Prufrock.

…with Mark Cousins in 1999. As revealing as the man ever can be in an interview. A man for whom language is a second language, his fantastic films the first.

Here’s a lovely novelty from spEak You’re bRanes, the site named in homage to the great Day Today segment. The Twat-o-Tron  scoops up the genuine ignorant, illiterate, dribbling right-wing shite you see smeared accross the comments boards of the BBC and elsewhere, and lets you respray it yourself automatically.

Oh here we go again!everyoe knows scientists are allowing us to be swamped. [...]

Highly diverting list in today’s Observer which highlights the alleged 50 greatest arts videos on YouTube. Clips of  William Burroughs, Joy Division, Billie Holliday, Samuel Beckett, David Lynch and Francis Bacon all sound good. After I’ve actually watched some of them I may post the best ones at a future date, with no further thanks or acknowledgement to the person who sought them [...]

We live in grimy times, in a world ruled by dully clashing grim forces, withscarcely an ounce of merit or humanity on either or any side of their cynically antagonistic hegemonies. At a moment when our rulers’ failure has
never been so visible, real choice, the truly human alternative lies critically ill, a victim of the [...]

Great article here as Mike Leigh and David Thewlis talk about the fights and frolics which went into the making of Naked, one of the best, and most under-rated films ever created. It also reveals that thankfully, at long long last, it is finally about to made available on DVD in the UK.

From Half Man Half Biscuit’s new album….

George Orwell’s diaries, starting from 1938, are now being serialised in blog style here. They will follow exactly seventy years after when they were first written. Orwell clearly attached a lot of importance to the diary form (ie. think of what it meant to Winston Smith…..), and this is a lovely little idea.

Roger Dobson left this comment which deserves to be reposted in full: “Readers of Tom Wootton’s essay about Arthur Machen in Spike Magazine may be interested to hear that a thriving literary society exists to honour Machen and his works, The Friends of Arthur (www.machensoc.demon.co.uk). The society publishes a journal, Faunus, and a regular newsletter, [...]

Great analysis of the boy Burroughs, his writing and politics by Roobin over at Lenin’s Tomb. You don’t have to be a Trotskyist (which I’m not) to find this highly illuminating and interesting.