a log of links, thoughts, notes and scribbles
Category: weirdness
You know the scene in Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon’s character, the college janitor, solves a complex maths problem in a faculty corridor. Well, a similar thing has kinda happened at Glasgow University.
A cleaner was recently discovered playing concert level piano pieces in a music room. Turns out he’d been a professional piano player in Poland before coming over to the UK to work.
Watch him play here.
The world’s largest kebab has been made by Costas Dasios of Patras, Greece.
The pork kebab weighs in at an astounding 1,850kgs and sits on a 1.73-metre steel skewer.
It took a staggering 150kgs of spices and 100kgs of salt and a two-ton natural gas tank to cook it.
Good effort…
Here’s a bunch of clips of air crashes, helicopter accidents, spectacular crash tests and aviation stunts. Strangely voyeristic with a very high ‘whoa…‘ factor. Enjoy !
What are The Lincolnshire Poacher, the Spanish Lady or the Swedish Rhapsody ? Well, apparently, they’re secret spy radio transmissions, broadcasting the encoded messages of the world’s secret services. You can pick them up on short-wave radio anywhere, just listen out for strange electronic voices reading long lists of numbers. They’re cryptic signals sent out to intelligence agents in the field. They’re totally weird, strangely compelling and just a bit spooky.
Radio 4 broadcast a fascinating programme devoted to the mysterious numbers stations this morning.
MI6’s station is known in the trade as ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’ because it’s radio signature is an electronic version of the famous Lincolnshire folk song. The transmission changes to a British woman’s voice reading endless strings of numbers. Here’s a creepy video of one of their broadcasts. Allegedly, the signal is transmitted to secret agents worldwide from a special base in Cyprus. All the agent needs is an innocent looking radio and the right cipher to decode the message using the one-time pad cryptosystem.
There are loads of other numbers stations, no doubt broadcast by secret intelligence agencies all over the world. They have strange nicknames like the Spanish Lady, Swedish Rhapsody, Czech Drums And Trumpets, The Skylark, Papa November, Bulgarian Betty, The Russian Man and The Russian Woman.
Governments and intelligence agencies deny everything and refuse to discuss these strange broadcasts. They have been going on for decades and no one really knows anything about them. Bizarre. Some enthusiasts have tracked and monitored the transmissions and tried to find out where they come from. Check this site out for more recordings and stuff. If you wanna have a listen, here’s the ultimate numbers station frequency list.
There’s a new sport in town. It’s come all the way from the good ‘ol US of A and ranks as one of the daftest things ever to come out of America. And that’s saying something. It’s called, wait for it, cup stacking. I kid you not, it’s “an exciting individual and team sport where participants stack and unstack 12 specially designed plastic cups…” You serious ?! Looks like a mugs game ;o)
Here’s the training video ! One to watch !
Fancy a holiday in North Korea ? Freaky site… check out the retro-kitsch promotional flash movie (via) ! Sure does make you want to get on the next plane…
There’s also been an amusing spat between the North Koreans and some webloggers about bandwidth, copyright and general linkage….more over at boingboing.net !
Celebrity Big Brother is getting weird. The initial groans of not another celebrity reality show have given way to more strangely addictive voyeurism. The producers have carefully chosen the ‘celebrity’ housemates to ensure an explosive mix. We all know the format, but the excitement lies in the contestants. Will they get on… ?
It’s strange that popular television has come to putting a bunch of minor celebrities in a goldfish bowl, adding a few ‘tasks’ and broadcasting the results. Why do they agree to do it ? Does Max Clifford have a carefully calculated formula to predict how ‘celebrity’ will rise or fall after a bout in the Big Brother House ? Does it matter ? Does anyone really care ? Perhaps it’s simply easier to produce the opiate of reality TV than brood on the terrible disaster of the Asian tsunami, stress at the Iraqi death toll or worry about house prices ? It’s easy, anodyne consumption fed through a tube.
Anyway, what was Germaine Greer doing in there ? She’s far too bright and surely has better things to do than banal reality TV. Some are obviously after promotion. I’d never heard of Kenzie from Blazin’ Squad or Lisa I’Anson before I came across them on Celebrity BB. But I know them now.
Within hours of the start, racing pundit John McCririck had offended almost everyone. His outspoken views and caustic attitude were guaranteed to make enemies. He’s now engaged in a silent protest about his precious diet coke and refuses to speak or participate. A tantrum par excellence. He’s a cantankerous old man, set in his ways and prone to sulking to get what he wants. An explosive ingredient in reality TV. There are even rumours that he’s using ‘tic-tac’, the bookies’ sign language, to surreptitiously communicate his betting odds on each of the contestants !
In the last couple of days Sylvester Stallone’s 71 year old mother, Jackie, has made a spectacular entrance as the mystery 9th house mate. An outstanding coup for the producers. She’s a self confessed psychic astrologer, rumpologist (she’ll predict your future by examining the shape of your backside) and ex-mother-in-law to fellow contestant Brigitte Nielsen. Jackie seems wonderfully out of it and barely in control. Dynamite !
Big Brother is an intense psychological hothouse subjecting the housemates to a regime of extreme boredom, petty restrictions and rivalry. They have to work as a team and suffer the ups and downs of the BB tasks together. However, they are also competing against each other and secretly nominating. Each wants to win, and to do so they must connive and scheme. On top of that, the whole thing is broadcast live on television. That’s gotta be mental pressure. How soon will it be before the ‘celebrities’ try to change the rules or simply refuse to play along….
The other day, Germaine Greer stormed out claiming going on Big Brother was “a mistake” and now most of the house mates have followed suit by threatening mutiny.
Celebrity Big Brother has rapidly descended from reality TV event to freakshow. It’s real world soap opera with each episode conveniently ending on a contrived cliff hanger. Sure is compelling viewing, great television and endless fodder for the tabloids…
Just spotted this huge UFO flying over West London. It descended out of a massive bank of cloud and flew off over Kingston town centre making a strange whirring sound.
Startled shoppers have reported weird alien type creatures wandering around the Bentalls centre ! ;o)
Bizarrely, if you type ‘how can i satisfy my wife’ into MSN this site comes up second on the list. Weird !
*oh shit, a colleague wandered passed and glanced at my screen while I was looking at the MSN results. They now think I have come in on monday morning and am desperately surfing around for ideas on ‘how can i satisfy my wife’…. doh ! *
would a one-legged duck keep going round in circles…..?!
So yeah... 