Driven inside by the vile heat of the sun? Very sensible 
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- Max Headroom and the Strange World of Pseudo-CGI - "Max Headroom was created at a time when 3D CGI animation was desirable, but not always affordable; if the budget did not allow it, then the crew had to fake computer animation in front of the camera." Neil Emmett on the history of reality pretending to be computer-generated.
- Cartographical Claptrap! - "The AEON magazine website has a long essay by Kurt Hollander simply titled Middle Earth that takes as its subject not the fantasy realm of J. R. R. Tolkien but the equator, the imaginary line marking the middle of the Earth’s sphere. Unfortunately this essay is severely marred by a series of errors, myths and falsities about the history of cartography and geodesy. I have selected some of the worst here for critical analysis and correction."
- On Doing What One Likes - "I found a much-banged-up copy of Alec Waugh’s 1926 collection of essays, On Doing What One Likes, a few years ago, stuck it in my shelves, and forgot about it. Then, the other day, I took it down and started reading. Alec Waugh was, of course, the older brother of the now-better-known Evelyn... I expected to encounter a rather brash young smarter-than-the-world voice in Waugh’s essays, but instead, I found a remarkable wisdom." And here's the essay, reproduced in full.
- Stupid Calculations - "Where practical facts get rendered into utterly useless ones." Amusing blog which applies arithmetic in ways that are not obviously helpful, such as determining how many toilet flushes it would take to drain the London Aquatics Centre Olympic swimming pool, assuming it were converted into a cistern.
- Cabbie’s Curios: The Markets That Never Were… - "Ever since Roman times, markets have been an integral part of London’s fabric... Back in 1893, the London County Council’s Public Control Department commissioned a report into the capital’s 138 markets examining their size, income, impact on the local area and so on. Intriguingly, the report singled out three markets in particular- all of which lay in what were then impoverished areas- suggesting that they should be drastically expanded with large, purpose built premises containing both stall space and other amenities for the benefit of the public." A look at the three schemes, none of which came to fruition. (Unmentioned in the article is that the two surviving markets, at Leather Lane and Strutton Ground, are both home to a branch of Greggs.)
- 7 Reasons Child Stars Go Crazy (An Insider's Perspective) - Mara Wilson, who starred in Mrs. Doubtfire and Matilda, spills the beans on life for the young and famous: "Combine the regular amount of free stuff celebrities get with all the presents people give kids just for being cute, and you've got a recipe for one spoiled-ass child... It's called the hedonic treadmill, which sounds like something 1950s sci-fi writers imagined we'd all have in our pod-houses by now, but actually means that even people who have the best of everything quickly become used to it."
- The Drugs Don't Work - One year on from my brothers death - "My brother, John started taking drugs from the age of 16 when I was 12. This past year has been the only one in my adult life where I haven't had drugs dominating it in some shape or form... One of the saddest things to me was when he died and everyone told me to remember all the good times before he set out on a path to destruction. Truth is I don't really have any."
- 10 of the Best Lord Justice Ward Lines - Notable quotations from the retiring Court of Appeal judge, such as: "This case involves a number of – and here I must not fall into Dr Spooner’s error – warring bankers."
- No, Our Solar System is NOT a “Vortex” - You may have seen those cool YouTube videos that purport to show how our solar system really looks as it travels through the Universe. Turns out they're bollocks: "In his videos and on his page, Sadhu says that he learned all this from a man named Pallathadka Keshava Bhat. I found a text written by Bhat called "Helical Helix: Solar System a Dynamic Process" describing all these ideas, and not to put too fine a point on it, it's gibberish. Seriously, none of it makes any sense."
- The Brokeback Pose ...is that pose often adopted in comic books, on movie posters, and in fashion shoots where a woman is shown to be Strong by dint of presenting her bum to the viewer while simultaneously twisting her torso to also provide a good view of her breasts. This blog gathers together some of the more egregious examples, including this one: "Victoria Beckham — aka Posh Spice — in 1992 with not only vintage 90s brokeback but voluminous unsexy late 80s clothing!"
Happy invoicing!
The other year I was working nearby (Farringdon Road) and often used to wander through there at lunchtime.
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