I am not a number

Until quite recently, if people visited “Google Images” and typed a word or phrase they were presented with loads of thumbnail pictures. Clicking on one took you to the Website/Blog associated with that image. Once you were away from Google and at another Website it was quite easy to follow various links and never need Google again for the rest of your “session”.

The geeks/boffins at Google have decided this is/was a very bad thing. They want people to stay at Google for as long as possible whilst subliminal ads are beamed into their brains. No, I just made that last bit up. But they do want you to stick around Google more than you have been doing. So having bought a few thousand more Servers Google now “caches” every image on the Interweb. This means you can see images at their full resolution without ever having to visit the Website/Blog that originally posted the image. According to the number of people cursing this “improvement” to G$$gle there’s been a devastating effect on visits/hits/traffic all over the Interweb. Even visits to this Blog are down 75%. Not that I’m losing any sleep over it.  I don’t mind being on the Information-Super-Cul-de-sac where (going by my previous efforts) perhaps as few as a dozen  people will listen to my 21st music mix. At least they will have made a conscious effort to visit here. Who needs quantity. Quality visitors are preferable. You know who you are. (If you don’t know who you are perhaps it’s time to cut back on the substance abuse!)

Meanwhile the masses continue to flock to this week’s “big” thing. The numbers of visitors to YouTube videos of One Dimension Direction are mind boggling. But as time goes on some unlikely videos are racking up impressive numbers. I’m amazed to see many Garfunkel and Oates songs with over one million views. If they toned things down would they be challenging One Direction? Nah! Their quirky stuff is great just as it is. I’ve always liked Sex with ducks…..(!?!)…….if you know what I mean…….

PS: Comics still have numbers but the numbers have less and less significance as the re-boots and new volumes mount up. I still think it was a shame when they re-started Action Comics and Detective Comics at number 1 two years ago. And I think it is madness when “Independent” comics are published with six different “collectible” covers for the same issue. Even one of my long time favourites, “Astro City” has re-appeared with a recent issue number 1. Incidentally, if you only buy one comic this year make it “Astro City” number 3. A proper old school/feel good story that begins and ends within the covers. It contains minimal violence and is suitable for children unlike my other long time favourite comics, Steve Gerber’s “Howard”. They do contain sex with ducks…………..

Captain Flash

There were 4 issues of “Captain Flash” published by Sterling Comics between November 1954 and July 1955. Around the same time Sterling Comics produced 14 other issues across 5 more titles. Perhaps when low sales returns came in they decided to call it a day. Superhero comics were surprisingly out of favour at the time.

Captain Flash 04

Why L.Miller decided to produce British reprints of “Captain Flash” in 1955 when there was such a short run of issues available is a mystery. Or maybe not. Chances are they’d be cheap to buy…….

PS: 58 years on we’re still waiting for the next issue…..

Bottom of the barrel

Actually these cassettes were at the bottom of a box. The box was full of odd paperbacks, Mads, well-thumbed ancient “Saint” books, Richard Allen’s low-brow fiction like “Skinhead” and “Hell’s Angels” and other odd comic-related stuff.

I expected to hear Patti Smith. I’d evidentally given the music a thumbs-down and taped over it with 40 minutes of Radio Caroline back in 1986.

I’ve got all the “Ay up, mi duck!” books somewhere This tape contains extracts from the LP.

DCC tapes were overpriced and an almighty flop with me and everybody else . They disappeared virtually overnight. CDs have had a good run though haven’t they?

Cassingles were a fleeting fad. And wow, what synchronicity. I was only recently thinking about Phil Silvers Harris (I always get them mixed up). My father had some of his 78rpms (and….blast from the past moment I recall him playing  “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey “)….Who on earth did that?? ….I must head for the Interweb and look that one up immediately….

I think this show was a “re-creation”. Eddie’s tape re-creates “How does it feel to feel”. This one is rather good.

Time slip

Being as I spend my spare time walking or driving along sleepy country lanes rather than hunched over a laptop faffing about on the information super highway I have only just discovered the fascinating tales about shoppers on Bold Street in Liverpool where people claim to have gone back in time to decades earlier for seconds/minutes, and even entering shops that no longer existed. Come to think of it, my town is full of shops that no longer exist…..

Cosmic or Cozmic??

There were at least 6 issues of Cozmic Comix published by H.Bunch Associates in the mid 1970s. One of the bunch was a certain Felix Dennis. When he first began making money-for-old-rope with Kung Fu Magazine surely he never dreamt that now he would be a poet, a forest owner and, of course, a multi millionaire.

The drugs must have been good in 1974. I’m sure the first five issues were titled “Cozmic” with a zed/zee (emphasizing the “oz”…). It’s not often you see the TITLE of a magazine spelled wrongly !! The bottom of the inside cover claimed it should be spelled with a zed too. Also, shouldn’t it really say NUMBER 6 rather than VOL 6? I thought “volume” referred to a years-worth of magazines? Guess now I’m just being picky…..

Meanwhile back in August….

Next to last book dept:    I’ve recently bought (and quickly recycled into Tesco’s Book Bank container) Stoner by John Williams. I think I’ve finally learnt my lesson. Don’t buy something just because someone else says it is wonderful. The glowing reviews said this obscure novel was the greatest literature of the C20th. No it isn’t. It’s absolute rubbish. Even I could do better. I struggled through the first 70 pages amazed at the one-dimensional characters and slow plot. I’ve better things to do with my time. Just sitting and stareing into space is a better use of my time than reading this book. Whilst I was in the right mood I went to the CD shelf and picked a dozen titles to throw in the wheely bin. They were all purchased on the strength of reviews in “Mojo” magazine. They were all crap too!

Last book dept:     I said I wouldn’t buy any more books and yet here I am happily reading this year’s Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. Not that you can place much credence on their prices. 10p each is a far more realistic price for any comic made since 1980 !!  I’ve been buying this annual price guide religiously since the 4th issue. I saw the first three books advertised in comics and magazines in the early 1970s but back then I didn’t have the technology to send money to the States!

Dunno why we’ve still got the X-Men on the cover though. Aren’t they last year’s/last decade’s thing??? Surely the sales of their (pretty well unreadable) comics must be on the skids by now? Aren’t there any hot new modern comics/characters these days and if not why not??

PS: Over the years I’ve bought all sorts of stuff from Amazon. Not just books: car parts, canned unicorn meat and even a new element for the oven the other day. So why don’t they sell the new updated FUGG??? That’s Fogel’s Underground Grading Guide. This is the anti-matter version of Overstreet containing details of numerous “underground” and “adult” comics that Overstreet pretends just don’t exist.

Weird Science

Any fule kno Lexa Doig (as seen on umpteen SF shows over the last decade) is the most attractive woman on TV.

Way back in 1999 I had a thing about Vanessa Angel as featured in “Weird Science”. I found the two boys in the TV series funnier/better actors than the ones in the original film. But they were irrev…irrelly….immaterial really as the film belonged to the gorgeous Kelly LeBrock. But Vanessa was cute too so on a whim I’ve just bought the DVDs of the first two series and plan to slip my brain into neutral and watch them all.