Nice to see this on the Guardian's website on Friday. The article links to an excellent criticism of conspiracy nutbobbins, written by Donna Ferentes.

If you want to see examples of the weird and wonderful things that 'conspiraloons' come up with, check out our archive forum, Compendium Of Kerrrr-azy Conspiracies - there's no shortage of nutjobbery to be found!

Labels: conspiracy, urban75

If you've run your own website for a while, you'll be used to occasional techie problems with your server, so when I found that urban75.com was down, I figured it might be down to the thing needing a reboot, a swift elbow in the RAM or some command code wizardry.

What I didn't expect to hear was that the entire server had been unplugged, removed and dumped in the bin - without anyone even telling me what was going on!

To be fair, the site had been hosted for free since 1997 and had carried on despite several takeovers of the original company, but it does leave me a bit in the doggy-do right now. urban75.com has vanished!

Happily, all the files were backed up on my own PC and the resident urban75 tech genius known as 'Lazy Llama' is on the case, so you should start seeing the site coming back in the next day or two.

Meanwhile, the far bigger urban75.net and urban75.org sites remain up and running so we've only lost part of the urban75 'empire.'

Apologies for the interruption.

Labels: server, urban75

It seems a weird combination, but allow me to explain!

On Wednesday, the BBC effectively paid me to have Hugh Grant look at one of my pictures, when they interviewed him for the BBC One TV show.

The picture was of Garth Mountain, near Cardiff, which featured in a film he made in 1995. Here's the photo and background to the story.




Just scraping into the official mountain category, Garth Mountain (also called Garth Hill) is a mountain north of Pentyrch village, south Wales.

Visible for miles around, the mountain lies in the Taff Vale and looks down onto the small village of Gwaelod-y-Garth.

At the top of the mountain can be found several tumuli (ancient burial sites), dating back from the early to middle bronze age, around 2000 BC.

The mountain caught the public eye after a book called, "Ffynnon Garw" was made into a popular film called 'The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain' (1995), starring toff heartthrob Hugh Grant.



Set in 1917, the film tells the story of two English cartographers arriving at the fictional Welsh village of Ffynnon Garw who cause local outrage when they reveal that their mountain is in fact only a hill because it just falls short of the required 1,000ft.

Villagers then construct a tall cairn to ensure that the hill is high enough to be classed as a mountain.

The movie has since made Garth mountain a popular walking destination, adding to the regular annual pilgrimages from stoners keen to exploit its plentiful supply of magic mushrooms.

Feature on Garth Mountain/ Mynydd Y Garth

The Newnight connection comes from tonight's TV transmission.

I was out in the pub celebrating the successful completion of my bastard tax return, but apparently there was a feature on UK internet takeup and a discussion about upgrading the UK broadband infrastructure.

Part of the report was an update to a 2006 story about a home where the teenage son was using broadband but the mother wasn't interested. The story was updated to 2009, to show the mother now using online and shown logging onto Urban75 - which she mentioned was her 'favourite website'

Nice!

Labels: bbc, urban75

Link

Now, this is class!

Labels: urban75

Just got back from a walk with the feisty urban75 walk club, this time in north Norfolk. It was f-f-freezing, but a whole load of fun.

Here's how not to put on waterproof trousers in a gale force wind:

Labels: urban75, walks

Offline at the Alma



Last night the Offline crew ventured south into deepest Crystal Palace, London to put on a show at the Alma, in Church Road.

The Actionettes were as fabulous as ever!



Local band Mendicant put in a great set, Vic's Cabaret was top notch and there was much drinking and dancing to be had. :)

Offline at the Alma

Also up: Offline at the Albert, 9th June



More pics

Labels: brixton, club, offline, photos, urban75

It's taken me an eternity to post up because I've ended up creating a 14 page, 220 page monster feature, but it's (more or less) finished so I hope you'll like it!



It was a chuffin' fantastic holiday - walking over beautiful countryside, drinking delightful ale, battling with torrential conditions and, of course, compulsory dancing on chairs to a triple-play, back to back Wurzels wig out - and I loved every minute of it!



Dartmoor photos

Labels: dartmoor, photos, urban75, walks

Ooo-er. Last night was a bit fierce. I ventured way north to the windswept wastelands of Stoke Newington from an urban75 drink up and, lo, beer did flow. Oh yes indeedy.



More photos

Labels: drinks, photos, urban75