Now incorporating The Sudbury Hill Harrow and Wherever End Times

Friday, March 30, 2007

45,000 hits of cuteness

Knut the Berlin bear

Celebrating 45,000 hits completed by about five unique visitors.

Jacintha Pucka

The strange case of the Met chief and the IRA siege

Guardian Unlimited

I always knew Ian Blair was a flake, from the first time I heard him pontificating on the radio. What have we done to deserve this plague of Blair's?

Zoz

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Bandy words and garner infamy

the writethis.com banned words poetry contest 2007

"writethis.com told you to never use them again but writethis.com being writethis.com didn’t listen to writethis.com. the banned words are now available for use in the banned words potery* contest 2007."

Shouldn't be allowed

* Poetry written using the banned words is officially known as 'potery'.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

New Labour, new lies

Lenin

"So, who are the British Muslim Forum, whose name Kelly gets wrong? It is an invention...Kelly's notion of 'tolerance' is only slightly more inclusive than that of Torquemada, which could possibly be related to her membership of a Spanish Catholic sect that supported Franco and Pinochet."

Colleen Mumbangi

Sunday, March 11, 2007

As I was saying

"One Country": A new book from EI cofounder Ali Abunimah

Zoz

More YouTube and MySpace links

A highlight of Lee J. Cobb's exquisite performance in 12 Angry Men (directed by Sidney Lumet), one of the greatest ever. Warning: spoiler (if there is anyone who hasn't seen it!): link.

One of the many funny bits of "Withnail and I" a British cult classic, and the scene most quoted, I think. "We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here, and we want them now!": link.

Here's a strange, surreal thing. "Frontier Psychiatrist" by The Avalanches, which the person posting cites with some possible justification as "the best music video ever". I wouldn't go that far, but it's amusing: link.

MySpace is pretty good for pirate video links as well (though in theory it's all a disgrace and blah blah, sort of like the drugs trade really). There are some good music video links in the scrolling video links section here.

Jacintha Pucka

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Willesden Herald supports Comic Relief

Announced today, all the royalties from New Short Stories for one year from publication will go to Comic Relief. I think everybody associated with this can feel a certain justifiable pride and, speaking for myself, all the more motivated to promote the book.

Ossian

Monday, March 05, 2007

Announcing...

New Short Stories

A new website dedicated to the Willesden Herald "New Short Stories" anthology, and to the short story competition, grandly styled (may it never lose the sense of irony in the title) "the international Willesden short story prize".

Ossian

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Look! We have coming to publication

New Short Stories 1

Click on the link above concerning a matter to your advantage. Also, following today's announcement, negotiations are underway to sign-up the New Willesden Poetry Minstrels to perform their crowd-pleasing medleys of free verse and Jolson songs at the launch party. More exciting news to follow.

Feargal Mooney

Saturday, March 03, 2007

But seriously...

Do you remember this?

In May 1967 the Willesden Chronicle newspaper ran a front page story of a baby girl abandoned on a train at Willesden Junction. Appeals for the mum to come forward went out, and failed, even though she was probably a local girl.

The infant was dressed in a white dress with "baby" embroidered on the front, and wrapped in a pink blanket with the label cut out. This was probably a local hospital maternity/baby blanket, hence removing the name to remove the trace.

The authorities estimated that the baby was 10 days old when found, and given the hospital blanket, quite possibly that 'mum' went from the hospital onto the train and left baby before getting off. It's thought that the baby was born between May 15th and 22nd 1967—the date is unknown because the birth wasn't registered.

It is thought that the mother got on a train at either Richmond or Acton, and at the next stop (the train went Richmond-Acton-Willesden Junction...) railway workers found the baby girl in a carrier bag on the luggage rack.

We would like to hear from anybody who remembers anything about this story, please. (Email)

Ed.

Thursday, March 01, 2007