A “super-rare” puppet of Thunderbirds’ Lady Penelope comes up for auction at the end of the month, when it is expected to fetch around $16,000.
Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward was the posh London agent for International Rescue, who held her own with the Tracy boys and their selection of incredible vehicles in the Thunderbird series. Lady P was also, if the Guardian is to be believed:
...the subject of many a schoolboy crush in the late sixties and seventies.
Personally, I preferred Wilma from The Flintstones and Elizabeth Montgomery from Bewitched, but each to their own.
The puppet or marionette is 20 inches high with a head full of electronics, which made the mouth to move. Lady Penelope’s face was based on a model from a shampoo advert, and her voice was supplied by Sylvia Anderson, co-creator with Gerry Anderson of Thunderbirds.
As Stephanie Connell an auctioneer at Bonhams explained:
“This puppet came from the collection of Christine Glanville, who died in 1999.
“She was the puppet maker for the series and this is super-rare and important. It was an important piece of TV history and although it was first shown in 1965 it has been repeated ever since and all generations are aware of it.
“This is an original Lady Penelope and there can be few, if any, left. She is wearing a 60s-style A-line dress and a cardigan. She has pink lipstick on and blue eyes and her hair is in a bob style.
“There are lots of genuine Thunderbirds fans and there will be lots of people who would love to have her.”
Bonhams are also selling Lady Penelope’s miniature writing desk, chair and bookcase from the original set, which is reckoned to fetch around $8,000. The auction takes place on June 29 in London.
Here is “Parker - Well Done!” - a ‘Fab’ disc from 1965, which featured Lady Penelope (Sylvia Anderson), Parker (David Graham) and Jeff Tracy (Peter Dyneley).
Today in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was released, ushering in the age of ultra-violence in American cinema and to some extent the independent movie (Paramount were aghast at Psycho‘s script, so Hitchcock financed the film via his own Shamley Productions for $806,947.55)
Based on the novel of the same name by famed author Robert Bloch, Psycho was inspired by real-life murderer Ed Gein. It was filmed in black and white, not just to save money, but because Hitchcock knew that the shower scene would have just been too much in color. Principle filming took place on the set of Revue Studios, the same location where Hitchcock shot his television show. The Bates Motel set is still standing at the Universal Lot (see above).
Janet Leigh was apparently so upset after she saw the infamous shower scene (which had over 50 edits and used chocolate sauce for as the blood stand-in) that she tried to avoid them for the rest of her life. Leigh told documentary producers in 1997 that she would only shower if everything in the house was locked down first and she felt safe. She also always left the bathroom door open.
As, well, psychotic as Psycho is, it would take another twelve years before Hitchcock would film his sickest film of all, Frenzy. You wanna talk about a sick film? Frenzy makes Psycho seem tame by comparison. Today’s “torture porn” ain’t got nuthin’ on Hitch, baby!
“Is that lead in your zeppelin or are you just happy to see me?”
See the NSFW weiner after the jump…
Hmmmm… Look, I’m a (big) Yoko Ono fan, and she can do whatever she wants in terms of licensing her late husband’s name for product endorsements or whatever—I’m not asking her to solicit my approval beforehand or anything—but for god’s sake, the John Lennon line of glasses frames is simply LAME as fuck. Are we supposed to believe that these are the styles of designer eye-wear that the Beatle might have worn had his life not been so tragically cut short? Why yes, yes we are!
John Lennon glasses are licensed by the estate of John Lennon. John Lennon glasses use light and thin metal frame materials, just like John would have worn. Wear John Lennon glasses as a testiment to the great legacy of John Lennon.
Yeah, I will get right on that… Oh please, this is just… so pathetic. If they’d have stuck with just styles he actually DID wear (and not a bunch “like John would have worn”) this wouldn’t have been so cringe-worthy. Choose from the preppy “Sgt. Pepper” glasses, go for the “Walrus” look (I thought the Walrus was Paul???) or stick with the classic “Imagine inspired frames, there are so many to choose from. Yuck.
A REAL pair of the late Beatles’ glasses can be seen (and purchased, if you’ve got the loot) here.
Below, John and Yoko on The Dick Cavett Show on September 11, 1971:
Los Angeles-based designers Cast of Vices create whimsical pieces of jewelry based on “pop culture and our obsession with self-medication and addiction.” There’s also a pricey ($1,350) 14k Vicodin necklace you can view here.
More after the jump…
Artist Von Brandis’ rather unusual hobby is to take vintage 70s porn images and replace the naughty bits with white silhouettes. He has a whole Flickr set dedicated to the concept of “porn without porn” which you can view at Художник Von Brandis. His images remind me a lot of Diesel’s 2009 SFW XXX video campaign.
More after the jump…
Fantastic portrait of comics magus Alan Moore by Frank Quitely. If you click here, you can see a much larger version of the piece and you’ll notice that Quitely did a “Hirschfeld” and wove titles from Moore’s oeuvre into his beard.
Below, an amusing segment with Moore from Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle as they discuss the truth about Winston Churchill…
Greece is in economic meltdown, and the Greek government is on the brink of collapse after a series of pitched battles between police and demonstrators took place on the streets of Athens yesterday. The demonstrators were protesting against the government’s austerity measures, which were imposed to guarantee further bailout from the EU.
As a member of the Eurozone - that collection of countries who all share the euro currency - it is essential for zone’s success that the Greek government does not default on the repayment of its loans. However, one of causes to Greece’s near bankruptcy is its membership of the Eurozone. Without the euro, Greece was moderately successful. With the euro, it is bankrupt. The Eurozone is run for the benefit of its banks, not the people - as the citizens of Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain will tell you.
Membership of the Eurozone has very high fiscal standards - realistically you must be as successful a country as Germany to have any chance of maintaining a position with the Eurozone, which is unfeasible.
In an attempt to maintain some semblance of power, Greek Socialist Prime Minister, George Papandreou announced on national television yesterday, he would form a new government today, and ask for a vote of confidence, after negotiations to form a coalition with the Conservatives failed.
It was these events which saw world stocks tumble and EU leaders bicker over whether Greece should receive a further bailout. If the Greek banks implode, then this could “spread like contagion” bringing down major banks in Germany and France - an event which would be worse than the collapse of Lehman Brothers Bank in 2008.
The problem is Greece cannot afford to pay for any further bailouts, and the Greeks do not want it.
If Greece defaults on the loan (which it undoubtedly will), then this means that the banks who financed the bailout will be in serious shit.
And one of the big the knock-on effects if Greece falls is that America will have to foot the bill, as the U.S. is the major insurer of Greek loans.
More on Greece’s meltdown plus video, after the jump…
Limp Bizkit, for their upcoming album Gold Cobra. But to make things interesting for you, dear readers, guess which one of these three efforts it is?
You can leave your answers in the comments section.
Unique music video for “Prisontown” by a group with such a cool name, The Malefactors of Great Wealth.
The video uses seldom-seen archival footage from the infamous “Narcotic Farm” in Lexington, KY, a prison for drug addicts which once housed writer William S. Burroughs, musician Sonny Rollins, and actor Peter Lorre, among thousands of others. From the 1930s until 1975, if you were convicted of a drug-related crime, this was where they would send you. (As you might also suspect, human drug testing went on there and the CIA did clandestine research on LSD at the Narcotic Farm, too).
No surprise there were a lot of musicians about. Find out more about the Narcotic Farm here.
Thank you J.P. Olsen!
Redditor Harry20larry posted this insanely awesome handmade clock he built himself. Harry20larry says he got the idea “from a design blog I found on stumble upon, apart from they used only 4 clocks.” He also says he purchased the center piece at Contemporary Heaven.
(via reddit)
At least I think that’s what he’s trying to say?
Hesher preacher Damon Thompson really knows how to bring the Christian stupid doesn’t he?
And the way the audience just buys into his story as if it is in any way plausible, is… just… pitiful and depwessing. I can only imagine what people from outside the US think when they see shit like this! No wonder the rest of the world thinks we’re a nation of idiots… We are a nation of idiots.
Hey Damon, I’ve got a challenge for you, buddy: If this story is true—if you aren’t a liar, in other words—can you physically produce this lady with the born again Christian DNA?
If the Holy Spirit can perform such a miraculous feat, then why are you holding out on the proof that could potentially convert millions and millions of people to Christianity? Where is she, dude?
Or are you and the Holy Spirit trying to protect an admitted criminal?
WHAT is the moral of this story, preacher man?
Damon? Hello, Damon?
Via Cynical C
The Clone Factory in Japan can “clone” your likeness onto a doll, which brings a whole new meaning to playing with yourself.
Check the full story here.
A picture tale of doll cloning, after the jump…
With thanks to Steve Duffy
