Fun

Funny cuckoo clock

A neighbour bought this silly cuckoo clock. Decorated with badly-carved animals, it chimes at five to and twenty-five past the hour, loses seven minutes a day and finishes its routine with a comic rasping sound. I think she paid £70 for it. But you can’t put a value on this kind of comedy.

Manchester flashmob tomorrow

There will be a flashmob somewhere in Manchester city centre tomorrow lunchtime. I’m hoping to be there to shoot a video of whatever happens.

Bye bye Operation Fundraiser

The Manchester Pride website reports that Operation Fundraiser will be ‘will be hanging up its buckets’ this year.

Video-making on a budget

Film-making can be an expensive hobby. Especially if you start to buy professional lights, backgrounds and other accessories.

The Power of Nightmares

If you haven’t seen this fascinating three-part BBC documentary series, you can download it from the Internet Archive:

Part1 | Part2 | Part3

It explores ‘the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today.’ And it shows how politicians have used the terror threat to restore their power and authority in a disillusioned age.

It’s a brilliant use of archive film of all kinds, combined with interviews. Give it a look even if you don’t usually watch this kind of subject, because it’s interesting to see how Adam Curtis the producer combines such diverse visual material.

If you have problems playing MP4 files, just grab the free VideoLan player.