plasticbag.org

From a year ago this month – see pictures of me, Katy and Evil Nick poncing around for the Mirror Project: KatyTom & Evil Nick. I look way fat.

Laziness is not an excuse.

Available finances: £3.62. After consultation with my colleagues, it has been decided that this money should be spent as follows: £3 on National Lottery Lucky Dip tickets, 2 packs of mini-Mars bars. This provides us with a budget surplus of 2p. We are considering ways of increasing revenue to the party to fund an uncoming number of ‘having fun’ initiatives.

Considerable information is now being released on the sunked city of Heracleion that was found in the Nile Delta last year. Makes for fascinating reading.

Today on Barbelith: Kevin O’Neill (Part Two) – The artist of Nemesis the Warlock, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Marshall Law talks dirty in the second part of our interview.

Cal needs to get out of the house more. His latest project? A choose your own adventure collaborative story website, which has, unfortunately been taken over by lunatics already.

It’s ape-madness at plasticbag.org industries today as my latest batch of film reviews for the BBC go live. Wow to time-travelling monkey madness with Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Coo to the violence of When Apes Attack (also known as Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and look forward to next week’s review of Battle of the Planet of the Apes. Oh, and I knocked off a review of the original Ocean’s Eleven as well. Look out for the remake of this last one – coming to cinemas later in the year. The cast is going to be astonishing – George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Elliot Gould – and it’s directed by Oscar winning screen-dream Steven Soderbergh.

It’s a slightly frustrating day when you can’t get through either to the bank to discuss your financial shortcomings or to the employer who is supposed to be helping you resolve them.

I watched the election results roll in until three in the morning, settled on my sofa with a shot-glass full of whatever was handy. I watched Peter Mandelson’s astonishing “Nerves of steel” speech. Watched Tony Blair lay it on as thick as it was possible to lay it on. Watched Sean Woodward look completely absurd when put under pressure. And Michael Portillo refuse to talk about the poll that said that recent ex-Tories didn’t want him as leader of the Conservative party. I’d have stayed up all night if I could have done. It was fascinating stuff.

And in the end everything came together as well as anyone could have hoped. William Hague is to step down, which can hopefully only mean that the Conservative party will return from the far excesses of right-wing politics at last. Charles Kennedy has brought the Liberal Democrats at least seven more seats, and Labour are in for an historic second term. Can’t do much better than that from my perspective.

Today on Barbelith: ‘King Mob’ Through History – Painted on the wall of Newgate prison was the proclamation that the inmates had been freed by the authority of “His Majesty, King Mob”.