Now I’ve been a bit of a fan of Frank Sidebottom for sometime since seeing him doing his Freddie Mercury sometime in 1990 (oh yes I have, I really have). I remember meeting him once a few years later playing pinball in the Jug of Ale in Moseley before a gig (without his head on of course). He hasn’t had much press of late, but when I spotted him knocking about on the Peter Kay Comic Relief video I thought I’d have a quick google and see what he’s up to now. He now has a show (Frank Sidebottoms proper telly show) on Channel M which (unfortunately) is only available in the Manchester area, although the shows can be watched online.

Franks real name is Chris Sievey and here are some facts about him. He was in a punk band called the Freshies who hit the charts with a single called “I’m in love with the girl on the Manchester Virgin megastore..”. He wrote a classic game for the speccy called “The Biz” and was interviewed for Crash magazine issue 15 1985. In the nineties he wrote an episode of Pingu called “Bedtime Shadows”. He has a MySpace account and there are plenty of clips on YouTube.
My favourite is this one where two guys meet Chris (without head) on the metro and ask him “who is Frank Sidebottom?”

Mr Hopkinson’s computer is a singing computer. It sings cover versions. My favourite is Green Plastic Trees (Radiohead). Take a look, and a listen, at MySpace.

The classic game PONG played with humans.

I’ve had one of John Scarne’s books on my shelf for years; covering the rules of most card games as well as covering some of the basic cheats. This video shows the man himself showing some classic sleights. Don’t be fooled, these are difficult card sleights demonstrated by a master, and it’s just great seeing them performed by John himself.

Now I’ve talked before about MAME before and how I’d like to to have a retro space invaders cabinet myself. Some bloke (has to be a bloke) has gone and built the most amazing MAME console that looks like the TARDIS and has a website that shows you how he did it, and how to build your own.

Interesting fact of the day: According to Wanderer, the first autonomous agent on the web, used to track web growth since 1993, in June 1993 there were only 130 websites. The guy who wrote Wanderer now works for Google.

Will Storr has published chapter 6 (Me versus Most Haunted) of his Louis Theroux style investigation of the paranormal “Will Storr vs. The Supernatural” on his MySpace account.
Here is a quick snippet, but do readread the whole chapter or better still buy the book.

As the shrill breeze runs through his accurately groomed hair, and multiple diamonds sparkle on his earlobes and fingers, I watch Derek Acorah trying to pre-record a link for his television show. After his fourth fluffing, he gives himself a pantomime slap around the face and says, with a whinny, ‘Oh, I can’t act!’
The crew who are filming Derek and his co-presenter, Yvette Fielding, do not offer any comment. They just remain in position and wait for Yvette to begin, yet again.
‘Good evening,’ she says into the camera, ‘and welcome to Most Haunted Live. This is the first night out of three and we’re on the hunt for the ghost of the East Anglian witch trials. We’re here with the Most Haunted Live crew and, of course, we’ve got Derek Acorah. Derek, what are you expecting to happen here?’
‘I feel over the next three nights,’ he says, in his rich, scouse-with-added-sugar voice, ‘you know, it’s going to be very eerie.’
‘Ooooh, no,’ says Yvette.
‘Be prepared to be very scared,’ Derek says, with his forefinger extended and slamming through the air to give the last two words maximum dramatic impact.
‘Ooooh, no,’ Yvette says again. ‘I don’t like the sound of that at all. It’s going to be amazing.’

Get knitting yourself some cool space invaders socks courtesy of knitty.

Learn how to make a chocolate dalek at chocablog. I have a little boy who’d love one of these.

This cool device is in beta, and when complete will be a clever wireless clock that picks up information from Google Calendar. It is designed at a glance to tell you key metrics such as “how long to my next meeting” and “what time does my first meeting start”. In the mean time, help them beta test the software version or just check out the groovy clock face at AmbientClock