plasticbag.org

So today is “Buy Nothing Day” – the third such event that I’ve been weblogging during. This year it has quite a stunning ‘uncommercial’ associated with it: Buy Nothing Day. I’m definitely pro-Buy Nothing Day – I’ve been a supporter of No Logo-style politics (to a large extent) for a substantial period of time now. Interestingly though it didn’t stop me last year, when I reported that the purchasing of a DVD player on such a day simply increased the terrible thrill of purchasing – that addictive high was all the more satisfying because it was illicit.

And Secret Santa is now #1 on Blogdex. Very exciting. Join up, you bastards!

Those damn kittens with their evil, evil minds and staring lunacy – creeping up on me in the night and blowing hot breath on the back of my neck, making me sweat and making my eyes dart around in their skull cage. I hate them all… Kill Kill Kill.

Secret Santa makes Metafilter.

Send me an MP3: I’m feeling old and staid and kind of dull. Fancy sending me an MP3 so I can try out some new music? Limited time only – only for a short time, as I’m not always on a good connection. Please send your suggestions to tom.coates@btinternet.com. Only one per e-mail (and one per punter) please! [Thanks to Darren for the idea.]

Blackadder: “To you it’s a potato, to me it’s a potato. But to Sir Walter Bloody Raleigh it’s country estates, fine carriages, and as many girls as his tongue can cope with. He’s making a fortune out of the things; people are smoking them, building houses out of them… They’ll be eating them next.” [more, ever more]

We don’t have Thanksgiving in the UK. As Mark quipped to me yesterday, “not a lot to be thankful for”. I said we didn’t really have many Pilgrim / Native American collisions in England. Or at least I can only assume that if we did have some, then they somehow missed the papers. America, I believe, invented the turkey and the potato – both Thanksgiving staples. Apparently Ancient Americans determined that turkeys and potatoes would be tremendous technological advances, and rapidly prototyped them out of thirty-six songbirds squished together and a couple of warmed stones. Years later, ironically, the place best known for both turkeys and potatoes in the UK is Norfolk, where my family live. There are, however, still no Native Americans there.

Because it’s interesting, and occasionally beautiful: BBC Television and Radio Idents (BBC2).

Create Online’s review section includes a block of stuff on my old place of employment, timeout.com. I present a few quotes with no comment: “Worst thing: The lack of a good, solid navigation that lives with you throughout the site”, “Navigation: Could be improved. Once you click one section deep, you’re left with navigation for your particular section, but not much about what was on the homepage. You have to figure out how to get back, which can be confusing.” , “First Impressions: I’ve seen the magazine, and the online version looks different and a little unpolished”.

So yesterday I was walking into work, and I spotted two overcoat-clad art-nutters wandering down Farringdon Lane. The taller one was weilding some kind of digicam, as if it were a comedy prop – like a flamingo or a banana skin. Occasionally he’d spin like he was on castors and take photographs of bits of graffiti. The other one looked moody, crouching under a huge furry deerstalker and reading a copy of “Metro”. I had experienced an art moment with Gilbert and George. In the evening I bumped into someone from the very opposite end of the same culture – Mr Big sitting in bar a in Soho.