Author: Purple Wyrm

Cartographic Madness

Hey, I’ve never claimed to be normal…

You know, as far back as I can remember, I’ve always loved maps. I don’t know exactly when or where my love affair with cartography began, but I rather suspect it had something to do with Arthur Ransome and his Swallows and Amazons books. Each one had a map right at the start, showing all the locations in the story. It’s been years since I read any of them, but I reckon I could still draw a pretty good map of the lake just from memory.

More than just loving maps, I’ve always loved making maps. Again I think Arthur Ransome is the culprit, Secret Water was all about map making (and mastadons, and eels, and almost drowning when the tide comes in). As a kid the walls of my room were plastered with hand drawn maps of locations from just about every book I read, and even now I’ll occasionally just grab a piece of paper and whip up a map of some kind, just for the heck of it.

All this may explain why I’ve spent a good four or five hours over the last few days doing my damn well best to figure out where Connor lives in Warren Ellis’s FreakAngels.

Careful examination of the scenes outside Connor’s place in episode two reveal a number of distinctive features…

  • It’s a narrow, two lane street
  • There’s a traffic light and a zebra crossing
  • There are tall, detached buildings on both sides
  • One building has two distinctive, urn-like details on top
  • Across the road from the urn building is one with a truncated mansard roof
  • There’s a t-junction close by (seen when KK lands her ‘bike’)

Now, all of this means nothing because surely it’s just a comic right? Well, possibly not. Paul Duffield has apparently made a few trips to Whitechapel to take reference images, and plenty of real places (the Ten Bells Pub, Christ Church, the Spitalfields Market) turn up. So there’s a reasonable chance that Connor’s street is a real one.

So, I’ve been driving myself to distraction examining Whitechapel street by street in Google Earth, and then looking at hundreds of images tagged ‘whitechapel’ on Flickr for clues.

No dice. I am rapidly reaching the conclusion that the scenes in episode 2 are at best heavily modified, and at worst a portmanteau of several different places (suggested perhaps by the fact that the torn, red awning switches building between frames, and the idea that a small, narrow street would have a zebra crossing ). So I guess I’ll just have to take a punt on where to put Connor’s place on the next version of the Google Earth file.

At least until someone makes a map of all the zebra crossings in Whitechapel 🙂

Sing and rejoice ye people of Televisionland!

The beginning of the end! As if.

For the dark one is cast down! And his empire ended until picked up by another network!

Well I was going to write about having a particularly Kevin Smithesque day – on the basis that I went into work even though I wasn’t supposed to, and I had to pick up a timetable for the number 37 bus (yeah I was stretching) – but this has been superseded by the wonderful news we were all hoping for.

Channel 10 has axed Big Brother!

To quote NASA – w00t!

Of course it will almost instantly be replaced by Gordon Ramsey’s Etiquette School or 20 to 1 Most Embarrassing Chainsaw Accidents or something equally inane, and there’s at least a 50/50 chance of it being picked up and reworked by another network – but for a little while we can rest in a state of blissful non-Big-Brotherness.

For tonight at least I shall sleep well!

I want my morphine!

Or maybe they think it’s a front for Al Quedea…

FACT: Australia has no R rating for video games.

This is something I’ve known about for quite some time, and – apart from a vague sense of annoyance at the Government being so backwards – it’s never really been something of much concern to me. In fact I have to admit I found myself quite amused a few months back by the frantic efforts of certain people to get hold of an uncensored copy of GTA 4. But all that’s changed now, because the Government has launched a direct attack on the Wyrm fortress.

They’re refused classification for Fallout 3.

Apparently the ratings board don’t like the game’s use of morphine injections to temporarily repair inured limbs, and don’t feel that they can give the game a MA15+ rating with this feature included. Now, the sensible thing to do would be to give the game an R rating and make it… oh, but hang on, there isn’t and R rating, so Fallout 3 will remain unrated, making it illegal to sell or rent the game within Australia.

Let’s all say it together. Idiots!

Now it may be that a chopped down version of the game – without morphine and anything else the censors may object to – will be released here. But that’s not the point. The point is that the Government is still stuck in the mindset that computer games are something played exclusively by children. I’m not going to carry on about how adults play games as well, and that responsible, sane adults can watch something on a screen without immediately rushing out to do it – that’s all been more than covered in the debate about GTA – I’m just adding my voice to the chorus of disgust at our elected officials still living in the dark ages.

Happily it’s not illegal to import, own or play the game, so I’ll be looking overseas for a copy. God bless the internet!

Ummm, apart from that my life has been pretty boring of late. I thought I had some other things to blog about, but I can’t remember a single one. I guess that’s what three straight hours of Gilmore Girls on DVD will do to you 🙂

Oh yeah, FreakAngels Google Earth file updated. DON’T MESS WITH JACK!!

From the Gospel According To Lol – Chapter 19

…and two downloaders were crucified there also, and they did call Him a noob and play Him videos of Rick Astley…

22: And Pilate posted a comment reading JESUS KING OF TEH JEWS FTW!!!1!!

23: And the High Priests posted an owl captioned O RLY?

24: And Pilate posted a response reading YA RLY

(not intended to cause offence, I’m just messing around with language here *g*)

A Crown of Marble

Various updates and the passing of the Modern Major General

It’s Canada Day today, and as a consequence JJJ Breakfast kept playing O Canada (the Canadian national anthem for those who require such enlightenment). I couldn’t help but notice that it (or at least the arrangement they were playing) bears quite a resemblance to part of Handel’s Water Music. This is not of any significance at all, just something I noticed 🙂

Similarly the guitar riff on the Grates new single Burning Bridges I believe it’s called, is taken directly from Pachelbel’s Canon. Again this does not signify.

On the subject of Canadians (which we were) everyone is probably waiting with bated breath (OK, maybe not) to hear how our expedition to the Supanova event on Sunday went. Well it really requires a full write up rather than the short summary I could fit in here, but suffice to say it was a fun day, despite my making a total fool of myself in front of Jewel Staite (which, lets face it, was likely to happen no matter what ensued).

(Jewel is Canadian, hence the segue – you knew that right?)

On a sadder sci-fi note I have to pause to mark the passing of Don S. Davis – perhaps most familiar as General Hammond in the Stargate franchise who passed away on Saturday at the age of 65. He will be missed.

As a rather inadequate tribute I here reprint the sonnet dedicated to General Hammond’s head I wrote many many years ago for a fanfic challenge…

I sing to all of Hammond, George by name,
The modern Major Gen’ral, it is said,
That many sing of valour, and of fame,
But person’ly I sing about his head,

A crown of marble it was once described,
By Hathor (she is evil, also old),
Her hair was artificial, you decide,
Perhaps beneath that wig she too is bald?,

But back to Hammond’s head, it well could scorch,
The eyes, reflecting any source of light,
By flouro-tube or halogen or torch,
By sun or moon a beacon shining bright,

The thing to note the most of Hammond’s hair,
Is just the fact it simply isn’t there,

Enough said.

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