Sentence Of The Month

Ms Hadfield - pictured in the festival’s spinning egg, which she described as “like a sensory-deprivation chamber, but friendlier” - said more than 60 volunteers were contributing knitting to cover central Footscray’s trees.

- Maribyrnong Leader

Woman sees Rudolph in pork chop

Of course she does.

Official: Okay To Kill Zombies

'Did you know that the same guy founded Atari (in 1972) and the pizza/video-game chainChuck E. Cheese? Nolan Bushnell was ousted from both companies right before they hit the big time. And now he's writing a science-fiction novel. [...] Bushnell has come out against ultra-violent video games like Grand Theft Auto because it's not constructive or cathartic to portray violence against a cop, sex worker or pimp. But it's okay to show someone killing zombies, because "they're already dead!"'

io9

Amanda Holden In A Jar

This is a very exciting idea from Kenco, the coffee people. Instead of buying an actress, using her up, and then throwing her in the trash so that you can replace her with a fresh one, why not "refill and reuse" the same actress? It's kinder to her, and it's kinder to the planet. Not sure what use it is for Kenco.

How to Fix... high speed rail

Now that Lord Adonis, the Greek mythical character in charge of British transport policy, has swung his weight behind a high speed train link between London and far-away Birmingham, we can expect work to start any minute, and the new service to be running perfectly by the spring. That's certainly what happened with the wonderful Crossrail project, without which London would have seized up years ago.

But a big problem remains: Where is the line going to go?

I don't think there's much disagreement about the overall answer to this question. Clearly, the most logical place to put the line is on the ground. There's a huge amount of ground stretching between the two cities, and all we need to do is find a continuous, narrow strip of it that doesn't have any houses on it.

However, there's a much better way – a simple solution which is, as temporarily Heathrovian author Alain de Botton might say, “ruddy brilliant”. Instead of finding a new route for the track to be built on, the line's builders can simply lay the rails on the fast lanes of the M40 motorway. Anyone who can prove that they habitually drive along the fast lane at speeds above 90 mph will be offered discount tickets on the new train service, and their cars will be taken away and crushed. This will solve the road traffic capacity issue, while at the same time demonstrating the government's ability to solve problems through sensitive negotiation.

Having studied the route of the M40, I will acknowledge that it does have quite a few curvy bits, and that the high-speediness of the new service may well be compromised in some sections. There's one particularly vicious curve that's almost a right angle, where most drivers need to open their eyes and/or stop eating for at least two minutes as they struggle to keep the car more or less on the tarmac. This sudden diversion in the road was designed to protect some butterflies who would otherwise have been crushed, but it's quite possible that the butterflies have since flown away, meaning that this stretch could now be straightened.

Journey times between London and Birmingham may be reduced by bends in the line, but the delays can be countered by removing “station stops”. Passengers will be treated like mail freight: tossed into large hoppers hanging over the sides of bridges. No one really wants to go to places like Banbury or Bicester anyway, as they're full of lorries, so that will help.

The service can be further improved by removing Shakespeare tourists, who would otherwise need to be thrown out as the train passes Warwick. Given the huge investment made at Stratford station in east London – there are now three hundred platforms, direct links to every European capital and signs in Catalan – it makes sense to shift the Shakespeare industry down there. It's much nearer the Globe, and Harrods.

Finally, the big kitsch statue that greets international travellers at St Pancras sets the keynote for the kind of public art we'll want to see associated with the new high speed line. St Pancras has a couple kissing, so it would be fitting if Birmingham New Street was adorned with a couple breaking up. The man could be throwing the Simply Red CDs at the woman, for example. And the whole thing could be made of leaves.

Brand naming genius

Brewers to the nation Molson Coors - or, as drinkers of a certain age might know them, Bass - are to launch a low-alcohol lager with a bottle size cunningly designed to contain exactly one unit of alcohol. They must be hoping that this gesture will further show their commitment to promoting "sensible drinking" among the lower orders. Why else would they be calling the new brew "C2"? According to the hallowed demographic classification defined by the National Readership Survey (NRS) on behalf of the newspaper industry, C2 means "skilled working class".

Spooked tuna juveniles

Hooray! 

If, like me, you've ever despaired at the dearth of stories featuring the phrase "spooked tuna juveniles", your Google-zero-hit-misery days are over! Oceanic Tuna Limited to the rescue!

Right, I'll put the exclamation marks box back now.

"Shooting Stars" at Surbiton

I am nothing if not up-to-date - and therefore I seem to be nothing... Because here I am reviewing a movie that was made in 1927. Shooting Stars was co-directed by Anthony Asquith, the son of a prime minister who went on to make a long and honourable list of British films.

My affection for this silent dramedy is enhanced by the knowledge that it was made not far from my house in glamorous Surbiton, a corner of south west London these days known for, well, not for anything really. Shooting Stars is about a love triangle among three actors making films, and makes extensive use of the studios that used to exist on Park Road.

I didn't know this when I dialled it up at the bfi's wonderful (and free) Mediatheque facility one day last week. But as the film started I was surprised to see it credited to "British Instructional Films" of "Surbiton, Surrey", and then I got my Googling attachment out. I knew there'd been a studio nearby, but not that anything in the way of a classic had been made there.

The studio closed a few years after the making of Shooting Stars, though I don't know if it was demolished immediately. The larger site it stood on belonged to the grounds of Regent House, a mansion built in the late nineteenth century by the founder of London's Cafe Royal (which is on Regent Street).

In those days, Surbiton was in the countryside and the owner had his own deer park. After he sold up, or perhaps after he died, the Stoll company established a movie studio in the house's ballroom. The behind-the-scenes shots in Shooting Stars are clearly of a brick-built, hanger-style studio - double height, I should say. I'm sad enough to freeze-frame movies to look at the quality of the brickwork in the background, and I can report that the studio at Park Road didn't look like it was built to last.

The site where the house, grounds and studio used to lie is now covered in houses. But they're not all quite of the same age, and I have a feeling that the studio site may have been built over later than the rest. Some features of the boundary wall still survive, though these are not in great shape.

It would be fun to mobilise the homeowners on the site, equip them all with metal detectors, and see what we could find... Maybe a film can here, a prop medal there - I believe that various World War I dramas were shot amongst the shrubbery. We could get Time Team over... "Here, Tony! Look at this!"

And just think: if we had managed to retain the lido and the film studio, this part of the suburbs would really be quite something, wouldn't it?

The most-used line in Eastenders...

... is: "Why aren't you in school?"

I haven't been keeping score, but I bet you all the money in the world (and all the debt) that this line has been used more times than any other in the entire history of the show.

A Store Too Far

Every little hurts, as Saint Tesco said to the Tolworthians.

Bon Jovi at ninety

There's going to be a big party to celebrate Jon Bon Jovi's ninetieth birthday! Come along to the free concert at Twix-en-ham, nr London this Friday, and show your support for the man who single-handedly freed the whole world from oppression - through his music.

Twin Cities

Wouldn't you know it, but according to satirical weekly The Economist, one of the bin Ladens is building two cities in Yemen and Djibouti, with a 17 mile bridge linking them across the Red Sea.

This is an excellent idea. There are not nearly enough "twin cities" in the world. There is, of course, the very famous Banff-Macduff pairing in Scotland, and that one that ends in Saint Paul, somewhere in America.

It makes you wonder why people don't make things in pairs more often. Twin airports, for example, linked by a motorway (so that you wouldn't have to fly from one to the other). Or twin oceans, separated by a 17-mile landmass. Or even twin people: two babies born at (more or less) the same time. The possibilities are endless.

August

To Edinburgh, where Lord Lucan's shark is awaiting its A-level results.

Faking Action Man

I'm a little late with this observation, but it seems very appropriate that superchef Gordon Ramsay faked a catch that made him feel "like Action Man", since Action Man is entirely smooth where his genitalia ought to be. Action Man is lacking the meat and two veg that Ramsay likes to swing around the kitchen.

The Tesco Swingometer

I do like those ads that Tesco publish, showing how many of their competitors' products are priced lower than theirs. If they'd also publish a list of what those products are, they'd be being even more helpful.

English word of the week: bowser

Bowsers are being deployed in parts of flooded England. A bowser is, apparently, a water tanker, though it's not a word I can honestly say I have ever heard in polite conversation.

If pushed, I'd have assumed that a bowser was either a breed of dog, or something to do with Web 3.0 ("a wreb bowser").

Of course, given the flooding, there's plenty of water on the ground - it's just not drinkable. So they have to ferry (ha!) the clean stuff in.

Though the flooding has (briefly) troubled parts of London, it won't become real until there are salmon swimming in Bank Underground Station and old ladies being rescued from the roof of Television Centre.

I wish it would snow.

Geddit? : Sink estates

The Lib Dem leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, said it was extraordinary not to reconsider development on flood plains, and Grant Shapps, shadow housing minister, accused Labour of building "the sink estates of tomorrow".
The Guardian, 24 July 2007.

You read it here first: Skunk Marketing

I predict that "skunk" will be the next annoyingly would-be buzzalicious adjective to be leapt on by the terminally self-promotional.

There will undoubtedly be a book called Skunk Marketing, though I have no idea who its author will be. (Clue: not me.)

I expect we'll also see a movement labelled Skunk Filmmaking, and one called Skunk Programming. Skunk Rock seems inevitable too.

Drought

Isn't it about time Pry Menacer Gordo Brown appointed a Minister for Drought? The government stands idly by while millions of Brits are rescued from their sofas while others are forced to boil dust.

Unless our political leaders do something to reduce the Carbolic Footprint, we will continue to experience extreme weather events while destroying the heritage of our children, and our children's children. We urgently need to secure water security for these fragile islands.

If you have any spare rain in your loft or basement, please take it to your nearest post office and mark it "Blue Peter Appeal". NB your nearest post office may be much further than you think, so take a Frusli bar with you.

Town Planning Insights (1): West End Westerlies

"...the prevailing westerly wind in England, blowing the worst of smoke and stench eastwards, has ensured that the most salubrious part of any English city is always in the west."
- Clare Clark, reviewing Hubbub: Filth, noise and stench in England by Emily Cockayne, TLS, 13 July 2007.