Here’s all the online crap I’ve found interesting in July:

The Story of My Sands - A look at the codewords used over tannoy systems. I well remember a Mr Sands on Brighton Pier and Somerfield.

Heavens Above. Calculates where satellites and the ISS will appear in the sky. Apparently you can see Iridium Flares in daylight too if you know exactly where to look.

What The World Eats. Time Magazine photo study of the food consumed by different cultures around the world.

Charlotte Gainsbourg - The Songs That We sing - (listen by choosing ‘5:55 The Album’)

The 12 Master Formats of Advertism. Nice video explaining the 12 main advertising tropes.

Mike Read is backing Boris Johnson. Not the dead cockney one but the dire radio DJ. Not only is his article pure reactionist gold but the comments are hilarious too. I say Mike Read for Mayor!

Trailer for a crazy South Korean movie about dragons with rocket launchers, called D-War.

The iPhone v the Nokia E70. An interesting article (contains comedy and swearing).

Charlie Brooker’s Screen Burn column was always a good reason to buy The Guardian on a Saturday but with the advent of this internet thing you don’t even need to buy the thing. And it’s legal apparently. But never before have I realised that it is actually me who is Charlie Brooker. Yes, I’m not John King at all.

Anybody who’s knows me well probably remembers my dish of the day was always a Frey Bentos pie. There was always at least 5 of them stacked high in my kitchen cupboard. Now days I know how to cook real food. I’m also a big fan of The Wire and think it’s the best thing thats been on TV for over 10 years, well US TV anyway. Here’s part of Charlie Brooker’s latest Screen Burn column.

“You know what I miss? Fray Bentos steak and ale pies. I haven’t had one in years. But as a student, I ate them all the time. I thought they represented grown-up cooking. After all, this wasn’t your average takeaway slop. No. A Fray Bentos supper required preparation and patience. You had to shear the lid off with a tin opener, and chuck the pie in the oven for half an hour. The end result was sublime.

Except it wasn’t. Having wolfed down better, fresher meals since then, I now realise that what I was eating tasted like piping-hot dog food by comparison. At the time I just didn’t know any better. Now I couldn’t face one. I’ve been spoiled. You can’t go home again.

I’m starting to wonder if obsessively watching The Wire - a show I’ve recently revisited as a result of doing a short programme about it (Tapping The Wire, Mon, 9pm, FX) - has similarly spoiled me in terms of TV drama. By now, the sound of yet another person blasting on about how good The Wire is probably makes you want to yawn your soul apart, but really it’s so absorbing, so labyrinthine and bloody-minded, it makes almost everything else seem a bit… well, a bit Fray Bentos.”

Oh, and here’s your Stevie Wonder. Just check out this drum solo:

Here are some more great mix mp3s for you to download for summer listening:

The new Charles Webster radio show is up at Ibiza Sonica. Download the 1 hour mp3 here. It’s a bit less souly and more techy and beaty than usual but still superb. Tori Amos into Amp Fiddler? Well somebody had to do it.

Here’s the tracklisting found at Charles Webster’s own Miso Records label:
kid sublime - ?
kidd sublime - get up daddy
swell sesions - nasa;s theme
panama II - long train running (prins thomas edit)
boof - to make up for it
tori amos - devils and gods
patchworks - celebration (amp fiddler mix)
furry phreaks with Terra Deva - all over the world (ambi mix)
slope - gemini
? - red barn road
kadabasten - caracas soul
thief - sunchild (reprise)
scott grooves - it doesn’t have to be…

Also recommended on a deep and techy vibe is the Attic 4 mix by Miles from Demizen.com. Featuring tracks by Charles Webster, Isolee and Chez Damier.

Fancy something a little more chilled out? Ben Mynott from Fluid Nation has his latest chill out mp3 mix available for download here. Featuring tracks by Crazy P and Secret Stealth, it really is one to relax to.

More weird techy stuff is available at DJ Jogarde’s website. His Freilauf Sessions Vol.3 (mp3) has tracks by Furry Phreaks, Roy Ayres, Carl Craig and Quentin Harris and is a perfectly mixed CD-length classic.

For more of a soul weekender vibe download the Playing With My Emotions mix by Dr No available at Dangradio.com.

Oh, and I promised you some Stephen Fry. Here he is telling us why he loves the Internet.

See more Stephen Fry on Video Jug.

After about 48 hours of trialling ecommerce systems I think I’ve finally found the one I can hack into enough to achieve what I want. I’m making the mother of all baby stores and it’ll look amazing. More on that soon.

Slideshow from The Guardian: “Peter Walker talks to North Korea expert Nick Bonner and photographer Charlie Crane, who have produced a book of photographs from the country’s capital, Pyongyang. The pair travelled to the city three times to photograph people, tourist sights and hotels. Laid out as a guidebook, the pictures in Welcome to Pyongyang are accompanied by commentaries from North Korean tourism guides.”

Follow Me Now: The Zigzagging Zungazung Meme: “Do read the following, then, as but a draft of a more measured, more textured cultural and social history — a zigzagging story about the migrations and manifestations of a well-traveled musical figure. I will continue to version these texts and sounds no doubt, on the blog and — before too long we hope — in a book.”

The Atlas of the Universe. There’s quite a lot of stuff less than 10 light years away.

Listen to: A brilliant heavy dub and roots mix CD called HEAVY SOUND SYSTEM STYLE mixed by MadMongos.

Watch: The first part of the first episode of Filthy, Rich & Catflap:

I’ve just finished my new mix CD and it’s available to download as an mp3 file (95Mb zip file). Please mail me if you want a CDR copy, or help in unzipping this.

Here’s the tracklisting:
1. Ananda Project - Remember When - Alternative Mix (Nitegrooves)
2. AquaBassino - Think It Iz Real (F Comm)
3. Scott Wozniak - Earth, Rain, Rhythm, Machine (Fluential)
4. Joi Cardwell - What It Feels Like - Danny Krivit Re-Edit (King Street)
5. Darryl D’Bonneau - A Better Way - 83 West Dub Mix (Jellybean Soul)
6. Boo Williams - Outta That Gear (Capture)
7. S.U.M.O - Nini - Claude Monnet Remix (Heya Hifi)
8. Tony Senghore - Peace (Eye Industries)
9. Unknown - Unreleased (Who Knows)
10. DJ Gregory - Traffic (Faya Combo)
11. Rodamaal feat. Claudia Franco - Insomnia - Ame Remix (Buzzin’ Fly)
12. Marcelino Galan - House & Art - Charles Webster Remix (House Cafe)

And here’s my cover:

Download full size jpg.

Fluffy kitten playing with a laptop, on Google Video.

Found this at the bottom of an old bag I haven’t opened in over fifteen years. Very prophetic.

Moon War, funny online game.

Extremely creepy Monoface person generator. This is great fun and very clever, if a little too high definition occasionally.

Play the 5 Minutes To Kill Yourself game.

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ - Superb music video.

And finally, make your own long lost cassette tapes using this online cassette generator.

From the Digital Sweatshop is the name of Alan Oldham’s blog. Check the downloadable techno set in his February 12th post where he plays some old school techno and acid to a crowd of adoring fans in Cleveland.

For a deeper house sound then check out the Deep Systems bi-weekly show from Brighton’s Matt Pond at fearofmusicradio.com. Playlists and schedules are available at their MySpace page.

For a more tribal New York house sound then check out the mixes at Ruben Mancias’ MySpace page. Here he has some downloadable CD-length house mixes. Beginners should try out the percussion heavy 20 minute MySpace minimix for download there.

Also available for download is this month’s eclectic Charles Webster mix from Sonica Radio Ibiza. To download the mix using the complicated Flash web page just choose ‘downloads’ on the slide, then hover over the record box on the ground. This will bring up a small box where you should be able to download his latest 1 hour radio show.

A jetty at the end of Shoreham Harbour. Not sure if there were herons or cormorants sitting on top of those poles.

Sound 101 - Bad Vibes. Rate which sound is the worst.

A couple of non-spoiler scenes from The Wire on YouTube. Scene one featuring McNulty and Bunk contains some entertaining usage of the F word (as well nude images). Scene two features the character Omar Little, a man who’s occupation is stealing from drug dealers. Two of the funnier scenes in the series.

Charlie Brooker hates Macs, from The Guardian.

More YouTube! See this brilliant wedding reception dance where everyone acts out the Micheal Jackson video of Thriller. And see the funny highlights from this weeks My Name Is Earl featuring Catalina and Randy.

Sing In The Shower music generator.

From Fiachra Gibbons on the making of Last Resort, a film set in Margate:
“You have to feel sorry for Margate. There it is, stuck out like an untended boil on the backside of Kent, disowned by its solidly respectable neighbours, Ramsgate and Broadstairs, whose facades seem pulled in a permanent rictus of displeasure and embarrassment at its coarse proletarian pleasures. All through the 1980s, London councils dumped the mad and the bad - their undeserving poor - into the empty bucket-and-spade guesthouses along its broad bay. Even they didn’t stay.”

Life has consisted of mainly Zelda, The Wire and work this year. No time to find any funny links.

So here’s a clip from The Wire I’ve just uploaded to YouTube. In a rare montage-to-music scene drug dealers Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell and Stinkum enter the Lowrises to see D’Angelo and check that their product is being sold correctly. The Wire is all filmed on location using no sets whatsoever giving it a real air of authenticity.

The music supervisor of The Wire has his own blog at www.tenthousand.org and wrote a small article about the scene above. There’s some great music downloads and mix tapes at his site too so please go and check it out.

As for The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess on the Nintendo Wii I think I’m about half way through. The video below shows the last boss I finished off a day ago. It’s not me doing the spinning but it’s a good example of the current level of escapism going on at King Mansions. This may act as a small spoiler for those only a short way through the game, and I’m sure I had this baddie down in under 7 minutes:

And as for work well I’m sure I can show you a little of what I’ve been working on here: http://www.audemos.co.uk/redesign/

Ok, here’s some good links:

Ingenious way to kill bees.

The new Burn My Face Off Elmo on YouTube.

Yes, not much has been happening online over Christmas to report about. I’ve just been playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) on my Wii and watching the first season of The Wire which is shaping up to be the best cop show of all time, even after watching just 5 episodes.

Ibiza Sonica - Nice (for a Flash site). Check out the 1 hour eclectic mix by Charles Webster by going to Downloads, then hovering over the record box.

Stumble Video - This is the closest thing to turning YouTube into a viable TV station. Just watch the videos it shows and rate them. Stumble will then start to learn your likes and dislikes. I hope this works on my Wii!

And if you really want to keep a video you see on YouTube then just visit the Video Downloader 2.0 site. This will store the video on your hard drive. You can then put it on your phone if you like.

Whats looking like being the biggest nerd debate of 2006/7, the Wii vs the PS3. Read about the designer’s perspective over at GamaSutra.

Here’s a 9 minute interview and clips of Daddy Freddy on Record Breakers and Blue Peter. I remember him vividly but I can’t find too many others out there who remember him.

Listen to The Guardian’s political cartoonist Steve Bell as he takes a tour around his home town, Brighton.