23/9/02 - An interview with Robert Evans, always good for a story or two:

"His biggest setback came on May 6 1998. He was having a drink with horror director Wes Craven in the screening room when he was hit by a stroke. "I dropped to the floor and Wes Craven thought I was dead," he recalls. "I scared the shit out of the king of horror, I can tell you.""

22/9/02 - What's the animal in you?  I'm a cross between a beaver and a sheep, with a hint of penguin, genetic engineering gone mad.

22/9/02 - If he wasn't leader of the free world it would be a lot funnier:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

21/9/02 - A genuine cow college:

21/9/02 - From the 'now why didn't I think of that!' file - a Mountain Goats weblog.

21/9/02 - Interesting article on how the cult of the celebrity has ruined magazine cover design. (via Metafilter)

21/9/02 - Some people have no common sense: (via newthings)

"A boy has been refused a place in a school - not because he lives too far away but because he lives too high up. 
Four-year-old Malachi Walker lives only 300m from Weston Shore Infant School in Southampton. However, the council says because Malachi lives on the 13th floor his front door is too far away from the school."

15/9/02 - Life as a paparazzo:

"In Kelly's, the paps talk about their dream pictures, the ones that would really rake in the cash. David Beckham caught smoking, Beckham and Posh having a row, the first photo of the new Beckham baby (the first image of Liz Hurley's son Damian is rumoured to have made £300,000 in worldwide sales). One picture, though, is the paps' Holy Grail. "Prince William kissing a girl!" says Chris. "If a pap got that as an exclusive, he could retire.""

15/9/02 - A replica Simpsons house, correct down to the last detail: (via Footprints)

15/9/02 - People will watch anything. Labrador retrievers launching themselves off a dock into a pond? You got it:

15/9/02 - Makes me glad I don't have Windows XP:

"A malicious Win-XP Help Center request can easily and silently delete the contents of any directory on your Windows machine...

To verify the exploit all you need to do is pop the following request into any address bar (IE, Win Explorer, etc): hcp://system/DFS/uplddrvinfo.htm?file://c:\test\* and the directory 'test' will be emptied after a couple of Help Center 'wizard' pages pop up uselessly to distract you."

14/9/02 - The Creative Clusters Summit Conference - great title.

14/9/02 - Tony Benn doesn't seem to be visiting Sheffield. Maybe he doesn't realise we're not the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire anymore.

14/9/02 - If only I'd known about this gig guide then I would have realised that tompaulin were playing AROUND THE CORNER!

14/9/02 - How to interpret the words of Arsenal players:

""It's a team game" --> "I'm better than the rest of them"
"We know we have to work hard" --> "Wenger tries to kill us every day"
"I didn't see the incident" --> "I'm blind"
"I want to do my best for Arsenal" --> "I'm only here for the money"
"I didn't deserve to be sent off" --> "I wish I had thumped the referee""

"One wonders just how bad a movie has to get before a studio takes a hard look at it and announces, "We're just not going to inflict this abortion of a film on the hapless public because, frankly, it sucks harder than Anna Nicole Smith in a room full of millionaires.""

14/9/02 - Farmers' markets in Yorkshire.  The nearest one to me must be Whirlow Hall farm.

14/9/02 - Continuity announcers on Anglia TV through the ages.

And on a related note, it seems the crappest puppet of all time is no more.  Bye bye BC.

14/9/02 - I'd be marking my diary if I had one:

"We decided to let fans on the e-mailing list and in the fan club know now so you can keep this night free in your diaries. Pencil in a big fat PULP for Saturday December 14, when there will be a very special Pulpy event at the Magna Science Adventure Centre, situated between Sheffield and Rotherham."