Rally round, gang

How can a blog about cantaloupes have languished for nearly four years? What we need (those of you with Google/Blogger accounts) is a few more comments to get things moving…

Thou Shalt Be Naff

The top twenty items of religious kitsch.

(To be honest, I want to make excuses for most of them.)

No relation

The Dark Knight troubles Camila Batmanghelidjh.

World's largest banjo

They knew how to enjoy themselves in the Thirties (1 minute):

Artistic suicide

Illustrator Walter Everett was at the peak of his career - yet suddenly he burned most of his work and gave it all up.

Legalise drugs

So says the former head of the Cabinet Office's anti-drugs unit. (A heavyweight counterblast here.)

Staying on topic…

Hat tip: Frostfirezoo

One plus two

With Morecambe and Wise as his backing singers/dancers, can Tom Jones survive? (90 seconds):

Community bobby from Brasenose

John Johnson, who has died aged 52, divided his time between the Battersea streets and the Reform Club.



P.S. (20.8.08): A more personal obituary by Martin Linton MP reveals a tragic story (all too similar to that of Christopher Morgan). This Evening Standard report says more, and here's a glowing tribute from the Battersea Society. A good man; may he know peace.

Time's up

The campaign to make Bono retire.

Selfish Capitalism

It does your head in.

Powerful

Time-lapse photography captures the drama of Edinburgh's skies, its setting, its teeming life (7 minutes):



Soundtrack: the first movement of Philip Glass's Violin Concerto.

A better world, made by hand

Felicity Ashbee, probably our last link with the heart of the Arts and Crafts movement, dies at 96.

Norway knights a penguin

Couldn't happen here. (But it did.)

Russia the bad guys?

"Nyet!" maintains Mary Dejevsky.

Gigha bite

Old Smokey: a cheese on which I'd be glad to live for the rest of my life.

Straight from the throat

Celine Dion gargles "My Heart Will Go On" (1 minute):



Hat tip: see posting below

Ribertee, Ekolitee, Flaternitee

How does one celebrate Bastille Day in Beijing? Froog did so by assembling three contrasting performances of "The Marseillaise": a rousing rendition by Mireille Mathieu; a less orthodox one by a Renault R27 Formula 1 racing car engine; and the stirring scene from Casablanca in which all the non-Nazis in the Café Americain sing it to drown out a Nazi marching song.

Covers We'll Never See

Scott King shows us "How I'd sink American Vogue".

Hat tip: Madame Arcati

Ninety yesterday

Is he the greatest living Briton?

This question of Harriet

The Daily Mash lets rip.