"Actor James Cromwell is a vegetarian and is appearing in a new TV commercial that implores: "Pigs are sensitive, intelligent animals. Please do your part. Stop eating pigs.""

9/4/00 - Britain's answer to Sammy the Bull, Mad Frankie Fraser.  How can you resist such sections as The Chopping of Eric Mason?

9/4/00 - The surreal world of Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.

9/4/00 - The News of the World is searching for the biggest anorak in Britain, they'll have trouble beating this guy:

"FARM worker Allen Horrod really takes his work home with him — and ploughs a lonely furrow in his social life. “As a keen tractor spotter I don’t have time for a girlfriend,” he admitted. “Tractors come before ladies.”"

9/4/00 - An article on criminals in US sport, not very insightful but a handy list of the current roster.

9/4/00 - An interview with Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, coming up on its 1000th issue.

9/4/00 - Ideas for a British 'Marianne'.  I wonder who Susan Greenfield is:

"While we have some terribly impressive British women, they tend to be rather stern, like Margaret Thatcher, The Queen or scientist Susan Greenfield. Their value tends to come in intellectual form rather than a glamorous package. The idea of a bust of Margaret Thatcher or Susan Greenfield in every town hall would be a bit ludicrous, more like Stalinist Russia."

"Furious gunshops and wholesalers are beginning to boycott S&W [Smith and Wesson] products, while Mr Heston and other members of the National Rifle Association are turning inflammatory invective on S&W's British owner - and on the British for their attitude to guns."

"Suddenly it's upon us. Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke are the presenters. Just as they start giving their naff little introduction about 'what a documentary is' ('A film without any actors - gee, we might all be out of a job!' - who writes this stuff?), a camera comes down into the audience where the documentary nominees are sitting. We'd been told in advance that the camera moves to the winner - and there it goes straight to Wim Wenders! 

John, Arthur and I all look at each other and share the same thought: 'Oh well, that's that.' Then Uma opens the envelope and says those magic words: 'And the Oscar goes to... One Day in September !' 

I feel the way you're supposed to feel in a car accident - utterly, irrationally calm. 

Up we go on to the stage. All I can remember now is looking down and seeing Tom Cruise smiling up at us and thinking: 'How does he get his teeth that white?' Arthur talked on too long and neither John nor I got a chance to say our little bits. The music started playing us off... never mind. Suddenly we're being led into the backstage and being herded through press rooms to be prodded, questioned and photographed. (We learn later that Wim Wenders stormed out as we went up for our award.)"

8/4/00 - "Won't somebody think of the children!"

8/4/00 - Things to do when back in England: go to the Sing-a-long-a Sound of Music.  (via Pop Culture Junk Mail)

8/4/00 - Sushi fortune telling.  (via UNPOPULAR.com)

8/4/00 - Another site for cult TV and movies in the UK.  (via email)

8/4/00 - The Blair Baby Project (or the Blair Titch Project.)  (via Daily Doozer)

8/4/00 - A nice list of Yorkshire words and phrases.  My Dad's favourites (especially for flummoxing Southerners), "Put wood in t'oil" (Close the door) "Coil oil" (Coal shed) and "Frame thissen" (Hurry up) [Warning: Sounds]

8/4/00 - A little article on weblogs from The BBC.  I don't know why they need to break it into FIVE parts, the BBC isn't exactly interested in click-through advertising.  (via rebecca's pocket)

7/4/00 - Pink Moon is being released as a single:

"The advert, being shown on US television, has proved so popular that [Nick] Drake's track is being launched on American radio next week before its release as a single. The Pink Moon album has shot up the charts behind titles from N'Sync, Santana, Steely Dan and Macy Gray. Yet during his lifetime it sold fewer than 5,000 copies."

"When Matt Kaiser gets tired of watching movies or TV, or listening to music, there's nothing he likes better than to curl up in his favorite chair and escape into a good book about movies, TV, or music."

"Had Elian's mother tried to take him on such a vessel from Maine to New Hampshire across Portsmouth Harbour, the courts would have found her guilty of child abuse and reckless endangerment and she'd never have seen the kid again - no matter how eloquently her defenders pleaded that she'd been seeking to escape Maine's confiscatory tax regime for a better life in tax-free New Hampshire."

A 'tribute' to the Princess:

"With its almost obscene 'arse in the air' stance, it always had to be photographed front on to avoid embarrassment. Brown plastic interiors, fabric covered roofs, formica dashboards - the full horror of this pre Lexus era attempt at a 'luxury', 'upmarket', 'executive' car reverberates around motoring circles to this day."

7/4/00 - Article on TiVo and ReplayTV.  (via TV Barn)

7/4/00 - Mouseover the pigs! (via gorjuss)

4/4/00 - An interview with Yo La Tengo. [scroll down] [Warning: needs RealPlayer]  (via UNPOPULAR.com)

4/4/00 - An interview with Bill Callahan a.k.a. Smog:

"He was born in Maryland, and spent some of his childhood in Yorkshire where his father worked on a US airforce base. 'I didn't know what he did. He wasn't allowed to tell me, in case I was kidnapped by Russians,' he grins. 'I was a novelty at school. They thought Americans spoke a different language. I'd pretend there were different words for everything. So I'd say that a table is a "doomvacker", and such like, until I got bored of it.'"

4/4/00 - Things to do when back in England: go on the London Eye at night.

4/4/00 - Oxford University tries to shut down Oxford-University.com:

"Due to arrogance, failure to communicate effectively, threats, and basic ignorance of the way the internet works, the british "nobby" institute and its cohorts thoroughly deserves a good dose of scorn, and It will remain an example for businesses operating in the REAL world - but I'll tone it down a bit soon."

4/4/00 - If you've ever worked as a video editor you might recognise these horror stories.  (via memepool)

4/4/00 - An interview with Chris Tarrant, presenter of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' (and Tiswas!)

4/4/00 - April Fool's Day pranks in British newspapers.  (via Nutlog)

4/4/00 - Blast from the past:

"In the deep dark days of the early 80s, in a TV landscape filled with Cheggars Plays Pop, Swap Shop and Rentaghost, there was one kid's show that seemed to come out of nowhere, a surreally original blend of martial arts, daft humour and abstract-gendered monsters known to its legions of playground imitators as Monkey."

4/4/00 - I haven't yet seen 'High Fidelity' but I'm going to, I loved the book.  Here is the Salon review (positive), the Mr. Cranky review (negative, of course), and an interview with Nick Hornby.

4/4/00 - A link to make anyone moaning about gas prices just thank themselves lucky they don't live in Britain:

4/4/00 - Article on film and TV adaptations of books, and how examiners know who read the book or who just watched the movie: (via Daily Doozer)

"...the adapters, desperately condensing the novel [Samuel Richardson's Clarissa], changed the identity of the man who kills the libertine villain, Lovelace, in a final duel - and there was a marked tendency for examinees to make exactly the same alteration."

"One mother said: "I am not having a Christian dictating to me how to bring up my child..."

"CHURCHES will offer "baby blessing" ceremonies to atheist and agnostic  parents for the first time, the General Synod decided yesterday. A service of Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child is intended to avoid the hypocrisy of non-believers having their babies baptised in church with no intention of returning. The baptism rite demands that parents renounce the Devil, profess their faith and promise to bring the child up in the Christian faith."

"Florida woman has children, earns between £20,000 and £50,000 and takes holidays in the Lake District or abroad. She is between 35 and 55, lives in East Anglia, the Midlands, London suburbs, the North West and the North of  England. She may be Asian and lives in a semi-detached house or a former council property. Florida woman is a skilled employee, likes to save and drives an estate car or a people carrier. She is called Anthea or Glenys, or Geeta or Ajay, reflecting the large number of Asian voters in the Tories' target group."

4/4/00 - One of the most memorable 'Antiques Roadshow' moments was faked:  (via TV Barn)

"On a 1997 segment of public TV's "Antiques Roadshow," a man shows an appraiser a Civil War sword. He says he found in his attic and that he used it to cut watermelon. The appraiser seems delighted when presented with the weapon and tell the man it is worth $35,000. It's exactly the sort of scene viewers of the show have come to love. And it was as fake as a Grecian urn from Sears, the show's producers say."

4/4/00 - They're putting a pig up against Ken Livingstone.

Here is the official website, which bizarrely (appropriately?!) has:

"TARA PALMER-TOMKINSON says: I want as many children as possible to send a letter to Winnie the Pig with a picture they have done of her. There'll be chocolate pigs galore for the winners, and a VIP trip to meet Winnie!"