Links

Many websites and blogs have lists of links somewhere, but I haven’t got one in the menu bar here, because I think they’re often not much use if there’s no context. So I’ll take this opportunity to gives ‘props’ or ‘shout-outs’, or whatever the kids say these days, to some of my favourite sites.

Firstly I should say hello to friends from the real world, Jane and Holly, both of whom are mummy bloggers. Both very good, of course, although Jane’s scatalogical anecdotes are probably more amusing for the non-parent.

I don’t read many blogs consistently, but I like The Incredible Suit‘s take on movies; he writes with wry humour, has never yet steered me wrong with his recommendations, and owns a rather handsome cat called Oscar. Eliza Skinner usually raises a chuckle – she hasn’t blogged much lately (other than Twittering, which doesn’t count), but she’s just had a site re-design, so hopefully that augurs more frequent content. David Thorne’s site, 27b/6, isn’t really a blog, I suppose; he largely posts email conversations with unwitting correspondents which take sudden surreal and brutal turns, and which often reduce me to tears, even upon re-reading.

My favourite blog hasn’t had a significant update since 2005, but, thankfully, Mister Pants‘ archive is still available and well worth dipping into, despite the occasional broken links. Currently, the crazy things his children say provide the only worthwhile Twitter feeds that I’ve come across: boy child, girl child. Mister Pants pointed me in the direction of The Langley Schools Music Project, an album of pop songs recorded by Canadian schoolchildren, in their gym hall, in the mid-70s – it’s a wonderful, sometimes crazy, sometimes haunting, collection that I have returned to again and again over the last nine years.

For funnies, I like all of the geek favourites: xkcd has cartoons that are both clever and amusing; the b3ta newsletter provides a consistently mirthful and interesting weekly round-up of fun (NSFW) interweb stuff; and there are satirical current affairs LOLs aplenty at The Daily Mash, NewsBiscuit, and The Onion. The Mediawatch review of the day’s footballing news is reliably funny and scathing, too.