Just started work? Can’t understand what your 30ish colleagues are arguing about? Consult TV Cream. And don’t ever say that Bagpuss is rubbish. Not ever.

Also good if you feel that TV is getting worse. It was mainly bad to start with.

Link: TV Cream

Photos of sexual simulacra selling at $195 for a 8” x 10” print! The photos have lovely soothing shapes and colours, but the theme seems too contrived. Compare and contrast with the “amusing vegetables” popular on 70s TV in the UK. One is “art”, the other now represents classic junk-media puerility.

Earth Erotica

Tove Jansson (of Moomins fame) illustrated a Finnish edition of The Hobbit.

Link: Some of Tove Jansson’s illustrations for “The Hobbit”

Early Betty Boop cartoons featured “torrid jazz” and many references to sex and drugs. Then media censorship dulled Betty Boop into a “wholesome and, compared to her former self, rather uninteresting character”.

Link: Betty Boop Before and After the Hays Act

Last year I stumbled upon a picture of a rabbit balancing a pancake on its head. The page was in Japanese, so I had no idea why the rabbit had a pancake on its head. The rabbit didn’t seem to mind.

Thanks to a link on Metafilter, I’ve just found a huge site dedicated to photos of the same rabbit, Oolong. His owner has the strange habit of balancing small objects on his head and then taking photos. I’m a bit disturbed by this one, but Oolong seems to live a happy, varied and adventurous life, very different to the lonely lives of most pet rabbits in Britain.

Link: Oolong the Rabbit

A new kitten/music animation from rathergood.com. I’ve not been exposed to much Led Zeppelin, but I’m going to give them a try now. Stupid lyrics, but fun.

Link: Viking Kittens

A band I’d never heard of, portayed as kittens outside a pub. I will now probably try their music too. Could this be the future of music promotion?

“If Destiny’s Child were kittens from Northern England, this is what they would sound like” They seem to be a bit grittier than this normally.

Link: Independent Woman - Sung by Kittens

The Emperor asked Master Gudo, “What happens to a man of enlightenment after death?”

“How should I know?” replied Gudo.

“Because you are a master,” answered the Emperor.

“Yes sir,” said Gudo, “but not a dead one.”

Link: Zen Stories

My god, I’ve seen a small mammal! Call the exterminators!

Water voles are lovely little creatures, I’m very upset they’re being wiped out.

Link: Mistaken identity killing water voles

A campaign group has been formed to protect people from interference in their self-destructive eating habits: “If people wish to eat themselves to death by eating too much fatty food that has to be their choice”

I assume they’ll have private health insurance too, rather than expecting the evil nanny state to rescue them from themselves later.

Link: ‘Let people eat what they want’