peteashtondotcom

Although here’s a better one

Simple, effective, useful… a jouney planner for the Tube and London trains that isn’t part of the gif’n'flash-ridden LRT behemoth…

Brett writes: “Someone with far too much time on their hands. Adolesence cannot come soon enough I fear.”

I was flicking through the catalogue for the Word literary festival in London at work today and saw an advert for a book I thought I recognised but didn’t. I thought it was Stretch 29 with a new cover, but it wasn’t. It was 253 by Geoff Ryman (coincidentally from the same publisher. I was intrigued and discovered we had two copies in stock, even more intrigued that we stocked it in but I hadn’t seen it before. Turns out we’ve only sold one in the last two years even though it’s a national bestseller. Nuff said about my customer base in the City. If they dismiss something it has to be good. And it is. Kate read it a year back and rates it highly.

Anyhoo, 253, as aged internet types will know, started out as a

web site novel back in the distant days of 1996. The site is still there and boy does it look dated. Check out the web awards! But it’s still a load of fun playing with the then novel concepts of hyperlinks and non-linear texts.

But what’s it all about? Well, a Bakerloo line train has 252 seats in seven carriages plus one for the driver, so a full train with no-one standing has 253 people on it. Ryman gives each of these characters a page with 253 words to tell their story, and together they tell an unexpected novel.

Or so I’m lead to believe. I”ve still got 100 pages of The Wind Up Bird Chronicle to go and don’t get me started on how wonderful that is…!

I was looking for stuff on Tony Millionaire’s comics - Maakies and Sock Monkey - stumbled across the Sock Monkey Gallery, which has nothing to do with T.M. but is of interest in that it’s rather odd in a good way. Specifically of superior interest is the Yard Sale, a seemingly geniune catalogue for what we Brits call a Car Boot Sale. However, this catalogue takes you through each item for sale in a retro-psychiadelic trip type thing thatI enjoyed a lot. There’s a plethroa of kitsch-kewl rubbish out there but these people hit the nail on the head.

We went to Stratford on Avon today (Saturday) to meet up with Kate’s folks. A nice day was had by all.

On the long train journey back (privatised railways may have reduced some fares but seem to have increased journey times by 200%…) Kate noticed a drunk geezer reading the cover of the book I’m reading. I’m engrossed so I don’t hear him say. “Wind-up Bird Chronicle? Is that a book on how to wind up birds?” to drunk bird opposite him.

There was also a stupid lady who insisted of giving everyone in the carriage a chip to celebrate some rower winning five gold medals. We took a chip in that British way of getting her to shut up and move on, but a couple of (really nice, actually) American’s didn’t want a chip. She took this as a personal affront and said they’d let down their country by not getting in the spirit of things, and that the Japanese guy took a chip. Kate wanted to thump her. I wanted to do nasty things using long words and make her apologise. She had that ability to send hatred and aggression through an entire area in one fell swoop through her misplaced desire for us all to pull together in some pseudo-blitz-style British bonding session.

Never mind this rower geezer probably had zero support from his country between events and achieved everything off his own back with the support of a few dedicated friends and colleagues. Don’t even think of how pathetic it is to try and patch together some kind of national identity based on the achievements of people who just happen to have been born here. Ignore the fact that some people don’t like chips or might be allergic to vegetable oil or, as Kate pointed out in a rather vicious streak, might have had a brother who died in a freak rowing accident and didn’t really want to be reminded of it….

People are lovely on the whole. But people can be so fucking stupid sometimes. And when they are stupid I find I really don’t want to live in this country any more. Sure, there are stupid people in other countries, but at least I wouldn’t feel so implicated.

Rant over. Time for bed.

You may remember be raving about Naomi Klein’s No Logo 6 months ago. Well, there was a nice long interview with her in the Guardian Weekend magazine which nicely summarised most of the points in the book. Still reckon you should buy your own copy though.

I’m rather disappointed with the No Logo web site though. Admittedly, all the activity is going on elsewhere without it’s help, and there are some good links here, but even so, it’s nothing to write home about.

Kate’s confused…

Where are the fifty candles? Where are they?. Please let me know before the Cava goes all over the iMac…

We definitely brought them home….

Look at the Tiger!

Dump The Pubs - Fairer Prices for UK Drinkers. “A large proportion of beer tax goes on Schools, though children generally spend very little on alcohol.”

Stumbling around the web with a thick head I came across {fray}, a site for sharing personal stories online. Maybe it’s cos I’m feeling sorry for myself, but I really liked this site. (Came to it via my new fave blog, powazek)

Off sick today. After the last post I considered going out and buying food but decided to have a lie down and didn’t wake up for hours. It’s one of those non-specific illnesses which are really hard to put on a sick-pay form. Some kind of lethargy sub-flu thing. Very annoying.

I had an interview at Serpent’s Tail publishers this morning for the post of Electronic and Editorial Information Manager and, on the off chance that they’re looking at this site to check me out, I really must apologise for my trousers. They are new and I didn’t realise how awful they looked until this morning when it was too late. Thank God for tables…

Got back this evening to a message from fellow bookselling chum Helen about the Thames Festival with an emphasis from her on the fireworks (Helen likes fireworks), so we hot footed it down to Embankment for the evening. It was a blast. First there was one of those parades of floats with hundreds of kids waving large animals made of tissue paper and bamboo making a racket with drums and the like, which was like a carnival (we missed Notting Hill this year), and lead to the festival area on the South Bank with a fun fair and stalls selling all manner of stuff including olives and vine leaves which Kate & Helen enjoyed.

Then the fireworks started. Big fucking fireworks launched from a barge in the middle of the river. Because it was in the city and we were right by the riverbank the fireworks seemed really close and the bangs reverberated off the buildings. Much more impressive then fireworks in a field. We’d never heard of this before (apparently it’s a regular thing) but will make a date for next year. Top stuff!

I love the internet. Looking for a cheap way of buying cigarette papers in bulk I found the Rizla site, which had a jokey link to the CIA World Factbook which, rather than being a sinister document, is actually a very useful reference to the world as researched by CIA agents. Much better than other reference tomes you might buy, and free.

Dad sent through a bunch of photos taken of us from his recent visit including this great picture of Kate (who is currently reading an academic book on poo and giggling profusely…)

I have my opinions about the fuel “crisis” and they may well make it here soon, but in the meanwhile here’s a gem from my chum Tom Lennon:

I nip down to Sainsbury’s to
stock up on my bread and milk. There was no bread. There was no milk.
Nothing but middle-class housewives in turmoil: “It’s ridiculous…
ridiculous… there’s no milk, no bread…” I couldn’t keep a straight face
at the sheer Shatneresque melodrama of their cries.

You can buy your electricity from British Gas, you know…

I did a keyboard filth test just now and found, amongst the expected tobaco and ash, two chest hairs (it’s been a hot summer), a small flying insect, carpet fluff, what could be crumbs, and part of a finger nail. The downside is I’ll have to wait another six months before such fun can be had again…

We sucummed and watched that Big Brother thing last night on the web. Or rather, Kate wanted to know what was going on but I spent the most time watching it. So this is what “the rest” of the country were so hooked on. I can almost see the appeal. Almost.

Brett thinks Zeppotron is “highly tasteless”, but I think it’s completely rational.

It started off as a stupid idea. Whether it still is is up for debate, but I’ve started archiving my comics related t-shirts online in The BugPowder Comics-Related T-Shirt Museum and Gallery.

Things to do when waiting for a 6meg ftp upload:

Watch the bar move across the screen, clean the bath, do the dusting, wash up, throw the newspapers away, have a fag, wash the ashtrays, watch the bar move across the screen…

Big Pig!

Today, after feeling a bit aimless in the am, we walked to Hampstead (a horrid place) and, on a whim, decided to go to Croydon, a London suburb where I spent the formative years of 12-16 in the 1980s. I hadn’t been back there for about a decade and had been putting off a return visit since moving here 6 months ago.

So we went. I showed Kate Croydon. Kate thought Croydon was “Alright - like a lot of other places” which is fair. Not a very interesting place but I had fun remembering the city center and visiting the places that used to be my old haunts (the comic shop, the other comic shop, the other comic shop to that one, all closed down) and bus stops I used to wait at. All fascinating stuff. God knows why I put it off for so long!

After the Stinkymeat project comes The Man Who Gave Himself Athlete’s Foot. What the Internet was created for…

Everyone who’s thinking of doing a web site should read Philip and Alex’s Guide to Web Publishing and everyone who’s already doing a web site should re-read it every couple of months, as I found out this week. Expect a re-design soon…

We like Ohtaki’s Shock Cow. (needs Shockwave) Make sure you click on the grass…