|
The Cartoonist
 |
Saturday, March 22, 2003 |
 Deutschland, Deutschland, alles ist vorbei. The thing on the left was the public phone in the old Ratinger Hof. I really shouldn't do this. But I'm sure Janie Jones and Mary Lou Monroe won't mind. Embarrassing, yes it is. I've uploaded a complete Mittagspause gig (live in Wuppertal, 1979 (?)) as an MP3 file onto my iDisk. For a limited time. Next weekend it will be gone. And beware: It's noisy. It's bad. It's a 40MB download. It's Punk Rock. It's German.And now it's gone.
5:51:40 PM  |
|
|
 Here comes the train. A really nice exhibition of old British Railway Posters. Great stuff."It is hardly surprising that the "Golden Age" of British railway posters coincided with the quarter-century following the amalgamation in 1923 of almost all of the numerous small independent companies into what came to be known as the "Big Four"railways: the Great Western (GWR); the London, Midland, and Scottish (LMS); the London and North East (LNER); and the Southern (SR). The end of the Great War saw Britain with a public eager to travel - and possessing a well-developed taste for the poster as a medium of advertising. In the latter case the war itself provided continuity for initiatives that began in peacetime, for the recruiting and saving and funding campaigns needed to vanquish the Hun were waged largely on the hoardings. Now how on Earth is she going to see someone in Aberystwyth when that person is apparently standing on the platform somewhere at King's Cross
? The guy hasn't even got onto the train yet! Perhaps some old-fashioned 'beaming device'? Who knows.
2:56:49 PM |
|
|
 No blogging about the war. Here's a weblog straight from Kuwait."The past few hours I have been hearing deep humming sounds in the sky. I think they might be a B52s flying towards Iraq since they dont sound very fast, they sound big, and they dont sound like jet engined planes. Good thing I don't live in Baghdad. Kuwait feels so safe now."
9:23:20 AM |
|
|
|
Friday, March 21, 2003 |
 The Analytical Engine. Victorian computing, invented by Charles Babbage. Instead of using mathematical tables, Babbage wanted to build a machine capable of calculating series of numerical values with automatically printing the results. He never finished it, though (Sounds like my old Dragon 32 to me). There's a comprehensive Swiss website about his machine, along with a JAVA 'Analytical Engine Emulator'; and of course the exhibit at London's Science Museum."Charles Babbage (1791-1871) is widely regarded as the first computer pioneer and the great ancestral figure in the history of computing. Babbage excelled in a variety of scientific and philosophical subjects though his present-day reputation rests largely on the invention and design of his vast mechanical calculating engines. His Analytical Engine conceived in 1834 is one of the startling intellectual feats of the nineteenth century. The design of this machine possesses all the essential logical features of the modern general purpose computer. "
10:56:46 PM |
|
|
No blogging about the war. I made the mistake of switching on the telly. My God, what are they doing to Baghdad? In German: Kann mal jemand dem Chefschwein in den Staaten sagen, daß er ein Oberlump ist?! Danke.
10:23:40 PM |
|
|
I won't be blogging about the war. In the meantime, have a look at Russ Daggart's text Why I Oppose An Iraq War.I highly recommend taking the time and reading it from start to finish. It is, as Mark wrote in his publisher's note (opens in a new window), the most cogent text on the issue that you can read.
Via Armin's wonderful Ministry of Propaganda.
8:58:40 PM |
|
|
|
Sunday, March 16, 2003 |
 Delicious. Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974 is simply unbelievable. I can't imagine people were actually eating that stuff.Dehydrated onion flakes are in almost everything here. Apparently Weight Watchers dieticians depended heavily on dried onion flakes, and pimientos, too. They also had a prop department that was clearly out of control. Oh, you'll see.
11:11:46 AM |
|
|
 Terry Jones of Monty Python fame about Tony. Blair thought he could sagely steer his impetuous American friends away from actions they would later regret. It turns out they were just playing him for a patsy.... Terry Jones: Poor Tony Blair wakes up
[Ye Olde Phart] I mean it's simply not fair. Here he is - Prime Minister of Great Britain (just) - and he's doing everything he possibly can including leaning over backwards and licking his own bottom. He's spending vast amounts of money he hasn't got on sending men to the Gulf. He's put his entire nation in the front line for terrorist reprisals. He's upset his other admirers in Europe, and - to cap it all - he's put his name to a plan that is not just plain stupid but is actually wicked, and in return? Zilch.
10:15:31 AM |
|
|
|
Analog Recording. Remember? The days you actually had to use something called Tape and a big machine to record sounds and music? Even before the Compact Cassette? Well, 
Science. A few editions of 
Smashing. I'm now using Safari v67. Fantastic!
Futuro. This is the 
Tulip. A website about 
To do: Sort all of the blog links on the right in alphabetical order. And add 
Jack-the-Lad. I can't say I'm a Ripper fan, but 
Alright, I'm back from Brussels. The Central Line ist still not running, I'm tired and exhausted, more links tomorrow. Links I received while having moules avec frites in the Brasserie round the corner of my apartment. See you tomorrow or later tonight, when I had a chance to chill out.
Bye. Off to another week's work in 
Telly. I'm pretty sure, someone must have blogged this before, but what the hell. Here's