I won't bore you with the internal shots of venerable rafters made out of apparently whole trees...but suffice it to say, I'm covered in a fine layer of cathedral dust and I've stood in an awful lot of pidgeon shit this afternoon. The views were fantastic but the experience didn't do anything to improve my vertigo...that last shot looking down from the lantern gallery is surprisingly steady considering how much I was shaking at the time, it's a lot higher than it looks in the photograph.
" Lucinda's tastes are so depraved
.....and it looks like I've got it relatively quiet (thought no-one came to check the decibel rating of the clockwork timer on the central heating, I suspect there might have been a purple splodge on the map if they had!) Check out whether it's time to buy a pair of industrial strength ear mufflers here
It's 50's Sci-Fi for me tonight.....44 episodes of "X minus 1" available for download at RadioLovers
"From Lead in the West to Coal in the East, the Durham Miner Project is a record of County Durham’s mining history." Well worth a click
"I like the ampersand. I think it is often the most attractive punctuation mark of them all. This blog is an attempt to give this humble character the respect it deserves.".....a noble ambition!
"Created by French photographer, William Belle, the game features photographs of various abandoned and ramshackled locales, mostly hospitals and factories."....a creepy point-and-click adventure game created using a combination of Flash and a series of HTML pages. Found at JayisGames
This one's for Anne and John who are off to the far east on holiday in a couple of weeks....don't suppose they'll take any notice though!
"every science video on ScienceHack is screened by a scientist to verify its accuracy and quality"
Search ScienceHack
....but monkiri could be the answer. Someone asked me where I got ideas for posts a while back, and until early this week it involved keeping an open email to me-at-home while I was at work, then copying and pasting possible links to content until hometime as and when I came across them. monkiri allows you (after registering and downloading a 'button' for your Internet Explorer or Firefox toolbar) to 'snap' an area of the screen and quickly add a title that automatically posts to your monkiri blog along with the address of the source page and any text you feel inclined to include....you can have as many as you like, so great for research purposes. It doesn't seem to have a huge take-up so far (as of today I was top of the list of posters with 30!) Check out the story so far here (I'm treating it as a sort of visual sieve for content....and it's a lot better than a load of individual daily emails cluttering my inbox!) I've used a rather retro, minimalistic template that sits comfortably with my geeky work persona.....there's other, more visually attractive templates available!
.....wonder if there'll be a steep incline in the viewing figures because of the inclusion of the 'P' word in the post title! Click here to link to the Nudibranch photo gallery at National Geographic. Goodness....doesn't HE look grumpy!
Cinco De Mayo Carnival from Andrew Curtis on Vimeo.
If you like it, view the HD version here along with more details
.....because Wing, who could just possibly be the worst professional singer in the world, obviously makes a living out of this sort of thing. According to her website she's already released her 14th cd, and if you "Buy any full price CD (US$14) and pay just $3 more - a total of US $17, Wing will sing live just for you over the telephone. (You can have Wing sing to a friend instead if you wish).".....Oh, how I wish I'd known that before Brian's birthday last weekend, because he sure as hell wouldn't have got that boring bottle of aftershave!!
....and we all do it! Check out Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages, there's an impressive series of galleries if you scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Microsoft Research have launched a public beta of the Worldwide Telescope....it's a bit like Google Earth for the night sky. Click here to go to the homepage and download the application. Broadband recommended.
....John Peel's final 'Perfumed Garden' broadcast on (pirate) Radio London, 1967. It's a five and a half hour time capsule of the music of the day and, confession, I downloaded it via Pirate Bay (no doubt illegally, but then so was Radio London at the time, so somehow it felt a perfectly fair and reasonable thing to do!) The best of both worlds, you get the authentic, crackly, inter-track, deadpan chat and vintage ads but with remastered music tracks.....it could be a late night!Oh, and don't miss the BBC tribute site where you can hear more about the joys of pet sniffing or watch (a rather blurry, low-res) "Home Truths, The Movie"
Lots of local (short) vintage film clips from the North East and Cumbria here. Enjoy (?) a Fenwicks fashion show from the 60's or check out the Quayside market in the 50's.....magic! Link to the BBC Nation on Film homepage
Why not get creative? fontstruct is a free, online, modular toolkit that allows you to build your own downloadable truetype font.....or you can just be lazy and download one that someone prepared earlier! Requires registration.
I was reminded of this free, educational (learn Physics in a fun way) download today over at LifeHacker.....I meant to post about it ages ago. The video above shows Phun in action and you can download the programme here
"SiteLines allows you to find out about the archaeology on your doorstep and see what life was like in Tyne & Wear 100, 1,000 or even 3,000 years ago. There are currently over 10,000 records available of archaeological sites and finds ranging from prehistoric rock art to World War II pillboxes, Listed Buildings to burial mounds."
Bog basic, no registration, name-your-chat-room-and-go MeBeam
You need to register to use, looks good for educational purposes (though I had some problems linking to another user that only had a headset/no webcam) probably worth the effort in the end! VYEW
I think I like this one best....but time will tell! PalBee
REQUIRES A DOWNLOAD
They say...."Welcome to our online karaoke system where you can start recording your own songs with your microphone. We offer a free service where people can play karaoke online. Simply start singing and our system will record your voice. Other visitors can rate your songs and comment."
Get down and groove at Karaoke Play
How To Clean Your Toilet With Coke
Lots more cleaning tips here at VideoJug It makes me feel quite tired!
....there's a great post at Beware of the Blog with 18 listen online/downloadable tracks for your delectation.
.....at the Reg Vardy Gallery, University of Sunderland. Runs until Friday June 6. (Open: Tuesdays 10.00-20.00, Wed-Fri 10.00-18.00) Scents include odours found in a medieval plague doctor’s first aid kit, the smell of the fallout from an atomic bomb, the sweaty stink of a space station, the bouquet of extinct flowers and more. More information here and here
After a long holiday in Gateshead during refurbishment, the Tyneside Cinema re-opens it's doors for business on 22nd May. It opened as the ‘Bijou News-Reel Cinema’ on 1st February 1937, and is now the last news-reel cinema in Britain. Read more about it's history and resurrection to glory here, and there's a photogallery here at the BBC website. I'm hoping they've restored/retained the Tea Rooms menu, when the kids were tots it was the only place I knew where you could get soft-boiled eggs WITH TOAST SOLDIERS! Oh, and there's details of a celebratory free outdoor screening here if you fancy doing a bit of Dirty Dancing over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend here. I'll drone on about the, now sadly missed, Silk Shop next door some other time!
"Kiddie Records Weekly began in 2005 as a one year project devoted to the golden age of children's records. This period spanned from the mid forties through the early fifties and produced a wealth of all-time classics. Many of these recordings were extravagant Hollywood productions on major record labels and featured big time celebrities and composers.".....the project ended up running 3 years with some bonus tracks, and all of them available for download together with cover art. No apologies.....I just like it! 
There's a great post (with links to a Flickr photoset) about The Bakelite Museum in Williton, Somerset here at "Nothing to See Here". Short extract....."Stepping in the door is like walking into a 1950s home. There are cookers, toasters, washing machines, and irons interspersed with smaller items like banks, clocks and egg cups."
"The sturdy frame will easily support a 200lb man".....or a woman in a frock and high heels!
Here
Play Strawberry Tomato 
Link to 
