Here comes a very special guy.

What I spectacularly failed to tell you about last weeks post is that I got on the bus home to find a friend of my was the driver. 

We keep in touch via facebook and have written letters before but we hadn't met face to face for a good 18 months and that was briefly.  So its a good thing he contacted me on facebook to say that it was his wife's birthday and that there would be a party at his place and would I like to come.

I gave it a few minutes to mull over I didn't know the place where he was living, and after googling it came back as a few streets away (I had an old address of his in Bexleyheath) so when a man says jack... you jack. 

It was pretty cool too, he has a cool cat that consistently tried to snag chicken from the table and a lot of kids there, mainly his.  His eldest had been to Tossa De Mar the same as me and I wished I could have asked him where he stayed (he went with the scouts) but mainly I remember it for him playing acoustic guitar and singing some odd blues songs with another guy. 

We got talking about the good old days and of people, of Beavis and Butthead, (we were fans and used to do the voices all the time back then).  All in all a good time, as they say online 11/10 would definitely go again.

500

Its my 500th post here. I didn't realise that I'd reached that milestone til I'd logged in. Officially I'm coming up for 9  years here on blogger and for better or worse I still enjoy it.  I should celebrate and that or at least put a cake gif up or something.

Happy anniversary.

Celebration over I wanted to talk about Tit bits magazine a sort of weekly world news but old dead and English. I'd seen it about in shops that dealt with ephemera and the like, and always wrote it off as some sort of porno wannabe. It doesn't exist now but it was a magazine that summarised the news into bite sized stories and tabloid style trash.  Looking through the discarded boxes at the bootsale today we finally grabbed a copy along with Drexciya The Quest CDR and some shoes.

My  copy's from Nov 1977 so I'll do a run through on this.

On the inside cover is some Elvis tat celebrating the newly dead king.
Page 3 is the only political bit here going after then PM James Callaghan.

A weird story about martial break ups in high rise blocks. This is from an estate in Mitcham South London. Battery Hen wives barks the title, its all a bit sinister if you ask me.

A nice ad for Ultra Hi-Fi units (part of Thorn Emi)

Some quite frankly odd looking sculptures here, from a berk in Switzerland. Also looks like they'd fail health and safety if done today.

A few bits of interest as visionhire are offering a pong tv game along with their 20'' colour telly rental. Also a brief bit on palaeo diet / preserving wild food stocks a good 30 odd years before Kew decided to do  the same with all the worlds flora.  Interesting it starts with scientists believe.

Its Sterling Hayden and he's on the grass. A weird one this as the Dr Strangelove actor claims he quit booze and took up marijuana.  Lived on a houseboat and died of cancer.

Weird Z list celeb precursor thing with the Schwepps ad blokes daughter saying he's a sexpot.  Looking up on IMDB it seems she was briefly married to Boycey from Fools n horses and had a bit part in Fawlty Towers.

A buzz box to help you kick the fags, I wonder what ever happened to bio feedback devices sounds like quackery to me.

A big ole ad for Embassy fags here and some dubious slimming advice on the facing page. Just douse yourself in cold water and you could lose weight too.

Center pages have a full colour pictorial of a motorised harem complete with titty shots. Personally its just an upmarket paedo van / passion wagon but what do I know.

More car bollocks here along with an ad for Mobil super oil.

We hit the problem pages  here along with an ad for Southern Comfort on the facing page.

We have a page on how to kiss and how to put marzipan on a cake also Angela Bradshaw says what happens to film stars after 40.

Eric Morecambe had a column here and there is a vaguely naughty comic strip from the Sporting Spagthorpes.

Coming to the end here so as its all sports bollocks will say there is a full page ad for a proto vape thing called MD4, a passion Pill for the over 50's (its an implant) and the classified ads (porn, dating, new age tat and accordions).  Finally we have the letter pages and on the back page a bunch of music on tape or LP, looks bastard horrendous if truth be told.

So there you go if this gets to I don't know 100 views I'll make this into a PDF for you to download.

Cuntendo.

For those wondering why the heading up there is all in aid off, Cuntendo is the specific name given to Nintendo, when the big N uses its muscle to crack down on the little guy, either Youtube lets players or game genie dudes.  If you haven't heard the news, Nintendo has been going after rom sites ahead of their Switch VC revival thing (oh and mini console remakes).

An obscure bunch called loveROMS and Love retro were the original recipients of the ban hammer but it looks like many other sites have caved and removed TOSECS.  Planetemu the french guys do not host Nintendo roms now (and were my go to guys for old roms) and Emuparadise have removed all their romsets now and have effectively shut up shop which is bad. 

There is a great set of tweets on Twitter by Frank Cifaldi about the whole preservation side of things, (given that twitter is a left wing echo chamber that in itself is a miracle) and from someone else who travelled halfway across Japan to preserve some obscure bits of SNK history. If you want a job doing well its worth giving it to a pirate. 

I've been downloading on and off ever since I had the net and before that with a few discs of stuff gotten from bootsales.  I've seen places fall such as Cherry roms, ICEroms and even downloaded stuff from Dope rom and a few Angelfire places back in the day. Along with the last bastions of good journalism such as Insertcredit and Andriasang.  True I've seen a few horrible places (full disclosure I had a porn dialler from one back in the day) but I'm sure those won't return thanks to these going under.

Surely rom corruption is classed as modern art right.

Then there is the other stuff such as art project / homebrew fan translation side of things which attempt to make new games or just port stuff that wasn't deemed commercial back then. Or make innumerable hacks out of SMB or Marioworld, or even fix up the the emulator in the NES and SNES Mini to side load extra roms and such, and that's without going into the straight up preservation side of things, backing up 30 year old plus media and ensuring future people get to play these games.

An AFX Advert.

Or rather c'mon you cunts lets 'ave an AFX advert.

I first heard about this, from my Twitter timeline, a photo of the Aphex Twin logo on a wall and someone saying this is at the Elephant and Castle (our closest tube back in the day, put this down to living in the South East).  My ears perked up at this and we decided to go down that way and take a detour and find it.

It is indeed at the Elephant and Castle tube station, more specifically if you want to find it or just happen across this post 6 years from now. its located just outside the middle exit to the south bound branch of the Northern Line, as you come in or indeed, go out.  Took me ages to find, even though its not small, exited at the far entrance and looked along the Bakerloo station  before doubling back and finding it at the last.

Northern Line

Of course what I found out, is that there were two posters exactly opposite each other.  I could bark up the wrong tree here about mirror magic and getting caught between two images.  Think Granny Weatherwax from Witches Abroad and such, but if I'm honest I don't know what it all means.

this is the opposite side of the wall.

As far as I can tell I have no idea what this is all in aid off. It could be like last years live show at field day complete with Fingers Inc intro.  Or  more likely a new album along the lines of Syro or Cheetah.  I will of course update you when I know more.

Oh and when I got off at Morden this shit was going down.  Cue lots of 20 something ladies in not very much (it was baking out) and blokes in their best tees and beards (Seriously would have killed for the I love techno shirt).  On our way home from Sutton we saw this stretch jeep limousine thing outside a church and thought of Windowlicker.  So will leave you with that image here.

Lemme put mah shit on.

EDIT its for a new EP coming out in September and its sounds fucking lush.

Haiti talk.

First up some sad news, looks like the only decent news channel has gone HD only which means no more SD France 24 or France van cat as its known on pain of death. Wiki reckons its up in the high 800s now along with all the Asian networks so will have a look. If not it looks like I'm going to have to default to the terrible Russia Toady or TFTWorld.

Feature Presentation. Haiti:

We attended a talk on the Cacti of Haiti on Wednesday in the welcoming dank basement of Keston Community centre, its been hot as hell here, so it being in the cool is the one benefit of the heat. Our guest speaker was Paul Hoxey who undertook the trip along with some people from the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens (which  I've been to).

Something of an unknown quotient, Haiti is the perpetually disaster prone, french half of Hispaniola along with the Dominican Republic its Spanish counterpart and Cuba, they are some of the oldest and largest bits of the Caribbean.

Thanks to many problems such as natural disasters and poverty / aid cycle, Haiti can be thought of as an African nation in the heart of the Caribbean.

Most of the trees have been cut down for charcoal production leaving the cacti behind in big stands across the island.  Thanks to aid most people live on a subsistence level, leaving Haiti as a gibocracy if you will not growing stuff if you give it for free.  There is litter and pigs roaming free in the major cities and yet it can be stunning with plenty of beaches.  The upside to this is its poorly explored with only Charles Plumier visiting in 1700's and Ekman in the 1920's contributing a lot to their flora. 

Its a stunning talk with a focus on cacti, there's a new Cereus that Plumier found and has only been described now, along with a few Melocacti and Pilosocereus.  There is some ruined forts that were built to fight the french and the spot where Columbus landed in 1492.  It has great potential, stunning beaches and the people seem resourceful, its just a shame that its held back by aid culture and handouts.

Riverbank Matters

Decided to take a trip down the river path by the Thames today. Woolwich to Thamesmead about 2 miles or so and its a nice trip out.  Here are some notes on what I saw.

Today we saw a load of swans swimming along by the main wall.  Further along were ducks including off season Mallards with chicks and an Egyptian Goose on the wall. 

I note that their blackberries are more like the wild varieties than the bigger cultivar versions on the wasteland at work. 

People running, cycling and even some gymnastics (mainly stretching) which is new for me.

A lot of butterflies, more than I've seen in ages.  This includes mainly Large (Cabbage) Whites, Gatekeepers, Meadow Browns, a Jersey Tiger moth and a blue possibly either Common or Holly.
Edit its a female Holly Blue

A guy on a bike reckoned he saw a snake, it could be a Slow Worm which is local here or it could really be a snake.  (I've never actually seen a wild British snake, hopefully one of these days.)

Police, beauty and K9

Fans of strange TV rejoice, as Propeller tv have picked up Police Beauty and K9 for showing.  Saw this while having nothing to watch on a Thursday and periodically come back to it as its mesmerisingly awful.  

Reminiscent of NHKWorld  a news channel that was a weird mix of News and safe space, this evokes the same feeling as bugger all really happens.  Set in Beijing its an all female dog patrol unit that never fights any crime.  There is You You who is  pretty and I think owns the big Lab Cherry there is also Ni Na who owns a Springer Spaniel (a Howl) but in English her name is the sound of a police siren makes (we don't have much onomatopoeia but we are proud of this).  Oh and did we say that nothing happens.

Tuesday after world cup is case in point, a woman threatens to kill herself because her cat Little Emperor has gone missing after her derpy boyfriend let it out after a row they had. (and they are all its here all critters seem to be genderless but I digress)  The team are mobilised and You You says that her dog can sniff it out, cue brave doggo sniffing out embarrassed kitteh hiding out in a stairwell.  The woman does not kill herself and a lecture is given to them about considering Little Emperors feelings when next they have a barney.

Oh and the voice acting in this is wonderful the boyfriend  comes across as retarded and the girlfriend haughty. If you've ever seen telenovela dubbed you'll know the level of voice acting here.

Back to the show and our girls stop to pick up a run over mutt they spot on the ring road out of town and take it back to their local neighbourhood vets.  In the only piece of drama, their superiour and the vet decide on a name for our injured pupper. 

How about Wonder squeaks one guy.  no it was found on the fifth ring road out of town so why don't we call it fifth ring.  I'm guessing its better in Chinese but our hapless doggo is named fifth ring and the rest of the show is his battle to regain the use of his back legs.

The ending theme is the sort of thing that would grace a romance anime and fits in with the strange incidental music as a whole.

A word of warning there seems to be no English subs up on Youtube at the moment though Propeller are showing it with English Subs and dubs.  Which is how I've been shitposting about it here.

Yesasia have Mandarin TV Box sets for sale if you speak chinese though as noted the whole series seems to be up on Youtube.

Anyway UK viewers its on Sky 185 at 8:45 PM weeknights.