No, not the current activity that many people on the Millmead Estate are doing. It’s a new film being shown on Channel Four tonight. I come from around there so I’m looking forward to seeing how they handle this in Margate:

“Pharaoh has found the perfect solution for the Promised Land. All the unwanted elements of society – asylum seekers and economic refugees, the long term unemployed, sexual deviants, substance abusers, petty criminals and ethnic minorities – are forced to live in Dreamland, a shanty town built on the site of a disused funfair.”

Not a work of fiction then.

I tried to get a job at Dreamland when I was 15 but had no luck, they weren’t that desperate. Luckily the Palace Pier had me when I came to Brighton so I could finally realise my ambition of being a true-to-life Carnie.

Today’s game is Dice Wars. It’s like a mini version of Risk where you have to roll higher than the territory you’re attacking. Good quick fun!

Today’s ‘everybody is stupid’ moment goes to the news that Camelot are withdrawing a scratch card game as it’s too confusing. Yes, it uses minus numbers to show cold temperatures and working out if you were colder or hotter proved a bit too much for some people.

Today’s bet was another of my crazy longshots. It’s a bet that Croatia don’t qualify from Euro 2008. They are currently top of the table with only two games to play but if Russia win both of their matches, Croatia lose against Macedonia and England beat Croatia next Wednesday then they don’t go through to the finals. It’s a long shot and it wasn’t even available at the normal betting sites. Therefore I took my first shot at using BetFair which is a totally different kind of betting site, called a betting exchange. Here you can place bets ‘against’ results as well and you can choose your odds from a selection. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. For a £25 stake (which was free with the offer I had) I stand to win over £600. Fingers crossed!

Today’s annoyance is Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, insisting that the War On Iraq has not increased the threat of terrorism. I feel so confident which such free thinkers in charge of the country.

Today’s mix tape comes from DJ Rocha with his Made Inn Radio Show mp3 mix - sorry about the RapidShare link. It’s a light deep tech-house mix with nothing too underground or experimental.

Today’s ha! comes from John Scalzi who reports back from the new Creation Museum somewhere in the US. “Every single thing on display in the Creation Museum is either caused by or a consequence of exactly three things: 1. The six-day creation; 2. Adam eating from the tree of life; 3. Noah’s flood.”

Yes, I’ve located some great new mixes for you to download.

First we have an eclectic Charles Webster set (72Mb download | tracklisting) which is part of BodyTonic’s monthly podcasts by deep house DJs.

Featuring tracks by Aphex Twin, Dusty Springfield, Prince, Joni Mitchell as well as Mr Webster himself. This truely is an eclectic mix ranging from soul, nu-gospel, space folk, nu-garage and many more names I could invent.

There’s also his Streetbeat 2007 (68Mb) mix now available for download. Another downtempo set featuring future beats and funked up deep house. Plus a live mix featuring more tech sounds is available for download too - Charles Webster - Live at DEMF Main Stage Mix 63Mb.

If you fancy something slightly different why not try the new mix by Oakland producer Aybee from the DeepBlak stable. There’s a few mixes available on the site but I’m really enjoying his latest offering entitled The Blakout #1 which features past, present and future soul. Simply sublime winter warming music.

Enjoy!

God, so much work and other stuff going on in my life. Here’s a round of some bits and peices.

The ecommerce project I have been working on all summer has finally launched. Baby Star are a New Zealand company that have two shops selling baby clothing and accessories. My partner on this project, designer James Morse, and me have been turning the ugly OSCommerce product into something that’s actually quite lovely. And we’ve stripped out the tables and made it all with CSS positioning. No mean feat when it’s your first experience with ecommerce.

I’ve also been working on a much smaller website for Waters Hair Stylists in Brighton, a local hair salon. I created a simple, clean design, creating a professional and relaxing feel. Also we have plans to add many more pages, such as products and tanning solutions, so I have built this flexibility into the site. Using CSS for all styles and positioning speeds up any future site development.

Also:

Charlie Brooker feels the same as me about spiders. I’m glad they’ve nearly all gone now.

The last day of shootong on The Wire. This is a spoiler free article from The Washington Post about feelings during the final day’s shoot on ‘the best TV series ever’.

The 20 most bizarre experiments of all time.

John Cusack interviews Naomi Klein. Video discussing her new book, The Shock Doctrine.

Hexiom. The game. I’m stuck on level 28.

I must draw your attention to some amazing free-to-download mixes by Brighton DJ Matt Pond. Matt has been spinning tunes locally for many years now and has kept his distinctive deep underground house sets up to date when many others have fallen back to the more commercial sound of lounge house.

Matt records a fortnightly mix for Fear Of Radio under his Deep Systems moniker featuring the latest deep underground house cuts from around the globe. You can stream these live from the site but I’d recommend downloading some of his archived mixes available from the site. Matt’s mixes are the fourth lot down on the page.

My two favourite from that list are his 20-07-07 show featuring some more experimental african beats from Jenifa Mayanja, Blaze and Trinidadian Deep and his 14-09-07 mix filled with a number of Charles Webster remixes ending with a haunting Radiohead edit by Afefe Iku. Tracklistings are available at his MySpace Blog.

Also, while you’re at Fear Of Music there are a whole host of other DJ radio shows to download such as the Hedonizm, Covert and Askew shows. All are free and perfect for your mp3 player of choice.

I’m thinking of a bike ride to Christ’s Hospital (near Horsham) from Hove using the Down’s Link path. It’s about 23 miles there on a very flat cycle path. Unfortunately there’s no alternative cycle path home. You could cheat and get the train I suppose. Testing embeddable Google Maps:

*No, it’s not playing ball. It’s showing the USA.

Here’s a handy PDF guide to the whole route from Shoreham to Guildford. And here’s some more guides to bike rides in Sussex.

Hopefully the new Cycle Path from Brighton Seafront to The South Downs will be completed soon. The path should lead up The Drive to Hove Park and then up to Blatchington Mill and beyond. Please let me know if the plans are online as I can’t find them anywhere.

And once you’ve cycled your belly away why not replace it with the ingenious Beer Belly Beverage Holder. This will be all the rage next summer I promise you.

Oh, and if you’re a fan of Stephen Fry then why not check out his new blog, or blessays as he calls them.

Play Castle Smasher. My highest score in 2274 and I can’t seem to finish level 5.

Interact with a head by playing Feed The Head. You could spend hours playing with this.

M.C. Escher in Lego. Featuring the amazing ‘Ascending and Descending’ and ‘Belvedere’.

Audio cassette tape nostalgia.

Red Arrows flypast at Shoreham Airshow, West Sussex:

My first airshow seen from 200ft above the airport:

Semi-related. Manston Airport landing and take off zones.

Been a real busy month at King Mansions with some great web projects coming out the door this week.

Here are a few of the things I have been reading and looking at during the month of August.

Easy to follow recipe for Bhindi Gosht. Great Pakistani Okra & Lamb Curry from scratch. You can get half of those ingredients in a packet of Karahi Gosht Masala spice blend available from your local world food outlet.

Short Movie (10 mins) called Flesh which juxtaposes a vision of a pornographic American society with the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. This is NSFW.

“Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.” Superb article in The Nation.

Motorcycle News magazine need to check which ads go with which stories, as can be seen here.

How many times can Superman give his secret identity away without anybody remembering? Lots.

Ooh! Another new episode of Tribe tonight. Read interviews with the presenter Bruce Parry and some of his crew.

Just thought I’d get in there first after reading this story:

“If you think about the spin of a particle, such as an electron, it can point up or down or at any superposition of the two; partially up or partially down,” said Professor Awschalom.

“You can store an almost infinite number of bits of information in one particle space,” he added.