...from Fun Junkie, then all may not be as it seems. And ALT-VC might be your friend.

Yeah-yeah-yeah-we-know-we-know-we-know. That typing "Weapons Of Mass Destruction" into Google and hitting "I’m feeling lucky" prank - how many times have you been e-mailed about it this week? (My current score: three.)

Of course, all the Cool Kids (and I include myself amongst them, naturellement) saw the page back in February - although the "I’m feeling lucky" doo-dah does add a neat little twist to the story, I’ll grant you.

There’s a nice little background piece in The Register about the spoof 404 page in question (although, this being The Register, they can’t resist working in some standard-issue blog-bashing towards the end).

Item 139. Slapp Happy/Henry Cow - Extract From The Messiah/A Worm Is At Work (1975)

Item 138. Laurie Johnson Orchestra - The Jason King Theme (1971)

It’s hard to believe that Jason King (played by Peter Wyngarde), super-sleuth and campy old poove extraordinaire, was once seen as an actual bona fide sex symbol. Indeed, in 1972, the readers of a particular women’s magazine voted Peter Wyngarde as the person to whom they would most like to lose their virginity. How times change.

I’ve been meaning to shove this in my box for months. Having read Marcello Carlin’s recent review of Wyngarde’s thoroughly alarming sounding solo album (I must hear this), now seems the ideal time.

Having twigged that the Spree aren’t really a weird evangelical cult, you might assume that their whole act must be one almighty piss-take. Which, stretched over a full live show, would wear fairly thin, fairly quickly. But why does every member of the white-robed 22(?)-piece throng genuinely look as if they are having the absolute time of their lives? You can’t fake that sort of massed exultance for long. Sooner or later, the cracks would show. So you conclude that, at least on one level, the Spree really do mean it. They’re all about celebration, affirmation, participation. Joyfully, you surrender.

A reminder – I’m posting a series of pairs of MP3s, theoretically on a more or less daily basis (although it’s somehow been a week since the last pair). The second MP3 of each pair is taken from Blissblog's Uberhipsters United Influences Index - specifically, from the section marked TRES HOT a/k/a RIPE FOR REDISCOVERY.

Here’s the list to date. More MP3s to follow shortly.

Day 1: Ulrich Schnauss, Wayne Smith
Day 2: David, The Forgemasters
Day 3: Billy Cotton, Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft
Day 4: The 101ers, Furious Pig
Day 5: Crystal Grass, Nitzer Ebb
Day 6: Johnny Dankworth, Gun Club

Queerday: comprehensive gay/les/bi/trans news service. US-based, but reasonably internationally flavoured.

Bloggers at Glasto: Ben and Joe both have lengthy, informative reports, for filing alongside Dymbel’s.

London blogmeet: not one but two events, to keep everyone happy – but which one will all the cool people be attending?

Bugger Blogger! Ian Penman’s epic rant at New Blogger, and its sneaky new BIG POST ERROR in particular.

E-mail encoder: a nifty way of safely publishing your email address on the web, without having to use all those daft “nospam” bits.

Ceramics with attitude: Turner prize nominee Grayson Perry explains himself, memorably.

Hahahahaha!

Boom-boom!

Supporting the Polyphonic Spree (of whom more later), Mull Historical Society only played for just over 30 minutes – but my, what a thoroughly delightful 30 minutes they were. Such nice young men, all fresh-faced eagerness and bouncy enthusiasm. If this was still 1995, then they would be all over the Radio, and nestling in the Top 10 with Dodgy and the Boo Radleys. As this is 2003, they have to content themselves with straight-in-at-number-36-for-one-week-only semi-obscurity. Which is a shame, because lost gems like Watching Xanadu deserve a much wider audience than they are now capable of attracting, my fair lady.

For the second consecutive night at Rock City, I successfully managed to quell the Three Furies by finding a clever place to park my ailing posterior. Once again, it was down near the front, with 90% of the stage still clearly visible. There was even a usefully positioned metal bar, perfect for resting my bottom against whenever I dared to risk a short spell on my feet. In fact, I am now quite the expert on Clever Places To Sit In Rock City.

As for the Mull Historical Society, they

Then I woke up and it was all a dream.

Because I’m fundamentally such a lazy arse, I’m going to need some stock closing phrases, to pad postings out to the full 100 words. So I’ve come up with this list. In descending order…

10 Then I woke up and it was all a dream.
9 That’s all we’ve got time for this week, Basil.
8 Nothing really matters. Nothing really matters...to me.
7 But that, dear reader, is another story.
6 Unless - of course! - you know better. Cyril…
5 You couldn’t make it up.
4 Cashier number ten, please…
3 My fair lady.
2 Hahahahaha! Boom-boom!
1 Trackback!

Goddammit – I finally make it onto Daypop for the first time, but it all happens overnight and I’m gone by breakfast time. Still, making it to #16 on Blogdex was quite nice (though I’ve been higher, he sniffs haughtily), and #41 on Popdex was…well…at least tolerable, I suppose. Moral: if you want a stats spike, change your URL and wait for everybody to simultaneously update their blogrolls.

Well, that’s no good! I’ve still got 33 words to play with! Yesterday, I was agonising over what to cut out; today, I’m struggling to reach my quota. I’ll find a balance eventually…

Diamond Geezer, who recently attempted something similar, commented:…just as I was coming to the same conclusion. Crikey, this is hard!

So I might to have to bend a few rules, and cut a few corners.

There’s only one hard and fast rule: everything I write must register a Word Count of 100 in Microsoft Word. (Mouseover text doesn’t count.)

Usefully, Microsoft Word counts several-words-linked-by-hyphens as just one word.

Which might come in very handy indeed.

absent-minded, adaptable, aesthetic, anal-retentive, aquarian, articulate, artistic, aspirational, bitchy, boastful, candid, careless, cerebral, clumsy, competitive, conceptual, considerate, contradictory, creative, critical, curious, eccentric, entertaining, escapist, evolving, fetishistic, fickle, flirty, forgetful, fortunate, fretful, friendly, funny, gauche, greedy, guilty, gullible, happy, hedonistic, helpful, high-maintenance, idealistic, impractical, inconsistent, indiscreet, indulgent, insecure, lazy, liberal, list-making, loved, loving, loyal, malleable, materialistic, mercurial, multi-faceted, naive, narcissistic, nervous, non-judgmental, nostalgic, observant, open, optimistic, orderly, pedantic, perceptive, personable, phobic, picky, piss-elegant, pot-bellied, privileged, rational, reflective, satirical, self-conscious, self-obsessed, sensible, sensitive, sequential, smiley, sociable, soft, superior, tactless, tense, thorough, trivial, truthful, un-coordinated, under-achieving, under-confident, undisciplined, unpredictable, weak-willed, wealthy, whimsical, witty...

So, farewell then, Muzik magazine. I bought your very first issue, back when clubbing was still an important part of my life, and you were still a relatively high-minded, "all about the music" trainspotters’ bible. Almost immediately, you turned me onto the first Saint Germain album. I rewarded you by subscribing.

The superclubs grew, shitty third-generation eye-beefa-trance took over, and you - like your surrounding culture - began to lose it a bit. Those tasty cover-mounted CDs couldn’t disguise the creeping thinness within. Meanwhile, I was secretly seeing Jockey Slut on the side. Betrayal!

RIP, Muzik. In loving memory. Sniff.

My enjoyment was considerably hampered by the unwelcome return of three old friends: the Fist, the Screwdriver and the Spasm (don’t click if squeamish). Just when the gammy leg had healed, as well. How easily we take our mobility for granted.

Lee’s music is both firmly of its time (1967 Summer of Love) and utterly timeless, as if only written last week. Not many Rock Survivors sound so fresh, so vital, so free from the telltale whiff of faded glories. Who else could have asked us to "love each other" at the end, without sounding like a preposterous old hippy?

There’s an empty spot in the middle of our cottage garden, designed for a "focal point" - a tall, thin, curvy sculptural piece, on a plinth, spot-lit from below, and visible from both sides of the L, thus tying the whole composition together.

K has been eagerly (if delusionally) lobbying for a Brancusi bird. Meanwhile, I keep worrying about passing Brancusi-scrumpers (such a scourge round our way).

So we might have to settle for a bird-bath.

qB writes delightfully and instructively about Brancusi. Apparently, his studio adjoins the Pompidou centre. As I'm in Paris next Wednesday, I might well investigate.

A major difference between bloggers and journalists: bloggers lack sub-editors. On balance, I think this is a Good Thing. I suspect that an efficient sub-editor would probably take a scythe to all my most cherished woolly digressions and florid sub-clauses, leaving just the stark bare bones behind. I would feel neutered, sanitised, homogenised.

On the other hand, I do use far more adverbs than are good for me. So maybe a little exercise in brevity is in order.

To this end, my next 100 posts will contain exactly 100 words each. I’m calling it...

The 100 x 100 Project.

Enjoy.

God knows what I think I'm doing here - but if you have an idea, then you might as well follow it to its logical conclusion. Well, that's always been my bloggus operandi - as readers of last year's perplexing Shirt Off My Back Project will no doubt testify.

So, here we go then. Indolence goes all too often unrewarded, and we're here to rectify that. Take a look at the nominees for Blog Hiatus Of The Month, and then cast your votes accordingly, using the Submit Vote button at the bottom of the poll.

1. Acerbia. Classic old-school elegance, with that typically Acerbian twist.
2. Aquarionics. Oustanding splash page, even if he did change his mind a couple of days later.
3. Bingobowden. No fuss, no frills, just a simple statement of intent.
4. little.red.boat. Deeply aesthetically satisfying.
5. My Ace Life. For changing his mind in record time, and then burying the evidence. Also, Steve has just had some bad news and could do with cheering up.
6. not .so.soft: life, unfolding. (sisters are hiating for themselves...?) Nice usage of mouseover text and hidden source code.
7. Not You, The Other One. Great concept, flawlessly executed.
8. Swish Cottage. If you simply must hiate, then why not do it with Comments?

Update (1): Anna of little.red.boat has dropped by to say that actually, she's on holiday, not on hiatus - but I say holidays can still be hiati, and so she stays in the poll. My poll, my rules! Comply! Comply!

Update (2): Anna now wishes it to be known that - since much of her holiday thus far has involved visiting major galleries - she is in fact on highartus.

Update (3): I forgot to include Here Inside - who should be de-hiating, ooh, any minute now I reckon.

Update (4): And Minor 9th, goddammit!

Blog Hiatus Of The Month

Please select your favourite Blog Hiatus from the list below. Acerbia Aquarionics Bingobowden little.red.boat My Ace Life not.so.soft: life, unfolding Not You, The Other One Swish Cottage Current Results

As well as sorting out my own site move, I've also been setting up and designing a Blogger-powered site for my mate Dymbel. That's a Blogger-powered site, you understand. As opposed to a blog. Because Dymbel is emphatic that his site is not a blog. Have you got that? It's not a blog.

(Incidentally, Dymbel briefly toyed with registering www.thisisnotablog.com - which is still available, if any enterprising soul should wish to grab it.)

Anyway. Dymbel (a proper novelist! with books and everything!) is currently in the middle of writing up his experiences at Glastonbury over last weekend, and publishing them on his not-blog. Go take a look and make him feel welcome (except that you won't be able to, because he isn't installing comments, because it's not a blog).

And don't slag off the design. It took me bloody ages!

Yes - the boy has finally become a man. Though he's still clinging to Blogger for all he is worth.

The archives will be along soon. One of the "features" of New! Blogger seems to be that I'm going to have to re-publish all my archives manually, one by one. (Another "feature" is that the "show posts from this day" option doesn't work. ) As my archives are weekly, this might take some time...

Anyway. Welcome! It's a whole new dawn! With exactly the same design as before! (Why tamper with a classic?)

Update: The RSS feed is now up and running again - note the new URL. I've also tweaked the RSS feed to include the full content of each post, rather than just a summary.