peteashtondotcom

AAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

Why are you such a dense idiot?

Ah well…

Another top tip from Resonance 104.4 fm - arthouse radio for the London region (though they do stream online as well). After the requisite hour of “found noise” the current show is Glass Shrimp which is run by a couple of members of Quickspace, who I saw in the upstairs room of a pub in Birmingham a few years back and who really kick ass. Listen to their show, buy their records. Approved.

Great turn of phrase from Jeremy. I am awed at my own reality, indeed. Sums up well a feeling I get from time to time - suddenly I exist in the eyes of the whole big existence thing. It’s not a bad feeling, just an odd one. An “Oh, you noticed” kind of thing.

Scary thing number one - this poster is appearing all over London reassuring the population that they’re safe, specifically on public transport because of all the CCTV cameras around the place. It’s not just the idea as much as the iconography, but then I guess the TV show Big Brother has got the population comfortable with the concept and helped usher in the real Big Brother.

Scary thing number two - despite seeing the poster a number of times over the last couple of weeks I didn’t realise how scary this is until Tom pointed it out.

Discussion (and source of the image) on Samizdata.net

The Kittens singing The Vines Outtathaway is much better than one would expect, and I was expecting something good. The guitar solo in particular made me laugh out loud. Better than the previous effort which was still damn fine. Kittens, they rock, and no mistake.

I write this essay on weblogs and cartoonists. LMG picks it up, as he’s likely to do being a regular reader of the bugpowder blog. Neilalien - The Doctor Strange Orb of Agamotto Comic Book Weblog then picks it up from LMG. In turn, Flat Earth pick it up from Neilalien whilst posting a picture of my flatmate Anna, who Flat Earth know and who is a contributor to the bugpowder blog. Then, The Comics Journal weblog gets the link from Flat Earth and post it up. I get an email from the TCJ because I’m on their news mailing list, check it out and ba da boom.

That’s how the internet works.

Info for those who use Blogger

Blogger has suffered a security intrusion by a “haX0r.” We have all the data that was changed backed up within a couple hours of the attack, so we can have things pretty much back to normal soon. Of course, we’re assessing the situation as thoroughly as possible to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Also, if you store your FTP login information in Blogger, it wouldn’t hurt to change that on your server though it is unlikely that information was accessed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Via Tom.

I do like old photos, especially naturalistic ones. Here’s a load, mainly of sailors, that fit that category (via Haughey). There’s something kinda alien about old photos, like they’re from another age, which they kind of are more and more as time goes by. The fact that the people in them are probably dead or at least very old makes it strange to think of them acting ‘normally’ in a world similar but different to mine. I’m not putting this very well. I like old photos. here’s some I found in a junk shop a couple of years back that appealed to me. Something about the eyes.

My chum Mike has started collecting his hungover ramblings on a new site:

Mike Woods is unwell, and he’s going to tell you how he brought this about, because he has absolutely nothing better to do. If you read it, then neither have you, and judging by the paralysis of culture, service and industry in this benighted island of ours, there’s a lot of you out there. There is not supposed to be any decoration, there are no polls, prizes, pictures or puzzles. You are not only discourgared from adding your two-penny’th, you are all but prevented from doing so. Queries will almost never be read, let alone answered, and in spite of everything this interweb you like stands for, no links to anything but the most pointless articles posted by my incestuous little band of drinking partners will be offered. You will never, ever need a sophisticated browser to find out how ill I am each morning, and you will not be invited to download RealFlash or Arseplayer or any such whizzy begubbins. Without warning, I may post material that you find offensive, including but not limited to blue language, bilious misanthropy and photographic studies of my decrepit and repulsive body as pinkly nude as the day it was spawned. And so, without further ado, on with the daily diagnosis of the diseases and distresses that are my drinker’s dues.

Stripblog, a term I devised a while back to describe stuff like this, has made it onto the Samizdata.net Blog Glossary

Stripblog

noun. A cartoon/comic related weblog, either pertaining to cartoons/comics or featuring graphics of that nature.

I feel rather proud in a strange way, although I’m not sure about the “pertaining to” part - the idea was it would just be blogs with comic strips on them that act as posts rather than posts about comics. BugPowder is a comics blog, not a stripblog, for example. Funny how you can get pedantically semantic about these things…

I’m an American tired of American lies - Another piece from the Grauniad I enjoyed recently. This column by Woody Harrelson made a lot of sense to me and I was intrigued that many of my friends mentioned it that night in the pub.

I give in to Woodman, and we stop for a few beers. He asks me what I’d do in Bush’s shoes. Easy: I’d honour Kyoto. Join the world court. I’d stop subsidising earth rapers like Monsanto, Dupont and Exxon. I’d shut down the nuclear power plants. So I already have $200bn saved from corporate welfare. I’d save another $100bn by stopping the war on non-corporate drugs. And I’d cut the defence budget in half so they’d have to get by on a measly $200bn a year. I’ve already saved half a trillion bucks by saying no to polluters and warmongers.

Then I’d give $300bn back to the taxpayers. I’d take the rest and pay the people teaching our children what they deserve. I’d put $100bn into alternative fuels and renewable energy. I’d revive the Chemurgy movement, which made the farmer the root of the economy, and make paper and fuel from wheat straw, rice straw and hemp. Not only would I attend, I’d sponsor the next Earth Summit. And, of course, I’d give myself a fat raise.

I’ve started a little
Tribute Page for Edmund Trebus because I felt there ought to be one. It’s pretty basic at the moment but I’ll tidy it up soon. (Or maybe I shouldn’t! Bw-ha!)

Where broadband reigns supreme - A surprisingly intelligent and insightful column in last weeks New Media section of the Guardian which shows the media types are finally getting the message after all these years.

I was talking to an old mate from the BBC’s children’s department about this recently. He came to ask me about broadband, and I replied that the real issue wasn’t the distribution medium, it was the network effect. This got us thinking. Imagine a moderated, peer-to-peer Blue Peter experience. Not only would you have the programme’s linear assets for children to swap their favourite bits, but you would have the Blue Peter “make your own programme” zone, where budding directors could do their stuff. You would have multi-player games with an educational (but fun) bent. You back this up with always-on Blue Peter weblogs and newsgroups. In effect you would create a networked Blue Peter world which was as much about the Blue Peter fans and their interests, concerns and talent as it was about the producers’ intentions.

On the road - Iain Sinclair on his “parallelist performance in three-lane theatre” at the Barbican this Friday.

Ballard has never, before this event, visited the Barbican. In some senses - think of High-Rise - he can be said to have invented it. But he didn’t need to see it, the tropical jungle under glass, the labyrinthine walkways, comfortable hermiticism. The Barbican exists to express a classically Ballardian paradox: being in the city but not of the city. With its postwar utopianism, climbing out of the ruins, it belongs to the era of Abercrombie and his County of London Plan, all those benevolent impositions, parkways, garden cities, orbital highways linking inner and outer boroughs.

New in Grids: Grid 017

Thanks Brett for the photo of Edmund Trebus. There aren’t many of these on the net. In fact there’s bugger all about Mr Trebus online at all.

Since posting the wee note about his death last week I’ve had 113 hits from google (where I currently come 6th), some really poignant comments on this blog and a couple of emails. There was a request for a photo on the tagboard so I got Brett to source one from the BBC.

I’m slightly taken aback by this. My first reaction is there should be something online to celebrate him as something more than a weirdo who collected trash and then I wonder if it’s best to leave well alone - RIP and all that.. Any thoughts?

Just had a firework go off during the day outside my window. And so it begins - you’d think we were in need of a good war zone or something. No sleep til mid November. (I love fireworks, by the way!)

Ever since I’ve been at the shop there’s been a sign on the door to the offices / staff room saying “This Door Is Alarmed” when it isn’t. At least it wasn’t until yesterday. We now have an alarm on the door and a code to get in. This is not a problem in itself. What is a problem is the ridiculous amount of security that’s suddenly been imposed on our relatively serene retail lives.

I have noticed, as I’m sure you have too, that technology has been getting more annoying over the last decade. Lifts now talk to you. While this is a good thing for blind people it’s fucking annoying for anyone who uses said lift many times a day. The same with tube trains, especially the Circle Line which was recorded by the most dim-witted sounding woman in London. Novelty mobile phone tunes. But you know all this, and we live with it.

This alarm is the loudest I’ve ever heard. It’s louder than the fire alarm which is saying something. After deactivating it gives you 20 seconds to get through the door before it goes off again, which might well be enough time if our door didn’t take 30 seconds to close properly, so each time you go through the door you have to pull it shut. During those 20 seconds it beeps repeatedly to let you know it’s deactivated. When lots of people are going through the door it gets rather annoying. You can deactivate it for 20 minutes but during this time it again beeps constantly.

Matt hates it more that I do so he immediately tried to shut it down. He opened the main box and located what appeared to be the power cable and, very carefully with an insulated screwdriver, disconnected it. It still worked. He tried unscrewing something else and created a loud bang and flash at which point he gave up. Later in the day I start thinking about the beeping - maybe I can disconnect the speaker that makes the beeps - that way we still have an alarm but it’s less annoying so maybe people will start appreciating it or at least not getting so fucked off with it.

So I unscrew the box with the keypad and just as I’m nearly there the alarm goes off. And won’t stop. At all. I phone the number on the box and the guy tells me I’m set off the anti-tamper alarm. This thing has an anti-tamper alarm. He tells me the code to shut it off and I decide to leave well alone.

It’s like something out of a 50’s B movie. The robot that will not die. You can disconnect it from the power supply and it’ll keep running. You try and remove cables and it attacks you. You try and remove its casing and it screams.

Alarm, I’d like to have a peaceful working environment without excess electronic noise please.

I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that.

Just heard this mad song by The Vandals on t’radio and did a quick google search. Most interesting…

There’s been enough sensible stuff written about the Eldred v. Ashcroft case so I think I’m able to be frivolous. Doesn’t this sound like a Goth taking on the indie music community? Okay, I’m sorry…

No posts for a while. And I don’t think there’ll be any soon. I’m totally imersed in Movable Type, which for those not in the know is a program for running weblogs like this one, only it’s a lot more powerful than Blogger which I’ve been using up until now.

What this means is my preoccupations are rather techy at the moment and my cultural and social life is not much to write about.

(Other than I went to see Talk To Her with Anna on Saturday night and it was tops - highly recommended.)

So, hold tight until it’s all over.

Hiptop Nation - I like this idea. It’s just a blog by people with handheld computer-camera-phone combos who send in posts about where they are and photos and such and while it’s totally pointless it gives a really nice random snapshot of the world. With all this technology in your pocket you shall post pictures of your dinner on the internet. Of course!

So, this book by Prisoner FF 8282 comes into the shop which we put on display everywhere. And we sell one copy. One copy in the whole day. And it’s discounted.

Oh YES!

Edmund Trebus dies. This man was an example to us all. Everyone who’s ever stopped to look in a skip, remember, this guy did it properly. We salute you.

Because I spent the day asleep (I eventually got up at 10.00pm) I’ve been up all night and decided to make the most of it, so I’ve installed Movable Type on this site and have been playing with it. The installation took a good hour or so but it was worth doing for the sense of achievement. I’ve since spent about 4 hours setting up a blog all of which has been productive and a learning experience. The project is to replace the BugPowder and TRS2 blogs with one MT blog utilising the powerful archive and category functions MT has to achieve some of the aims I’ve got for BugPowder, mainly that it should act as a real resource and community site for UK small press comics. Having imported both blogs into MT (don’t worry, the old ones are still there) I’ve been playing about with it all and I’m very impressed. If I was looking for something to get my teeth into, this is it. You can have a look at my efforts so far here though bear in mind I’ve barely scratched the surface…

Now, some food and then off to the PO Box for the first time in months, and then to work to face the music.

Not a very good Tuesday was had by me. I spent the morning waking up, realising I was late for work, getting upset about this, falling asleep again, waking up, realising I was late for work, getting upset about this, etc, etc. Eventually, having held the mobile in my hand all day, I phoned in at 4.00pm and told my manager what had happened, though I’m not really sure what did happen, other than I was knackered (sleep patterns partly) which meant I slept in and then had a period of self-hatred or something. I dunno.

Positively, though, I am down to get Cognitive Behavioural Therapy through my doctor, which will work on changing this kind of behaviour, but there’s a waiting list so I won’t start until the new year. In the short term I’m hoping to get some private sessions with a psychiatrist to try and identify why I’m occasionally doing this, especially as it seems to happen after I’ve had a productive or enjoyable time. Right now I feel okay, definitely not like I usually feel after something like this has happened, which is progress of a sort.

Matthew’s started a new blog:

“Along with my attempts to amuse you, the reader, this will be a record of how people can escape from a prison of their own making - be it mental illness, a mortgage, or an idiot boy. As a great person said “It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be fun. But it’s the only way.”

Go, Matthew!

A few people have asked what RSS and CSS are. Sorry for being all geek on your ass - I hate it when people do that.

Here’s a good introduction to RSS while here’s a somewhat random tutorial on CSS. When I said “full on CSS” I meant the structure of the whole page is now CSS (except the table) so there are no font tags or anything like that, and it’s all held in a seperate .css file. If I want to change the look of the site, all I have to do it edit that small file rather than edit every page, etc. That’s the theory anyway.

Monday night has mostly been spent thinking about weblogs and comics and then writing about them. This is a work in progress awaiting feedback from a couple of comics mailing lists, but it’s an indication of where I want to take my comics activities. For a year or so now I’ve not actually done much other than accidentally or deliberately inspire people to do stuff within the comics scene based on my having done stuff in the past. I’ve been cruising on this because it means I don’t have to actually do anything while still taking the credit, but it seems I’m now taking it to the next level.

I was inspired to write this after reading We Blog by the Blogroots trio and thinking about what RSS feeds could do for the comics scene. We Blog is actually a really good book and I intend to plug it here properly soon. The Philip and Alex for the next generation, I reckon.

There’s a spraycan murial just by Southwark Bridge on the south bank of the Thames that could well be one of Bankys’ but isn’t signed as such. Having perused his site for a good half hour I must remember to get some photos of it next time I’m there.