Witchfinder General

It is a crying shame that it has taken me so long to write about one of my favourite characters from English history - Matthew Hopkins, The Witch Finder General. It would be easy of me to paint a picture of him skulking around Essex in the late 17thC century, praying on lonesome, ostracised and off-key women whilst collect bulging sacks of guineas.  Easy because this is exactly what he did.  It has been estimated that 40% of those brought to the gallows via witch-trials from 15th - 18th centuries were the result of Hopkins.  Below is a woodblock carving of Hopkins entering the house of an accused witch.

 To prove that she is a Witch we see her beautifully named Imps or Familiars scattered around the room.

1. Ilemauzar
2. Pyewackett
3. Pecke in the Crowne
4. Griezzell Greedigutt  

Other named imps appear to be Vinegar Tom (a bull/hound 'mash-up'), Newes (some form of stoat or ferret), Sacke & Sugar (appears to be a black hare) and Jamara (a Proto-Dougal from the Magic Roundabout).

Hopkins stands bossing the scene, his trade mark stick and hat screaming authority.   Below is a still from the classic horror film centred around this remarkable villain.



You can read an amazing book Witch Hunters (Malcom Gaskill) which although is fairly heavy going, will arm you with all you need to know on the subject matter. Further more, one of my favourite UK horror films has to be Witch Finder General, featuring Vincent Price playing the vile witch finder. When this was released in the US it was renamed 'The Conqueror Worm' which I've never quite understood.

Originally scenes were deemed so harrowing that they were cut from the first cinema release. The reels were lost however VHS copies of the outakes have been found and were inserted into the version available today on DVD. This heightens the horror of the more violent of scenes as they suddenly switch into grainy short blasts of horror footage, which leaves you feeling you are watching a 17thC snuff film. It is reasonably chilling.
 

MUSIC IS MATH

If music is sonic-architecture - here is a guide that might help you build your next audio megalith.:

http://composertools.com/Theory/PCSets.pdf

London Pirate Radio: timeless.

Andy Eschaskech (friend and colleague) edited this clip from many London pirates, timeless stuff and long may it all last.

.Jurassic Park Slowed.

Disappearing Car Door

Is this actually cool?

It's cool.

Further Iceland/Faroes

Found an older post that had been lost so thought it wouldn't do any harm to put it up. Some photos from Iceland and the Faroe Islands...

A Snoring Mouse.

Zurich Chamber Orchestra (white knuckle ride)

ZKO Rollercoaster // GREAT EMOTIONS from virtual republic on Vimeo.

Brian Sewell

 Brian does need to chill out on David Hockney in his review of the RA show:


"Hockney is a vulgar prankster, trivialising not only a painting that he is incapable of understanding and could never execute, but in involving him in the various parodies, demeaning Picasso too."


Then again,  this is the man that got jumped by some rude-boys on the underground in 2004 and said of it:


"Did the boy have a knife? At no point did I see it, but its threatened use was real enough and ingeniously morbid in its echo of Plantagenet murder and Jacobean tragedy"


This article is particularly worth reading - My night of terror on the Tube

Alex James, you're a total cock.

Once upon a time, I quite liked blur.  This was a long time ago and I haven't liked them for a long time - this was compounded when I was shown this article that Alex James had written for the Sun about fast food. so that you don't have to read it, I will simply put a few quotations below.  He recently visited Greggs, McDonald's and KFC factories.

"The little bakery in my local village offers goods too sweet and sugary and is massively over-priced. I can think of much worse things than a Greggs opening up there. " 
Oh yeah - like what? I think the residents of your charming Cotswold village might disagree.

"Sausage roll machine — as big as a football pitch and more than 1km long —"
 Sorry mate, the machine is not going to be longer than 1km, it wouldn't come close to that.

I iced triple chocolate cupcakes with an enormous icing bag full of chocolate cake topping and I squirted jam into doughnuts using a machine controlled by a foot pedal. "
 How many drugs were you fed before you sat down to write this utter dross?   It's unspeakably bad.

"All three million burgers produced here every day have to be the same and McDonald's have made it into an art form.  There's a huge mince masher which you really don't want to fall into, chewing up big rocks of fresh and frozen beef. "
Children wouldn't write this badly.   Although there is some originality here, I have never heard of anyone describing McDonald's as an art form.

"It's like magic seeing how the process binds together a perfect quarter pounder, which pops out of a conveyor belt at the other end. "  
"Magic" - seriously?


"They gave me a bag of the seasoning which goes on a Big Mac and I've been using it to flavour my home-made bread. It's awesome and, according to McDonald's, contains just salt and pepper. What is so awesome about that?

This has to be a hoax - or else he has spectacularly lost his mind.