Type Zero Woes.

Looks like theres some trouble brewing via Square Enix and the PSP game Final Fantasy Type 0. Stemming from an unofficial fan translation, it looks like its caught the attention of the Squenix Lawyers who looks like have gone ballistic and sent legal action to Sky part of the Romhacking team and host of the patch.  Squenix have of course had previous for this with the notorious Crimson Shadows Chrono Trigger hack, indeed both seem to coincide with official releases (Type 0 is getting a next gen port but not crucially to handhelds, and crimson shadow came out just when Chrono trigger was ported to the DS.)

They were pretty slow off the mark this time as the patch in question had been out for a month before they caught on. Though quite why they shut this down is for some speculation, on RHDN they are saying that it could be the hard Subbed videos and the copyright that this entails which is to blame, others say that it could jeopardise rom hacking as a whole.   I'm not sure this will be the case, I mean people will always pull stuff apart to see how it runs especially if you have a technical mind to do so (hell why do you think they haven't wiped out piracy that and cost).  If it would have remained PSP only I can see this getting ignored (a two UMD PSP game even with the FF name would not have sold especially at the end of the PSP lifespan) but as it is and that there is a next gen version coming, they are going to do something about it.  I'm not bitter about it but there you go.


Finally would have put this up last week but it didn't fit in with my previous post.  Its an old Ebay ad from the year 2000.

Ebay 2000.

 

Animal Farm

Been an odd week here, have a few more weird records for the collection including a seven inch from climate change denier David "Leafy Undergwoath" Bellamy singing a song about dinosaurs and missing out on the Kia Ora record which for some reason I put back in the box of records in the charity instead of buying. Ugh.

The icing on the cake was Efukt getting hold of an old Channel 4 documentary on the notorious porno Animal farm, (incidentally I've seen surgery clips from Embarrassing bodies up there as well bit of a graveyard for Channel 4 stuff).  They're generally known for their off beat selection of porno including bloopers and camgirl breakdowns but this, this was just sad.

I never really knew the story behind this besides that it was generally known about in school (indeed we did the proper Orwell version in English class) and that it was never called Animal Farm.

Filmed as a series of short stag clips for Color Climax it was smuggled in and bootlegged like all hardcore porn was before it was legalized in the late 90's, (though not that) it starred Bodil Joensen and a series of other folk basically getting it on with a variety of animals.

Bodil herself had a really tragic life, something I never knew until I did some digging, apparently not a lot is known about her, just that she was the product of an absent father and a religious nut of a mother.  She was raped or nearly raped by a deviant at a train station and her mother badly reacted locking her in the attic.
The porn came later on and when that dried up she turned to alcohol and the farm she had (she ran her own insemination business) was raided by the authorities.  She turned to prostitution right at the end before the booze finally killed her.  She is buried with her husband somewhere in Denmark.

Like I say, a really depressing story, oh and all these links are safe for work though really the whole thing is really a read at home thing.  Color Climax have largely cleaned up their act now no more Animal Porn or Child Porn (which was legal in Denmark in the 70's before it was rightfully banned) though I believe are still going.  s

Rolf Harass (Harris) a retrospective.

Hello viewers I really didn't want to do this, but, they've arrested one of my heroes as part of the ongoing, lets wipe out the 1970's campaign.  Rolf of course did bad things, mainly touching up teens and Vanessa Felch on the Big Breakfast (If memory serves correct she did the in the bedroom bit after Paula Yates left but before Lily Savage joined, then again I'm a sad cunt who watched an awful lot of Big Breakfast back in the day).So without further ado, this is how I'll choose to remember Rolf rather than the sad paedo he is.

To be honest as a child of the eighties I grew up with Rolf on our screens in fact I have fond memories of watching Rolf's Cartoon Time on BBC in the early evening where he would draw some old Looney Tunes Characters (for arguments sake say Droopy) before explaining what they were doing and then showing the clip in question.  It was dropped around 1986 because Neighbours took its place and I couldn't really give a toss about Ramsay Street (although in a link to the above paragraph, Mark Little a.k.a Joe Mangle did go on to be a presenter on the Big Breakfast, small world huh.)

He took his Cartoon Club over to ITV in the early 90's (which was noted for him using an Amiga for all of the animating and art based stuff which was cool.  Can remember a kid making a claymation animation of a guy taking a leak in an art gallery for one of the shows (oh yes there were children on there) and wikipedia reckons that there were more cartoons and stuff but I don't remember that at all, just the art.

Rolf also did sick animals back on the BBC in the wildly popular show Animal Hospital.  To be honest, I've never liked this show at all and as a big animal fan it was always sick kittens or some sort of manky rabbit.  I hope Youtube has the Shooting Stars parody of this with Mark Lamarr as Rolf, sitting in a bath and playing a dead snake like a saxophone. (Here, but no snake sax for you, thanks to bad memories.) It was always a lot better then the show itself.

Later on he did a portrait of the Queen that had the great trait of her teeth following you around the room, and apart from the trial that was it.  He's still a hero to me, much more than Jimmy Saville ever was, due to him not being obviously creepy.

Lynx and Things

Added a few new links to the main page.

I've never killed a pipit is a nature blog about tracking down rare wildlife and or nature walks I found it by chance when looking for something I saw at work, and rated what they did, so it gets a link here.

Curios Things is another stumble upon and celebrates my taste for the weird in humour and such.  A bit like Scarfolk but less frequently updated and with the emphasis of collage and the like.

Brief bits on junk touring.

Went to the worlds lamest bootsale at the Plume Of Feathers pub today.  Two stalls out in the beer garden plus a bouncy castle for the kids.  Had a look at some DVDs including a Richard Pryor comedy disk but nothing to write home about.

Yesterday was Pride up at Soho so a great opportunity to go to Walthamstow and avoid the whole thing.  Did quite well record wise includes picking up a Mitchbal records compilation on LP, some African Drumming record that looked to be from the 60's but actually turned out to be 2001 and a Tutto Matto LP which was very nice (Take My Hand is still a damn fine piece of disco house).

Pride wise didn't see any OTT celebrants, just a few people dodging the rain with rainbow flags and a shedload of police.

Finally if you want to know what Alarm Clocks looked like in Soviet Russia (along with a load of other electronic tat) or how Shovel Knight couldn't be done on the NES then these two articles will be right up your alley.

Foreign TV

Holiday television then, what I watched on my two weeks off and my second post of the day.

Because there really wasn't any English channels to bother with, apart from the institutionally dull BBC World Service, these will be musings on non English speaking channels.  Also I tend to suffer from insomnia so some of these posts will be of interest to night owls only.  Lets roll.

English bits and bobs.

What we had was only news, this includes BBC Worse Service and Bloomberg and CNBC which are incredibly boring, which leaves a few channels that were in English but are really obscure.

BBC Bored Service.
Only useful for learning that Rik Mayall had died and that my dream of a shit world cup exists and is called the alternative world cup.

CCTV.
Sky viewers can get this on channel 509 and apart from a humourous and finally, piece about residents on Shanghai subway leaving watermelons around, didn't have much. They still have news read out by a creepy robot of an old man, which is nice.

UN1 / Jewish News One

Ukraine News, in English, had a piece about Ice Cream vans that looked like it was reporting from the heart of  a council estate.  Ceased broadcasting by the end of the holiday and seems to be dead.

Jewish News 1 I found only really kicked in the wee small hours so insomniacs could see news that Mount Siani was found in Israel.  Or an exhibition into the Jews who fought in World War One in the Jewish Museum in London (which actually looks really interesting).

La Dos.

Has programs in English and Spanish at around 6 am.  They are primarily for learning English but can be used for torture purposes due to extreme levels of bad acting.

Spanish Miscellany.

Just one item and a glorious one at that.  A Spanish spoof of  Sex and the City which I think was supposed to be Kim Cattrall yelling out My Boyfriend is a Fucking Liar at 9am in the morning.

Oh and porn fans will like to know that they have dirty dancing on Channels 8, BOM and Teletaxi.tv up till 6 am, normal channels make do with live music which is nice.

German.
A lot of German channels including a dull soap opera and a channel that is just a log fire burning (middle of the night again).  The greatest thing was seeing X Files movie in German (the one Where Billy Connoly is a paedo priest) and RTL NITROs version of Crown Court called Das Stafgericht and not as I previously though Kraut Court.  We have pictures of a couple of freaks and it isn't pretty.

Shirley from Eastenders

Don't know what he was up for possibly dog bumming.

Russia.
Did badly this time, no closet lesbians, no Armenian TV, just a dull news channel and Shanson TV which is singing bad folk songs about the old country.

Egypt.
Or wherever TV Tamazight comes from, they had a bit of music and a ridiculous fight that I really should have cammed.  They also showed a picture of a scorpion which was nice, and an old man jamming on two keyboards at once which was really cool.

France.

We fancied the woman from the shopping channel and tried not to laugh at the digi style signs they put up advertising stuff.
Apart from that this is the end of that.

Deptford / Lewisham Junk Tour.

Lucky you, you get two posts today, one is this round up / Junk tour thing and the other is fall out from my holiday (foreign TV if you're interested).

But first Flat top watch. The Mail has put up a piece about the evil Cyber Gnats or Cybernats, the poor wee disenfranchised souls who vote yes for Scots independence.  For the record, I'm not Scottish and therefore have no vote, but I can sum up my feelings with this, If you think you're big enough to go it alone then do so as I simply do not care about you.

Apparently one of these trolls is flat topped ex Amiga Power reviewer Stuart Campbell. Now I've read Stu's work for ages now and it has to be said he does great polemic albeit from a left wing perspective, and used to put up with Wings over Scotland before ditching it sometime back, due to lack of interest.  I was also warned through BX forum that he also now sports a ridiculous comedy Lefty beard (like Dale Winton) to go with his flat top.  Anyway the piece is actually pretty spot on and while I still respect him for gaming stuff (especially the best of guides in Retrogamer) I've grown tired of his stuff on politics.

Anyway a junk tour to Deptford and Lewisham is it.  We decided to take a tour down past the DLR station and through the park there which I've never done before.  Its passed the Stephen Lawrence Center which a blue plaque by the Nubian Jak Programme  which sounds like they should be putting out old school inspired acid house on Clone Records or its imprints. The park itself is nice with a properly arranged garden and play area but mainly a shaded cycle path along the Quaggy River down into Lewisham.

Lewisham itself has always been a "melting pot" which means its stuffed full of foreigners, Lefties and the fervent Christians.  It has a few nice charity shops, such as the Red Cross, Marie Curie and the Hate (Heart) Foundation.  I've got a few nice things there and today is no exception, including a Dorling Kindersley Animal Encyclopaedia and a very interesting book called A Dodo at Oxford.  Supposedly a students diary about how he kept a Dodo in his lodgings in 17th Century Oxford, it was found donated in a box of books at charity shop.  Its probably not real but the little things like the side notes on life then and various stuff make it excellent to dip into and out of and impossible to put down.

We also found something I thought had died out long ago, Rola Cola.  Due to being thirsty we found that they had this on a two for one deal with D&Gs grape soda which is nice.  From what I can gather its made down at Purley and tastes absolutely lovely, sort of flat ish but nice.  They have a remarkably uninformative site here if you are so interested, bit if you do see any for sale then I suggest you snap it up.

Holiday

You were supposed to get a post detailing my current hiatus before leaving for Spain.  

We went to Salou if you are wondering, a place called the Hotel Belvedere a charming 3 star place off of the main strip.  I had previously been to Salou in 2011 but this was sort of a return trip further down the coast.  What you really want to know is if its changed much and if there was any other weirdness to go with it.

1. The Russians have taken over, the women either homely sorts, dark haired slavs quite fit in the way or impossibly tall hard faced blondes, the guys tall with mullets and an odd dress sense or old fat guys in speedos. One of the best things I saw but regret taking a photo of was a little girl in a cat dress that had the immortal words Do you wanna fuck on it.  I'm guessing they do not know English enough to know how poor taste / bloody funny it was, but it had me laughing for a good 5 minutes.

2. They have a really nice open area for walking at the back of the hotel, next to the railway line. Its supposed to be for dog walkers and the like but if you like nature there was some cool stuff there.  I saw a trail of ants scavenging on the corpse of an Oil Beetle, and a load of rabbits.  It eventually led onto Port Aventura water park which looked really run down and hardly busy.  I don't much like rides and such so didn't go in.

3. The pinball arcades are still there and this time managed to get film of the little robots moving at the play park arcade.  The one with Furoko Wars seems to have closed down and have now idea where it was.  They still have Scared Stiff, Red and Teds Road trip with their creepy talking heads and Ripleys Believe it or not, and they've added Gottliebs Teed Off which was awesome and along with No Good Gofers is one of the pins I really wanted to play.

4. So many dogs and cats. They had stray kittens in the rocks up on the cliffs and regular moggies down by the harbour, we saw a big tabby being fed a sausage by an old German lady, his ginger friend was clearly unimpressed as he prefers ham.  Dog wise lots of little dogs, and a few surprising things.  A big German Shepherd type thing with a massive shaggy coat was the highlight along with a medium sized howl (Spaniel) lapping up some water from from a fountain.

5. Not so much racism here they still had their fair share of swastikas sprayed up but no little old ladies comparing their tans with the African guys selling watches and perfumes on the street.  On the other hand the bar hawkers are out of control including northern blokes and unknown foreign ladies flogging restaurants and bars.  Strangest of the lot was a guy who wanted to rate his advert for a boat party.

Stay tuned next time as I'll be detailing TV to you including the demise of UN1 Ukraine News 1.

POSTSCRIPT.

I was supposed to add this as well.  Mogura Kensei has been dumped and added to mame according to Haze.  I'm sure this came from an old arcade in Margate, as I saw this 9 years back on a trip there one bank holiday.  It was in pretty poor condition then (it looked like they took a lump hammer to the moles you bashed, as every Bison was totally fucked) but crucially still worked.