The movie also features a much-welcome return to the screen for Timothy Dalton. Dalton has always been, in our humble opinion, a criminally under-rated actor who has always possesed superb comic timing. Problem is he's never gotten the scripts, or when he did (like in Hawks) it didn't get noticed. Hopefully that'll all change with Pegg and director/writer Edgar Wright utilising him properly. The following is the first in a series of video-blogs that they've released this year covering the making of the movie. For those of you unaware of who they are, well...

More:

Hot Fuzz homepage

Blather on Spaced

Blather goes to the Spaced house

Watch it here. You've been warned.

(via k10k)

Can anyone out there help us? We'd like to know who is responsible for the remix and who is repsonsible for the animation. Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

'A THIEF crossed to the dark side when he donned a Darth Vader mask and robbed two Sunshine Coast service stations.

Police said the man, armed with a plastic toy gun, entered the Mobil service station on Noosa Drive at 12.30am on Friday and threatened a male attendant.

But the thief was unable to open the till and left empty handed.

A police spokesman said the Star Wars fan returned nearly three hours later and scanned a packet of chewing gum in order to open the cash register.'

Bandit uses The Force - on till

Researchers at the University of Basel first came across a set of extraordinarily large bones three years ago whilst excavating in the El Kowm area, 250km north of the capital Damascus, but were only able to confirm the remains came from a camel once further fragments were found this summer. "We found the first traces of a big animal in 2003, but we were not sure if it was a giant camel," Jean-Marie Le Tensorer, a pre-history professor at the University of Basel, told Reuters. "This is a big discovery, a revolution in science."

My colleague, Brian, posted this quote from Rémi Parmentier on our Making Waves blog:

When I read that the North Korean authorities claim that their underground nuclear test has not "resulted in any leak of radiation", what comes immediately to my mind is this photo of the venting of the US Baneberry "underground" test in the Nevada desert in 1970. Greenpeace was the first, in 1981, to leak this now iconic picture; it was Allan Thornton (from Greenpeace at the time) who put his hand on it in Washington DC. Read more: Nuclear test: what should we do? »

Early Monday, seismographs around the world detected a tremor in North Korea that may have been caused by an underground nuclear blast. Within hours, a North Korean broadcaster brought a triumphant announcement from Pyongyang. The announcer says the test produced no radiation leakage, because it was conducted with wisdom and scientific knowledge. She adds the historic event brings the army and the North Korean people great pleasure. North Korea says it conducted the test to improve the country's defenses.

The Guardian: Nuclear test sparks international condemnation:

North Korea's Central News Agency declared the test a triumph... '"The nuclear test is a historic event that brought happiness to our military and people," it said. "The nuclear test will contribute to maintaining peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and surrounding region."'

North Korea detonates nuke, joins planet's most dangerous club

Making Waves: North Korea: Happy 'Nuclear Free' Anniversary Kim Jong-il »

"Each step emerges one step in front of you and disappears back underneath behind you as you go. This ‘bridge’ is purely mechanical, the weight of the person on it depresses each step a little, this force activates a submerged mechanism which raises the next step.

The public are invited to walk out on it as if walking on water, eventually reaching the middle of the lake, thirty steps and twelve meters from the shore. There they will stand alone and detached, stranded in the middle of a plane of water until they choose to return the way they came. For some people this experience of being cut off and surrounded by water will be peaceful, for others terrifying. For some walking across the water will be pure childish joy, whilst others will be too scared to try."

→ The installation is up until October 29 at Dilston Grove, London.

(via BoingBoing)

Read the account at mounteverest.net

On closer inspection, the tops of two ancient brick walls could clearly be seen through the deep hole.

"There's a room down there," Father David Carney told The Standard. "I've never known anything like it before. A room underneath our churchyard!
"You can see right down into it – you can see two brick walls there. Nobody knows what it is. It's a mystery."

→ Read on (via ForteanTimes)

It's not a big surprise that Corrêa's first contact with art happened in his science and biology lessons at school. He loved working in laboratories, or "temples of silence and death", as he prefers to call them.

Fascinated by evolution theories, taxidermy and Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical studies, Corrêa soon started to draw his own visions of the earth's flora & fauna - how it manifests itself and - more importantly - how it could be improved.

"These Hybrid mammals and insects, birds and fish, mammals and birds, mammals and fish point to a whimsical world and represent the taxidermy of a fantastic wildlife that boggles our mind, all the more so because, in today’s world, they are no longer mere artistic hallucinations, but actual scientific possibilities."

- Walmor Corrêa

→ Corrêa's 'Cryptozoology' series

Irish publisher Folens has announced that in future Ireland will not be included in the British Isles, The Evening Standard reports.

Oddly enough now, I was only reading this morning, in the original Blather, about the O'Blather's plan to take Ireland out of the British Isles...

My own plan for the salvation of Ireland and for the amelioration of all her ills is too well known to require elaboration here; it is not too well known, however, to require statement. Briefly, it is as follows.

Let there be a big (if necessary an enormous) saw got, and let there be two yokes or business erected, one in the Atlantic and one in the Irish Sea, for working the big saw in the manner of two men working a cross-cut. Let the country be then sawed from its moorings from Antrim's coast to wild Cape Clear. By the laws of physics (Boyle's Law, Principle of Moments, etc.) the country will then float. Our subjection to England will be then no longer dependent on our geographical proximity to her. It is the first step in the sundering of the chain. It is not, enough, however, to be afloat. At the mercy of the wind and the waves, we might edge over to England on a dark night and be anchored to her for the rest of time, like Wales.

A simple means of locomotion would be to divert the course of the Shannon so as to make it enter the sea at Cobh, which roughly the centre of the vessel's stern. Another idea would be to erect an enormous sail in the centre of the midlands, but cornerboys of Athlone would probably ruin it by playing handball against it. The Shannon scheme is the better of the two.

All that remains to be done now is to erect an enormous rudder at Cobh as well. The rudder is to be housed in a great building which will also be the seat of Government, because the party in power will simply have charge of the rudder and will have power to decide whether it is be turned this way or that. Can you help wondering at the sublime simplicity of it all?

Now what are the advantages of this grand scheme? First of all, we are rid of the Saxon, and the rotten climate that goes with him. The entire country (by the simple means of passing a Bill) can go abroad for the winter. The people can have winter sports at will, or languish in the Mediterranean when the whim takes them. We can grow tropical fruit and spend our leisure by baiting arctic bears and Russian wolves. We can get all our foreign supplies at greatly reduced prices by eliminating the costly item of freights. ('10,000 tons of timber for Ireland. To be called for.')

We can substantially augment the national income by acting as common carriers between the New World and the old, putting every shipping company in the world out of business. We can give the British hell as often as we feel like it by steaming past her coast and ruining the country with gigantic tidal waves. The possibilities are endless.

Interestingly, Irish webzine The Evil Gerald touched on this concept in their article Ireland sets sights on Steam Scheme »

Back to The Register. Lester Haines writes:

Yes, we know Ireland has been a sovereign state since 1922, but, for the love of all that's Holy, is there no-one who can put a stop to PC geography teachers lighting up their pipes and pontificating? Get back to sewing patches on your tweed jackets, the lot of you.

In response, Blather's own Damien writes that:

'It occurs to me that Lester Haines needs a quick history lesson. The term 'The British Isles' is not a geographical term. It's a political construction, dating from the period which saw the introduction of the Act of Union. The Act of Union was a response to the rebellion of 1798 and the climate of self-determination which was sweeping across Ireland. The British government instigated a systematic programme to make Ireland British, involving the cartographic charting of Ireland using anglicised town names (e.g. 'Cluain Tarbh' became 'Clontarf') and the imposition of a new flag. As a result of this project, scholars took to using the term 'The British Isles'. It wasn't new, but it became the preferred moniker of choice for those who considered Irish men and women 'lucky' to be subject to Britian's benevolent rule.

In case this isn't sinking in, let me be clear; Ireland is not British. It never was. It never will be. Get that through yer thick feckin' skulls once and for all and understand that the use of such insulting and perjorative terminology is offensive, out-of-date and embarrasingly reminiscent of a worn-out, hackneyed imperialist view of the world. Failure to comply will result in blather.net forever more referring to 'The Irish Isles' when discussing events in London and anywhere within three hundred miles of it. Do you get the smell of porter?'

Wikipedia: The British Isles, terminology and controversy »

The EU's environmental body is reportedly using Dublin as an example of what not to do when it comes to urban planning.

Reports this morning say the European Environment Agency has identified Dublin's urban sprawl as a "worst-case scenario" in city planning.

It reportedly says "extremely passive" planning policies have also led to undesirable urban sprawl in towns and villages throughout Ireland.

The assessment is contained in a study designed to help new EU member states like Poland avoid making the same mistakes.

I remember a rather doltish neighbour of ours, years ago. Cast his eye over a wind bend in the river Slaney, outside our house, he thought it was a lake. "Isn't that an awful waste of space? Do you not think they should fill it in and build houses on it?"