I had an accident with some printer's ink and it completely randomly landed in this screaming face pattern. I thought it rather beautiful.

Performance artist Mark McGowan plans to leave six taps running for a year at secret London locations as a protest against private control of water in the UK.

Last year McGowan left a tap running in a south London gallery, but bowed to pressure to turn it off after a month. That stunt used 800,000 litres of water, and angered many Thames Water customers and gallery visitors - some of whom turned off the tap themselves.

This time he intends to keep the taps running at secret London addresses, sending an estimated 100 million litres down the drain.

"I understand we are in a drought. But I am an artist so I'm not actually wasting water for nothing."

McGowan: you're not an artist, you're a cunt. Slapping an art sticker on something does not automatically endow it with value. I've just been told that Thames Water intends to reduce the water pressure in my area. If the water pressure on my shower goes any lower, it's going to start sucking water back up the pipes. If your retarded stunt is even fractionally responsible for making my shower even worse than it was already, I fucking hate you. No, forget that, I already fucking hate you. This protest is like protesting the Iraq war by going around gunning down babies. Yes, Thames Water should get its house in order and start spending some of its vast profits on fixing major water leaks before they start reducing the water pressure I pay them for. They're fuckwads. But you don't protest a fuckwad by acting exactly like the fuckwad in question.

I've got a better idea for a stunt: Chain yourself to the bottom of an empty swimming pool. Start a faucet at the top of the pool. Time plus tragedy will surely equal comedy.

I've posted about Channel 101 a couple of times in the Linklog but I really believe that they deserve more than that.

If you haven't experienced it yet (and you really must), 101 is a sort of playground for wannabe film-makers. How it works is:

• People send in a five minute 'pilot' for a new show.
  
• All the pilots are screened to a live audience of 400 at a cinema in LA
  
• The audience votes on which shows they like the best- the top five are considered 'Prime Time' and the creators are invited to make episode two of the show for the next screening- at which point they have to face the public vote again!
  

So it's sort of a 'survival of the fittest' short-film project, and the results, while occasionally extremely patchy, have created some incredible shows that make regular tv seem bloated and ridiculous.

Shows you really must check out are:

• Yacht Rock - So popular it has actually entered the vernacular as a new way to describe a musical genre, this serios follows the real-life (sort of) adventures of Michael McDonnell and Kenny Loggins as they penned hit after hit in the 70's and 80's.

• Laser Fart - Ludicrious title I know, and the show begins ludicrously as well, but somewhere along the line it morphs into a really quite serious look at grief and loss. Avoid episode ten- the first nine compose a tragic arc that is best watched as a single movie.

• The Wright Stuff - The adventures of the Wright Brothers! Watch in amazement as they use their flying machine to thwart evil-doers of all stripes.

• Ringwald & Molly - Not-really-animated show about a posh lizard and his scatalogical spider-dog. If you loved Terrahawks...
  

This is just a few of my favorites- there are literally dozens of shows that are all extremely amusing. As if that wasn't enough, there's also a NY-based 'sister' station, Channel 102. Swing by there and check out The Outer Limit, a wonderfully kooky science show, and Cakey! The Cake From Outer Space.

Anyway, I'm keen to submit a pilot. Can you act, film, edit? Check out a few shows to see what the hell I'm talking about and then get in touch!

Hey peeps,

There's been this '20 questions' musical meme going around a bit, I think I got tagged for it a couple of times, and I decided to podcast it rather than just write it down- that way you get to listen to some music after I've told you what songs are behind the questions. It's not actually a destruct\hour (and is not supposed to be), but I'm sending it out under the destruct\hour banner just to see if this iTunes thing is working. There'll be another actual destruct\hour along sometime soon, I'm sure. I tag, uhm, Rockit.

The questions answered in the podcast, if you haven't seen the meme yet, are:

1. A track from your early childhood
2. A track that you associate with your first love
3. A track that reminds you of a holiday trip
4. A track that you like but wouldn?t want to be associated with in public
5. A track that accompanied you when you were lovesick
6. A track that you have probably listened to most often
7. A track that is your favourite instrumental
8. A track that represents one of your favourite bands
9. A track which represents yourself best
10. A track that reminds you of a special occasion
11. A track that you can relax to
12. A track that stands for a really good time in your life
13. A track that is currently your favourite
14. A track that you?d dedicate to your best friend
15. A track that you think nobody but you likes
16. A track that you like especially for its lyrics
17. A track that you like that?s neither English nor German
18. A track that lets you release tension best
19. A track that you want to be played on your funeral
20. A track that you?d nominate for the ?best of all times? category

As for the answers, well, you have to listen to the podcast for that!

Left work at 3.30am. Hit bed at 4am. Alarm went off at 7am. Back at work at 7.30am.

Same schedule due today.

Lovin' it!

Speaking generally, what is worse for you: A pint of lager or a pint of Coke?

From: AQA [63336]

AQA thinks Coke. Coke has approximately 240 calories and sugar, whereas a pint of an average strength beer only has 164 calories per pint.

Hmm...I guess I meant "Is the poisoning effect of alcohol on my liver better or worse for me than whatever is bad in Coke?" but, y'know, this makes me feel slightly better. On topic, I was reading Does Anything Eat Wasps? the other day, which is a collection of interesting questions submitted to New Scientist over the years. One of them was about whether you could live on beer alone. It said there'd never been any serious studies undertaken on the matter, but did note that in the 1800's they sent three ships from England to Australia- two without beer, the third with. The ships without beer showed up in Aus with nearly 100 men requiring hospitalization. The boat with the beer? Six. Maybe Guiness really is good for you.

That said, I'm currently in a self-imposed month of sobriety. This is a yearly tradition that I undertake immediately after my birthday. Sort of a 'get clean after Christmas binge' kind of thing. It's good for saving money and spending more time at the gym. Bad for dating.

Hilariously, here's a blog entry from a guy who decided to replace beer with water for a day...

The opening credits to The Simpsons...IRL.

I'd better tell you about this film Mirrormask quick smart, because it seems like the sort of film that'll drop out of its limited distribution in about two weeks- catch it while you can.

Mirrormask is, as anyone with even a scintilla of decent popculture knowledge will already know, the brainchild of Neil Gaiman and David McKean, both of Sandman fame. And that's basically all you need to know- the film is very much like what would happen to you if you fell into a copy of Sandman: The Collected Dust Covers and wandered around randomly for an hour (sometimes you could even see the paper it was drawn on). It'd be pretty amazing, but you'd have trouble explaining exactly what you saw to anyone after you got out.

If you come looking for a plot, well, there's no much here. A girl named Helena (who is quite appropriately named as she looks very much like a young Helena Bonham Carter) wakes up in an odd fantasy world (cleverly comprised of the drawings she makes on her bedroom wall) that she takes to be (and may well be) a dream. So far, so Alice in Wonderland. But what Helena slowly realizes is that she's merely traded places with her evil counterpart, who is living it up in the 'real' world (a beautifully shot Brighton) by, er, smoking cigarettes, making out with punks and fighting with her dad.

If this sounds like a bit of a plot to you, well, this is all hinted at, but the majority of the film is actually just Helena wandering around her dream world. The problem with the dream world, as incredibly well visualized as it is, is that everything that happens there seems artibrary and without consequence. They go from A to B to C (and at each pick up a new 'quest point', something Gaiman has railed against in the past), but there's no sense of any true connection outside an author's whimsy or an excuse to show one more imaginative setpiece.

And that's really all there is to this film: it's a long parade of really lovely images (it actually reminded me a lot of The Cell on that level). And on that basis I really enjoyed it and if you love the artistry of comics or surrealist art I think you'd find it a real kick on that level. If you're looking for substance, look elsewhere. You get the sense that there's some kind of allegory about teenage angst and growing away from your parents, but it's so lightly glossed over it seems almost an afterthought (it clearly aspires to be a modern-day Labyrinth, but unfortunately falls short in both the thematic and raw wonder departments). It's frustrating because you're not really sure who its aimed at. Kids will find it utterly confusing and adults see that behind the confusion there isn't any meaning. Maybe it was made for the ADD generation where all that matters is the moment, and a procession of cool images will suffice.

And I don't say all this as criticism- I think that the film is perfect for what it is- a jaunt through The Dream. If they ever do make a Sandman movie, this is how they should do it. But there are a lot of trips into dreamland that manage to have both plot and emotional resonance, and I think this...I think this taps into the new style of film-making, where anything you can imagine can now be created. But imagining cool stuff isn't enough to make a truly great film- for that you need a solid story, with consequences and characters you can connect with.

It's been so long since I've actually gone and seen a play that I actually had to create a special category for it just now. And I'm living in what must be the most heavily play-saturated city in the world. I really must do better.

Anyway, last night I went and saw my friend Helena performing in Poet #7, a very odd and interesting play by Australian author Ben Ellis (who I met afterwards and was extremely shy and self-effacing, he said he was terrified throughout the entire performance, which I thought was very cute). It's also set in Australia, although it takes place across four different time zones- two pre-apocalyptic (the present day), two post-apocalyptic. In fact it's more like four different poems or stories being read from the perspective of each character (a librarian, a businessman, an odd kind of mortician, and a lab rat). At first each of the stories seem wildly disparate, but by the end of the play each story has dovetailed neatly into the next, sometimes humorously, sometimes tragically.

I'm not sure how much I can say about the individual stories without spoiling it for you. It is initially confusing and it takes a while (as is the case in a lot of drama) to get into the rythym of the piece, understanding its special language that it's trying to communicate in. This takes about ten minutes and once you're in the right mode it becomes a lot easier to understand and a lot more enjoyable. It's certainly not your typical, easily digested play in which characters interact with each other- even on those rare occasions where one character converses with another, they do so by quoting the other character (even though they're standing right there! Geddit?)

The design is excellent, the entire auditorium feels like bunker with 'Missing' posters taped to the walls foreshadowing the cataclysm at the centre of the play before you even read the first line. Also, if you listen carefully to the music they play in the background as you're all getting seated before the play begins, it's actually a radio show which also provides hints and clues about the events to come. It's also a pretty cool theatre overall- very small, but built over a pub so it has quite a cosy, relaxed feel to the proceedings.

The acting is top notch- one of the hardest things for any actor to do is simply repose on stage, do nothing at all, and still not break character. Each of the actors spends most of of the performance not reacting to the other actors, or even observing them, as they might have the opportunity to do in a more conventional play. This is not the case here, so it's quite impressive that, even when the characters are doing nothing, the actors still manage to remain convincing- it's quite a trick.

Yeah, so, it runs until the 18th of March, it's in Battersea, it is worth checking out.