104 posts tagged with UK by Artw.
Displaying 51 through 100 of 104.
All these worlds are yours...
An open letter to all fans of Science Fiction from Tom Hunter, Director of the Arthur C. Clarke Award - The Arthur C. Clarke Award, the yearly award for best Science Fiction novel published in the UK, could be in trouble.
Words of Warcraft
This week the BBC broadcast a Panorama special (UK only link, YouTube links here and here) on what it presented as the alarming rise of game addiction. Thoughtful responses from Rock, Paper, Shotgun and EDGE, both of whom point out a number of problems with it.
The Warlocks of Firetop Mountain
An Illustrated History of Games Workshop and Fighting Fantasy - Jackson and Livingstone - audio, sans illustrations. The story of how Steve Jackson (not that Steve Jackson) and Ian Livingstone kickstarted tabletop roleplaying in the UK and founded a gaming behemoth that is very different today.
Whatever happened to the heroes?
Dear Everett True, NME and Q don’t love music any less than you do… a revealing blog entry on the music press. From Collapse Board, who also do an awesome song of the day.
You think it’s cuddly but it will tear your insides out
Pulp's Common People - the great class-based song of the 90s?
Potentially sinister
Security alerts have been declared at Airports in the US, UK and Middle East after the discovery of suspicious packages originating in Yemen. The packages, modified toner cartridges, have been described as "definitely not a complete bomb" but being "potentially sinister".
The thirteenth floor didn't exist... and yet it was there... filled with unknown terror!
"Greetings, I'm MAX, the computer. Maybe you've heard of me, I'm superintendant here!" - Welcome to The Thirteenth Floor!
Welcome to the funhouse
Z for Zine Editor
The early days of british comics fanzines, by Dez Skinn, one time head of Marvel UK and founder of Warrior.
City of the Daleks
"There aren't 13 episodes of Doctor Who this year, there are 17 - four of which are interactive." The first episode of Doctor Who: The Adventure, at the moment only available in the UK, has been downloaded 500,000 times in 12 days. Users outside of the UK can expect to see a paid for version in the next month, in the meantime why not try to track down one of the previous Doctor Who videogames such as Dalek Attack or Doctor Who Top Trumps.
Eyes pop, skin explodes, everybody dead
Alex Cox, director of Repo Man and Sid and Nancy, and one-time presenter of Moviedrome, which was a cult movie education for an entire generation of British people, has posted a ton of free stuff on his site: 10000 ways to die (pdf) - his book on Spaghetti Westerns, the Moviedrome guide parts 1 and 2 (pdf), a video defence of Walker (quicktime), and much much more.
Redesign of the Daleks
With Matt Smith making his US debut as Doctor Who tonight, showrunner Steven Moffat gives an interview to Tor.com. Meanwhile in the UK viewers have just had their first sight of a controversial new Dalek redesign.
I blame Obama and his terrible gift giving. An iPod and some DVDs? Seriously?
The Special Relationship between the US and the UK is over... Perhaps it never really existed outside of the UK anyway.
Music!
Music! - A 1968 documentary by the National Music Council of Great Britain, featuring folk singing, The Beatles, and even early electronic music produced by tape splicing. Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.
The Big British Castle
BBC Radio 6 Music, home of amongst other things the Adam and Joe show, is facing the axe. Phil Jupitus on why this sucks. (Previously, previously, previously, previously)
Doctor Who and the Overthrow of the Thatcher Goverment
"My exact words were: I’d like to overthrow the government. I was a young firebrand and I wanted to answer honestly. I was very angry about the social injustice in Britain under Thatcher and I’m delighted that came into the show." - former Doctor Who script editor Andrew Cartmel on the shows 80s political stance. Terrance Dicks and Andrew Cartmel on Newsnight. Meanwhile former Doctor David Tennant gives his veiws on the Master-like characteristics of Tory leader David Cameron.
This is not the time to send out a signal like this in some personal fucking sodcast
For quite some time, I’d wanted to make a screwball comedy. A fast-talking, wildly acclerating ensemble comedy that gets stupider and stupider. I never imagined it would be about a war, and inspired by a very recent war at that. But Simon, Jesse, Tony and I all felt that the more we found out about the dysfunction in Washington and the naivety in London leading up to the Iraq invasion, the more obvious it was that the only way to deal accurately and fairly with this topic was as a screwball comedy. - The Oscar nominated script for In The Loop, with an introduction by writer Armando Iannucci.
Sleepwalking into Oblivion
"Ahhh!" "No, not 'Ahhh!'"
Stewart Lee's Special Parable, The Story of The Prodigal Son, and more irreligious fun from the Sunday Heroes: Woman of sinful life, Ian, The Last Supper, Judas, Thomas.
Ambient
The Big Chill
Landrovers, country manors, back combed hair and synthesisers...
"Three pounds forty and some tobacco"
The complete archive of International Times, which launched a revolution in underground publishing in the UK and paved the way for Oz (of
the School Kids special fame) (previously) and a whole string of british underground zines, a heritage that Alan Moores new zine Dodgem Logic very much calls upon.
Private and Confidential
Bush and Blairline-dancing, The Queen on the loo, Marilyn wanking (nsfw). The phototgraphy of Alison Jackson blends the real and the irreal.
Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion of your Nightmares
The 21 Scariest Doctor Who Moments Ever, according to SFX magazine. Waters of Mars, which aired in the UK this weekend and airs in the US on December 20th, may add to that list. Meanwhile, in other formats, Michael Moorcock is writing a Doctor Who novel.
Cobra Mk 3
This month marks the 25th aniversary of Elite, the groundbreaking 3D space trading game. The making of Elite. More on the making of Elite from The Backroom Boys. Emulate the original BBC Micro version. The Dark Wheel.
Dennis The Softy?
A new BBC version of Dennis the Menace tones down the iconic British comics character. Or does it? It's another "political correctness gone mad" myth embellished by the media says cartoonist Lew Stringer.
Coffee or tea?
"I live in hope I can jump before I am pushed."
Terry Pratchett: I'll die before the endgame
The Smiler
Crowd Hoot
In the wake of Torchwood: Children of the Earth (screening on BBC America on the 20th for those in the US not inclined to muck about with the internets) critic Patrick West declares the British incapable of making decent television science fiction. (via)
Background to Danger
For Graham Greene he was "unquestionably our best thriller writer". John le Carré once called him "the source on which we all draw". With the six novels he wrote in the years leading up to the second world war - five of which have just been reissued by Penguin Modern Classics - Eric Ambler revitalised the British thriller, rescuing the genre from the jingoistic clutches of third-rate imitators of John Buchan, and recasting it in a more realist, nuanced and leftishly intelligent - not to mention exciting - mould. - The writing of Eric Ambler
Pillocks
"The BNP represents Britain's workers? They don't even represent basic British craftsmanship" - a response to the recent political broadcast by the UKs far right extremists the BNP, who are currently trying to exploit expenses scandals hiting the larger parties. Weirdly despite demanding British jobs for British workers their advertising uses American models.
Watch from behind the sofa
Is Doctor Who too scary for kids? Parents surveyed by TheBabyWebsite seem to think so. But is being scared a good thing? (via io9)
"I notice the 'wank' has remained fairly constant."
"The editor's guidelines are as follows: First, remember the reader, and respect demands that we should not casually use words that are likely to offend. Second, use such words only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case in which we need to use a swearword outside direct quotes. Third, the stronger the swearword, the harder we ought to think about using it.Finally, never use asterisks, which are just a cop-out." - Swearing in The Guardian: A chart
back in the day we had O-Levels and birching
Heroes of UK comics
Leo Baxendale,
Hunt Emerson
Neil Gaiman,
Melinda Gebbie,
Brendan McCarthy,
Pat Mills, Alan Moore,
Grant Morrison,
Posy Simmonds, Bryan Talbot - Paul Gravett's Heroes of UK Comics
I piss on Gods stupid world!
"Our boss is a madman! I was in the sorting office and he said our system was outdated! I spat in his face! He fired me! I have to look for a job now!" Would Klaus Kinski have been so angry if he hadn't been so famous? A vintage column by Graham Linham (Father Ted, The IT Crowd) from the late lamented Neon magazine. (via).
Ram, gang, ram!
Zombies don't run, says Simon Pegg. Well ours do, says Charlie Brooker, director of Deadset. (also some stuff about the election and skeletor and stuff)
When the Wind Blows
This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been attacked with
nuclear weapons. Communications have been severely disrupted, and the number of
casualties and the extent of the damage are not yet known. We shall bring you
further information as soon as possible. - The BBC releases its script for use in the event of nuclear war.
Coming soon to an episode of Primeval
According to new fossil evidence 50 million years ago the skies above London were ruled by a relative of the goose, the size of a light aircraft, with toothy crocodile-likejaws. Or as The Sun puts it... DON'T RUCK WITH THIS DUCK!
The Who we never knew
The Russell T. Davis papers – As he prepares to leave the role of Doctor Who show runner (previously) he’s releasing a book of email exchanges with Doctor Who Magazine writer Benjamin Cook about his time on the longstanding British SF series, revealing the younger face of Who he’s like to see, and plans for a Doctor Who/Harry Potter crossover which never materialized.
Boys zone
"60% of men trim their pubes. What, really?"
Degree 2.0 mash-ups not advisable for computer games careers
95% of degree courses in video gaming at British universities leave graduates unfit to work in the industry, according to Games Up?, an organisation set up to address the UKs video games skills shortage. Maths skills are a particular weakness.
Crack Lung
Amy Winehouse has Emphysema. The 24 year old artist, whose career has netted multiple awards but has often been overshadowed by her drug use, now faces a lung condition that can be slowed but never reversed, with effects ranging from shortness of breath to cyanosis and heart faliure.
Click click victorious, buzz buzz glorious, Long to reign over us, buzz buzz click click.
The first known recording of a digital computer playing music, recorded by the BBC in 1951. The music played on a Ferantti Mark 1, one of the first commercial general-use computers, and was entered via punchtape and played on a speaker usually used for making clicks and tones to indicate program progress.
Hitler defaced
Jake and Dinos Chapman have bought a stack of Adolf Hitlers paintings for £115,000 and defaced them with rainbows and butterflies for their new show, "If Hitler Had Been a Hippy, How Happy Would We Be". The show also recreates "Fucking Hell", a huge swastika shaped diorama of tiny plastic nazis torturing and killing each other, which had been destroyed in a fire.
Script-Doctorin' the TARDIS
As of 2010 Steven Moffat will be replacing Russell T. Davies as lead writer and executive producer of Doctor Who. In 2005 Davies revived the series, which had been dormant (bar the odd US co-production or audiodrama) since 1989, for BBC Wales. It won awards and was successful enough to spawn the spin-offs Sarah Jane Adventures and the popular-in-America Torchwood. He is replaced by Moffat, one of the regular writers on the show, whose highly acclaimed episodes have won a number of awards and nominations. "I applied before but I got knocked back 'cos the BBC wanted someone else. Also I was seven. Anyway, I'm glad the BBC has finally seen the light and it's a huge honour to be following Russell into the best - and the toughest - job in television. I say toughest 'cos Russell's at my window right now, pointing and laughing."
Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain
Dan Dare, pilot of the future, scourge of the Venusian Mekon menace, and modernist architectural inspiration?
This is the way the world ends
Superstar Scottish comics writer Grant Morrison is about to tear the DC Universe apart again with Final Crisis, the latest in a series of apocalypses and world ending events he's inflicted on various comics worlds over the years. But there was a time before fame when he wrote the tie-in comic for ZOIDS, the robot dinosaur children's toy. So what did he do? Ushered in the apocalypse, in the form of THE BLACK ZOID.