Celluloid prophecy

Footage from Algie the Miner (1912) reveals how Truman Capote came to write In Cold Blood
(7 minutes):



Truman/Algie is Billy Quirk, who died in 1926. Director Alice Guy-Blaché was the first female director in motion picture history.

The drunk driver who thinks he's God

Of course he was all over the road. He's omnipresent.

Stigmatized

Mick Hall condemns media class prejudice:

When working class people are portrayed on our screens, they are increasingly being played by middle class actors as either stupid chavs, layabouts, criminals, incompetent half wits or victims of their own class, in much the same way as black people used to be portrayed.

"Bogart was sweet"

Rest in peace Joy Page, last-but-one member of the cast of Casablanca.

(She's survived by Madeleine LeBeau, who played Rick's jilted mistress Yvonne.)

Which town has most pubs?

Let the punch-up begin.

Clowns gone bad

The unintended consequences of circus prohibition
(4 minutes):

Moppet and after

Shirley Temple turned eighty last week.

Reekievision

A 360 degree panorama of Edinburgh from the top of Arthur's Seat.

Great CDs of our time

(Anyone actually heard it?)

Wildlife on your body

You might prefer not to know.

Humph signs off

The late great Humphrey Lyttelton's rendition of "Fidgety Feet" with the Harlem Ramblers in 1978
(7 minutes):



Obituaries: Guardian / Independent / Telegraph / Times
The news of his death comes as I'm re-reading his father's six-volume correspondence with Rupert Hart-Davis, father of Adam, and revelling in it as much as I did twenty years ago, let the late Hugh Massingberd cavil all he may.

Barrel of Monkeys

The Fast Show (in 2000) reckons Guy Ritchie's 'avin' a larf (2 minutes):



PS (27.4.08): Believe it or not, I've only just noticed the picture's elongated. Blame my early exposure to El Greco.

Wrong to fight World War Two?

Peter Hitchens shares his unease.

Carry On Suffering

Those dismal movies portray a world of misery, thinks Tanya Gold.

Know your prejudice

Peter of Naked Blog braces himself for jury service.

Loss of a battleship

Tam Dalyell from the left, Quentin Letts from the right, pay tribute to Gwyneth Dunwoody.

The Telegraph says most about her dark years in the Eighties, while this 2003 mother-and-daughter interview made me laugh.

Cheap books in Leith

Catch 'em while you can.

Whoops!

On this day in 1935, the Aquitania runs aground:

Gordon throws a party

And it's dead cool, honest:



From Headcases, the new ITV satire series

Tweet, &c., &c.

This digital channel transmits only birdsong.