Strangely Perfect

By Don Martin(1931 – 2000) Taken from “Mad’s Maddest Artist Don Martin Steps Out”

…and following on from the previous post, here’s a recently provided scan from Holly of a (now defunct) Sounds magazine (four star!) review of the vinyl LP, Waqqaz, by Crawling Chaos, back in June 1986, when I was in France. Quoting Dave Henderson; THE CRAWLING CHAOS ‘Waqqaz’ (Foetus Products F4) **** AND CHAOS came back [...]

I’ve just found a website that scans all Smash Hits magazines and puts them online in their entirety! Digging through, I found this review notice of the original release of Sex Machine back in 1980… Red Starr (sic) states: …is Crawling Chaos, whose “Sex Machine” is quite the fastest single I’ve heard in a while.  [...]

The Rise of Internet Porn One of the chief drivers of change in the technological arms race of the internet has been the porn industry.  Most of the ‘benefits’ that users and owners now expect e.g. interaction, user activity sensing, easy and secure anonymous on-line payments, on-line adverts and click-through promotions, on-line community spaces, forums, [...]

Pricewert Whinges Over the past week, behind the scenes, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been progressively locking down an ISP, until finally on the 6th of June, it got the plug pulled.  See news item here: US cuts off ‘criminal’ net firm Pricewert, the umbrella for firms such as 3FN.net & APS Telecom [...]

When I’m feeling numb, I just look at this.  It’s got everything.  One (or two) character(s), five frames, no words, sound effects, tension, drama. It’s by a cartoonist called Don Martin who died a few years back and for many years was part of the glue that held Mad Magazine together. Ahhhh.  That’s better.

At Last – some Proper Reporting from the BBC I actually thought that no-one did it any more – investigative journalism, that is!  Tonight’s show, Panorama: Slumdogs and Millionaires is on BBC One, Monday 6 April at 2030 BST and promises to reveal the hell that a combination of Arab religious kleptomancy and the sheer [...]

Computer Shopper Interview with Home Office Dawinderpal Sahota at ‘Computer Shopper’ magazine, part of the Dennis Publishing organisation, has published a fascinating interview that the magazine had with a UK Home Office rep on the subject of the government’s policy towards tackling child abuse websites. ‘Computer Shopper’ gave all questions in advance so that the [...]

“I’m so tired from watching TV I have to have a nap” Thus spake Philip Chawner, 53, in the Daily Mail inspired newspaper and TV witch-hunt which kicked off in ‘Closer’ magazine.  The ensuing rants from outraged people are predictable but it all just looks like a bit of entrepreneurship from the Chawner family to [...]

WARNING:  This Posting Contains Illegal Pictures I Can Be Imprisoned for Publishing Them. A little realised consequence of Bush’s ‘war on terror’ and the ramping up of common hysteria across the English speaking western world is, bizarrely, that it’s now illegal to take pictures of people commemorating, in a patriotic symbolic way, the lives and [...]

Despite the best made plans and intentions, no security system is perfect. A massive recent security lapse means that (again!), the government’s continuing plans to implement ID Cards should be seriously examined. Not only have their own credentials at data security been demonstrated by themselves to be wholly inadequate (I’m thinking of the DVLA, MOD, [...]

Clearly, there is something wrong with the motor and finance industries of the world (a.k.a America for this article, because when America sneezes, the world catches a cold). We are all acutely aware how their problems affect us. We believe that we live in healthy democracies where we vote for the people and systems that [...]

The Triumph of Wishful Thinking over Common Sense The recent previews of the Microsoft Vista replacement with it’s unreliable “hands on” dragging experience (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7695933.stm) are another reminder that desires aren’t always satisfied and that designers don’t always design what people actually want for their daily work. PCPro Magazine have duplicated the recently banned Apple iPhone [...]

Two days ago I read an astonishingly factual and honest article on the BBC Magazine website, called; The myth of record debt Author Michael Blastland (who wrote The Tiger That Isn’t: Seeing Through a World of Numbers) explains very well how statistics and their presentation can be used to hide or expose anything the presenter [...]