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Back issues and Irregular goodies can be found at http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/

THE IRREGULAR ARCHIVE PROJECT

Here at Lamont Towers we are in the process of scanning all the print issues of The Lamont Times, The Lamont Times: The Next Publication and The Irregular for inclusion on a CD-ROM of the complete archive (together with various other files), and you might be able to help! Although archaeological excavation work in the junk room(s) is ongoing, we are still missing a few issues. If you have any of the following and would be able to lend them to us, we would be very grateful:

• The Lamont Times: #5
• Lamont's Irregular (AKA The Irregular): #12

For the latest news on the project, including the raytraced interface and updates to the wanted list, check the progress page at

http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/wip/archive/index.htm

 

TFIr ONLINE

You can also read TFIr in its enhanced online version, with links and graphics where appropriate. The latest online version will always be available at http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/tfir/latest.htm - part of the Irregular site at http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/

Who is the Editor? So far as we know there's no Malkovichian portal into his brain, but there is the recently-revised FAQ and the UndeadCam:.

FAQ: http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/scblbiog/scblfaq.htm
Cam: http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/undead

 

THE LAMONT VIDEO ARCHIVE

OK, so it turns out we were being a little conservative in our estimate that the Archive would hit the 10,000 total by the end of the year. The day before this issue went out the catalogue went up to 2337 movies (157 on DVD) and 7665 TV shows (quite a few on DVD), adding up to 10,002 items. As always, the full list is available at:

http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/scblbiog/filmtv.htm

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 7 September		-		Elizabeth I born, Greenwich Palace, 1533
Saturday 8 September		-		Peter Sellers born, 1925
Sunday 9 September		-		California became the 31st state, 1850
Monday 10 September		-		First "TV dinner" sold, by Swanson, 1953
Tuesday 11 September		-		Nikita Khrushchev, USSR premier 1958-64, died in Moscow, 1971
Wednesday 12 September		-		Steve Biko died in jail, Pretoria, South Africa, 1977
Thursday 13 September		-		Heath Robinson, cartoonist, died, 1944

One of the reasons for the French Revolution was that society was so maddened by the way the royalty was ruling. It was so unfair.

FILM QUIZ

This issue's quotations all come from films starring Robin Williams, although they were not necessarily spoken by him. Answers next issue or from the usual address.

• I bring home a birthday cake and a few gifts; you bring home the Goddamn San Diego Zoo and I have to clean up after it!
• Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
• I found you in hell. I think I could find you in Jersey.
• This deskset wants to fly.
• You're a -- you're a complex Freudian hallucination having something to do with my mother and I don't know why you have wings, but you have very lovely legs and you're a very nice tiny person and what am I saying, I don't know who my mother was; I'm an orphan and I've never done drugs because I missed the sixties, I was an accountant.
  

Last issue's musical movies were:

• What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
  -- High Fidelity
• First you trade the Cadillac for a microphone. Then you lie to me about the band. Now you're gonna put me right back in the joint!
• -- The Blues Brothers
• You know, someone like you needs to diminish their criminal impulses, not magnify them. Maybe some jazz or some classical.
  -- Empire Records
• My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
  -- 2001 - A Space Odyssey
• Polite: Would you mind not bobbing your head; the orchestra keeps changing the tempo.
  -- Roxanne

WEIRD WORLD NEWS

Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...

On Wednesday a 16-year-old boy, one of about 500 onlookers as Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia visited a park near Varberg, squeezed past the royals' security and threw a strawberry cream cake in the face of the king. The youth was immediately arrested but his motive remains unclear. If convicted of attacking a member of the royal family he could be jailed for up to six years. Other recent victims of cream pies in Europe include former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the Swedish finance and trade ministers, World Bank President James Wolfensohn and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.

A study of several thousand office workers in over a hundred buildings by London building consultancy AMA Associates has found that while office conditions are generally improving, the increasingly lengthy daily commute to work adds up to the equivalent of almost an extra day's work every week.

Dumb criminal of the week - an unnamed 49-year-old German building contractor who was arrested this week after allegedly robbing the same bank three times in four months, stealing 70,000 Deutschmarks (about 22,000 British Pounds, or $31,800). He claimed to have gone back to the bank after the first robbery because his financial situation had not improved enough. On his third attempt, in August, witnesses recognised him from his previous raids in May and June, and informed the police.

Romanian Mihai Stefanescu thought his testicles were too big so, remembering something he thought he had once seen his father do with a goat, he injected 10 ml of salt water into his scrotum. The self-treatment did not have the desired effect, and Stefanescu is recovering in hospital, where his condition is described as stable. Doctors do not yet know if his ability to have children has been affected.

When library staff at South Thames College, London, opened a package with an Algerian postmark on it they found a near-mint condition copy of Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century by Eric R. Wolf, which had been long forgotten about, as it had been taken out in 1977 and not returned until the package arrived out of the blue. Former student Mohamed Bokreta explained in an accompanying letter that he had been thinking earnestly about the afterlife and was preparing himself by "putting aside all signs of greed, selfishness, ego and lust," and was "seeking both apologies and pardon from my dear friends, the respected college principal and his brave library staff." At the library's current charge rate of 20p per week for overdue books Mr Bokreta would owe a fine of about 250 Pounds (US$360), but the college has waived it in light of his honesty, even though it is a little late.

 

IRREGULAR WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

If - like us - you've got a large stack of freebie ISP CD-ROMs that you don't have a use for, here's an idea - boomerangs!

http://www.chez.com/amiel/boom/cd.html

THE AMAZING NOT-QUITE-RANDOM LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

Madame Jennifer, our in-house psychic predicts the following numbers will be lucky:

8, 11, 24, 25, 33, 41

 

THE LAVATORY OF OTRANTO

Will be continued in a later issue.

AND FINALLY...

Games for when we are older:

1. Sag, you're it
2. Pin the toupee on the bald guy.
3. Kick the bucket
4. Red Rover, Red Rover, the nurse says Bend Over.
5. Simon says something incoherent.
6. Spin the Bottle of Mylanta
7. Musical recliners