Somehow I don't think this billboard would work terribly well in Britain for about 10 months out of twelve. Even so, there's no denying that it's a really clever piece of design.

[Via Rebecca's Pocket]

Simon Hoggart visits an exhibition in the Houses of Parliament commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot:

The lord chancellor and the Speaker, holders of offices far more ancient than that of, say, prime minister, arrived to open the exhibition. The Speaker, Michael Martin, slightly fluffed one line – he said how glad he was that so many people had come to share "in the great heresy, er, heritage …" This slip was splendidly appropriate since Mr Martin is the first Roman Catholic to become Speaker, something which would certainly not have been permitted in Guy Fawkes's day.

He went on to say, in a heartfelt way, that he was sorry that, unlike Fawkes and his crew, the 7/7 bombers had not been discovered first, and you could almost feel the shudder run round the crowd. Blowing people up for religious reasons has suddenly come a little closer to home.

I went round the exhibition with a member of the cabinet, who pointed out that the conspirators had been tried very fast and executed even faster. "Yes," I replied, "it would have warmed the cockles of Charles Clarke's heart," at which he laughed rather more heartily than the gag justified.

As Tim Burton's adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opens in the States, Joël Glenn Brenner writes about the real-life events that inspired Roald Dahl's story.

[...]

Because of the happily-ever-after ending, the story is generally viewed as a straightforward parable, a typical Dahl treatment of the consequences of boorishness. But Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is far more. Dahl himself was obsessed with sweets, and he waxed nostalgic about the candies of his youth, many of which disappeared over the course of his life as industrial behemoths squeezed out the mom-and-pop confectioners he so adored. The result of his personal experience is the mythical world of Willy Wonka, which is not innocent fiction drawn from thin air, but a no-holds-barred parody of the real-world candy industry, a world every bit as strange as Mr. Wonka himself.

[...]

Who knew? (Certainly not me: I've neither seen the first film adaptation nor read the book. Even so, Brenner's article is still worth a read.)

Another trailer is up for Serenity. It doesn't give away much more than the first trailer did; once again the emphasis is very much on the shootin' and the fightin' and the quippin'.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, but it'd be nice to think that it'll be more than a mere action movie. Happily, seven years of Buffy and five of Angel suggests that when the crunch comes we can Trust In Joss…

The 7th of October can't get here fast enough.

[Via Alex Thoth, posting at Barbelith Underground]

Journalist Helaine Olen recently sacked her nanny Tessy, ostensibly because the nanny had a weblog and had written (indirectly) about her employment. Normally, this would go down as just another weblogger being dooced and would be a 48 hour wonder.

But then Helaine Olen took things a stage further: she wrote an essay for the New York Times describing how Tessy had told her about the weblog some time ago, how Olen had read it and even passed on the URL to her friends, and how she'd lived vicariously through her employee's weblog. But then she decided that she felt a bit uncomfortable and decided enough was enough.

The heady mix of class, envy and discomfort on display in the NYT article makes for a thoroughly off-putting read and has prompted a tremendous number of weblog articles discussing the issues raised therein. A particularly good weblog post and discussion thread on the topic can be found at Making Light, where I found a link to another really fine post and discussion thread at Bitch. Ph.D. It's also worth reading the post by Tessy herself responding to the NYT article.

For what it's worth, my take on this whole saga is that it's yet another symptom of that great unmentionable in these meritocratic days, the class system. If an employee writes about their employer, however indirectly, it's a sackable offence. If an employer then writes in the New York Times about sacking the employee, that's "journalism." (Before any US reader posts to tell me about at-will employment, I should point out that I'm well aware that this is common practice and perfectly legal in many states. I'll simply note that "legal" does not mean "reasonable" or "sensible" or "praiseworthy.")

At one point in Olen's article, she comments that "[I] feared [Tessy] would judge my life and find it wanting." Well, she's now got an awful lot of people passing judgement on her life.

Who'd have thought it? Proof at Waiter Rant that a pair of glasses really can turn you into a whole new person.

A Thinking Man's Mug Shot. Quite, quite hilarious!

[Via GromBlog]

If you live in hurricane-prone territory, you could do a lot worse than live in a Dome of a Home.

[Via Marilee J. Layman, posting to rec.arts.sf.fandom]

This eBay auction features an extremely entertaining (and no doubt hugely cathartic) rant about the item for sale, a Motorola MPx200 mobile phone:

[...]

In summary:

• I hate it.
• I detest every atom of it's existence.
• It's creator should be tied down and eaten by ants.
• The factory that makes them should be melted by a big laser from space.
• It doesn't have a camera
• It barely functions as a phone

Do you want it? Bid Now!

You have a choice, you can bid for the phone or you can bid for a homemade DVD of it's slow demise.

I plan to use a vice, a drill, possibly an angle grinder, some flamable liquids, a blowtorch and finally a sledghammer.

I may even do the ultimate nasty and tell my wife it spent some money on some new computer bits.

Just let me know your choice, I strongly recommend the latter.

I know what your thinking, you're thinking "I could download something like that off the net".

Trust me, in my video, you'll be able to f-e-e-l the hatred, it'll be worth it.

Please allow a few days for me to produce the video.

[...]

Sadly, someone bought the phone before it could meet the fate it so richly deserved.

[Via PalmAddicts]

Come 2008, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is going to be overflying the various Apollo lunar landing sites with a telescope powerful enough to resolve the lunar landers and buggies themselves.

Imagine the conspiracy theories if it turns out they can't be found…

[Via kottke.org remaindered links]

Bruce Campbell talks to Salon (NB: non-subscribers will be required to view a Flash ad before reading the article) about his new novel, Make Love The Bruce Campbell Way:

The book seems to indirectly put across the idea that a guy like you, who's beloved by tons of fans, doesn't deserve to hobnob with the A-listers on a Mike Nichols movie.

I know, but it's also a way to say, "You wanna put me in the A league? Here's what would really happen!" But overall it's a way of saying, "Don't worry about me."

You feel comfortable where you are.

Oh yeah, what the hell: You wind up where you wind up, and as an actor, you have no idea where you're going to wind up. You really don't. And there are a lot of A-list actors today who never gave a shit about acting, so it's funny how the cookie crumbles. But I defend my position by stating that I have the best of both worlds: I can make a living and make movies that aren't going to be picked apart by a thousand chefs. When you make a movie for a couple million bucks, there are only going to be so many people involved. And usually there are much fewer than there are on the blockbusters, which makes things much simpler. You don't have the pressure to have that $20 million opening weekend. So it allows me to just be an actor, which is what I always wanted in the first place. I don't have to spend 50 percent of my time figuring out how to stay famous. I don't want to devote that much time to that. Although I do have to tour like a mutherscratcher.

Mike Davis on Dubai:

The narration begins: As your jet starts its descent, you are glued to your window. The scene below is astonishing: a 24-square-mile archipelago of coral-colored islands in the shape of an almost finished puzzle of the world. In the shallow green waters between continents, the sunken shapes of the Pyramids of Giza and the Roman Coliseum are clearly visible.

In the distance are three other large island groups configured as palms within crescents and planted with high-rise resorts, amusement parks, and a thousand mansions built on stilts over the water. The "Palms" are connected by causeways to a Miami-like beachfront chock-a-block full of mega-hotels, apartment high-rises and yacht marinas.

As the plane slowly banks toward the desert mainland, you gasp at the even more improbable vision ahead. Out of a chrome forest of skyscrapers (nearly a dozen taller than 1000 feet) soars a new Tower of Babel. It is an impossible one-half-mile high: the equivalent of the Empire State Building stacked on top of itself.

[...]

The utopian character of Dubai, it must be emphasized, is no mirage. Even more than Singapore or Texas, the city-state really is an apotheosis of neo-liberal values.

On the one hand, it provides investors with a comfortable, Western-style, property-rights regime, including freehold ownership, that is unique in the region. Included with the package is a broad tolerance of booze, recreational drugs, halter tops, and other foreign vices formally proscribed by Islamic law. (When expats extol Dubai's unique "openness," it is this freedom to carouse — not to organize unions or publish critical opinions — that they are usually praising.)

On the other hand, Dubai, together with its emirate neighbors, has achieved the state of the art in the disenfranchisement of labor. Trade unions, strikes, and agitators are illegal, and 99% of the private-sector workforce are easily deportable non-citizens. Indeed, the deep thinkers at the American Enterprise and Cato institutes must salivate when they contemplate the system of classes and entitlements in Dubai. [...]

[Via the null device]

The Planetary Society has a page devoted to pictures of Saturn's moons taken by the Cassini probe.

I think this photograph of Pandora is my favourite, because it demonstrates the way even the smaller moons have an effect on the planet's ring system.

[Via MetaFilter]

Montreal looks as if it must experience some seriously variable weather conditions.

[Via Google Sightseeing]

House of M: a hilarious take on the current X-Men/Avengers crossover storyline from the man who gave us this and this.

[Via Ms. Triplets, posting at Barbelith Underground]

I really, really wish the Optimus keyboard was an actual, shipping product rather than a design concept. (Though I seriously doubt the LEDs or OLEDs used in the keycaps would stand up to the punishment a well-used keyboard gets.)

[Via #!/usr/bin/girl]

You learn something new every day (#15,491 in a never-ending series): the story of the Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. Something to contemplate on a hot summer's day:

[...]

This was the fourth day that the mercury of the freight shed had been climbing. On the 12th of January it was only two degrees above zero. But, on the 13th, the temperature rose rapidly from sixteen degrees to forty; now, at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the 15th, it was forty-three above zero, and so warm in the sun that office workers stood around in their shirtsleeves (talking about the weather). Even the freight handlers had doffed their overcoats, and sailors from the training ship Nantucket carried their heavy peajackets on their arms.

[...]

In the pumping station attached to the big molasses tank, Bill White turned the key in the lock and started uptown to meet his wife for lunch. He bumped into Eric Blair, driver for Wheelerís Express, and said, "Hello, Scotty. What are you doing around here at noontime? Thought you and the old nag always went to Charlestown for grub?"

The young Scotsman grinned, "It's a funny thing, Bill. This is the first time in three years I ever brought my lunch over here;" and he climbed up on the bulkhead and leaned back against the warm side of the big molasses tankófor the first and last time.

Inside the Boston and Worcester freight terminal, Percy Smerage, the foreman, was checking a pile of express to be shipped to Framingham and Worcester. Four freight cars were already loaded. The fifth stood half empty on the spur track that ran past the molasses tank.

Smerage had just told his assistant to finish loading the last car when a low, deep rumble shook the freight yard. Then the earth heaved under their feet and they heard a sound of ripping and tearing – snipping of steel bolts (like a machine gun) – followed by a booming roar as the bottom of the giant molasses tank split wide open and a geyser of yellowish-brown fluid spouted into the sky, followed by a tidal wave of molasses.

With a horrible, hissing, sucking sound, it splashed in a curving arc straight across the street, crushing everything and everybody in its path.

[...]

I was so tempted to title this post "A Sticky Situation."

[Via MetaFilter]

Sydney Webb's Thaxted is a wonderfully entertaining example of the alternate history genre:

Thaxted

Part 1 – Moving South

Peggy's first memory was of a sunny day and being pushed in a pram by her mother through the bustling streets of the town and along to the park. The colour and movement and noise were not disturbing to the young girl but entrancing. What a wonderful place this big world was!

Peggy loved Grantham. The comfortable bustle of the family's first shop below their home, the ready availability of her parents and elder sister Muriel, friends at Kesteven and Grantham Girl's School, kindly Rev. Skinner from the chapel, and rambles through the hills overlooking the town.

Beatrice knew how much her younger daughter loved Grantham and how strong minded she could be. She daren't leave matters until the formal announcement at the dinner table that night and decided to have a quiet word with Peggy while Alfred was still serving customers downstairs.

"I have some very exciting news dear and I need you to be brave. A man has offered your father a good deal of money for his shops. At the same time a wonderful business opportunity has opened up down in Essex. In a beautiful town called Thaxted. Of course, it'll mean we'll have to move to Thaxted but there are some lovely houses there. Isn't that nice?"

Peggy replied in the high pitched voice of a ten year old, "Thaxted sounds like a horrid name. I'm sure I'll hate it."

Beatrice pressed on gamely, "Now Margaret. What have I said about jumping to conclusions and making up your mind before you know all the facts? There are some very good schools there. We've picked out one for you and Muriel."

"But I've already got lots of friends at KGGS."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

Beatrice forced a smile. "I'm sure you'll make lots of new…"

Peggy's voice rose an octave. "If you'll just let me finish. I've got lots friends at KGGS. And I've heard about southerners. They make fun of the way you speak."

Beatrice spoke sternly. "Margaret Hilda Roberts, I've never known you not to be able to do anything you've turned your mind to. If you want to speak with an Essex accent then so you shall. Now, no more nonsense. And all smiles when Father speaks of Thaxted at the dinner table tonight!"

[...]

If you're wondering who "Margaret Hilda Roberts" is, or if the phrase "If you'll just let me finish" doesn't ring any bells, you'll probably not be interested in the rest of the story. If, on the other hand, you already know exactly who the story is about, I suspect you'll find Thaxted hugely entertaining as it posits a very different career (not to mention choice of partner) for a certain politician everyone over the age of 40 in Britain remembers all too well…

A Canadian supermarket mistakenly sold a small number of copies of the new Harry Potter novel last week, just over a week before the official launch date. Embarrassing, you might think, but not really that big a deal. Except that J K Rowling's Canadian publishers have gone to court, arguing that the early release of such a highly-anticipated book – and in particular, the leaking of plot details – could cause "irreparable harm."

You might think that now the publishers have taken the supermarket to court and demanded damages that would be an end of it. Except that it's not, because it wasn't the supermarket who were subject to a court order. The judge actually ordered that the people who bought the books must return them to the publishers and are prevented from disclosing any details of the novel before the official release date. There's no indication in any of the reports that I've read that any of the buyers acted other than in good faith, so it's a little hard for me to see how on earth it's the court's business what they do with the books they bought or who they tell about what they've read. Unless books have suddenly become akin to music CDs, where the small print explicitly states that we're merely buying a license to the content, surely the publishers have no case against the purchasers. To be sure, they can probably extract some damages from the supermarket which sold the books, but that seems to me to be the most they could reasonably hope for.

How is this even possible? Is Canadian law unusually protective of the interests of publishers, to the point where action can be taken against third parties? Is there some reason to think that the purchasers were fully aware they were breaking the rules laid down by the publishers in their contract with the supermarket, and if so are they somehow deemed to be party to said contract? Is this actually a meaningless judgement that will never be enforced, but which the publisher hopes will cow them into silence for just another four days now? Does this sort of thing happen all the time and I just haven't heard about it? Or, finally, is this a sign that the sooner J K Rowling publishes the seventh and final book and lets the hysteria about the fate of her boy wizard and his pals die down the better?

[Via Blog of a Bookslut]

David Ansen poses the question: Is Anybody Making Movies We'll Actually Watch In 50 Years? (For the record, he's talking about actors, not directors.)

She was "America's sweetheart." For 10 years in a row she appeared on the list of the top-10 Hollywood stars, and in 1943 she was the most popular star in the world, her pinup a keepsake accompanying American soldiers to war. But when was the last time you saw a Betty Grable movie? Can you, in fact, think of the name of a Betty Grable movie?

Stardom is as unstable as an atom. Exposed to time, it mutates. If your name is Grable, it can be as ephemeral as a passing fashion. If your name is Gable, it's as permanent as marble. After the headlines and the gossip fade, there are only the movies you've left behind to argue your case. But which ones will last is not so easy to predict. [...]

For what it's worth, I wouldn't even recognise a picture of Betty Grable, never mind be able to name one of her films.

I agree with Ansen that the likes of Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and George Clooney have done work that should earn them lasting fame, and I'd add the name of Denzel Washington to Ansen's list. (True, Washington is a bit older than the rest of this crowd, even Clooney, but Washington's breakthrough big screen role in Glory was as late as 1989, which is close enough to the rise of the likes of Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman that I think he can justifiably be considered part of this cohort, albeit at the older end of the group.)

I don't think Tom Cruise will last, nor Julia Roberts. The former because I have a nasty feeling he's going to flame out very publicly if he doesn't hire a publicist not related to him who will stop him making a fool of himself on TV, the latter because I've never seen a film she starred in where I couldn't imagine half a dozen others in the role. (To be fair, I've never seen Erin Brockovich, an omission which I'll admit might just be significant in this context.)

I'd like to agree with Ansen that Nicolas Cage is in with a chance, but someone needs to persuade him to stop making so many lacklustre action movies. I know Con Air, Face/Off and The Rock were all good, dumb fun in their different ways, but there's no excuse for the likes of Gone In Sixty Seconds or National Treasure. (Come to that, I dread to think how the forthcoming remake of The Wicker Man, with Cage in the Edward Woodward role, will turn out. A lot will depend upon who they get to play Lord Summerisle, and on whether they transpose the action to a different location.)

[Via kottke.org remaindered links]