This is precious. Le
Grand Saut is the French title, so that translates as The Big Leap
and I think it’s a great name for this animated short, given that the girl protagonist
takes one literally and metaphorically. It doesn’t tell a big story, but
for our young protagonist, it’s something of a coming of age. A simple day at the beach. There’s the sun, the sand – and, of course,
the completely annoying toddler brother that you have to look at (no doubt
while the parents go an have an extended lunch at a local bar!). Perhaps that last bit is reading too much in
to it, but there is another thing – the awakening of attraction. When our young heroine sees a cool young boy
on the beach, it’s pretty much love at first sight – but how do you get him to
notice you?
There are number of outstanding features to this animated
short. First and foremost, it was
created without dialogue (so overcoming any possible language barrier to help
achieve a bigger audience), but the animation is so subtly done that you know
exactly what is going through the girl’s mind at any given time – and the body
language is also expertly conveyed. Both
of these things are difficult to do with animation, so hats off to the students
who created this. The other stand out
for me was how the colours so wonderfully expressed the tone and feel of a day
at the beach – vibrant and saturated with the sun in charge of how everyone
sees the day’s events. It really does
give this animation a lovely, almost nostalgic texture.
The award-winning animated film was directed by Martina
Doll, Anaïs Dos, Coline Reverbel, Kenzo Talma, Edgard Vernier, and Lisa Vlaine
during their time at École des Nouvelles Images. It received the School
Jury Award at the Catch the Moon – Festival Internazionale di Cinema
d'Animazione, the Jury Prize (Prix du Jury) at the Big Cartoon Festival, and
the Best Animated Film Award (Prix du Meilleur Film d'Animation) at the
Kristiansand International Children's Film Festival. The original score was
composed by Aloïs Benoit (MAAAV), with production by Julien Deparis and sound
mixing by Pierre-François Renouf.
These days,
most people know Kate Bush for Running Up That Hill, which was
iconically featured on Stranger Things.
However, outside of the US, ask people of a certain age and they will
immediately cite Wuthering Heights, her 1978 hit, as her most
popular song. In fact, inspired by the music
video that went with it, each year women get together in community events all
over the giff-gaff to recreate the famous dance from the video. They also try their best to reproduce the
flowing dress Bush wore in it, and many don a wig to complete the
ensemble. While you don’t have to be (ever
so gently) bonkers mad to join in a group event like this, I suspect it helps...
The sleepy
English seaside town of Whitstable holds it own version - Whittering Heights (get
it?) and this year the global event was branded as The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever. Apparently, when women (some men have been known
to join in, too) get together in this manner, it is known as a Mass Wuther,
and the one in Penistone Hill, close to the famous Brontë parsonage in
Haworth, is probably the most famous. However, the Whitstable organisers this
year employed a drone to capture the full majesty of this particular Mass Wuther. This Community of Cathies (I counted 33) have been
getting together once a month since February to rehearse the dance – but I am
pretty sure that there has been a lot of bedroom mirror work going on as well. This is a Mass Wuther par
excellence. A captivating community of Cathies.
Whoever thought of filming it with a drone (not to mention
organising that) deserves a Blue Peter badge for this genius move which
allows us to really take in the full spectacle.
Hats off, too, to the Cathies in this video. I love the way that each has adapted the
famous red dress and black sash to their own taste, with some versions going
down to the ankle while at least one has gone for a mini version (perhaps Babooshka
Day for you next year?). Hopefully,
that means that these dresses get more than an annual outing. What the original article (as it were) has to
say about Wuthering Heights Day has not been recorded. Kate Bush is famously reluctant to appear or
talk in public and gives interviews once a millennium, but I hope that if she
sees this video it puts a smile on her face as big as mine is right now!
It was a long time coming, but the Comic Relief people have finally released Spider-Plant Man on their YouTube channel. It was originally created for Red Nose Day (when people buy a red nose to wear to support charity) in the UK (back in 2006 so makes this sketch – astonishingly – 20 years old already). It quickly picked up something of a cult following as it very accurately takes the rise out of superhero films in general. Starring Atkinson as Peter Piper, this origin story shows our unlikely hero visiting Very Safe Labs Incorporated and being bitten in a delicate place by a genetically engineered spider plant.
Cue a transformation
that pleases the reporter no end, especially when an opportunity (very quickly)
arises for him to save his school sweetheart, Jane-Mary, who is being mugged very
slowly by a masked assailant. Of
course, no sooner is she out of peril than she is in peril again, thanks to a
rather bedraggled Batman. Atkinson was
not the only British comedian to lend his talents to this sketch for Comic
Relief. You can see Rachel
Stevens, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Mackenzie Crook, Jim Broadbent and Atkinson’s Blackadder
chum Tony Robinson in the sketch too. I am not too sure who wrote it but if I had to guess I would say it had Simon Pegg's paw prints all over it! It
still stands up very well, despite being 20 years old, and is probably one of
the best Comic Relief sketches ever made.
Watch it below.
End of the World, is a track from the first album (Asylum) by Inpatient, and the video is a blast (well, it is
the end of the world…). It’s lyrically
dense – and very funny (love the line about the Vatican, allegedly, but
there are too many standout lines to mention here). The song seems to be a (tongue in cheek) shrug
of the shoulders at the world in general.
Let’s self-medicate and get on with it, because we’re all f**ked anyway. Yet when I finished the watching the video, which
is hugely creative and a perfect accompaniment to the song, I was left thinking
that this is more like a call to arms – to make the most of it too. Even if it
isn’t, listening to a song about how screwed we all are cheered me up no end.
Plus, anything with a kazoo interlude gets my vote.
So, who are Inpatient? I went to Bangor University in North Wales from 1983-1986 and had a fabulous time with some fabulous people, thank you very much. I loved the (very small) city and its people – and it’s great to see that Bangor is still producing brilliance. Ren, a musician, rapper, singer-songwriter, guitarist, and storyteller, was born there in 1990. Of course, as he is Welsh, you could say some of those things I just listed were most likely in his blood from birth. There is something Dylanthomasy in some of these lyrics - but there is fatalism rather than rage (perhaps the message is drink, drink [or insert substance of choice] against the dying of the light - Thomas would no doubt have approved of that).
Now Ren has joined up with Chris Webby, an American rapper and songwriter from Norwalk, Connecticut known for fast, technically sharp rapping, punchlines, pop-culture references, and an independent approach to his music. Mix in production and some of the song-writing from JP On Da Track and you have this collaborative project (band?) called Inpatient. This is one of my favourite songs of the year already.
The comments on YouTube are massively positive, with fans describing the song as a brilliant soundtrack to what feels like the end of humanity, while somehow remaining incredibly fun. One listener summed it up perfectly: “I've been talking with friends for several years now about how we have a front row seat to the end of humanity. You guys just brilliantly put it to music.” Another wrote, “Only Ren and Webby can make a song about the end of life as we know it but make it so fun that me and my wife can't stop singing to it.” Others called the pair “a gift to the world,” thanked them for the music (not in an Abba way), and declared it their new favourite, with one fan simply calling Asylum the “album of the year” which is praise indeed.
The excitement
around the collaboration is clear, with comments describing Ren and Webby as
their “two fave artists” and praising them for “smashing it again.” There is a
real sense that listeners aren't just enjoying the song but embracing its
strange, darkly comic message: if we're going to have a front-row seat to the
end of the world, we might as well have Ren and Webby providing the soundtrack.
The video manages to look both home-made and very expensive
at the same time, which is quite a feat. Have a watch...
So, now you have watched Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey,
you think you know how the Trojan Horse was used to defeat the ancient city?
Pah! Nolan knows nothing! Despite his
movie being an extended homage to Old Hollywood in so many ways, what we
really needed was a touch of The Python. And not one to disappoint, Ben Naumann’s new
comedy short is something I could easily imagine young Cleese, Palin, Chapman,
Gilliam, Jones and Idle doing. Wait, I almost
forgot; they did the Trojan Rabbit scene in Monty Python and the Holy
Grail (1975). Arthur and his knights build a huge wooden rabbit to sneak
into the French castle. The plan goes wrong when they forget to hide inside it
before the French take it into the castle!
In this sketch, the Greeks have not forgotten to climb
inside – but they are faced with some unexpected issues… Will it go right for
them, despite one of them suffering from the intense agony of a repressed fart.
It’s about as historically inaccurate as it should be – I wouldn’t demand anything
less from a comedy sketch by Americans, who only have approximately a day and a
half of history between the lot of them. I would have bitterly complained if we hadn’t been given warrior
girls and the like. But it is funny. The
sketch features Brian Beckerle, Graham McClanahan, Phoebe Black-Toby, Eddie
Tarr, Will Tully, and Harkness Granger. Not a single Greek name among them.
Pfft!
It’s difficult to ascertain the damage that climate change
has caused simply because there are so few places on the planet where we are
not found. Human intervention creates
artificial change, so in order to work out the real impact of climate change,
you need to find somewhere pristine, somewhere we have never been. That’s quite difficult, considering the
billions of us that have spread like a virus over the surface of the Earth!
However, Mount Lico was identified by Julian Bayliss (Oxford Brookes
University) as a place of special scientific interest by using Google Earth of
all things. Image
He recognised Mount Lico as an inselberg – an isolated small
mountain that rises, as if by magic, from a virtually level plain. Think Uluru in Australia, probably the most
famous example of this kind of geographical formation. He spotted that the land round the mountain
was heavily agriculturalized but atop its sheer rock walls of up to 700 metres,
was a pristine forest covering about 30 hectares (74 acres). In a scientific version of Let’s put on a
show he gathered a group of unpaid scientists to go with him to Mozambique
to study Mount Lico’s landforms and vegetation.
The film below was directed by Orlando von Einsiedel and
tells the story of both the climb and the study. It appears on the Nobel Prize YouTube channel. I am not going to do a spoiler alert - find out what they discovered by watching the short documentary. I will say, though, that I was struck by how genial Julian Bayliss
was, and I thought that, if this were ever made into a film, Martin Freeman
would be brilliant as him! I know, I know, I
should be focusing on the content…
Here’s a plea – will someone who knows someone who sleeps
with someone who works with someone who can fund an animated series, please put the relevant person or
persons in front of Samurai Frog Golf.
I have no idea why this awesome piece of animation hasn’t garnered
millions of hits, but I guess I would have to ask The Algorithm and it’s
currently not speaking to me.
Regardless, this short by Marza Animation Planet deserves a much
larger audience than it got a few years ago.
It tells the story of a grizzled old Samurai Frog, who after years of
battle just wants to be left alone to enjoy his golf. What drew me in was the gorgeous animation - such a great deal of time and effort has been put into making this short.
Fate, of course, would have otherwise – and he soon finds
himself the protector of a baby turtle. There is nothing for him to do but to
protect the innocent, but the only thing he could use as a weapon is his golf
club… I will leave the rest to you to watch.
I thoroughly enjoyed this and I hope that Marza is still looking for
coproduction partners to continue the story of Samurai Frog Golf in a series! To give up on this brilliant idea would be
such a shame…
When late to open the Commonwealth Games, King Charles and Queen Camilla had only one option – to requisition the Tardis to ensure that they arrived on time. That’s the amusing premise of this intro to the opening of the games (July 23). Echoing his mother’s (the late Queen Elizabeth II) James Bond escapade for the opening of the London Olympics in 2012, another Great British Institution (that’s GBI for short) has been used to create a playful and unforgettable entrance to the Commonwealth Games 2026, in Glasgow, Scotland.
There's even something of a plot – and while not the new material that
fans might have been wishing for – it’s a typical Tardis tale, with a twist. It’s
the Tardis that kick-starts the whole adventure. Created by the BBC especially for the event, it opens with Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy and comedian
Greg McHugh walking past a seemingly innocuous police telephone box, only for its
phone to ring. On answering, they learn
that their majesties are going to be late for the opening ceremony, but there is no Doctor to whisk them
away - he is nowhere to be seen. Never mind, the Tardis takes matters
into its own (metaphorical) hands.
With a great little cameo from 82-year-old Sylvester McCoy (the seventh Doctor), this really does push all the right buttons when it comes to providing an entrance for KC and QC at the Commonwealth Games. And talking of buttons, Hoy and McHugh don’t really have a clue how to drive a Tardis... but it gives the BBC a great excuse to show off some pretty Scottish scenery. Watch the video below.
Is the internet broken?
What would your answer be? My
knee-jerk response, with little to no reflection, is “bloody hell, yes”. Yet giving it a little more thought, I think
my response is more likely to be “it’s as broken as you want it to be”. Throughout history, we have had cultural
revolution after cultural revolution – and whether our distant ancestors would
like us (or vice versa) if we were to somehow meet, we’ll never know. My guess
is that they would be bewildered by us, frankly. Yet each new development presented different opportunities
to different people. Take literacy –
after its development, some wrote poetry while others scribbled graffiti on
walls (Pompeii is a great example, where it survived unlike the scrolls the
poetry was written upon). Then there was
television. The BBC (which made this
video) set out to inform and educate the masses, while the commercial channels
quickly got the upper hand (viewer wise) by bestowing us with gifts like the soap
opera and the advertising break.
And then, of course, there is the internet. On one hand, we have the likes of Jimmy Wales
(founder of Wikipedia) who wish to disseminate and make available knowledge
that in terms of its accessibility, our grandparents could only dream of. Now we can settle arguments in a second, a few
clicks and swipes… but fifty years ago,
if you were debating the name of the capital of Mongolia, and you didn’t happen
to have an encyclopaedia to hand, the correct answer would take a while to
ascertain. You get my drift. On the other hand, we have a host of
companies trying to sell us their product at any cost, social media turning our
children into slavering zombies and artificial intelligence, which isn’t always
right and doesn’t care either way. Add engagement
algorithms into the mix and perhaps the tool had become the master…
There’s a clip in the video below about just that,
really. When asked about the internet by
an interviewer “But it’s just a tool, isn’t it?”, David Bowie responds with:
“No it’s not. It’s an alien life form”.
Perhaps he could have added “intent on world domination not by death and
destruction but by stealth and seduction”.
The video features interviews with several people who know what they’re
talking about, including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Hatelab director
Matthew Williams, author (whose novels are free on Project
Gutenberg so he puts his money, as it were, where his mouth is) and
activist Cory Doctorow. There are also some students at the University of
Cardiff, who seem equally as baffled and bewildered by both the past and the present,
bless ‘em.
Let me stop babbling. Have a look at the video.
Get ready for a buzz explosion! The official music video by Avantgardey for their single
Buzz Runner, is finally out – and it doesn’t disappoint. As chaotic
and visually stimulating as you might expect. Although there is no
cohesive story to the video, I would say it is something along these
lines. You might not get what you expect from social media and often
people will post things about you that are hurtful and unnecessary. However,
take solace in the fact that you are an extraordinary individual with real
inner strength and resilience – not to mention the ability to eat cakes many
times your size and deal with the occasion Tyrannosaurus Rex without any
problem whatsoever. Your presence is going to blow up! Well, that’s just my take on it – I think there
is plenty of scope for you to make of this what you want to make of this, and there may be something of a cautionary tale embedded in here... somewhere! As ever for this group, it’s
deliriously frenetic and positively joyous – an Avantgardey video always makes
my day simply because of its incredible joie-de-vivre.
I'm not entirely sure what Buzz Runner itself
means. It reminds me of Blade Runner, so there could be a
connection there, except that here the girls are rushing after the buzz of the online
moment, not androids! Answers on a postcard, please! I think it is about the lengths people go to in order to attract attention on social media. After all, the first line translates as Likes
are oxygen, my oxygen.
At the time of writing, this only just premiered on YouTube. However, fans are already absolutely loving how chaotic, hilarious, and packed with detail the new video is, with many saying there is they are going to have to watch it numerous times in order to take everything in. The early viewers also praised the incredibly elaborate visuals and the unique, quirky personalities of each member. There are several memorable moments that they have pointed out - Nona's dash, Miyuu's "killer eye-beam," Sei-chan's adorable opening, Pani's sky bowl, the water backflip, and the unexpected lion (not to mention the T-Rex!). So, you could say that the reaction is very positive!
The track itself was choreographed by akane, the leader and
creative force behind Avantgardey, who also contributed to the music and
lyrics. If you like Avantgardey, then the video will not
disappoint. If you are new to this Japanese sensation, then… where
have you been?
When I first started to watch this clip from Toomorrow,
I initially thought that it was a very cleverly rendered pastiche of late 1960s
pop music. The colours were spot on, the
costumes were groovy and the music very much of its time. Then I had a wait a second moment
because the girl singer in the clip looked remarkably like a young, pre-Grease
Olivia Netwon-John (or Neutron-Bomb as we would sometimes call
her). Sure enough, a little research
(OK, reading the video's information) told me that it was indeed a 21 year old ONJ, from a 1970
science-fiction musical (the first?). It was about a band kidnapped by aliens (a couple pictured below) to save
their species… with music.
If anything, that made me scratch my head even more, because being a bit of a science-fiction buff, I might not have been old enough to watch this movie on its first release, but I would almost certainly have caught it later on TV (and it looks harmless enough to be repeated ad infinitum as part of summertime scheduling) or on video release. That was, after all, how I had discovered a number of films, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Planet of the Apes and Barbarella – I could go on. There was a treasure trove of films from the late sixties for me to get my teenage paws on. But not Toomorrow. I had not even the vaguest recollection of this film – and I would almost certainly have given it a watch had I known of its existence, particularly because of Newton-John’s subsequent global stardom.
This is short but very sweet. A young mouse, out on an expedition, falls
down a well. Now, that might not end
well (ah!), but at the bottom, in despair, he meets a new friend who might be
the key to his survival. Yet, this
involves sacrifice. I won’t tell you
anymore because spoilers, but give it a watch, particularly if you are
feeling a little down in the dumps today. The screenshot above might give you a small clue, but I have no doubt that Bottom of the Well will cheer you up!
This animated short was the thesis film for two young
creatives at SVA (School of Visual Arts in New York). Xinyu Shen directed and produced, created the
story and worked on the animation and editing.
Meanwhile, Charlie Yuyung Luo was co-producer and contributed character modelling,
look development and the 2D cutscene animation.
Together they have created something very sweet – and very special. Have a watch below.
We're not a sports website, so we won't pretend to be
experts on Kevin Keegan's remarkable football career (although I really like him when I was a kid). Like millions of others,
though, we were saddened to hear of his passing. While he will forever be
remembered as one of England's greatest footballers and most charismatic
managers, there's another, rather unexpected chapter in his story that many
people may have forgotten - or perhaps never knew. In 1979, at the height of
his fame, Keegan ventured into the music charts with Head Over Heels in Love,
a surprisingly successful single that became a hit in several European
countries (Top Ten in Germany, where he was playting at the time) and remains a fascinating footnote in the career of a true sporting
icon.
The outpouring of tributes following Kevin Keegan's death
reflects not only his extraordinary football career but also the affection in
which he was held as a person. Just on this obscure YouTube video alone, fans are remembering him as "King Kev," a
footballing legend and a true gentleman whose influence stretched far beyond
the clubs he played for and managed. One supporter recalled following whichever
team Keegan played for as a child, while another said he was the reason they
became a Newcastle United fan in 1994. Others remembered his trademark curls,
describing him as their first crush, or simply mourned the loss of a hero who
inspired generations. Even listeners who first encountered him through his
recording with Smokie shared their sadness. The messages came from across
Europe, with one fan poignantly observing that "Germany mourns an
exceptional English player," underlining Keegan's enduring international
appeal.
As fans around the world remember Kevin Keegan the
footballer, it's worth also remembering Kevin Keegan the entertainer. Head
Over Heels in Love may never rival his achievements on the pitch, but it
remains a charming reminder of a time when one of football's brightest stars
wasn't afraid to try something completely different.
Last year we brought The People of 1925 figuratively back to life in an article that went beyond the politics of the day to focus on ordinary people leading everyday lives. It attracted a wider readership than we expected, so we've decided to follow it up with The People of 1926.
The research is taking a little longer than anticipated (just as it did last year), but look out for the article over the next few weeks. As before, we'll be exploring the faces, fashions, and fragments of ordinary lives from 1926, and, where possible, discovering what happened to those people afterwards.
I had an email from one of my former students, Will Ross, the other day. It was short and sweet (which was surprising considering the reams he used to write for classwork just, I suspect, to extend my marking misery). Regardless, he moved on to pastures (and professorial victims) new and I thought I’d seen the back of him. But oh no – he just had to share his latest video with me because “I remembered that Welsh people have a sense of humour too”. I should refer him to something widely but incorrectly attributed to Dylan Thomas: “The Welsh pray on their knees on Sunday, but prey on their neighbours for the rest of the week”. It’s a bad play on words, but if you enjoy that kind of thing, then watch Will’s video; it’s full of them…
We have former roving but sadly disgraced (don’t ask) reporter
Justin Time - who occasionally changes his name – reduced to producing his own
TV Chat Show at home. Never mind, he has
the coup of the century – any century - an interview with Adolf Hitler (who
just happened to be in the area promoting his new vegetarian cookbook and believes that Justin still works for the BBC). Justin doesn’t spare the sometime dictator –
he goes straight in for the kill with a series of questions that are a
combination of probing, persistent and provocative. No, sorry. They’re puerile,
preposterous and piss-taking – which is what makes them funny. I must admit I
missed a few of the punchlines the first watch, but Mr Time quickly beats the
boy from Branau into a corner where there is just one (not even a last) resort…
I think if Terry Jones had had access to video technology,
then this is exactly the kind of thing he would have been making in his Colwyn Bay
living room. It’s rough around the
edges, for sure, but it did what it set out to do – provoked laughter. Have a watch – and yes, of course I am
featuring this just in case Will is hailed as a comic genius in ten years. I will also be available for interview (for a small fee) where I can
expound on Will’s classroom antics, but could I have Louis Theroux rather than
Justin Time, please? He might let me off more lightly.
When the gods wish to punish us… and if you’re twins, then your run the risk of double trouble. This animated short from Rubika students tells the story of a pair of twins who are rescued by the gods and are gifted a place to live. Twin Island East for one, and Twin Island West for the other. The only problem is that the gods (twins themselves) ordain that everything must go two by two in a kind of cult of symmetry. That leads to a big problem when the queen of Twin Island West gives birth… and it isn’t twins!
To find out what happens, watch the video the below. This very professionally made animation is
the work of directors Manon Sailly, Charlotte Sarfati, Christine Jaudoin, Lara
Cochetel, Raphaël Huot, and Fanny Teisson with music and sound design by Valentin
Lafort. Voices are by Daphné Westelynck, Robert Bennett, and Eon Ballinger. There is a little twist in the tale, so watch to the very end!
We don’t usually feature fashion on Kuriositas, but when
this video of Robert Wun's FW26 (which stands for Fall/Winter 2026 in case you didn't already know) Haute Couture show, Childsplay, popped
up in my feed, I felt I had to share because these clothes are something else. The event took place on Wednesday, 8 July
2026, during Paris Haute Couture Week at the Dôme de Paris – and if your
reaction is like mine, it will be something along the lines of who the hell is
ever going to wear these?
I remember being schooled on haute couture by a friend. She told me that the question was almost an
irrelevance – that it wasn’t the point of the exercise. That, of course led to more questions from me…
The answer was (with a slight roll of the eyes, if I
remember correctly) that haute couture sits somewhere between fashion and art.
The runway pieces are not designed for everyday life; they are a showcase of
imagination, craftsmanship and what a designer can achieve when there are no
practical limits. Think of them less as clothes and more as wearable
sculptures. Well, that was me told – and so since then I have always looked at
these events less cynically.
Childsplay is a perfect example. Robert Wun takes the
memories and imagination of childhood – toys, fairy tales, balloons and
dressing up – and transforms them into astonishing works of couture. It is
playful, but underneath the fantasy is an incredible level of skill, with some
pieces taking hundreds of hours to create. I can't imagine the hours of work that went into my favorite from this show, the spacegirl outfit - you will know which one I mean when you see it!
So, who actually wears them? A very select group:
celebrities, performers, collectors and wealthy private clients. Wun’s clients
have included Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Cate Blanchett, Cardi B, Adele, Celine Dion,
Florence Pugh and Naomi Osaka, among others. Many of the looks they wear are
custom-made rather than identical to the runway versions. Robert Wun’s
creations have appeared on red carpets and major events, where the clothing
becomes part of the spectacle itself. For these buyers, a couture piece is not
simply an outfit; it is a one-of-a-kind work of art.
And perhaps that is why Childsplay is worth watching.
You may never own one of these creations, and you may never have an occasion to
wear one, but for a few minutes Robert Wun reminds us of something we often
lose as adults – the joy of imagination without limits.
Have you ever had a romantic moment interrupted? It can be
annoying – and it is certainly the case for the two lobsters in Tanked
an award winning animated short by Duncan Rudd.
Their tango in a tank is interrupted by the chef, who has a dinner order
to fulfil and a sadistic gleam in his eye.
Well, you know what karma is…
Tanked was something of a passion project for Rudd, who
fitted it in around family and work commitments over a period of nine
months. Although this animation is short
and sweet, the production values are very high – you feel that you know the lobsters
well from almost the outset – and the chef is a great villain. If you enjoy this, then perhaps try Paul Rudd’s
The Ballad of the Pale Blue Dot which we featured on Kuriositas
last year.
Take two banana tree trunks, lash them together, point them
downhill and jump on board. Get your
mates involved and turn it into a competition.
You might not associate Easter Island with extreme sports, but they have
been part of the island's culture for centuries (with the occasional hiatus). There is no doubt that the highlight of the
annual Tapati Rapa Nui Festival is the Haka Pei competition. Although the
festival also celebrates Rapa Nui culture through singing, swimming, cooking
demonstrations and countless other events, few can compete with the spectacle
of hurtling down the side of an extinct volcano wearing nothing more than a
loincloth and body paint. Image Credit
The origins of this sport trace back to an ancient Rapa Nui
rite of passage, where young people tested their courage by taking on the
daring haka pei descent. Completing the challenge proved they possessed the
bravery and resilience expected of adults, earning some the status of matato'a
- elite warriors. In this tradition, the haka pei marked the passage from
childhood into adulthood.
Another account tells a different story. Rather than a
coming-of-age ritual, the haka pei may have been a form of warrior training,
designed to instil fearlessness and prepare fighters for clashes between rival
clans on the island.
Does the exact origin of the sport matter? Not to the huge crowds gathered at the bottom
of the hill, waiting to see how each of the twenty or so competitors will fare. Who will travel the furthest? Or who will be
unfortunate and be flung off their fragile sled half-way down? The anticipation is huge, not least among the
competitors, and it is great to see how they congratulate each other so
enthusiastically when their mission is complete. The hill is covered in grass, but beneath
that thin layer lies volcanic tuff capable of breaking bones when riders crash.
And crashes do happen. As you might imagine, health-and-safety officials are
not among Haka Pei's biggest fans. However, it all seems the height of fun for
young men with more courage than common sense!
Flippancy aside, I can’t think of a better way to keep an ancient
culture alive. Watch the video below to enjoy haka pei in all its glory for yourself.
This video by Rational Animations begins with Babbage's Analytical Engine, which may leave you wondering why. Well, he did design history’s first programmable computer and even though it was back in the Victorian era, a video about AI must start somewhere. Of course, as the video is called Can AI Come Up With Original Ideas? we know that more is to come – and it gets to Aletheia and Google’s AlphaEvolve in due course.
Babbage’s design was never built, so the steampunk era remains
(more or less) a fantasy. His ideas were
expanded upon by Ada Lovelace, who took things to another level by wondering
whether machines – computers – could come up with their own ideas. Now, Ada
thought that they couldn’t (not Babbage’s at any rate). After all, artificial intelligence lacks
artifice, therefore intelligence (not to get too philosophical). Or does it?
Coming up to our own day and age, it is the lack of clarity
around what counts as a new idea that complicates things. As an English teacher, I will certainly go
with the fact that each and every story ever told usually revolves around (at
least) one of six basic plots So although something may seem fresh and original
- Harry Potter, for example, thirty years ago - it often succeeds
because it repackages something timeless for a new generation.
And so, it’s up to you to see what comes next by watching
the wonderfully told video below – and I have to say the animations are just
brilliant too. Do our machines simply
follow our instructions with a little randomness thrown in (aka genetic
algorithms) or is there more at play here, such as neural networks? Who can
say, but I certainly didn’t think I would be coming across stochastic parrots
today – or grokking for that matter (sounds a bit Carry On, if
you ask me). Watch the video and decide for yourself whether today's AI is
doing anything genuinely original. I
watched it twice – and I will admit, I did enjoy it the first time, but the
second time was to understand it. It doesn’t half pack a lot into 13 minutes.
Just before you watch the video, I asked Chat GPT what it thought of the video – in a nutshell. It said: “Watching it is a bit like following Alice down the rabbit hole, except the White Rabbit is Charles Babbage and the Cheshire Cat is a stochastic parrot.” Ah, the times in which we live.
I didn’t realise that Echo & the Bunnymen was still going as a band, but after hearing Brussels is Haunted, I am glad that it is. I remember Ian McCulloch leaving the band in the late 1980s and then there was a resurrection in the late 1990s with Evergreen, but after that I lost track. They are now apparently a two-piece, with original members Will Sergeant on lead guitar and programming and Ian McCulloch on vocals, rhythm guitar and keyboards. So, you can tell I’m not a diehard Bunnymen fan, but I think Brussels is Haunted is a great track. Plus there is a new album, Apples for Isaac coming out in September.
You can watch the video below, which is by Jef de Smet, and
an intriguing, animated piece that matches the mood and the lyrics perfectly. Even though I was a little disappointed that there
wasn’t a performance of the song as such, the video is a fantastic evocation
of Brussels as a place of ghosts, memories and faded glamour - a city where
history, art and personal stories seem to linger in every street and square.
Like the song itself, it feels both nostalgic and slightly unreal, capturing
that very Bunnymen combination of beauty, mystery and melancholy. Plus, any song that namechecks Plastic and Bert Bertrand
is going to get a listen or two from me…
Brussels Is Haunted feels like Echo & the
Bunnymen turning Brussels into a dreamscape where personal memories collide
with European history. The city is haunted not by ghosts alone, but by wars,
art, romance and lost moments - from World War I, Waterloo and World War II to
the imagined threat of World War III. In classic Bunnymen fashion, melancholy,
myth and destiny blur together: Brussels is haunted because we are.
As a quick aside, while I wrote this, I put Ocean Rain
on – because why not? I’ve already put a sell-by date on myself by saying I remember
the original split and so a little wander down memory lane wasn’t going to do
me any harm. I think almost anyone of my
generation will recognise the opening chords of Silver – the first track on the album and although I
believe that most people will say The Killing Moon is the standout track
on the album, for me it’s The Yo Yo Man.
It’s amazing to think how the Bunnymen pumped out four brilliant albums
over the first five years of the 1980s (and that we took it for granted!). I seem to remember McCulloch describing Ocean
Rain as the greatest album ever made – and he wasn’t that far wrong,
frankly.
The Borrower community is agog with excitement. At last, they have The Wee Tiny Art Gallery on London’s Princelet Street, near Brick Lane: a space where people of their diminutive stature can admire fine art at reasonable prices. Who am I trying to kid? They’re going to borrow it, of course. Even so, it saves them from scaling enormous walls just to inspect a painting, and its contents are perfectly sized to fit into any cosy little niche at home. As you can imagine, queues are already forming. Image Credit
Flippancy aside, you would probably walk straight past it - zooming out shows you just how tiny it is. Created through a collaboration between McKay Lenker Bayer of the Tiny Art
Show, illustrator Holly Welch, and small-spaces builder and artist John
Connors, this miniature masterpiece is both a gallery and a work of art.
Showcasing Holly Welch’s exquisitely detailed miniatures within a beautifully
crafted structure, it is almost certainly the smallest art gallery in London
and the UK - and quite possibly the smallest in the world. We would ask a Borrower, but not one seems currently available for comment...
The video below by Daft
Monkey goes into more detail about the Wee Tiny Art Gallery. Press play and it will go straight to the part about The Wee Tiny Gallery (about the five minute mark, although the rest of the video is very interesting too!).
