Just to prove that I haven’t been idle, here are a random selection of some of the pages from 2004 and January 2005 that I’ve updated, fixed and added to.
Enjoy!
You can find them using the Updated 2021 category.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/21/wbc_versus_anon/
Westboro Baptist Church taunts Anonymous over supposed attack plan • The Register
“This was clealry a setup up, some troll, trolling trolls to troll trolls.”
From the article:
In an emergency press release, Anonymous warned that the supposed call to arms was a trap set up by “attention-whoring idiots”. It said that as much as some members loathe WBC, Anonymous remains committed to freedom of speech. Rather than launching a denial of service attacks, Anons might want to send WBC a few male prostitutes or pictures of Goatse, the release (written by 20 members of Anonymous) concludes.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/the_future_of_american_power.html
The Future of American Power
“The emerging international system is likely to be quite different from those that have preceded it. A hundred years ago, there was a multipolar order run by a collection of European governments, with constantly shifting alliances, rivalries, miscalculations, and wars. Then came the duopoly of the Cold War, more stable in some ways, but with the superpowers reacting and overreacting to each other’s every move. Since 1991, we have lived under a U.S. imperium, a unique, unipolar world in which the open global economy has expanded and accelerated. This expansion is driving the next change in the nature of the international order. At the politico-military level, we remain in a single-superpower world. But polarity is not a binary phenomenon. The world will not stay unipolar for decades and then suddenly, one afternoon, become multipolar. On every dimension other than military power — industrial, financial, social, cultural — the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from U.S. dominance. That does not mean we are entering an anti-American world. But we are moving into a post-American world, one defined and directed from many places and by many people.”
A very thought provoking article which I found via my good stumble ‘friend’ atongchan
http://atongchan.stumbleupon.com/
Sorry link no longer works…
http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=5920&genre=0&page=1
Pictorial record of history seen with a jaundiced eye.
Update: Contraband seems to have vanished sometime in 2020 and the wayback machine doesn’t have the original picture that I was referencing. Also it’s from2007 which is a long time ago – not all links and content can be restored
“Hi ho
and a jolly welcode
to all you surfwide’n interwebber lopers.
Here beholdy manifold things
Stanley Unwinmost
– all deep joy
and thorkus
for great laugh’n tittery.
O yes.”
Stanley Unwin.
The man who inspired John Prescott to be the great orator that he is today.
In this clip we hear New Labour’s Devolution plans explained:
http://www.t-web.co.uk/trumpgo.htm
“Here is the clock, the Trumpton clock.
Telling the time steadily, sensibly,
never too quickly, never too slowly.
Telling the time for Trumpton.”
Update: The site looks rather dated now but it’s still up which is great. For aficionados of 1960s/70s Children’s TV there is a lot to read though. My update includes a complete Trumpton episode for to watch on YouTube.
http://www.downfallthefilm.com/
Downfall (2004) follows the dying days of the third Reich mostly from the viewpoint of Traudl Junge, Hitler’s personal secretary. I watched this last night on Channel 4, definitely not for the faint hearted, the scene where Magda Goebels kills her children is harrowing in the extreme.
Update: the original site I linked is now some kind of clickbait slimming website and the wayback machine doesn’t work properly for embedded videos. So good old Youtube has the trailer here:
Since my original post the film has generated a kind of momentum of its own. It has spawned many memes in the form of parodies normally based around the scene in the bunker where Hitler is flies into a rage.
What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?
The second test match between England & Australia at Edgbaston which ended so spectacularly on Sunday will be remembered for many individual triumphs. But two simple gestures explain what makes cricket so special.
On Saturday, after clean bowling Andrew Flintoff, Shane Warne flashed him a discrete thumbs up. Australia’s legendary spin bowler was conveying appreciation of a superb innings by the England all-rounder.
On Sunday, when England clinched the closest ever Ashes victory, Flintoff ducked away from the melee of jubliant England players to congratulate and console the two batsmen who had carried Australia to the very brink of victory.
It is heartening to see that there is still room for sportsmanship and mutual respect, even in the closest of matches.
Update 2022:
Pictures updated
http://eclectech.co.uk/b3ta/handbag.jpg.html
Memorable Quotes from
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.
Jack: Actually, I was found.
Lady Bracknell: Found?
Jack: Uh, yes, I was in… a handbag.
Lady Bracknell: A handbag?
Jack: Yes, it was…
[makes gestures]
Jack: an ordinary handbag.
http://grrrrrr.stumbleupon.com/
Grrrrrr – another of my favorite StumbleUpon colleagues with a nice collection of websites and interesting links
https://web.archive.org/web/20051119032424/http://grrrrrr.stumbleupon.com/
Anybody who likes Magazine, Derren Brown and the Rockall Times gets a Thumbs Up from me.
http://www.robbiewilliams.pl/wallpapers/wallpaper7big.jpg
This week I is mostly listening to…. Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams
Strong
My breath smells of a thousand fags
And when I’m drunk I dance like me dad
I’ve started to dress a bit like him
Early morning when I wake up
I look like Kiss but without the make up
And thats a good line to take it to The bridge
And you know and you know
‘Cos my life’s a mess
And I’m trying to grow so before
I’m old I’ll confess
You think that I’m strong you’re wrong
You’re wrong
I’ll sing my song, my song, my song
My bed’s full of takeaways and fantasies of easy lays
The pause button’s broke on my video
And is this real ‘cos I feel fake, Oprah Winfrey, Ricky Lake
Teach me things I don’t need to know
And you know and you know
‘Cos my life’s a mess
And it starting to show so before
I’m old I’ll confess
You think that I’m strong you’re wrong
You’re wrong
I’ll sing my song my song my song
If I did it all again I’d be a nun
The rain was never cold when I was young
I’m still young we’re still young (step inside the sun)
Life’s too short to be afraid
Step inside the sun
And you know and you know
‘Cos my life’s a mess
And I’m trying to grow
hey hey !
You think that I’m strong you’re wrong
You’re wrong
I’ll sing my song my song my song
Life’s too short to be afraid
So take a pill to numb the pain
You don’t have to take the blame
http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kimage/Koroleva.jpg
(Don’t wanna go) down in the tube station (at midnight)
The distant echo –
Of faraway voices boarding faraway trains
To take them home to
The ones that they love and who love them forever
The glazed, dirty steps – repeat my own and reflect my thoughts
Cold and uninviting, partially naked
Except for toffee wrapers and this morning’s papers
Mr. Jones got run down
Headlines of death and sorrow – they tell of tomorrow
Madmen on the rampage
And I’m down in the tube station at midnight
I fumble for change – and pull out the Queen
Smiling, beguiling
http://aural-innovations.com/robertcalvert/calvart/orgoneaccumulator.htm
http://aural-innovations.com/robertcalvert/
Crazy site about a crazy guy!
Since I got some positive feedback about Hawkwind’s Silver Machine here’s the site of Robert Calvert the driving force behind mutch of Hawkwind’s finest music.
Orgone Accumulators are, in my opinion pure ‘snake oil’ but makes for great doggerel. This site also goes really OTT on the flash mouse-overs.
Orgone accumulator by Hawkwind / Robert Calvert
I’ve got an orgone accumulator
It makes me feel greater
I’ll see you sometime later
When I’m through with my accumulator
It’s no social integrator
It’s a one man isolator
It’s a back brain stimulator
It’s a cerebral vibrator
Those energy stimulators
Just turn your eyeballs into craters
But an orgone accumulator
Is a superman creator
http://wangking.stumbleupon.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20051227082614/http://wangking.stumbleupon.com/
欢迎
Welcome to stumbleupon.
Update 2022:
With some people SU was always going to a bit of a joke – and like this user they dropped out fairly quickly.
However, Stumbleupon was great and very successful for a number of years. Books were written about how to use it to promote websites and businesses.
For those of us who used it , it was great and a real sense of community developed which you may see in later years.
Check out the StumbleUpon category for more info
http://www.anagramgenius.com/archive/tonybl4.html
Anagrams of Tony Blair MP:
I’m Tory Plan B. (Well we all knew that!)
Try a limp nob. (Must be the third way that he’s always going on about.)
Anagrams of ‘Tony Blair’:
A Lib ‘n’ Tory.
I rat nobly.
Not by Rail?! (The UK has the most expensive and unpunctual trains in the EU)
Anagram of ‘Tony Blair’s “New Labour”‘:
Wobble, tyrannous liar! – (Where ARE those WMDs Mr Blair?)
My favourite:
“Tony Blair’s election manifesto” = “More nasty lies. Notable fiction.”
http://www.starfarer.net/smsheet.html
Silver Machine by Hawkwind, probably the only song of theirs available with sheet music?
The whole song can be downloaded here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060502234544/http://www.starfarer.net/smsheet.html
Hawkwind
I
I just took a ride
in a silver machine
And I’m still feeling mean.
Do you wanna ride see yourself going by.
The other side of the sky
I got a silver machine.
It flies side ways thru’ time
It’s an electricline
It’s your Zodiac sign.
I’ve got a silver machine
I’ve got a silver machine.
I said
I just took a ride in a silver machine
And I’m still feeling mean.
It flies
out of a dream
It’s antisceptically clean
It turns everything green.
Do you wanna ride see yourself going by.
The other side of the sky
I mean a silver machine.
I’ve got a silver machine
Nobody writes better doggerel than Hawkwind!
Official hawkwind site: here
http://b3ta.com/challenge/breakfast/page6.htm
Yet another b3ta.com challenge, this time it’s new toys in breakfast cereals
Hmmmmmm, collapsing waveforms…….
Update: 2022
not all the pictures are still online – there were some great ones too – ah well
Skedaddle was another StumbleUpon user and blogger with a American Civil War theme.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050404001720/http://skedaddle.stumbleupon.com/
As one ‘Civil War’ aficionado to another I cannot rate Skedaddle’s site highly enough, whilst I merely read around the English Civil War Skedaddle contributes to the body of knowledge about the American Civil War. Visit his site at: http://www.pddoc.com/skedaddle/articles/index.html to find out more.
Update 2022:
Skeddale’s website is still online but sadly doesn’t seem to have been updated for a long time.
Update 2021 : failed in both countries thank goodness, but the Papers, Please! The Identity Project website is still going which is good as these issues remain relevant.
I’m horrified that the USA could be getting compulsory ID cards too. The perpetrators of 9/11 all had valid ID’s .
When I was younger I used to travel to Europe and I hated the way the gendarmes would demand ‘Papiers, papiers!’ to intimidate and hassle foreigners. In a manner only one step removed from the Geheime Staatspolizei.
It’s incredible that the present US Administration wants to make the USA resemble France.
Incidentally, these old stumbleupon pages are often in the interesting links category which you may like to check out
From the site:
What’s Wrong With Showing ID?
What does an ID, any ID, do for security? The honest answer is ‘not much’. If anything, relying on ID for security purposes actually makes things worse: a false sense of security fosters complacency.
Showing ID only affects honest people. If you’re dishonest, you can obtain false documents or steal the identity of an honest person.
If a 19 year-old college student can get a fake ID to drink, why couldn’t a bad person get one, too? And no matter how sophisticated the security embedded into the ID, wouldn’t a well-financed terrorist be able to falsify that, too? The answer to both questions is obviously ‘yes’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek
Like the Daleks I sometimes just want to ‘Exterminate!’
http://www.fractal-dome.de/e3dg5.shtml
https://web.archive.org/web/20050407140746/http://www.fractal-dome.de/eindex.shtml
Updated 2021
From the site:
| Making of |
| The Fractal-Dome logo was created with a special ray-tracing program. The logo contains two times almost the same part of the mandelbrot set: the graphic on the plane and the massive parts of the dome. |
http://quizilla.com/cgi-bin/result/result.plhttp://quizilla.com/users/daddysgirl/quizzes/Where%20Did%20Your%20Soul%20Originate%3F
Update Can’t find the original so here’s something approximately the same:
https://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=are-you-good-evil
“You come from Heaven. You’re the purest of pure, a saint. You’re probably an angel sent directly from Heaven.”
http://faithless.jopinion.nl/images/OOR/002a.jpg
This week I is mostly listening to…
Mass Destruction – Faithless
Whether long range weapon or suicide bomber
Wicked mind is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether you’re soar away sun or BBC 1
Misinformation is a weapon of mass destruction
You could a Caucasian or a poor Asian
Racism is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether inflation or globalisation
Fear is a weapon of mass destruction
http://freqwiz.stumbleupon.com/
Wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20051104043017/http://freqwiz.stumbleupon.com/
“…even though what you might say about my country, my president, my job, or me might hurt, I will gladly die defending your right to say it!” This is a sentiment I can agree with, however, I will respectfully remind you of what your general George S Patton said “Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
http://www.680news.com/news/international/article.jsp?content=w051785A
Update: Link expired so here’s the actual footage:
‘Gorgeous’ George Galloway is a man with whom I do not see eye to eye. He is basically a communist, and I do not like communism.
However, I do respect him personally. He defeated the Daily Telegraph in a libel case, defeated Tony Blair by overturning a huge Labour majority and convinced the voters of Bethnal Green that he should represent them in Parliament.
So he went to the US Senate and turned the tables on his accusers. They had, he said, committed a ‘schoolboy error’ in stating that he had personally received money out of the Iraqi ‘oil for food programme’. I watched him live on BBC TV yesterday for a full 20 minutes. It was a barnstorming performance and despite what you may hear from other media sources he wiped the floor with Senator Coleman who looked stunned and could only think of a rebuttal after he had had time to consider it.
George, I REALLY disagree with your views on most things but like your party’s name you have my respect.
http://www.megastar.co.uk/world/news/2005/05/16/sMEG01MTExNjI0MDM3MjI.html
‘Exterminate! Oh why do I bother?’
The nanny state is wagging its finger again – this time wrapping the nippers in cotton wool over Dr Who and the Daleks.
An episode from the current, excellent series of the Time Lord caper – called ‘Dalek’, confusingly – had scenes where Dr Who’s pepper-pot shaped sworn enemy was shown being tortured.
The ‘torture’ scene has proven enough to see the great and good at the British Board of Film Classification refuse to give the new DVD release of the hit BBC drama a PG certificate.
So Daleks are not for kids then – got it.
http://phreak.stumbleupon.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20050404174746/http://phreak.stumbleupon.com/
Phreaks reviewed sites made me laugh outloud – thumbs up!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/images/indian_rail15_gal.jpg
From the site:
“THE ROUNDEL, or the diamond-shaped signs at railway stations mentioning its name, may seem like a humble identity marker for railway stations, but it has over the years seen changes, from its design, the number of languages in which it identifies stations to the recent changes to its shape. At its core, however, the roundel, like several other railway features, owes its design to the British, who laid the foundation of the present-day local railway lines.
Talking about the history of the roundel in his book, Halt Station India, railway historian Rajendra Aklekar says the signage, also termed “bulls eye”, has its origins in London. He says in 1908, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London used a winged, spoked wheel for its stations’ name boards and “fashioned a bright red circle with a blue bar across”.
http://www.phantomfm.com/phanzine/images/armed%20forces.gif
Oliver’s Army by Elvis Costello
Don’t start me talking
I could talk all night
My mind goes sleepwalking
While I’m putting the world to right
Called careers information
Have you got yourself an occupation?
Oliver’s army is here to stay
Oliver’s army are on their way
And I would rather be anywhere else
But here today
There was a checkpoint Charlie
He didn’t crack a smile
But it’s no laughing party
When you’ve been on the murder mile
Only takes one itchy trigger
One more widow, one less white nigger
(Chorus)
Hong Kong is up for grabs
London is full of Arabs
We could be in Palestine
Overrun by a Chinese line
With the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne
But there’s no danger
It’s a professional career
Though it could be arranged
With just a word in Mr. Churchill’s ear
If you’re out of luck or out of work
We could send you to Johannesburg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver%27s_Army
I like pubs, and here are some good ones from West Oxfordshire. They all serve food and the best cuisine is to be found at the Blue Boar, Chipping Norton
However, the Fox Hotel is firmly at the top of the list. Reasonably priced accommodation, lovely atmosphere and excellent staff.
As a bonus it’s also a Hook Norton pub.
http://www.raf-upper-heyford.org/Falkland_Arms.jpg
https://www.falklandarms.co.uk
A Wadworth pub in the picturesque Cotswold village of Great Tew. once beloved now inhabited by the uber rich and inherited under dubious circumstances.
http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p456.htm
The Halifax Gibbet in Yorkshire
What is the Halifax Gibbet?
The Halifax Gibbet was a machine like a guillotine that was used for public execution between the 13th and 17th centuries. It is in Yorkshire, England. The earliest recorded execution was in 1286. It is suggested that the Gibbet was built to punish thieves who stole cloth, especially from tenters (a wooden frame that cloth was stretched and dried on).
Escaping the Halifax Gibbet
Convicted criminals did have one of escape. A law stated that if a condemned person could withdraw his or her head before the blade was released and hit the bottom, they could escape to the next town – Hebble Brook – and then they would be free. The one condition: that person could never return. The only lucky and quick guy to do this was John Lacy. On January 29, 1623, John managed to scape and run to freedom. But after seven years, Running Man, as he was nicknamed, foolishly believed that because he had done the impossible he would be allowed back. He was as wrong as he was dumb. As soon as he came back he was immediately put back under the blade again and this time he didn’t stand a chance.
Finding the Halifax Gibbet
Almost 60 people, both men and woman, were executed by the Halifax Gibbet. The town finally stopped using it in 1650. The Gibbet originally stood at Cow Green but it was later moved to a marked site on Gibbet Street. The actual site of the Gibbet was lost after the 17th century until it was rediscovered in 1839 when workmen discovered the skeletons and skulls of two bodies. Possibly the last two men executed. The original blade (the head of an axe) was returned to Halifax in 1970. It can be seen at the Calderdale Industrial Museum. A replica of the Gibbet was reconstructed in 1974.
http://www.burkes-peerage.net/sites/scotland/esnews/es1101.asp
Update: Website has moved URL. The above doesn’t work but Burkes Peerage can be found here
https://www.burkespeerage.com/search.php
The original post linked to some notable dates in Scottish history from 560 to 2000 AD. Alas I couldn’t find it.
However, there is still a lot of interesting stuff on the Burke’s Peerage, genealogy and heraldry website.
http://edwthelongshanks.stumbleupon.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20050810030154/ttp://edwthelongshanks.stumbleupon.com/
Update: Another fellow stumbler and his Stumbleupon Blog has survived pretty much intact.
Looking for other Stumbleupon users?
Try looking here
Category: Stumbleupon
Edwardus Primus Scottorum malleus hic est. Pactum serva.
– “Edward the First, Hammer of the Scots, keep the faith“
http://www.iisg.nl/collections/littleredbooks/bro4163-3.php
“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
美国垄断资本集团如果坚持推行它的侵略政策和战争政策，势必有一天要被全世界人民处以刑。其他美国帮凶也将是这样。
Translation: “If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States.”
2005 Election Manifesto Summary: Plaid Cymru
Everything is the fault of the English.
2005 Election Manifesto Summary: SNP
Everything is the fault of the English, but on a positive note they do want to impeach Tony Blair.
Never! Ulster says ‘No!’ etc.
2005 Election Manifesto Summary: Sinn Féin
We want to play in a different parliament.
