From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V6 #191 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Monday, July 23 2001 Volume 06 : Number 191 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Alloy: more dolby video answers ["p.latham2" ] Re: Alloy: more dolby video answers ["p.latham2" ] Alloy: The Alloy Q&A discussion Part VI [jonathan.chiddick@nokia.com] Re: Alloy: Hello there! [Robin Thurlow ] Re: Alloy: The Alloy Q&A discussion Part VI [Robin Thurlow ] Re: Alloy: possible virus? [Robyn Moore ] Re: Alloy: RE: alloy-digest V6 #185 [Robyn Moore ] Re: Alloy: YADD: Synths of steel [Robyn Moore ] Re: Alloy: 'allo Alloy [Robyn Moore ] Alloy: the general synopsis at O seven hundred hours ["Tim Hudson" ] Re: Alloy: The Alloy Q&A discussion Part VI ["Keith Stansell" Subject: Re: Alloy: more dolby video answers Hi Jon, Empire State Human is great isnt it , its my elder brother who got this on single at the time of release, i love the album Travelogue and been meaning to get Reproduction for years - love to get that on CD but not managed to track it down yet. Have you heard the new Human League single -- not a bad tune at all. Good look with your cover version , id love to have the facilities to do versions of songs - the ones by our obviously very talented alloy members on the website are a wonder to behold -- (creep creep). Paul - ----- Original Message ----- From: Jon Drukman To: Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2001 7:19 PM Subject: Re: Alloy: more dolby video answers > > At 05:14 PM 7/22/2001 +0100, p.latham2 wrote: > >By the way last night i was at a friends 30th birthday , and he set up a > >disco in his mums backgarden of which only early 80's tunes were allowed - > >and also where possible lesser known tunes by artists were played - thus we > >all boogied on down to tunes like > > > >Hard Times -- Human League > >Empire State Human - human league > > ah what a coincidence, i was just working out a cover version of empire > state human yesterday. i think i'm going to play it in my show next > week. either that or "The black hit of space" > > -jsd- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 13:52:37 +0100 From: "p.latham2" Subject: Re: Alloy: more dolby video answers Hi chris , Sorry I cant confirm which concert the DJ had been to but I dont think its the one you mentioned , and it wasnt the Town & Country , though it may be just a local name hes used for the venue because he lives down in the South of England. Just thought id add , I was looking through your Lene Lovich website the other day - very good I must say - im going to try & attempt to get a copy of the Wicked Witch , do you know if theyve sold out or not ?? Also bit confused when lyrics were mentioned for a few songs I havent heard of -- are these b-sides ? , i have copies of all the albums Im aware of from Stateless through to March, and also most of the singles, i obviously need to peruse the site further. I keep meaning to join the site , but im moving house soon and wont have access to email for approx 2 months -- in temporary accomodation whilst I get a roof on my new house - so ill join after that . Paul - ----- Original Message ----- From: Chris Good To: Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2001 5:54 PM Subject: Re: Alloy: more dolby video answers > > "p.latham2" wrote: > > > > t-shirt went down a storm - several people were impressed with that > > including the DJ , who has one as well from a concert he saw down in London > > Was this at the Dominion Tottenham Court Rd? Les & Lene were in the > audience amazingly only sitting a few rows behind us. > > -- > 'til the next time, > > Chris (Room 1 - Blue Hotel) > --- > Blue Hotel's HOME on the Web - http://www.bluehotel.co.uk > News - Reviews - Discography - Biography - Pix - Lyrics - Links - more ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 08:58:20 +0300 From: jonathan.chiddick@nokia.com Subject: Alloy: The Alloy Q&A discussion Part VI Greetings and salutations earthlings! 'Tis I, Jon the happy lumberjack; back from the forest again for the sixth and sadly final installment of the Thomas Dolby Q&A. You will doubtless be pleased to hear that after felling about 20 trees I can still boast a full compliment of limbs and no blood was shed. Let's get right down to business. We left off with the question about Robin Hitchcocks voiceover in White City. Jon: On 'The Flat Earth'; the spoken part in 'White City...' where did that come from? Thomas: At the end? That was Robin Hitchcock. Jon: What was the idea behind it? Thomas: There wasn't an idea. I just rolled the tape and he talked. Jon: Really? Thomas: Yeah...! Jon: So it was a completely spontaneous thing? Thomas: I played him the song and we talked a bit about the character of this person Keith and I said, "maybe you could be Keith." And then I just rolled it and he did it. I think it was pretty much first take. Jon: Really. So it's that simple? Sometimes it works - just like that. Thomas: Well he has a sort-of very jumbled encyclopaedic brain and one of his skills is spouting off. Jon: From 'Aliens', where is the bar that all the English meet? Is there a bar. Thomas: Yeah, it's called Boardners and it's in Hollywood. Jon: What about Beechwood Avenue? Did that just fit into the lyric or was that actually a place?. Thomas: It is a place although it's called Beechwood Drive and not Beechwood Avenue. All of these things I was only very fleetingly aware of when I wrote that. Even Miller-time I could only imagine that it had subliminally entered my subconscious as Miller-time was a slogan for Miller Beer - "It's Miller Time!" but when I wrote that I wasn't consciously aware of that at all. With Beechwood I couldn't have told you where... I knew there was a sign that I had seen driving around LA but they don't usually say Drive or Avenue. It just said Beechwood so I assumed it was Avenue. I guess that I saw the irony that suburban London has lots of Beechwood and Acacia and, you know, Elmwood Drives and so on. Jon: On the sleeve notes from 'Aliens' it says, ''Mr Dolby's domestic cleaning and outburst on 3: (Hot Sauce) Gueysel Tejada... Really! What was that all about! Thomas: She was just a lady that worked for us when we were living in LA. Jon: So she really was your domestic? Thomas: She cleaned the house! Yeah... (laughing) Jon: What about living in America. Both Robin and Robyn from Alloy have wondered about whether as you've been here now for fifteen years now are you still a British citizen? Thomas: (with tongue in cheek) ... a British subject... Jon: (suppressing laughter) yes... a subject of The Empire! Thomas: Right! Jon: This is a question from Robin. When you came to the states did living in America meet your expectations or was it completely different in a good way or a bad way? Were there any preconceived ideas that you had that were very correct or incorrect? Thomas: It was very liberating from when I first came here as a musician because the environment was so supportive of what I was doing. The unique quality of my approach to music and lyrics was applauded here whereas in the UK it was met with a lot of suspicion. You know, in the UK you needed to have credentials and that might mean that you came from Jamaica and therefore you were allowed to be reggae, or you were from a project in Manchester so you were allowed to be in The Smiths. It's part of the hypocrisy of Britain which is that most British pop is actually a mish-mash of things that we have pinched from other people... going back to Cream listening to blues players or The Police listening to reggae or African music coming in. We are very good at er... Jon: Innovating on top of other people ideas? Thomas: Innovating, there you go, you said it. I think we have a sense of guilt about that 'cause I think we know... (laughing) that we're rip-off artists... (laughing) I think for that reason we try and view our own artists as having a certain indigenous authenticity because we think that that is a prerequisite for music that is real. In other words, if we respect indigenous music elsewhere in the world we sort of want to find our own indigenous music within our own society. The fact that I didn't have roots like that, I'm not working class, I'm white and so on meant that I had the ability to flit around from one influence to another rather than be tied to one genre... This made the intelligencia and the media very snooty about what I did. People were uncomfortable around me in the UK. But I would get off the plane in the states and people would go, "that stuff you do is so wild!", "what can I do to help? When are you playing next?" Jon: It is no coincidence that Silicon Valley has these twenty-four year-old millionaires. If you come out of university and begin working for a start-up you can achieve miracles whereas in the UK you either have to start at the bottom - or start somewhere and make your way gradually step by step... There doesn't seem to be the possibility to react to situations as here; you have to follow the old-school-tie network... Thomas: Yeah, that's really true here. Jon: What happened to 'Eastern Bloc'? It was never released. Thomas: As...? Jon: As a single. As far as I know it was never released commercially. Thomas: Were you expecting it to be released as a single? Jon: Well I have a promo version for radio. It seems to be one of the most difficult songs not to like - ever. I imagined that it could be maybe another 'Hyperactive' in the right market-place; but it never came. Thomas: I didn't know that it was supposed to be a single. It could be that I did at the time but I have just forgotten about it. Record companies won't go on pushing a record beyond a certain point. I had had 'I Love You Goodbye', 'Close But No Cigar' and 'Silk Pyjamas' all out in the UK, and they got a little radio play, charted very very low down and fuelled a few sales for the album and they look at their return on investment and think that it would cost them a fair amount of money to promote another single and that there is a time when you have to accept that there's a time when an album is dead and should be put to rest. Jon: Shame. There is another question here about 'Eastern Bloc' from Melissa Jordan. 'apparatus underground, monitors the crunching sound'. Is there any meaning there that you can share? Thomas: (pauses) Not meaning, but there is one image that relates to that and it's that just off the M4 [motorway] about half way from London to Oxford there's a cutting through a hill. It didn't used to be there and is quite controversial but they had to blast out this passage through a hill. If you go up on the hill there are these green fields but every hundred feet or so there is a chimney in the middle of the green fields. I went up there one night with somebody that I knew that had worked for the foreign office or something said that there was actually a bunker under there with, reportedly, an underground railway from Whitehall or the Houses Of Parliament and this was constructed by Margaret Thatcher, and this is basically where she would go in the event of a nuclear attack. It was odd to be in the middle of all these rolling English green fields knowing that some complex network of power was lying somewhere beneath your feet. Jon: How did your dad feel about taking part in the video for Science? Thomas: Oh he really enjoyed it. But working with Magnus Pyke was a bit of a challenge. He was a really difficult old codger and kept interrupting the shoot to check that his taxi would be ready to take him home. I expected that he and my father would have something in common as they are both from a deeply academic background but it didn't work that way. He [Magnus Pyke] was actually a real pain. Jon: I heard that you got your own back in a way as when he went to the US there were people coming up to him every five minutes shouting... Thomas and Jon simultaneously: "Science!" Thomas: Yeah, I heard that. [smiling] Jon: Elaine Linstruth asks about those clangs from "Cruel" - What is the on the source of the sound? Did it/they come from a movie, or did you put someone under water to bang some metal together, or what? Thomas: There was only one clang and I don't really remember. I think it was some kind of cow bell slowed way down. There isn't any special story there really. Jon: Keith Stansell wondered whose is the slowed down voice in I live in a suitcase? Was it yours? Thomas: Yes, it was my voice. It was supposed to sound like me as an old man, looking back. Jon: Are there any plans to release TGAOW on DVD and update it with the latter videos as this would be a sure seller and is greatly needed? Thomas: Not currently, no. Jon: Clif Brigden used to be very active on Alloy, sadly not so much these days. Do you still keep in touch? Jon: I adore Clif but he and I are a bit like brothers-we'll have a falling out about something and not speak to each other for months, then one of us will call out of the blue and we'll go out for a beer, and pick up again as if nothing had happened. Our spouses are not always so forgiving though! Jon: Crackers once wrote in 1998, "I'm embarrassed to make this selfish admission but I often find myself hoping that Headspace is just something that Thomas has to get worked out of his system and then he'll return back to making music. But I can completely understand why Headspace is so important to him. It would be more satisfying to be mentioned in the media as 'Thomas Dolby: the man who revolutionized music on the internet' than it is to be called Thomas Dolby: the guy who recorded 'She Blinded Me With Science'." 'She Blinded Me With Science' seems to be this irremovable tag that you have been more or less permanently labeled with. Do you feel that returning to music could endanger your chances of really becoming Thomas Dolby: the man who revolutionized music on the internet? How could the two things coexist without one jeopardizing the other? Thomas: I have no "fear" of returning to music-I just need to take advantage of this unique opportunity to affect things in a very widescale, fundamental way, by changing the part audio plays in technological innovation. It's not about how the world views me, it's a personal thing. Jon: Beth Meyer wrote that the main question that would occur to her to ask you would be, "how's the family?" How is the family? Great, thank you. Growing up very fast. Jon: Well thank you Thomas for your valuable time. It was a truly fascinating insight! It will be really appreciated by all the Alloy members. Good luck with all you strive for with Beatnik and we look forward to hearing from you musically again soon! Don't forget to tip us the wink when you are going to play that little club... Thomas: Of course I will. Alloy is never far from my mind. When I'm ready to come out and play again I'll try to do a special show for Alloyites. As a reward for hanging in there all these years! I always said that my most fanatical fans were used to waiting a long time between episodes in this curious ongoing travelogue of my music. I hope that's still true today. I think I've got a lot more music in me, and I am convinced it will see the light of day in the end. But I'd like to get back to music for all the right reasons, not because I'm under a contractual obligation or because it's the only way to pay the rent. That's the spirit with which people listen to my music, and that's the spirit I will always try to preserve when I perform. Jon: Thank you so much! So there you have it people. Thanks again Thomas for finding the time and enduring the quite exhasutive but fascinating questioning! I certainly used up all the possibilities that that business trip offered to the max and it is a episode that will firmly remain in my memory for years to come. Let's face it, who knows if I will ever find myself in California again? Not me that's for sure although I would love to spend some vacation time there one of these years. "When I'm ready to come out and play again I'll try to do a special show for Alloyites. As a reward for hanging in there all these years!" In black and white with lots of witnesses! LOL. That kind of answers the question of whether I will ever get back to CA. The answer is a resounding yes. I once drove through the night from Brussels to Paris just to have Breakfast under the Eiffel Tower so the least I can do is jump on a plane to fulfill a missed opportunity from 16 years ago. I've already pre-warned my wife to not even TRY and discuss it with me when it happens! Cheers again Thomas from us all. I was a great pleasure to meet you and do this. Long live Alloy. Jon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 10:04:30 -0400 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Re: Alloy: Hello there! CJMark@aol.com wrote: > Robin.. maybe we should start a club without members! LOL Mark... that would mean our lives have each been one long, exclusive 'members only' excursion... :) Incidentally it's always nice when you find that someone else shares one of your quirks. It's just happened again, the woman is now deceased unfortunately, but I came across her work and am now reading "Discovering the World" which is a collection of short autobiographical articles. She possessed an eloquence that I don't of course, not being a professional writer... but she and I are/were so alike in our quirks, and I've never heard anyone else voice such things before. xxxx Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 10:26:50 -0400 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Re: Alloy: The Alloy Q&A discussion Part VI Jon and Thomas, thanks yet again for the interview!! And thanks especially for bringing my question up/answering it.. :) From the interview: > Jon: > There is another question here about 'Eastern Bloc' from Melissa Jordan. > 'apparatus underground, monitors the crunching sound'. Is there any > meaning there that you can share? > > Thomas: > (pauses) Not meaning, but there is one image that relates to that and > it's that just off the M4 [motorway] about half way from London to > Oxford there's a cutting through a hill. > It didn't used to be there and is quite controversial but they had to > blast out this passage through a hill. If you go up on the hill there > are these green fields but every hundred feet or so there is a chimney > in the middle of the green fields. I went up there one night with > somebody that I knew that had worked for the foreign office or something > said that there was actually a bunker under there with, reportedly, an > underground railway from Whitehall or the Houses Of Parliament and this > was constructed by Margaret Thatcher, and this is basically where she > would go in the event of a nuclear attack. It was odd to be in the > middle of all these rolling English green fields knowing that some > complex network of power was lying somewhere beneath your feet. How bizarre..!!! For one thing, there was a storyline of the UK-based book "Hellblazer" years ago, where this type of construction was going on around Britain. The 'complex network of power' in the Hellblazer story was actually the ancient network of spiritual ley lines that was being damaged, and England was in grave danger of being inundated with pissed-off spirit entities. I didn't know there was really this type of construction in recent history - I thought it might just be a commentary on overdevelopment in general - but now I imagine Garth Ennis (I *think* he's the one who wrote that particular story) might have been making a commentary about it specifically, with his ley lines story. I doubt it would've occured to me now, if Thomas hadn't used the phrase about the network of power beneath your feet... wow! A revelation like this is better than coffee first thing in the morning. Where the bunkers are concerned, it's just come to light that the same thing was done in America, sparing no expense on taxpayer's dollars of course... people in the top levels of government were to go to secret underground luxury hotels essentially, once the bombs (that they themselves failed to prevent) started flying. xxx ~R ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 07:29:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Robin Thurlow Subject: [none] Received: from mta05-svc.ntlworld.com (mta05-svc.ntlworld.com [62.253.162.45]) by smoe.org (8.8.7/8.8.7/daemon-mode-jane) with ESMTP id KAA28599 for ; Mon, 23 Jul 2001 10:02:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pbncomputer ([62.255.58.32]) by mta05-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.02.27 201-229-119-110) with SMTP id <20010723140430.SFPN288.mta05-svc.ntlworld.com@pbncomputer> for ; Mon, 23 Jul 2001 15:04:30 +0100 Message-ID: <000f01c11381$beea0040$203aff3e@pbncomputer> Approved: t5talent To: Subject: Re: Alloy: The Alloy Q&A discussion Part VI From: "p.latham2" Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 15:13:31 +0100 A quick thanks to Jon & to Thomas for the interview -- These Q & A sessions have been eagerly awaited and well worth the wait - - thanks to you both for giving your time . Just to add , ive also warned my wife that I may one day require the time & funds to jet over to the US for an Alloy get together , it would be great to get that to coincide with a Thomas gig. Cheers Paul Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 07:56:54 -0700 From: Robyn Moore Subject: Re: Alloy: possible virus? And lo! At 07:42 2001.07.20, the email zephyrs conveyed thy words unto me thusly: >Does this sound like a virus to you? Anyway if you get one like this, >you might not want to open it since it's clearly being sent out >indiscriminately. Virus central, sweetie. Someone tried to nail the individual users of the AnimEigo DVD list with the same thing, which we personally escaped because we have good filters, and the reports from that list say that there was an attempt on one of the big Tenchi Muyo lists too. Here's the McAffe page on this particular virus: http://www.mcafee.com/anti-virus/viruses/sircam/default.asp?cid=2360 As usual, Outlook users seem particularly prone. Robyn @ Robyn Moore @ http://www.wiccans.net/robyn.html @ You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. - S.C. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 08:13:30 -0700 From: Robyn Moore Subject: Re: Alloy: RE: alloy-digest V6 #185 And lo! At 09:16 2001.07.20, the email zephyrs conveyed thy words unto me thusly: >Incidently the photo was for a contest at my favorite webcomic. Readers send >in a photo and one male and one female user would be picked to be >characters in the comic. Alas, I didn't win even though I put on my best >"porn leer". What a shame - the judges must have been bribed. ;) Which comic was it, anyway? SinFest? MegaTokyo? Robyn @ Robyn Moore @ http://www.wiccans.net/robyn.html @ You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. - S.C. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 08:23:56 -0700 From: Robyn Moore Subject: Re: Alloy: YADD: Synths of steel And lo! At 10:02 2001.07.20, the email zephyrs conveyed thy words unto me thusly: >YADD! (Yet Another Dolby Dream) > > >"See! See! My special karate/judo kata arobics are scientifically formulated >to create the maximum exercise benefits. I'm going to fucking BURY that >Tai-bo guy. I'm thinking of calling it 'Sweating to the 80s', what do you >think?" Thomas eagerly asks me. > >"How about 'Getting Stinky With Professor Thinky'." I suggest at which point >Thomas starts getting quite irate about me not taking him seriously as a >fitness guru and begins to rant and rave and I shortly thereafter wake up. Oh, man. I must've laughed for a good 10 minutes before I regained my composure. >I'm going to have to figure out what part of my subconscious Thomas >represents and do something about it because he's almost always a bit of a >goof in my dreams. I think Robin's got a pretty good handle on it, so I'll leave the interpretation to her. Robyn M @ Robyn Moore @ http://www.wiccans.net/robyn.html @ You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. - S.C. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 08:30:49 -0700 From: Robyn Moore Subject: Re: Alloy: 'allo Alloy And lo! At 17:04 2001.07.20, the email zephyrs conveyed thy words unto me thusly: >By way of introduction, I have lived on the west coast of the USA for all >of my 37 >years, now residing in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Wait, it's really >not that >nice, you and your teeming hordes don't want to move here - really, it >rains FAR >too much, oh the depression I feel it setting in. :) Ain't it the truth. ;) In fact, it's drizzling outside even as I type. >I first heard Mr. Dolby with the "Science" mtv video blitz in the early >eighties, >and kept loose tabs on his career. I must say that "Astronauts and >Heretics" is an >absolute corker of an effort, one of my favorites by any artist. Gotta agree with you there. It wasn't until A&H that I became a serious fan, as opposed to "I like his stuff, I wonder what he's up to now?". >I host a local public radio show in Astoria, OR - "the grooveyard" on KMUN >91.9, >friday nights 10-12 p.m. - it's all about 70's funk, '80's junk, and some >'90's >acid jazz, plus a few novelty tunes. I'll post a playlist from my next >show, it >may give some of you ideas ?!? Hm. I don't think Portland's close enough to catch that signal, but I could check for amusement's sake sometime. I would like to see that playlist, though. Again, nice to meet you. :) Robyn M @ Robyn Moore @ http://www.wiccans.net/robyn.html @ You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. - S.C. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 15:41:31 +0000 From: "Tim Hudson" Subject: Alloy: the general synopsis at O seven hundred hours Hi everyone - Tim here with more on the Geography of Thomas Dolby: daft is good sometimes............ Todays subject is the Shipping Forecast: Thomas once got a BBC weather man to read out a Weather Forecast on his song 'Windpower' . More specifically it was a Shiping Forecast. But was does it all mean and where were they talking about exactly in the Song Windpower ? Lets take a closer look at todays forecast - 'I'm miles away in land a few hours East of Paris but if I close my eyes I could be there in England on the beach at Walberswick [ going accros the river in the rowing boat].......but I digress Anyway lets go ! THE SHIPPING FORECAST ISSUED BY THE MET OFFICE AT 1130 ON MONDAY 23 JULY 2001 THE GENERAL SYNOPSIS AT 0700 LOW 200 MILES WEST OF BAILEY 999 EXPECTED SOUTHEAST ICELAND 999 BY 0700 TOMORROW. HIGH DENMARK 1020 SLOW MOVING WITH LITTLE CHANGE. HIGH NORTH FINISTERRE 1022 SLOW MOVING WITH LITTLE CHANGE THE AREA FORECASTS FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS VIKING NORTH UTSIRE SOUTH UTSIRE SOUTHERLY 4 INCREASING 5 OR 6. RAIN LATER. MODERATE OR GOOD FORTIES CROMARTY SOUTH VEERING SOUTHWEST 4 OR 5, INCREASING 6 FOR A TIME. RAIN AT TIMES. MODERATE OR GOOD FORTH TYNE DOGGER SOUTH VEERING SOUTHWEST 3 OR 4, OCCASIONALLY 5. MAINLY FAIR. GOOD FISHER MAINLY SOUTHERLY 3 OR 4. FAIR. GOOD GERMAN BIGHT HUMBER THAMES VARIABLE 3 OR LESS. COASTAL THUNDERSTORMS. MODERATE OR GOOD DOVER WIGHT PORTLAND PLYMOUTH VARIABLE 3 OR LESS. FAIR. GOOD BISCAY NORTH OR NORTHEAST 4 OR 5. SHOWERS. GOOD SOUTHEAST FINISTERRE NORTHEASTERLY 4 OR 5, OCCASIONALLY 6. MAINLY FAIR. MODERATE OR GOOD NORTHWEST FINISTERRE VARIABLE 3 OR 4. FAIR. GOOD SOLE MAINLY SOUTHWESTERLY 3 OR 4, OCCASIONALLY 5 IN FAR NORTHWEST. DRIZZLE LATER IN FAR WEST. MODERATE OR GOOD LUNDY FASTNET IRISH SEA SOUTHWESTERLY 3 OR 4, INCREASING 5 FOR A TIME. RAIN AT TIMES. MODERATE OR GOOD SHANNON SOUTHWESTERLY 5 OR 6 DECREASING 4. RAIN OR SHOWERS. MODERATE OR GOOD ROCKALL SOUTHWEST 5 OR 6. RAIN OR SHOWERS. MODERATE OR GOOD MALIN HEBRIDES SOUTH VEERING SOUTHWEST 5 OR 6. RAIN THEN SQUALLY SHOWERS. MODERATE OR GOOD BAILEY SOUTHERLY VEERING WESTERLY 4 OR 5, BUT CYCLONIC 3 IN NORTH FOR A TIME. RAIN OR SQUALLY SHOWERS. MODERATE OR GOOD FAIR ISLE SOUTH VEERING SOUTHWEST 5 OR 6. RAIN THEN SHOWERS. MODERATE OR GOOD FAEROES SOUTHEASTERLY VEERING SOUTHWESTERLY 4 OR 5, INCREASING 6 FOR A TIME. RAIN THEN SHOWERS. MODERATE WITH FOG PATCHES BECOMING GOOD SOUTHEAST ICELAND EASTERLY BECOMING CYCLONIC 5 OR 6. OCCASIONAL RAIN. MODERATE The first thing is the area name, then the wind direction, then the windspeed, then the general outlook for the area then the visibility. So the forecast today for the next 24 hours for the region South east iceland is Easterly wind becoming cyclonic strength 5 or 6 with occaisional rain expected and moderate visability These funny sounding places are areas and to see where they are you need to look at this map ! http://www.metoffice.com/leisure/shiparea.html You can decode the forcast for the song windpower by reference to the above map and then try to deduce what season the forecast was taken from ! Heres the map again.. http://www.metoffice.com/leisure/shiparea.html Just started Thundering here but no lightening yet. Gives me the chance to say theres gonna be a cloudburst here.[true]. You know as a child you're always told that at any given moment there are x Thousand thunderstorms going on all over the planet well at 17h25 [ thats 15h25 G.M.T] here in Luxembourg weve got one overhead its hot and humid but so far no rain. Hows the weather with you around the planet then ? Tim. Luxembourg city, Veering to the Loo - force 4 or 5 - Aim poor, visability good - Rain at first later beoming good ! [ when youve gotta go - you gotta go ! ] until next time folks. Tim - -- Tim Hudson tim_hudson@zdnetonebox.com - email ___________________________________________________________________ To get your own FREE ZDNet Onebox - FREE voicemail, email, and fax, all in one place - sign up today at http://www.zdnetonebox.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 08:47:43 -0700 From: Robyn Moore Subject: Re: Alloy: So very off topic And lo! At 14:51 2001.07.22, the email zephyrs conveyed thy words unto me thusly: >You know... one of the problems with the internet is that you can never be >sure if something is just a joke, or an honest to goodness legitimate >website. Granted when it comes to fetishes the Japanese seem to churn them >out faster than they do automobiles, but this one just seems so... bizarre >that I have to question its validity. > >http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/ha/dins/onarafetish3english.htm > >Don't worry, there's no nudity on that webpage. Just a lot of very, very bad >english. Somehow, I have no trouble whatsoever believing this. It's just more proof that no matter how odd, someone, somewhere, has a fetish for it. >Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man! I just thought of something hillarious! > >View this website... then go watch the video for "She Blinded Me With >Science", particularily the scene where Thomas is on the couch. > >Heheheheheheheheheh! My wife probably is wondering why I'm giggling like a >schoolgirl right now. > >Crackers >(I can smell the chemicals from hell!!!!!!) As if I weren't laughing hard enough to begin with. I think I need some sleep. ;) Robyn M @ Robyn Moore @ http://www.wiccans.net/robyn.html @ You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. - S.C. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 09:56:13 -0600 From: "Keith Stansell" Subject: Re: Alloy: The Alloy Q&A discussion Part VI Thanks again Jonathan for doing this. It was great to get a bit of feedback from the things we have pondered over the years. I am honored to see my name creditied to several questions, some of which I don't even remember asking. I guess it was quite a while back that I posted them. I am a bit dissapointed that one question was missed, but yet a bit glad the mystery remains to taunt us. That would be Cracker's old reocurring question : Are there any pictures of Thomas performing in drag? The world may never know. - -Keith ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 14:04:19 -0400 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Alloy: sorry! & Japanese fetish page Paul Latham's post had been bounced to me & I forwarded it through as usual (or at least I thought i did) but somehow it came through under my name instead. I may have mistyped something & will have to look at it more closely. In the meantime please accept my apologies, Paul, for the mis-labeled post! crackers, the page you sent the link for was.. ehrmmmm... unexpected!! But really it's good to see such a silly, harmless fetish for a change!! It's just that lately, doing book restoration, I've had some books come in with certain body fluids sticking the pages together, especially from the Science Library where the books of erotic photography are housed (why are they there? Because photography is a science of course... at least according to our reference system) It doesn't help that this library is in the basement, is windowless, and has lots of little private alcoves. One of the worst examples came in only a few days ago... a book that was completely ruined in the manner mentioned above, called "Temple aux Miroirs" by Alain Robbe-Grillet and Irina Ionesco. This features extremely suggestive photos of little girls as young as seven, wearing excessive makeup, feather boas and high heels and absolutely nothing else, photographed with mirrors so they could be seen from every angle. But even this was not as bad as the photojournalism book I had to bag a few months ago, that had pages stuck together and photos sliced out, of naked or partially-clothed dead children in boxes by the sides of roads. The boxes had been propped up so that their passing relatives might recognise the children & know what had become of them, in a particular war-torn European country. Give me a farting Japanese woman any day! xxx Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 14:27:18 -0400 From: "Chris & Beena Cracknell" Subject: Re: Alloy: RE: alloy-digest V6 #185 - ----- Original Message ----- > What a shame - the judges must have been bribed. ;) > Which comic was it, anyway? SinFest? MegaTokyo? No, I don't think I would have entered a contest to be in Sinfest or MegaTokyo. It was a wonderful little comic called "Sexy Losers". http://sexylosers.com It used to have a different name that had to be changed due to an unfortunate incident with a bitter, vendictive ex-girlfriend. Sexy Losers is by far my favorite webcomic and was the comic that actually inspired me to create a comic of my own. Particularily it was the comic dealing with the issue of "tentacle monster rape" that made me want to do my own webcomic about a tentacle monster struggling against the cliches and stereotypes of his species. It was also the first (and so far only) webcomic I've done a guest strip for. I've been learning a lot of really neat things about comics and in particular webcomics and their creators. Did you know there's a huge behind the scenes political battle and lots and lots of bitchy catfighting going on with a number of your more popular webcomic artists? It's really, really funny to watch. It seems too that webcomics are another creative outlet that is preyed upon by "schmoozers" although to nowhere near the extent that the music industry is schmoozified. There's so much stuff that I was just blistfully unaware of until I started this. In a way it's kinda neat to be the naive again. Having been a working musician for as long as I have I've lost that wide-eyed wonder and naivete that I had when I was just a young kid with an electric piano and a pocket full of dreams. I'm older, more pragmatic, and more crusty perhaps in terms of what the music biz is, what my place in it is, and what my future in it is. I no longer have the same openess and vulnerability as I did when I started as a musician. This is a good thing because you learn very quickly in any creative market that there are a lot of people eager to use you then lose you. So after a couple of good ass reamings you toughen up and get an instinct for which schmoozers are just trying to inflate their own ego, which ones are actually out to exploit you, and that tiny, small percentage that actually has a genuine interest in you. But you know what, that toughness can kinda make you a little bitter if you're not too careful. When you lose your naivete, your openess, and your vulnerability you also tend to lose a lot of your sense of wonder, anticipation, and possibility. Sometimes it's really nice to wear rose coloured glasses and be blistfully unaware of all the machines that whirl around you. Creating my own webcomic has kinda given me a bit of that naivete back. But I'm also able to keep just enough of my hard earned street smarts with me to know when the sharks are getting a little too close. Even though my webcomic is nothing more than a hobby I can still have the thrill of discovery, anticipation and possibility that comes from being naive and vulnerable. I don't think I'd be able to do my webcomic if I had the same attitude towards it as I do towards my music. Crackers (Opened spam tin from hell!!!!!) CrAB - http://www.hwcn.org/~ad329/crab.html The Official Bira Bira Webpage - http://birabira.chaosmagic.com Ghastly's Ghastly Comic - http://ghastly.keenspace.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 17:26:04 -0400 From: "Chris & Beena Cracknell" Subject: Re: Alloy: The Alloy Q&A discussion Part VI - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Stansell" > I am a bit dissapointed that one question was missed, but yet a bit glad the > mystery remains to taunt us. That would be Cracker's old reocurring > question : Are there any pictures of Thomas performing in drag? > > The world may never know. Yes I too notice how that question was conspicuously left unasked and unanswered. There must be a conspiracy! Crackers (I want those pictures from hell!!!!!!!!!) CrAB - http://www.hwcn.org/~ad329/crab.html The Official Bira Bira Webpage - http://birabira.chaosmagic.com Ghastly's Ghastly Comic - http://ghastly.keenspace.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 23:33:04 +0100 From: Slarvibarglhee Subject: Re: Alloy: RE: alloy-digest V6 #185 Robin Thurlow wrote: > [snipped] > > Incidentally the guy in the video is a former Japanese soldier (played by > Ryuichi Sakamoto) who was stranded on an island for years after WWII ended, > not knowing it was over & staying on guard in case of invasion. In the > video which takes place many years later he is trying to go about his life > but can't escape his past experience or the 'cult figure' status it brought > him. Thomas plays a nutcase obssessive fan who gets his ass kicked. I remember hearing about this as a child, how this little Japanese soldier was discovered on a Pacific island 25 years or so after WWII hostilities ended, and I recognised the allusion when I saw the video for 'Fieldwork,' but thought no more about it. But recently I saw a documentary about the real story about this Jap officer. Apparently he was posted to the island in question (the name of which I can't remember) not long before it was overrun by U.S. forces. He didn't particularly want to be there and had little or no combat experience, but he took his duties very seriously. He was told to take charge and defend the island with the Jap soldiers already stationed there, and he did it to the best of his ability. The problem was, most of the Japs already there were not real fighters, but conscripts with little battle experience themselves. He ordered them to take all their supplies and move to the hills where they would wage guerilla warfare against the invading US troops. They didn't have much enthusiasm for this, but did as they were told. When the US forces arrived and it was clear they would be overrun, a lot of them surrendered, but this officer and a few others remained in the hills. When the war was over the Americans tried to contact him and his four or five men, using a Jap interpreter, to tell them the war WAS over and Japan had surrendered. He thought this was a trick and refused to surrender. He now took to raiding native villages for food and supplies and would shoot to kill any natives he saw. Over the years the remaining soldiers became more and more unhappy about staying on the island, particularly as the Japanese authorities tried to persuade them that the ware really WAS over, but the officer refused to surrender as he had not received an official order to that effect from the Jap high command. I forget all the detail but I think a couple of the soldiers managed to 'escape' from him and surrendered, and another one got injured and died, so there were two of them left on their own for several years. They still raided and killed or injured natives. Finally, 25 years or so after the war ended, a journalist managed to get in touch with the officer, and he confirmed that he'd give himself up if a Jap General went to the island and gave him the order in person. So, the message was passed on and a General came to the island to give him the order. He returned to Japan as a war hero, but he was disgusted that Japan had surrendered and had become 'soft' after the war, in his opinion. A lot of the old hard liners sympathised with him, and I think he tried to start either a political party, or influence policies to get Japan back to its former glories. He had limited success, but then went into business and the in the last part of documentary he was seen running a cattle ranch in South America. I may be a bit hazy about some of the detail, but the info is generally correct. Slarv ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V6 #191 ***************************