do more of that!). I'm not actually certain that a UK government can withdraw from this legislation since it is part of a wider European Union system, so I suspect it is a lot of hot air. Also the European Convention on Human Rights was enshrined into Scots law along with the establishment of the Holyrood Parliament, so no London government can overturn that law in Scotland. So if some Westminister nupty was stupid enough to try and force the issue they would end up with different legislation in different parts of the UK, rendering it even more farcical. Attempts to force the Scottish parliament to toe the Westminister line would precipitate a constitutional crisis.

So if it is just posturing why get worried about it? Well for starters it is chilling that any democratic politician would tell the mass media they think they should get rid of legislation which protects the civil liberties and rights of citizens, even if they don't actually intend to go through with it. Secondly it sends a dreadfully wrong signal - they are clearly indicating to the population that human rights legislation is some bogus scheme dreamt up by liberal loons who care more for potential criminals than for law abiding citizens.

Yes, some folks have used loopholes in the legislation to escape prosecution when they were clearly guilty, but this is not unique to civil liberties laws - the phrase the law is an ass was around long before this Act was brought in. Lawyers have exploited loopholes and odd interpretations of the law for centuries to serve their clients regardless of the actual moral right or wrong of their actions. To select human rights legislation as the new bogeyman which will free evil terrorists to murder us all in our beds is not only misleading it is dangerous and sends out a dreadful signal to people. And to toy with such ideas simply for some politician to get a few inches in the weekend press is despicable.

Animated Python

More animation fun - this time the Camelot scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (shouldn't that be Gggrrrrrrrrraaiilll?) using Lego! Especially love the dopey grins on the knight's faces.

Animated game vid

A fantastically cool animation, reproducing classic 1980s coin-op video games like Frogger, Asteroid, Centipede and PacMan, mostly using household items, kitchen utensils and food to animate it, with a soundtrack taken from the original games - it's inspired!

Footie Thugs

A rather nasty follow-up to my post last week about the world cup and the BBC going rather overboard with St George's flags: in two seperate attacks bigoted thugs assaulted people who were wearing England tops, one in Aberdeen and one here in Edinburgh. While driving around with an English flag fluttering from your car is probably not the smartest move in Scotland, you may expect it to cause a bit of verbal, but this is just sickening. Even more awful is the fact that the Edinburgh attack in the pleasant environs of Inverleith Park was on a primary school child by an adult clad in a Rangers top. Perhaps with the main footie season being over he had to find some other outlet for his bigoted hatred until he can again vent it on Saturdays at otehr team's supporters.

I'm sure these scumbags think they are showing how patriotically Scottish they are, but the reality is they are cowardly thugs and their despicable actions are shameful and bring dishonour to Caledonia. Picking on a seven year old boy - wow, what a real braveheart you are, you cowardly, thuggish, brutish, ignorant git.

Big Mogger

Big Brother - cat style!

White Rabbit

Some days you just think, did I get into the wrong rabbit hole this morning when I got out of bed?


One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's off with her head
Remember what the Dormouse said:
"Feed your Head
Feed your Head!"

Religious numpty humiliated

Great video via Boing Boing of Stephen Colbert interviewing Congressman Lynn Westmoreland (isn't that a girl's name? Is he perhaps friends with a boy named Sue?). Westmoreland is apparently keen on having the Ten Commandments displayed in the House of Representatives and Senate, despite the fact the US constitution strictly enforces a division between church and state and the fact that displaying this in a public building which belongs to all citizens may not be terribly representative (no pun intended) for all of them who are not necessarily Christian. Wonderfully in this video he is asked to name all ten; after being surprised at this request he attempts to name the commandments and only gets to about three - and those are paraphrased into a rather simple language... Ah, the ignorant hypocritical, holier-than-thou twat revealed to be stupider-than-thou...

Shooting War

I came across an excellent webcomic last week after hearing about it on Boing Boing: Shooting War. Created by Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman it begins with Jimmy Burns, a video blogger in 2011, who is testing out his new portable system by having a live anti-corporate rant on camera while uploading to his blog. Panning the camera to what had been a family business and is now a Starbucks (just beneath his apartment) he is somewhat taken aback when it explodes in his face in a terrorist attack; welcome to 2011 - it looks a bit like today but worse.



An unscrupulous new media company (which for some reason reminds me of a certain American broadcaster who practises being 'fair and balanced' exaggerated - although perhaps not exaggerated that much given how many times they have been rapped by the broadcasting standards people here since they began re-broadcasting their 'news' programme in the UK, but I digress) spots this live feed, grabs it and puts it on the air - suddenly Jimmy is a star. He finds himself offered a chance to be a paid war journalist in a civil-war torn Iraq; his big break does not go exactly as he hopes.

It is a bloody gripping series - now up to the fifth part - and the good thing is it makes points but doesn't lecture or preach to do so. The use of a blogger as a central character is both a nice touch and also a respectful nod to real bloggers who report on Iraq (and other places). Dan's artwork is excellent while Anthony's script carries a good weight of authenticity as he has actually reported from Iraq himself. The guys are running it on Smithmag.net and hoping to see about a physical print version in the future - any publisher reading this, please take note, because I'd stock this with my graphic novels section at FPI right away if it was printed. This week Anthony kindly wrote a fascinating piece for the FPI blog about Shooting War and today he let me know that they are now getting coverage in the Village Voice and Rolling Stone - result. I highly recommend checking out Anthony's post then having a look at Shooting War itself.

Royal sale

Fisties, the leading auction house dealing in erotica, has been holding a huge sale of royal erotica and other intimate items which once belonged to Princess Margaret. Among the items being auctioned off by money hungry relatives... Sorry, by poor rich relatives left with inheritance taxes which forced them to sell enough to earn ten times what they need for those taxes... were the Royal pantyliners, which were the very first to be made with wings in Britian back in 1958. Being a royal princess however, the wings are made from the real wings taken from swans in the royal parks.

The diamond clitoris ring was, of course, one of the objects to attract some of the highest bids and was outdone only by the jewel-encrusted Faberge vibrator the princess was given on her wedding because it was well known her husband to be had as much chance of knowing how to find the clitoris as he had of finding a proper job and earning a real living. The matching Faberge Love Eggs were also a highly sought after object of desire for bidders. Her many cigarette holders were popular, as were her solid-silver cocaine snorting straws.

In order to supply at least a fig leaf of respect to this tasteless money grubbing exercise the Queen insisted her relatives reserve at least a portion of the proceeds for charity. So part of the immense monies raised from beyond the grave will go to the League of Wealthy and Sexually Frustrated Women which tries to help noble woman left frustrated by a lifetime of marriage to sexually inept aristocratic husbands.

Okay, was that a little sick? You think so? You think we should feel sorry for these rich toffs hawking items their even more pampered mother had in her possession through an accident of birth and a life lived at the expense of taxpayers? Nahhhhh...

Which Doc are you?

Picked this quick quiz up via Nemeton - what a surprise, I came up as the fourth Doctor. Since I own two immensely long scarves (the multi-coloured and the later burgundy version) and have shares in the Jelly Baby Corporation this comes as no surprise. Okay, I don't have shares, but I do have the scarves. What? I'm a geek, what did you expect??? Anyway, my aunt knitted them for me when I was a kid and Tom Baker was still the Doc. Since both are still enormously long on me now I shudder to think just how insanely long she made them when I was a kid.

You scored as 4th Doctor. Wild, eccentric, wacky! do you want a jelly babie? 3rd doctor 83% 4th Doctor 83% 1st Doctor 75% 8th Doctor 67% 9th Doctor 58% 10th Doctor 58% 5th Doctor 50% 7th Doctor 50% 6th doctor 50% a Dalek 50% 2nd doctor 33% Davros 25% What Doctor Who character are You? created with QuizFarm.com

Football free TV

Okay, it is hard to avoid the World Cup nonsense - taking care to change over before one of the sports programmes comes on is reasonably easy, assuming you can find another channel without something football related, but every second advert has some football theme (I'm just waiting to see Preparation H, the Official Piles Ointment of FIFA advert). Actually given the frequency of adverts for Believe choccy bars (formerly Mars Bars - I suspect they ain't selling much in Scotland right now! - and the new MacCholesterol giant burgers to go with the footie I am wondering if there will be fewer football fans in the UK shortly as many succumb to clogged arteries (nothing like taking something healthy like sport and promoting it with fast food mega-sized lardburgers and FatAss choc-o-logs!).

Still, hidden away between multi-channel images of over-paid men playing with their balls there are occassional interesting programmes. French cop series Engrenages (Spiral) has been pretty cool so far - it looks very much like the French have been watching some of the better, a more quality-end US cop shows and thought, hey, we can do that but with a little more elan. Quite interesting (and rather brutal in the opening episode where the injuries on the body are displayed openly to great effect). And thank you for subtitling it instead of dubbing (I hate foreign language programmes or films being dubbed). The first three episodes get repeated this Friday apparently on BBC4, so if you missed it you have a chance to catch up.

Also tucked away on BBC digital (so no adverts by a man with a dodgy haircut which would make Top Gear's James May blush extolling the winning power of belief in choc bars) two new series, one on the Enlightenment (first one in Edinburgh, mostly moving around David Hume and Adam Smith, fronted by Andrew Marr) and a return visit by Francesco da Mosto who brought us a brilliant series on his native Venice the other year (handily covering a lot of the art Mel and I went to see at the Titian exhibition in the RSA). He's a very likeable, laid-back Venetian, abandoning the canals for the autostrada for a trip from top to toe across the country in Francesco's Italy. So there you go, there are a few interesting programmes hidden away out there. Or you could go read a good book.

Meanwhile if you want a giggle, have you seen the new Tango spoof of the Sony Bravia LCD TV ad? The original ad which had thousands of brightly coloured superballs bouncing down a hilly street in San Francisco to the sounds of Jose Gonzales. Tango have spoofed it using what looks like some wee terraced street on a steep hill (looks similar to where they made the old Hovis advert Ridley Scott had a hand in years ago) and substituted oranges, lemons, apples and other fruit bouncing down the steep street instead of balls, to the same music, except of course the fruit knocks over things, smashes windows... I saw it shown on the ad break back to back with the real Sony one, which just made it funnier. The spoof has gone as far as this website which is supposed to be a community website complaining about the mess of fruit the advert people left in their street, although it is actually set up by the ad company, designed to look like the sort of website you'd see 6 or 7 years back as if it had been set up by poor yokels who know little of this internet thing, complete with a video of the ad they have 'stolen' to show.

Tabby versus Smokey: Tabby 1, Smokey Nil

A brilliant story on the Beeb site about a black bear (or do we now say a bear of colour these days???) in Noo Joisay which made the mistake of wandering into the territory of Jack the Cat, who doesn't take kindly to other animals intruding in his turf, even when they are actually the size of a bear. Yes folks, one of the biggest and most powerful predators on the planet is no match for the mighty feline. Now a cougar or panther running off a bear is one thing, but Jack is a domestic cat. Gee, I thought it was impressive when my little Cassie leapt five feet in the air and snatched a moth...

Lovecraft

Oh, fascinating new book coming up on Lovecraft by the author of Atomised, Michel Houellebecq: H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, which I added to the books on the FPI site recently - I couldn't resist it and since we sell Cthulhu RPGs and other items it makes sense (plus I just wanted to get it on there!). Lovecraft has always fascinated me since my teens, especially the lasting influence and legacy he left behind (much of it built up after his death by his friends) and, like Poe, is one of those authors I come back to again and again.



His horror is fascinating and disturbing, full of dark dread and it continues to influence artists many decades after his death, from those openly paying homage by writing a Lovecraftian short story (Neil Gaiman, Stephen King and a gazillion others) to those who have their own unique literary voices but are clearly influenced by Lovecraft and the Chtulhu mythos, such as Clive Barker and, of course, Mike Mignola with the fabulous Hellboy stories. I think I may need to have a look at this. And on the subject of Hellboy, the collected graphic novel edition containing the first new HB stories since Conqueror Worm (which referenced both Poe and Lovecraft to great effect, plus mad Nazi scientists thrown in along with Lobster Johnson!) came out a few weeks back. Strange Places collects The Island and Third Wish mini-series, filling in some gaps in HB's story and continuing from the end of Conqueror Worm where he resigns from the BPRD and heads off to Africa. Needless to say there is copy on my groaning graphic novels shelves.

More cows of Edinburgh



Football cow, the only comment I will make on that sport as the World Cup begins, since I really dislike footie, other than one other comment which is that could BBC Breakfast News please remember they are supposed to report News and put the sport in the sport section??? Sick of football infecting the whole of the part supposed to be taken with actual news when it has its own slot in the programme already. And please, please, BBC, remember this programme is going out to the whole of the UK, not just England, so dial down the sheer overload of St George's flags. Nothing wrong with showing some support but this week was ridiculous - do we really need the weather read by someone sitting in an inflatable chair covered in a giant St George's cross? And just in case that is too subtle they need to stick two more flags in the arms of the chair, then pan over to a barbecue festooned with more...

This isn't an anti-English rant, so don't take it that way, its just that when a UK-wide supposed news programme shoves so many English flags down the viewer's throat inside an hour instead of actual news it is more jingoisism than I can stand - I'd be just as annoyed if it were St Andrew's flags, although strangely enough that never happens on the UK-wide BBC... Not that they are biased in favour over one part of the kingdom than the rest of course... And as someone who can't stand footie I try to avoid the massive amount of coverage the World Cup generates (its even on the history channels today for pete's sake!), but it gets everywhere; like Big Brother or those bloody irritating dance, song and Apprentice programmes I avoid I end up getting the damned things by proxy as they leak into news programmes and papers... Oh well, it gives me more time to dedicate to books and my movie collection I suppose! Hey, BBC, since I will be avoiding most TV for the next few weeks due to your relentless attempt to spoon feed me football and flag waving can I have a rebate on my license fee for the month? Anyway, rant over (sorry, the bloody ads every few seconds with footie themes are bad enough, the Mars Bar guy needs to die with sharp things in his head - I won't be eating Mars for a long, long time now - but the BBC Brekkie News pushed me over the edge yesterday) - now we return you to the scheduled programme of more cows. And before some wag says it in comments, yeah I know I shouldn't have a cow, man :-)




This cow is sporting a nice off-the-shoulder number








Man, I've heard of cowboy builders, but cow builders???

Jet City rock vid on Youtube

You might recall me mentioning my mate and colleague Paul's hard-rockin' band, the Jet City Rednecks, a few times here recently. Well, as well as the MP3s you could hear on the earlier posts they now have a video of them ripping into a cover of Rebel Yell on Youtube.

Nemesis

Great news for fans of classic 2000AD comics - not only are further volumes of the Judge Dredd Complete Case Files on the way (volume 5 this autumn brings us up to the Apocalypse War - loads of lovely Carlos Ezquerra artwork), Rebellion have announced that they are now going to give Nemesis the same treatment. As with the JD Case Files, The Complete Nemesis the Warlock will take the form of large, black and white collections detailing all the strips in chronological order. I love the JD collection - and its shaping into a nice little library on my groaning shelves - and this looks terrific. Nemesis, set in a bizarre future Earth ruled over by xenophobic/religious lunatics headed by Tomas de Torquemada sees a struggle between humans who believe in racial purity and some truly bizarre alien lifeforms - Kevin O'Neill's artwork if just bloody brilliant, I doubt we saw such downright weird aliens again until Ace Trucking Co years later.

Cow culture I've been snapping the various cows dotted around Edinburgh as part of the Cow Parade (I keep referring to it as South Park Cow Days). I'm not a fan of Jack Vettriano's art - not because of the art snobbishness most of the Scottish art elite show to his work, just because I find it dull and repetitive - but I rather liked this version of one of his famous works on the side of a fake cow! And I like the cow version on the other side - very Gary Larson, don't you think? Since this cow is on the hallowed ground of a church yard does that make it a Holy Cow?





Cyber Cow! This one looks like it belongs in some sort of odd Japanese SF or Anime flick.




Cyber cow has super steel udders!






Of course there is a Highland Cow (more properly pronounced as a Heelan' Coo)






Wow, this cow gal has some cool body art! And this toucan just made me think of Guinness... Mmmm, Guinness... More cows later

Painted door





Came across this very cool painted doorway scene by accident, lurking in an alley in Leith.

Tough love

I added two What the Author Says posts onto the FPI blog this week, both from indy comics creators and both, coincidentally, and unsually, dealing primarily with gay characters. In a further coincidence both Abby Denson and Tim Fish will be heading out on tour in the US to promote Tough Love: High School Confidential and Cavalcade of Boys, with their appearances overlapping at some points. They are both quite interesting - there is a fascinating part where Abby describes when she realised that it was not 'just' a story as she receives mail from gay kids who had dealt with experiences she had described, including teen suicide. For an author to know people enjoy their work is a pleasure, but to find people identifying with it and drawing strength and support from it must be marvellous.

Comic, book, film; it rarely is 'just' a tale to many of us. When story is well told in any medium we empathise with the characters, identify with them - without the emotional connection the tale doesn't touch as properly, doesn't connect, doesn't work fully as a story. And then again for some stories and characters can be a source of inspiration and strength, especially for those who feel different (and if we are all honest, we are all different really, its what makes us individuals). This kind of came together the following day when I commented on the work blog on the media's widespread coverage of a lesbian Batwoman in DC's 52 and the increase in ethnically diverse comics characters. It's been an interesting week - if I was still at college there would be a good paper in there begging to be written.