Blatant Optimism

August 09, 2006

This'll stop those notting hill types sneering

Every day it welcomes between 20 and 30 flights – which bring 346 000 people to East London each year. Of these, about 140 000 are holidaymakers, mostly local, and about 15% are foreign tourists.

East London Airport - hard to read with a straight face.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2006

welcome back armando

I think this is probably my favourite of the 4 new Time Trumpet pseudo-news clips.

Hurrah for Messrs Ianucci and Tandy.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 01:56 PM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2006

Getting into the spirit of things

So, like the rest of a small proportion of the male population, today I'm watching the football and pretending I understand what's going on and, to a certain extent, care. Because, you know, I kind of feel I ought to.

But I can't help feel I'm on a losing streak, when the commentary gives me help like

"See how the goalie moves to make him aim high. That would be like having an enormous banana running at you."

I suspect that inspired image will keep me going far more than any of the rest of the football.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)

December 31, 2005

Hello Ben

Keep an eye out for the lovely Ben Moor in Lasse Hallstrom's "Casanova"

Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:37 AM

June 11, 2005

Double Kylie

Really rather excellent Photoshop Work

via Holy Moly!

Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 19, 2005

Where next for Kaplinsky?

Thank you the BBC comedy blog.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 09:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 10, 2005

Well, if we're being precise about it...

While listening to Radio 4's "BH" covering the costly US military gay policy and hearing them properly referring to the courts martial, I couldn't help wondering if the court martials were actually of homos sexual.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 11:26 PM | TrackBack

April 04, 2005

Enjoy it while you can?

So you have just three weeks, or thereabouts, during which you can respond to any facetious questions with "Was the Pope Catholic?"

It's what he would have wanted.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 01, 2005

Stapleford's Elbow

A lovely thing found on a trawl round the "Look Around You" site - the Mini-Trelm synthesizer.

Don't forget to listen to Synthesiser Patel's introduction though!

Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 24, 2004

I've seen it all now...

DIGITAL hair straighteners??????

And I love that in the small print, it explains this by saying it's got a "On/Off digital display".

Work that marketing angle guys!

Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 23, 2004

Because not everything in the world is 'full of caaack"

Woo, and indeed a might Hoo.

Armando Ianucci is coming back to the BBC this Xmas.

Lovely interview, and some great clips to watch and/or download. 'Bin Laden' is a particular favourite.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 17, 2004

Go Vicky and Tim

Hurrah for the BBCi Comedy team. They have just launched this rather silly game on the DeadRingers site.

Can YOU beat Blair in the Newsfight?

Posted by Tom Dolan at 08:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 14, 2004

You know you're read too much comedy pornography when...

You can spot a clip of Charlie Skelton and Vicky Coren's porn film "The Naughty Twins" (the making of which was the basis for the rather excellent book 'Once More With Feeling') being used in the Mark Steel Lecture on Albert Einstein...

Even when it's less than two seconds long.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:26 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 21, 2004

Banned!!!!

You know that old Radiohead video where the man is lying on the ground but won't tell anyone why. And then he does and the next shot is everyone lying on the ground around him? I warn you, this post will be like that.

In our house, we've discovered a new, scarily powerful meme. One that can block out all other thoughts, and will go round and round and round and round and round...Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Your head just won't shake it off.

It's contagious too. Like Neal Stephenson's "speaking in tongues" virus from Snowcrash, it's compact and can be easily passed on from person to person. In just three easy syllables.

The classic of it's genre is of course..."Muhnah Muhnah" - the intro to the Muppets theme. But oh, that's small fry compared to this.

The muppets can of course be easily destroyed by - and Mr Jokl knows this well - the theme to Terry and June. Sounds easy, but there's that awkward semitone and it could be almost anything until the main tune comes in. So, powerful stuff, but hard to pass on.

So we come to the winner - no nasty semitones, no hard-to-imitate xylophone/oboe textures, just three simple cheek-flapping "bom" noises.

I'm talking, of course, about the opening notes to the theme from "Curb Your Enthusiasm".

No, surely not, you cry? It's the plinky piano tune and Tom-and-Jerry-style flute/bass drum fills where all the power lies!

All I ask is that you try it for yourself. If you dare. Shall I start you off?

Bom
 Bom
  Bom

(I did warn you...)

Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 03, 2004

Clarity

Having finally got round to reading about Paul Carr's new Friday Project I have to admit it looks rather good. Like a Daily best-bits-of-TheFridayThing.

I particularly liked, and empathised with this...

All this talk of 'campaigns' and 'making a difference' is scaring me. Are you sure you're not Communists?
We are not now and have never been members of the Communist Party. Communists are always skint. Ideally, we would like to occupy the tricky middle space in the 'worthy' / 'worth a fuck of a lot of money' venn diagram

Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 02, 2004

And as Harkley Bandersoup fades away...

And while we're in the 'Radio on demand' kind of mood, I was shocked to see the unbelivably classic "Saturday Night Fry" lurking in the BBC 7 Friday schedule.

Fry, Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson, Phyllida Law and many many more.

It take me absolutely and utterly straight back to my Warwick student bedroom in 1987 - this was one of the few things that would get me out of the bar back then. Listening to it now completely re-crystallises the varnished dark wood, over-scratchy brown carpet and orange nylony curtains of Tocil* decor. I remember the posters on the walls, the way the chair wouldn't move on the floor, the ketchup stains on the wall in the communal kitchen.

A funny thing memory...

(*one of the uniquely horrible sets of student flats)

Posted by Tom Dolan at 04:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

If Radiohead Wrote Comedy

For about another day or so, check out the wonderfully bleak and nihilistic Pea Green Boat by Stewart Lee, part of Radio 4's "Inner Voices" series.

As I scan the horizon, I see another identical pea-green boat, only crewed by a Jack Russell terrier and a rabbit. It seems inappropriate nautical pairings are the very button of fashion.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 30, 2004

And they say tube strikes bring misery...

We have a big client coming in today. From overseas. Their flight was already booked, as was their taxi. So sadly there was no loafing at home for me today.

As (a) I had 18 tons of work to do for the client, and (b) I absolutely had to be at the meeting, I decided to bite the bullet and get in early. Really early. As in "I've been here nearly an hour already" early.

This wasn't so hot when the alarm clock went off at 4:45am (probably earlier than the overseas client's) but I have to admit to a certain decadent thrill when I saw that the 5:24 bus from the end of my road was still a *night* bus.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 07:23 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 24, 2004

Go Jasper

The icing on the cake of reading the work of Jasper Fforde is the daft photoshoppery he puts on his site.

This is from the "spot the deliberate mistake" competition.

His new book 'Something Rotten', sadly in hardback for us pauper recent-parents, is out in July in the UK.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 20, 2004

I know where I want to have a party now

Last night, mum went to the Scholastic Publishing Summer Party at the roof terrace of the Royal Opera House.

The pictures and clips posted on Achuka's Blog are just wonderful. And you can just see the back of mum in one of them.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 05:03 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 19, 2004

Meanwhile, in Emma Kennedy's Marathon...

Lorraine Kelly, that doyanne of daytime telly passed us at mile 21. She was small and looked very red in the face but she was smiling and she was running whereas we were walking. I looked back and caught sight of her as she came through. "Oh Lorraine Kelly," i said to her. "Well done. Keep on going!" She just stared ahead and nodded a bit and laughed in that way you do when you've just run 21 miles of a marathon. After she passed I wondered why I had proffered such ecstatic encouragement to someone who was, let's face it, just doing the same thing as me but there was something about her tiny frame and the fact that she is off of the telly that lifted the cheers out of my body like a big cow being rescued from a ditch in Accident programme 999. Anyway, the point is this. We beat her. Ah hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Lorriane Kelly. You are rubbish.

Emma is, like Richard, still available for sponsoring with money...

Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

4:17:50

Hooray. The fabulous Richard Herring has survived running a marathon

I noticed a lot of people dressed in uniform, holding out vaseline in their hands to us and looking expectant. They were all over the place, and dressed the same, so they were obviously organised. The perverts. I thought this was inappropriate behaviour. Maybe they liked to have anal sex with exhausted sweaty people, but I think this was rather too blunt a way to go about picking up a date. They could have romanced us a little, rather than just cutting to the chase in such a crass way. I gave them all quite an unpleasant look, I can tell you. But I don't think it would have stopped their insatiable desires and I predict they'll be back next year. Wearing their uniforms as if what they do is something to be proud of.

[He's putting together a show about Herculean tasks - perhaps he should next take a rank amateur under his wing to put on a play about himself, Julia Sawalha and Alan Davies. I can even provide a Julia Sawalha look/act-alike...]

Posted by Tom Dolan at 06:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 08, 2004

Ah, you have to laugh.

Thanks to Simon at Mutual Misunderstanding for having gone through the BSL dictionary from my linklog and picking up on just how great the BSL for 'London' is

Posted by Tom Dolan at 11:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 03, 2004

Go David Go.

David Hasselhoff claims he had hand in Berlin Wall falling

"In Germany children have brought me thousands of flowers."

Posted by Tom Dolan at 11:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 16, 2004

On Architecture and Usability

I'll leave you all to imagine the rest, but I wouldn't have had this insight were it not for major building work going on in the office at the moment.

Dear Architects

When designing a building, please do not swap over the gender of the toilets between floors. We, the mere users of your creation, will assume they will be on the same side of corridors as we are used to.

Thank you.

Tom

(A metaphor?)

Posted by Tom Dolan at 04:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 13, 2004

Grievous Omission

What, no Last Of The Summer Wine clip of someone going down a hill in a bath?

Oh, the shame of it...

Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 11, 2003

The wrong end of the food chain

Okay, well BadLanguage is the first project to get my attention. I'll have a greyscreen of this available in a few days.

At the moment I'm wrestling with huge combinations of ISBN numbers and country codes. I've decided one of my assumptions was just plain dangerous. All will be revealed...

Posted by Tom Dolan at 11:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 01, 2003

A Haynes Manual Moment

It's good to hear that you really can change tyres on cars using a pile of rocks.

(And I think Naomi's been practicing her Vanessa Redgrave windswept-but-noble-thank-you look :-)

Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 28, 2003

Big red scary face of fun.

Sponsor Richard Herring running the London Marathon. He's trying to persuade Stewart Lee to join in too.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 27, 2003

Time Wasting

As I'm just having to reinstall millions of apps on a rebuilt machine, this episode of Hackles rather appealed to the spod in me.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 22, 2003

I hate hate

Okay, so it's just non-stop abuse, and I'm not sure I completely agree with the americans-in-airport page, but Tim's page of hate was rather pleasurable. Do check out the clubbing pages. They reminded me of the self-knowing bits of Mixmag back when it was good. (Or perhaps I mean when I was younger and understood it so thought it was good)

Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 16, 2003

Terrible Joke

Sky sports are aggressively expanding their portfolio, and have just acquired the rights to the world origami championships.

Fans without premium channels are, however, up in arms.

Sadly it's pay-per-view.

with thanks(?) to Dub

Posted by Tom Dolan at 05:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 03, 2003

Bigger and Better (gratuitous plug)

The new records have just appeared in herself's BBCi TV Comedy Guide, bringing it pretty much bang up to date.

It's great to be able to now look at Hippies, Spaced, Coupling, Jam and World of Pub, ambling between them with a big comic smile on your face.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 29, 2003

When was the last time a website...

...gave you vertigo?

Rockboarding is one of those sports where your brain will route round the obvious definition becuase, well, nobody would do that. Would they?

Yes, it's snowboarding. In a snowboarding-style mountain location.

Only without the snow.

Some people are very very very strange.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 05:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 26, 2003

b3ta *really* arrives

I thought it was going to be when Weebl and Bob appeared on MTV, but now I realise it's when Joel 'Rathergood' Veitch gets to do a window at Selfridges

(Shame the pics didn't get cleaned up in photoshop first, but it wouldn't have been very b3ta, would it...)

(in fact, I'm tempted to amble along there to see if it's static, or if there's really clunky animation going on)

Posted by Tom Dolan at 02:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 19, 2003

A cute Dave Shrigley?

Edward Monkton has been responsible for a bunch of cards we've been sent recently.

There's a naive silliness behind his simple black-and-white designs, but also something deeper.

Posted by Tom Dolan at 08:14 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

September 17, 2003

And lightening the tone....

Lance Arthur's "Funny Things I Have Said to 'Famous Bloggers' that the 'Famous Bloggers' did not find funny at all made me laugh out loud. It felt very familiar. Both accidentally and deliberately.

(Mind you, I have a genetic imperative. My Dad once Innapropriately Pointed Some Things Out to a bespectacled MajorSoft ware company owner. No hints there, obviously.)

Via Wherever You Are

Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack