Asrafel is not a Dork - He's a level 47 Paladin

No, I haven't got a clue what he's on about either, but this was his entry on MySpace. I remember Paladins from Dungeons and Dragons many years ago so maybe that's what he's on about.

Asrafel is also, apparently, a place in Morocco, Longitude: 3° 57' 36" WestLatitude: 34° 51' 0" North. It doesn't seem to have any claims to fame. The font itself is described as "a strong, stylish titling font based on hand lettering influenced by Celtic uncial styles and Art Nouveau titling fonts"

Morocco itself is in the news about the McCann (Maddy) story. This time the McCanns are sending private investigators to Morocco following various sightings. Apparently Lord Lucan and Elvis have been seen with a small English girl. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2558233.ece

Catalogue Shopping - Argos anyone?

Such a prosaic shop for such a lovely place. The typeface itself is also quite attractive, with its little swirls and such, which I'm sure have proper typefacey sort-of names. Swirly-serif or something.

So what is there that's vaguely recent that has anything to do with this font? I don't know. I was hoping that Argos would have done something embarrassing that I could have talked about, but they haven't. Apparently it's been a shit year for DIY retailers, due to the crap weather (no surprises there, then) but Argos has bucked the trend, even though they own - or are part of - Homebase. According to the FT, they're doing rather well given their recent financial reports. I could tell you more but then I'd have to pay. Sod that. I'm sure it's not that interesting. Oh, alright, the Telegraph reports the same story but doesn't charge: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/09/12/bcnhome112.xml

It's probably because they don't hire proofreaders and don't spot things like "popylar" in their text. It's an ill wind, though, isn't it? Picnic stuff doesn't sell but XBox sales go sky-high!

I've also just noticed that the Argos typeface and the Telegraph one have a lot in common. Okay, the Telegraph one is somewhat more Teutonic, but the general swirls and such like are similar. It's like the parent font had two children, one gay and one Nazi...

In my sad attempt to find any links that might be considered relevant, or appropriate, I found out that Argos was Oddyseus's favourite dog who waited for his master's return for over 20 years... Awww. Strangely enough, in an old Argos catalogue, there's a photo of how the dog might have looked when his owner returned:

It takes a few seconds before you spot where the photo editor should perhaps have been a little more - ahem - judicious in his use of the photo-editing tools. Or maybe he was well aware of what he was doing. After all, the object in question has been masked beautifully...

Handy Andy

Well, it's actually called "Andy Hand" which sounds even more dodgy. Both sound like some contrived name in a 70's porno film. I don't really want to know what his/her other hand was doing when he/she wrote this. I think it's the old "please excuse the shaky handwriting" syndrome.

So, what "Handy Andies" have we had? Well, I guess this Andy probably used quite a few Handie Andies, judging by this story: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412746-details/Married+teacher+%27enjoyed+sex+act+with+schoolgirl+as+he+drove+school+minibus%27/article.do. One wonders how he managed to drive at the same time.

On another blog I found out that the Americans think that we Brits refer to our mobile phones as Handies. Where did that come from? I've never heard of that in my life!

And in a nice segue which involves the US and Andy, here's one Andy who, I'm sure, really regrets taking advantage of the freedom of speech granted to him: http://www.ifilm.com/video/2895889/subchannel/viralvideo. It's nice to know that the States have everything under control, as can be seen from this image: http://www.private-eye.co.uk/covers.php?showme=1193&

Just don't mention Vietnam...

American Typo - Psycho - Whatever

This is actually one of my favourite fonts, even if it is a little bit of a cliche these days. Whether it's Philip Marlowe or Jack Bauer, this font turns up all over the place... It is a font which takes one back to earlier times. I'm just glad I don't have to cover a runic font... This version of the typeface doesn't have the ragged ink-ribbon look that makes something more interesting but then I can't have everything.

Before I go into topical stuff, something that has been in my mind for so long is - how disfigured does a typeface have to be before it is unrecognisable? There are thousands of typefaces and all represent our standard a-z (I'm ignoring non-Roman fonts here, but I'm sure it's applicable there too) and yet most of them can be read. Even the ones that are deliberately obfuscated on some web sites to ensure that webbots can't generate lots of postings on one site. How do we do it? How can our brain be so clever. And I'm sure even Bush can read most of these fonts.

I was going to get into a rant about Bush's stupidisms but that's hardly topical. Well, not today, anyway. But seeing as the font is called American... I still think it should be about the US. Sort-of. Alan Greenspan - a bit of a Mr Big in the finance market in the states had this to say about the state of US finances a little while ago: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aYaUhNuevkSU&refer= and now he's telling us that we're more likely to suffer than the US market because of the way our mortgages are structured: http://infowars.net/articles/september2007/170907Greenspan.htm. How much money do you want to bet that he's not lost out on any of this - even if he wasn't paid for the interviews (which I would guess is unlikely). But let's not be bitter - especially if you've just managed to get one of the latest Woolwich Building Society 10yr fixed rate mortgages at 5.59% (http://www.personal.barclays.co.uk/BRC1/jsp/brccontrol?site=pfs&task=articleFWwealth&value=9631&target=_self) What do they know that we don't?

Then we have Al Gore - The guy who almost... well, who failed, really, didn't he? Just because he didn't know how to hack all those automated polling booths. But, bless him, he sort-of got an Oscar and now he's got an Emmy for child-oriented TV. I'm sure Bush, Bush Snr and Reagan were major voters: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TN_TV_EMMYS_GORE_TNOL-?SITE=TNJAC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT.

Oh I could go on and on about the US, generally not in a positive way, so it's probably better that I shut up now...

Amerigo - Is he responsible for the US?

This is one of those difficult questions: Who found America? And what was it doing hiding in the first place? I read today that before the Spanish 'found' America, the US had no horses or cattle. It was in a book so it must be true. But can that really be true? What the fuck was wondering around the huge states of the US up until then? Maybe the book was just being nit-picking and chose to ignore animals like buffalo, I don't know.

But, of course, Amerigo was Italian. So how come the Spanish got there first but failed to be recognised as the original discoverers? My theory involves bribes, something the Italians are famed for. Alledgedly...

What makes it "Alternate"?

And why is it the second version?
Anyway, I can't think of anything to say about the font except that... well, no, I can't think of anything to say about it.

So - what's been happening in the wonderful world that is gothic? Or, more importantly, Goth. Well, if you're going to be around Whitby next month then you must be sure to book tickets for the Whitby Gothic Weekend (http://wgw.topmum.co.uk/about/history/). I find it strangely disturbing that the site's URL is "topmum"... Maybe Goths do make the best mums...

And, of course, if you're into goth, things like dead people and vampires are the bag you're into, so to speak, and Whitby, once again, does well on that score, seeing as it's where the man himself washes up. Whitby recognises this and you can, if you decide to visit the town, be shown around all the imaginary places that Dracula never visited: http://www.whitby-uk.com/cgi-bin/site.nav/whitby.pl?page=dracula

While Googling about goths, and trying to find something with the "Alternative" angle, I found this site: http://www.thegothicalternative.com/. It promises so much and yet... There's fuck all there. Perhaps it's one of those sites that was never meant to be...

The other thing I can never decide is whether I'm Goth or punk or whatever. Actually, no, that's utter bullshit. I'm way too old to have angst like that and to be quite honest, I really can't be arsed with labels. But - if you really want to know what your leanings are, try here: http://www.verbalchilli.com/features/gtatest.asp

As always, I can't guarantee that the sites I point to don't have nasty little spybots or whatever...

A safe lower-middle class car...

Can I find anything topical to mention that is to do with the font Allegro? I'm not sure what to make of the typeface itself; it seems to be neither one thing nor other. And what is the BT bit about? I'm sure there's a reason for it; a number of fonts have BT after them. [Edit]I've just found out that the BT stands for Bit Stream (so why isn't it BS? - Oh, I have a vague idea why not)

But - To Allegro. A car that has, in the past, been recognised as a symbol of a political stereotype or something. Like As, Bs, C1s C2s Ds and Es. Demographics are wonderful, aren't they? Like this story: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23411981-details/Forget+social+standing%2C+it%27s+postcodes+that+tell+big+business+who+we+are/article.do. I'm not convinced, but isn't it another wonderful example of PR pretending to be a news story? However, these stereotypes do get absorbed into everyday life. So, in the same way as we had "Loadsamoney!!!" in the 80s, White Van Man has taken up the mantle now. So much so that real studies have taken place: http://www.sirc.org/publik/white_van_man.html. I wonder who sponsored that research?