*waves sheepishly*
Normal service will be resumed shortly, I promise. My new flat will go broadband next Monday, which means I’ll be posting regularly once again…
In the meantime; how cool is this? Dan Cameron has illustrated a complete map of Springfield…
Ace. And no need to squint; if you click here, you’ll be able to look at the full size version.
Damn, these comic strips are just too big, funny and beautiful for me to be able to read them at my desk without people noticing. (Thanks to Troubled Diva, though, for the link.)
Well, here’s a link you can’t help admiring. Some very dedicated individual has broken off a chunk of his life and used it to scan and publish on the web every page of every Asterix comic book ever published. Fantastic. Like JennyCide at GromBlog, I thought I’d read pretty much every one of these little masterpieces when I was younger, but I was obviously wrong. Plenty to read here, then, although I feel a bit self-conscious doing so in a crowded office. Am I childish to even want to?
(thanks to JennyCide for the link)
Like someone said on the letter’s page of the Guardian today, amidst all the obsessing over Robert Crumb, the controversial American cartoonist who is featured in the paper every day this week, there’s a “far funnier and more challenging cartoonist” syndicated into the paper every day – the peerless Garry Trudeau.
I don’t see Crumb as a great visionary or genius (any more than I did Hunter Thompson), but – having nodded in agreement when I read the letters page – I thought the Crumb cartoon in G2 today, when I got to it, was breathtaking. It’s spread over two pages on the Guardian website, and deserves more than a moment’s glance; I spent fifteen minutes poring over it. In eight frames he has crafted a static ‘Short History of America’, chronicling the incursion of rail and road into the American landscape and the slow, choking stranglehold of the city. His wires, snaking across the sky, are a marvellously intrusive web.
quite a good Martin Rowson cartoon in the Guardian today, but I don’t think it’ll fit in my template if I paste it in, so here’s the link, instead. It’s worth it.
Up early this morning to walk through the drizzle up to St. Marks church to vote. Funny to think that I only ever set foot in a church for two reasons; because I am on holiday (I always want to visit churches when I am away from home) or to vote. This morning the church hall was quiet (voter apathy or too early?) – the returning officer, looking bleary-eyed and shuddering out of semi-sleep, seeming rather surprised to see such early attendees. Voting still gives me, despite it all, the same peculiar mixture of pleasure and pride.
For those who have not yet exercised your democratic right, and – like me – found it very difficult to decide whom to vote for, the web throws up some useful links. Several sites, as Andrew has noted, make some effort to create interactive quizzes with the aim of attempting to pinpoint which party best represents the views of the voter. Sadly, I was unable to find anything which did so for the British electoral system, and it seems to me to be a resource which is badly needed. Elsewhere, one can encounter quizzes from Holland (the best and most detailed I encountered), Canada (of interest but less relevent) and the US (whose The World’s Smallest Political Quiz is a model of economy, and the one that got the ball rolling).
The Guardian has attempted to confront the problem of voting Labour (or not wanting to vote Labour) in this election. If you can’t vote Labour, who can you vote for? presents a variety of answers to the question with contributions from (amongst others)Michael Frayn, John Pilger and (talking rubbish) Tony Benn.
The Independent takes a more agressive stance than the Guardian, leading with “Mr Blair should suffer the electoral consequences of his calamitous war”. Unfortunately (and ridiculously) I can’t access this online without paying for it, so you’ll have to read it in the newsagents during your lunch hour if you want that one 
Back in the Guardian, Polly Toynbee’s article, Would-be protest voters need to get a grip on reality offers, as one would expect of a writer of her brilliance, a sensible and insightful argument for voting Labour today. For anyone undecided about which way to go it’s essential reading – even if, in the end, I did not follow her advice.
Happy voting.
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Not sure why I’m linking to this, but it’s quite interesting…
Guardian Unlimited World dispatch A real handful
And I just read that Atkins (inventor of the diet) died grossly overweight and beset by heart problems. Funny, that.
one fifth of assistant suggests you take a look at this
