Year: 2003
The further adventures of Jasper the space/time travelling cat (Volume 2. Episode 3)
Jasper meets a chinaman. In space. Further to our previous reports regarding Jasper's interstellar amblings, we (and indeed Japser) recieved a bit of a surprise this morning when Japser reported that he had had a close encounter with a Chinaman. At first we were, quite naturally, perplexed. We had assumed that Jasper was stranded somewhere near the Jovian moons and sometime around the Stone Age. On the contrary it would now seem that the intrepid feline has managed to time-shift back to the present day. We know this because the Chinese government have been crowing all day about their first succesful placement of a man in orbit around the planet earth. Either that or the ship has fallen foul of the same time-holes that caught Jasper. In which case they are fucked. Anyhoo: The chinese president said that the launch was "the glory of our great motherland and a mark...
Fringe Experiences: Camille O’Sullivan
I didn't make to very much in this year's Dublin Fringe Festival, but... NOTE: Camille O'Sullivan Sings Brel: The Sugar Club, Leeson St. Dublin 2, April 18th 2004 I did make it to see The Black Angel, in the Spiegeltent in Wolfe Tone Square, Dublin 1. The show was put together for a one-night-only performance by Camille O'Sullivan and her band. I hadn't seen Camille playing in several years. Once a member of Klub Kabaret - the outfit responsible for turning me on to Weimar cabaret and the music of Kurt Well - the played weekend gigs in Dublin. As the wormwood took its weekly hold of the audience at Club Absinthe, the four vocalists would trounce their way through Brecht's Threepenny Opera. Since then, she's released A Little Yearning, an album of songs by Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Weill, as well as Berlin cabaret composers like Hollander, Eisler and...
The further adventures of Jasper the space/time travelling cat (Volume 2. Episode 2)
Volume 2. Episode 2. Jasper goes to Jupiter. As you do... Well now. Having had a quick jaunt around the outer rings of Saturn and reporting back on various odd phenomena, young Jasper has now ventured to the gas giant, Jupiter. Jupiter is big. Very, very big. In fact, it's about 1300 times the size of the wee blue orb upon which we sit right now. Composed of clouds of helium, water vapour, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide, Jupiter is one scary, breathtaking place, as was evidenced by the incredible pictures from the Galileo space probe in recent years. Jupiter also has a mass of moons - 16 for sure, the most interesting of which are Io, Europa, Ganymede (the biggest satellite in the solar system) and Callisto, the original four observed by Galileo (the scientist, not the probe) in 1610. A 17th moon may have been discovered in recent years....
Michael Moore’s “Dude where’s my country?”
The great American satirist returns. And guess who he´s bowling for this time? The master returns. "I have seven questions for you, Mr Bush. I ask them on behalf of the 3,000 who died that September day, and I ask them on behalf of the American people. We seek no revenge against you. We want only to know what happened, and what can be done to bring the murderers to justice, so we can prevent any future attacks on our citizens..." Read the extract here. Buy the book! Dude where's my country? » (Amazon.com) Dude where's my country? » (Amazon.co.uk)
The further adventures of Jasper the time travelling cat (Volume 2. Episode 1)
Volume 2. Episode 1.... A crackle and a splurt. A hiss and a wheeze. A whine and a miaow... Jasper has made contact When we last spoke to the intrepid feline he was having a short sojourn on the surface of the planet Mars. About three thousand years ago. Or thereabouts. Not content with travelling through both time and space, young Jasper has now decided to explore the further reaches of the solar system, from the hellish surfaces of Venus to darkened glacial wastelands of Pluto. For some bizzare reason, he has decided to begin with the sixth rock from the sun: the gas giant Saturn. With an atmosphere composed of hydrogen and helium, wrapped in the solar systems most spectacular ring system composed of millions of giant ice particles and rocks, one could be forgiven for wondering why Jasper didn´t try investigating somewhere a bit warmer... After all, his...
Classic Blather: The Alan Moore Interview
With the League of Extraordinary Gentleman in our cinemas, it's time to unearth this massive interview, done by Barry Kavanagh in October 2000. More »
Fish Fall in Ireland’s West
While I was busy chasing fish in Greece, here's one that got away... A fish fall! A classic fortean phenomenon! In Ireland! Well, maybe. At least no one is blaming a whirlwind... there's a good chance the 'osprey theory' is correct. More as we have it... Western People (Ireland): Flying salmon goes through roof of Ballina house! Wednesday, September 03, 2003 Ballina, as the salmon angling capital of the World, has had its fair share of fishy tales but none so astonishing, or unbelievable, as the true story told yesterday (Monday) by Gertie Clarke of the Piper?s Inn in Hill Street in the town. The Clarkes were in their home at about 11.20 in the morning when they heard a loud bang. At first they thought the noise came from within the house but later discovered it was caused by ?a fair sized salmon? smashing through the roof. more>> Western...
Going Underwater
Blather attempts to take over the other 2/3 of the planet. loodies and gintlepong... greetings from Corfu. There's thunder and lightning outside, so I'm cowering in an internet cafe. An Eventful week... I lost my mobile phone, and learned how to drive a moped, and to dive to 18m (60ft) I am now a qualified PADI Open Water Diver. Got 96% in my written exams (pretty easy really) and did my final qualifying dives this morning, down to 18m. Had to navigate around with a compass at that depth, take my mask off and clear it of water, etc. Tricky enough. Visibility is usually around 25m here, but with the storms and all, it's down to about 8m. Lots of colourful fish: damselfish, peacock wrasse, parrotfish and small golden groupers, moray eels, scorpion fish, sea slugs, saupe, flying fish, loads of clams, corals, urchins, etc. This morning's dive was off...
Review: MJ Harper – The History of Britain Revealed
What an audacious little book. I was suspicious from the outset... no author biography, no index, and no bibliography. This had to be the ravings of a madman. However, it's really a tight little essay, and rather than revealing any new 'factual' material, instead manages to convincingly confront the accepted mythologies of the origins of British peoples and their languages.The History of Britain Revealed provokes more questions than it provides answers. The reader is thrown straight into chapter 1. 'An Englishman's Home', a rant about the prevailing myths about the Anglo-Saxons, and how they managed to completely 'replace' the language of England with their own. Alarm bells went on... it's a rant, I thought, albeit an amusing one. It will endure for a chapter or two, then probably peter out into vague claims and unsubstantiated evidence. I was wrong. The author, for all their sniping at academia and unexpected vague...
Robert Anton Wilson for Governor of the Republic of California
RAW enters the race, as the unofficial write-in candidate for the Guns and Dope Party. From Robert Anton Wilson's website "My party, the Guns and Dope Party, invites extremists of both right and left to unite behind our shared goals of: Get those pointy-headed Washington bureaucrats off our backs and off our fronts too! Guns for everybody who wants them; no guns for those who don't want them Drugs for everybody who wants them; no drugs for those who don't want them Freedom of choice, free love,free speech, free Internet and free beer California secession -- Keep the anti-gun and ant-dope fanatics on the Eastern side of the Rockies Lotsa wild parties every night by gun-toting dopers Animal protection -- Support your right to keep and arm bears More position papers will follow; we know at least 69 good positions." More at rawilson.com>> Tsar cards granting full autonomy available from...