Archive for August, 2002

Readers, I am confused and need your help. I stumbled across this website today, which appears to be a collection of random slices of meaningless text. A little detective work reveals that all the prose has been lifted directly from product reviews at Amazon. Fair enough, you might think, but further investigation reveals lots of similar pages, all formatted slightly differently and all, it would appear, serving no purpose whatsover. Having examined all the evidence, my question should be obvious: what the fuck is going on? Someone please tell me.

Yesterday David linked to a story about an unfortunate Nigerian youth who’d been caught having sex with a camel. Naturally this tale caught my imagination, and a variety of subsequent google searches for “sex with a (insert name of animal here)” uncovered a variety of quite disturbing court appearences by a number of desperate young men. My favourite, if that’s the right phrase to use, was this one, as powerful an argument as to why drugs are bad as any number of scientific studies. If that story caught your fancy, then there’s a decent general round-up of all things animal abuse here.

In 1970, Pitsburgh Pirates pitcher Doc Ellis threw a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. These are pretty rare beasts indeed – since that year there’s been an average of only three per season, spread out amongst 29 teams, each playing 162 games – but Doc’s was special. Why? Because he threw it under the influence of LSD. Ellis later reported that he was able to zero in on his catcher’s glove by following the comet trail left in the wake of each pitch. I’d like to think that as Doc wound up for every throw, his torso coarsing with hallucinogens, this kind of scene was playing out before his bloodshot eyes.

Since Alexa took exception to Cal poking round in their database, blogpop is now back on blogjam, has been updated today, and features a top 40 rather than the previous thirty. Mmmm, terribly exciting.

We’ve existed in two different centuries across three decades. We’ve been together longer than the Beatles without ever having made a record. We’ve headlined a festival, playing above Sonic Youth. They even lent us their equipment. We last performed a public show the best part of two years ago. Ladies and Gentlemen, Bobby Gillespie’s Hair are back. See you down the front.

I can’t drive. I learnt when I was sixteen, failed my test once and then moved to London, where average traffic speeds mean that it’s actually quicker to walk most places. However, if I could drive, I’d be driving this, the most fantastic vehicle I’ve ever seen.

New on blogjam – I’ve decided to intoduce a new feature, one that’ll appear from time to time as the mood feels right – It’s called Books not by my bedside. Here’s part one: A Hand in the Bush: The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting by Deborah Addington. Who said that romance was dead?