The Subrosa Blog is now complete
Please be aware that this incarnation of the 'Subrosa Blog' has now ended - why not visit the new Stuart Homfray weblog?.
Of course, that's not to say that the Subrosa blog will never return... I may decide to reincarnate it as a sort of sideblog or something!
If you've arrived here via a search engine results page, you may also wish to consider entering the site via the main entrance, as Subrosa itself has now outlived it's usefulness...
posted by Stuart NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT POSTED VIA BLOGGER!
Monday, October 21, 2002
Film News...
The first (and probably the last) of my short movie info bursts...
I've just seen (yes, I'm so in the know!) that a remake of the classic Japanese horror tale Ringu (no, not Pingu - that's completely different, although it's sometimes just as disturbing!) has been released in the States. The remake, entitled, not surprisingly, The Ring, seems to get pretty good reviews, so it's definately something that needs to be seen...
Don't watch any strange videotapes......
posted by Stuart 2:20 PM
Thursday, October 17, 2002
Dudley Earthquake Appeal
A very, very serious appeal... please read and contribute
At 00:54 on Monday 23 September an earthquake measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale hit Dudley,UK causing untold disruption and distress. Many were woken well before their giro arrived, several priceless collections of mementos from the Blackpool and the Spanish costas were damaged, three areas of historic and scientifically significant litter were disturbed and thousands are confusedand bewildered, trying to come to terms with the fact that something interesting has happened in Dudley.One resident, Donna-Marie Dutton, a 17 year old mother-of-three said, "It was such a shock, little Britney came running into my bedroom crying. My youngest two, Tyler-Morgan and Megan-Storm slept through it. I was still shaking when I was watching Trisha the next morning."According to police reports and CCTV footage, looting carried on as normal. The British Red Cross have so far managed to ship 4000 crates of Sunny Delight to the area to help the stricken masses. Rescue workers are still searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal belongings including benefit books and jewellery from Elizabeth Duke at Argos.HOW YOU CAN HELP
- £2 buys chips, pork scratchings and blue pop for a family of four.
- £10 can take a family to Stourport for the day, where children can play on an unspoiled canal bank among the national collection of stinging nettles.
- 22p buys a biro for filling in a spurious compensation claim.
PLEASE ACT NOW, LITTLE KEANU PIERRE and BRITNEY PHOENIX NEED US ALL.Further information...
A MAJOR EARTHQUAKE MEASURING 4.8 ON THE RICHTER SCALE, HIT IN THE EARLY HOURS OF MONDAY 23RD SEPTEMBER 2002 EPICENTERED ON DUDLEY, WEST MIDLANDSVictims can be seen wandering aimlessly muttering : "Yo Orwight?", "Boing Boing" and "Bostin".The Earthquake decimated the area, causing approximately £30 worth of damage. This appeal is to raise clothing and food parcels for those unfortunate enough to be caught up in it.Clothing is most sought after. Items required include: -
- Flat caps
- Donkey Jackets
- Heavy Twill Trousers (Male)
- Shell Suits (Female)
- Boots.
Food parcels may be harder to put together but necessary all the same.Required foodstuffs include: -
- Faggots
- Grey Peas
- Pork Scratchings
- Tripe and Onions
- "Pigs Blood Pud"
- Banks's Bitter or Mild
Please do not send tents for shelter, as the sight of "posh" housing is unfair on the population of neighbouring areas of Gornal, Oldbury and Sedgley.UPDATE: Looks loike they'm awlroit now...
posted by Stuart 3:28 PM
Washington Sniper Do's and Don'ts
courtesy The Friday Thing
- DO NOT: Wear a 'Target Breast Cancer' T-Shirt.
- DO: Draw cross hairs on your head and arms with a felt-tip pen to confuse your would-be assailant.
- DO NOT: Ask directions from anyone driving a white Ford Van with a ladder rack.
- DO: Ensure that you are not the tallest person in any location.
- DO NOT: Stretch.
- DO: Duck and Roll.
- DO NOT: Say things like "For Christ's sake, why is everyone so edgy? The odds of the sniper being in this area are infi....".
- DO: Leave this godforsaken, rainy, deserted, white stone obsessed hell-hole of a city and move to the West Coast.
Didn't Charlton Heston and his Gun Club say something along the lines of: "It's not guns that kill people - it's people that kill people" (my apologies if I've misquoted you folks, but hopefully I've got the right idea). Well, Charlie my boy, I THINK we can see that it's actually "people with easy access to guns that kill people". I'm not too sure of how many examples of this type of killing you need to happen, to realise this...
Anyway, no offence Mr. Heston, perhaps you'd like to try this...
posted by Stuart 12:50 PM
Monday, October 14, 2002
Venus Hum
Saw a short article on this Nashville 3-piece in the Culture section of The Times, and after reading the description of the band's music:
Lush electropop. Rosemary Clooney doing Bjork covers (or possibly vice versa), Bacharach in the studio with Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk making whoopee with Liza Minnelli...I thought that I'd HAVE to hear what they sound like
I downloaded 2 tracks from http://artists3.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Venus_Hum/index-1.html (which seems to be offline at the moment) - 'Sonic Boom' and 'Worldless May' and I was not disappointed. 'Sonic Boom' sounds like Orbital crossed with Bjork - lots of 'swooshy' electronic noises and 'mean'-sounding counter-melodies. 'Wordless May' is much gentler - a gentle rolling melody sung by Annette Strean, almost Alison Goldfrapp-like, over what sounds very much like a Vince Clarke Yazoo/Erasure backing - marvellous!!
According to the The Times 'Culture', Nicole Kidman's a fan of these, and on hearing these couple of tracks, I must say that I'm in complete agreement.
posted by Stuart 3:10 PM
Tuesday, October 08, 2002
Making money from the Blue Screen of Death
As MOST Windows users have seen this wonderful little display of 'information' more than once, you may like to have a look at Microsoft's new little moneyspinner...
posted by Stuart 1:07 PM
Friday, October 04, 2002
From The Friday Thing
"Tony Blair is back on TV, vehemently arguing the case for an attack on Iraq with his usual nebulous arguments. These range from being nice to the US because they won WWII to what can only be described as the 'mental moral logic' argument: 'I am Tony Blair. I am not Evil. Therefore, I am Good. I think we should attack Iraq for unspecified reasons. Therefore, attacking Iraq is Good.'....""I mean, come on..." (as TB might say)
posted by Stuart 12:54 PM
Thursday, October 03, 2002
GM seeds...
Soon a small technical committee of the European Union (The Standing Committee on Seeds) will be asked to approve a dirty little standard allowing extensive contamination of European farmland with genetically engineered (GE) plants. The proposed directive on GE seed contamination permits "thresholds" of GE contamination in bags of ordinary seeds :
- In a bag of beet, cotton or maize seed, one in every 200 seeds could be genetically engineered without informing the farmer. (0.5%)
- In a bag of rapeseed, about one in 330 seeds could be secretly contaminated. (0.3%)
- In a bag of soy seeds, more than one in every 150 could be contaminated. (0.7%)
You can help by writing to UK Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Minister Michael Meacher.
You can also warn your friends and colleagues about this new threat by sending them this e-card, designed by a Greenpeace cyberactivist.
It's obviously in EVERYBODY'S interests to stand up and prevent what seems to be, at the very least, a particularly unscientific way of carrying out an experiment, and quite clearly totally immoral...
posted by Stuart 11:00 PM
Tuesday, October 01, 2002
BTopenworld Anytime - well SOME of the time...
In another, well, not exactly unsurprising move, the OTHER evil megacorp has, for the second time in less than 6 months, decided to degrade it's service for users of the so-called Anytime account (yes, yes, I KNOW Anytime means 'connect at any time', not at ALL of the time, but it's not exactly made clear in their ads is it??)
After initially limiting users to 12 hours online in any 24 hour period, starting in November, they will implement a new strategy restricting Anytime users to 150 hours per month (that's around 5 hours a day) - all for just £16 a month. If you exceed that you'll be charged on a per-minute basis. It's not all bad news, however, as you'll be able to carry over up to 50 unused hours from the previous month, allowing you to use up to 200 hours in any given billing month.
Duncan Ingram, senior vice president of BTopenworld, told silicon.com:
"We're doing this to secure our ability to provide a high quality of service [hmm, possibly not entirely accurate], and to provide value for money. One hundred and fifty hours is virtually unmetered [perhaps you should put that in your advertising blurb]. The average web user spends around nine hours online per week, according to Oftel. We've talked to our customers who've said 100 hours is more than enough. We're being open, honest and fair with our customers."The measures are designed to prevent what Ingram called a "tiny minority" degrading the service for other users. He also denied that the company is attempting to drive heavy users onto it's broadband ADSL services. This, of course, is total b****cks, if you'll excuse my French, as anyone who's ever been kicked off the BTopenworld system (yes, I was 'terminated' a little while back, but I'm OK now!) will have received an email containing the following (or similar) message:
An 'always on' internet connection may better suit your needs and you may wish to consider high speed BTopenworld Broadband Plug & Go. It's up to ten times faster than a standard modem and uses your existing BT line without affecting your voice calls. Once set up, there are no extra charges above the monthly rental fee. To find out more and check broadband availability in your area, please go to http://www.btopenworld.com/broadbandUnfortunately, I live in an area of Wolverhampton where the local exchange is NOT broadband-enabled, so I can't actually use this service. My only other option would be ISDN 64K, but the tarrif will apparently apply to this service too. Where are Oftel and the Government??
Phew... rant over
posted by Stuart 4:17 PM
