The Null Device
2001/5/16
According to a hoopy frood named Clyde, May 25 is Towel Day. Those left disconsolate by the recent death of Douglas Adams are encouraged to carry a towel around.
(With all these tributes, Adams has probably gotten more publicity since his death than over the past few years. Part of me wonders whether he's not just spending a year dead for publicity reasons. In any case, he certainly had his fans.)
A British divorce law firm has stirred up controversy by advertising its services on posters in lavatories at trendy bars. The posters in womens' toilets read "All men are Bastards!", whereas the ones in mens' toilets bear the old anti-Thatcherite election slogan "Ditch the bitch".
OK, two more things about Douglas Adams: firstly, Neil Gaiman has posted a short piece about him to his online journal; and then there's this piece he wrote about the Internet. He was a very canny fellow, and we'll miss him. (links via Graham and Jim)
According to flyers appearing around universities, the next important date on the hectic Nu Marxist social calendar will be the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in October. That's right, those latter-day Cecil Rhodeses will be gathering to further their agenda of Anglo-Saxon capitalist world domination, with only the Dreadlocked Menace standing against them. Wonder whether, this time, the Lyndon LaRouche people will be joining in the festivities.
(Mind you, I have been told that the CHOGM was instrumental in pressuring South Africa to end apartheid, and one of the few international bodies to condemn Shell-sponsored genocide in Nigeria, but it's best not to let the facts get in the way of a good protest opportunity. After all, such meetings don't come along every few weeks, do they?)
It's a strange world: In Teesside, the world's youngest paedophile has been placed on the sex offenders' register for 18 months. The offender, a 13-year-old boy, was found guilty of possessing more than 300 obscene pictures of children and teenagers. Some of his victims were even older than himself.
As mainstream suburban kids have adopted the "gangsta" look, the gangbangers of Los Angeles who started it are swapping their baggy pants and bandanas for more conventional clothing, all the better to slip under the radar of police and prey.