Words About Things

Some of the best movies of all time (and some not-so-good ones) have featured road trips: Easy Rider, À Bout De Souffle, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and of course SpongeBob SquarePants The Movie. The possibilities of the open road mean that anything can happen, the constant travel propels the story forwards and the characters always arrive home a different person.

“We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one noble function of the time, move.”

Jack Kerouac – On The Road

That might be slightly more than most of us want from a holiday but you get the idea: take to the open road and see what happens. You can’t do this in a Mondeo though, you need a Cadillac or something similarly retro. At the very least car hire is necessary so that you can get something big enough to pick up hitchhikers or sleep in the back if you can’t find anywhere to stay. You also need a video camera to record your adventure, a budget one such as a Flip will do and leaves more money free for car rental. Good Luck!

I came across a strange video earlier, made all the more interesting by the back story linked to it. Picture the scene: a couple called Thierry and Sophie were walking by Boulogne Harbour admiring the view and filming boats coming in and out of the harbour. As Thierry was panning across the bay he spotted a strange dark shape moving through the water. Assuming it was a whale Thierry zoomed in to get a better view. He was amazed at what he saw.

Once the shape had disappeared Thierry showed Sophie the footage and they both agreed that what ever they had seen was not just a whale but something more difficult to explain.

The couple contacted the AMR (Association of Marine Research) in order to discuss what they had witnessed. The AMR have been studying marine life since 1901 and are known for investigating the curious and unknown phenomena that occur in the depth of the oceans and on the seabed. Over the next few weeks they received a substantial number of testimonials from different areas along the coast (including Dover) from others who had seen the strange creature. The reports often referred to the creature as ‘gigantic’ and ‘fast-moving’.

The AMR has now set up a site calling for witnesses to come forward. Have you seen anything unexplainable in the channel? A reward is being offered for anyone who can provide evidence leading directly to proof of the creature’s existence. For more information and to see the video visit www.thechannelcreature.com.

I’ve decided to start doing a weekly links post to feature interesting stuff from around the world that doesn’t warrant a full post. Hope you enjoy the links and if you have any suggestions on what should be featured just drop me a line via the About page.

1. Why are second born children more rebellious?

2. Funny mobile broadband advert featuring a couple stuff in a traffic jam in different buses [video].

3. Police in Denmark hug bicyclists without helmets, then give them helmets [video].

4. Fed up with Tinyurl making all your urls too short (me neither) try Gianturl!

5. Esquire shoot the first ever video magazine cover, featuring Megan Fox .

It used to be that all you could buy from a vending machine was drinks and snacks and even then there was always a chance that you would get nothing at all when things went wrong. Now you can get a freshly printed book in around 5 minutes using The Espresso Book Machine.

The machine is able to print 400,000 titles which are glued and bound while you wait. An airport seems like the ideal place for a book vending machine although the Espresso Machine is currently in the Blackwell bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London. The machine is worth £68,000 and charges £10 per book plus 2p per page.