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And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Cornflakes
Brown History Month
Cheggers Plays Chess
Dutiful Housewives Unload Trucks
Endless Kabaddi Game
Frantic Gamete Plutocracy
Get Shot for Charity
Handball: what the fuck?
I am so depressed it takes me two hours to find the strength to visit the bathroom
Jury Time!
Keelhauling: Live Demos (wear suitable clothing)
Luton in the Bath
Middle Class A&E
Neo-Ham
One Hundred Hungry Monkeys
Pandora’s Towel Rail
Quick, I’ve only got a couple of minutes
Romany Hair
Small stuff all blown up and that
The more you cry, the more I laugh
Until We Part: Live Siamese Dissections
Verbalia: A stupid made-up word
War & Handbags: a cultural history
Xerox your own arse, faggot!
You droved ur car thru my window
Zebra Toothbrush, Swan Mallet, Llama Pickle

Mental illness is often romanticised but in actuality offers nothing. Some naively see it as some sort of spur for artistic expression, but it’s nothing of the sort. All it creates is destruction.

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Lets all count to nen!

Zun, woo, twee, throur, fourve, fix, siven, seight, eine, nen!

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A tale of woe. An AIR app is initialising. It needs to loads its images, which have been downloaded and stored locally on a user’s machine. Enter characters Main App, Local Store & Image Loader

Main App. Local Store! Get these seven images NOW!
Local Store. Sure!… Here you are, seven images!
MA. Hey, this is only one image!
LS. [...tumbleweed...]
MA. [sigh] I can see I’m going to have to do this myself. Fucking useless class. OK [crack knuckles] Loader! Load these SIX images!
Image Loader. Sure!… Here you are, six images!
MA. Great, thanks Loader, at least i can rely on YOU. Listen, can you have a word with Local Store? i think he skives off sometimes.
IL. We’ve talked to him before, he just doesn’t listen. Some classes are… dunno, `bit ignorant like that. [shrugs]
MA. OK Loader, well you’ll have to do his share sometimes
IL. Hey sure, I’m a Loader, I just LOVE loading things!

Scene 4 - doubtless involves some other problem we’ll have to hack around…

Many geeks I have met insist that the key to good design is simplicity. But they do not practice what they preach, for if they did they would realise that simplicity in most cases would mean not using a computer. A map - for instance - is a good deal simpler than a satnav. That means it is also more robust. And it is wholly decoupled*, unlike the satnav which relies on both electrical power and GPS data.

So if you’re serious about simplicity, put away the keyboard and grab pen and paper instead. And to illustrate my dedication to true simplicity, I’m going to end this post now, the point having been made.

:)

* - ie: aside from your brain, it doesn’t rely on anything else to work

I have just sent the newly elected 258 Labour MPs the following email at 38degrees.org.uk. I would urge as get over there yourself and a send a similar message. And do it today, whilst the Lib Dems are still negotiating:

———————————

First Past The Post is so transparently undemocratic that anyone supporting it nakedly displays their real intent: in monopolising power, and not the interests of the electorate.

You are Labour MPs, you are supposed to be on the people’s side! Being on the our side means counting the vote of every single one of us, not just 47% or even 51%, but all 100% of us.

As you are seasoned, intelligent politicians you will already know why PR wouldn’t mean letting the Far Right in, so I won’t insult your intelligence. We ALL know that’s a media baiting red herring. It would mean letting smaller parties in though, yes. Don’t worry about that though, how many decent politicians do you think there are in Plaid Cymru, or the Greens? Not many. If you’re worried about your own career paths, you shouldn’t be, you can just take your talents to parties like them. They’d appreciate it, you’d still be helping the working class, and you wouldn’t have to spend the next ten years kissing up to the likes of Peter Mandelson.

Don’t let the people down: don’t stand in the way of electoral reform. Make ‘one man, one vote’ finally mean that.

Richard Willis, Brighton Kemptown constituency (where my Labour vote didn’t count)

I would like to announce the formation of a new political force: The Commiseration Party.

We are proud to be a single issue organisation. Our only wish is to host a summer barbeque party to commiserate a selection of losing candidates from last week’s General Election. We are compiling a list of invitees, and this your chance to add to it. The current list is below, please use the comments box to add others you think should be considered. We make no exceptions for political bias, all bands of the spectrum warrant inclusion.

Thank you.

Ben Duncan - GRE, Brighton Kemptown
George Galloway - RES, Poplar & Limehouse
Nick Griffin - BNP, Barking
Dr. Evan Harris - LIB, Oxford West & Abingdon
Soraya Kara - CURE, Brighton Pavilion
Shasha Khan - GRE, Croydon North
Lembit Opik - LIB, Montgomeryshire
Nancy Platts - LAB, Brighton Pavilion
Peter Robinson - DUP, East Belfast
Jacqui Smith - LAB, Redditch
Charlotte Vere - CON, Brighton Pavilion
Nigel Waterson - CON, Eastbourne

Caroline Lucas is the bookies’ favourite to win the Brighton Pavilion constituency, but she won’t if her supporters don’t get down to the polls and vote.

If you’re having last minute doubts, here’s why you should vote for Caroline:

1. Being the favourite makes her the best way to keep the Tories out
2. Her track record in Brussels is excellent, winning MEP of the Year on more than one occasion (so I’m told)
3. As probably the only Green MP in parliament, Caroline will be a strong, independent voice for Brighton
4. Yes, the Greens might have some wacky ideas on homeopathy etc., but Climate Change massively trumps all that
5. YOU can make history, by voting in the UK’s first Green MP
6. Caroline’s lovely. I know, I’ve met her
7. Judging by her Twitter stream, the Tory candidate Charlotte Vere is just a nasty character

I volunteered to help Caroline out over the last few weeks. I’ve been out canvassing and leafletting, and I’ll be out again on Polling day. I’m not a member of the party, or getting paid, I just recognise what might happen here and want to help. I dread knocking on people’s doors, and feel like an idiot wearing a rosette, but I do it anyway. And all I want you to do for me in return is this:

• Do the sensible thing: vote Caroline Lucas

Now don’t let me down, or I won’t share my fair trade, organic, high fibre macaroons with you!

Now let’s get out there and win this thing!

Next Tuesday I have been asked to give a short talk about my book Swindon Orbital at the Postmodern Gallery in Swindon. As we are in the midst of an election, here’s how I have decided to pitch it:

Although Swindon has grown a hundredfold in the past 200 years immigration remains a hot topic, particularly at election time.

Drawing on research conducted for his book Swindon Orbital, author Richard Willis will use Swindon’s history of migrations to argue that immigration is a force for good. If you are interested in politics, history and/or literature you should enjoy the discussion.

The talk is free. Here’s the flyer for the event. If you are in Swindon on Tuesday 4th May please do come along.

Let me tell you a story, a story that illustrates why you shouldn’t vote for the Tories.

I was once picked up in my student hitchhiking days by a lorry driving ex-marine. A friendly, talkative chap, he had phenomenal physical strength. After about half an hour of chatting, during which he told me of his time in the army, he invited me to reach underneath my passenger seat and pick up what I found there. Rummaging around I discovered a cold, hard cylinder, which was too heavy for me to pick up, even with both hands. Leaning over, he reached under my seat with his left arm and picked the object up. It was large, metal bar.

‘That,’ he said, grinning slightly maniacally ‘is for Maggie, if I ever meet her.’

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