Another good one, with plenty of twists and turns. Found the normally cynical Rebus a bit too bleeding-heart though.

Museums
Saw the Francis Bacon exhibition at Tate Britain. Pretty good: large exhibition, has a lot of stuff that I hadn't already seen. Might seem a bit of a swiz that they've moved the screaming pope and figures for the base of a crucifixion to a paid exhibition though. Found some of the sketches and references interesting: he has lots of studies of figures, and repeated images of a dog running; he obviously put a lot of work into getting those tortured postures right.

Fairly crowded, though you could still get good sightlines on things. Fairly high child count too. I really don't get why parents want to bring very small children to these things. How does it go? "Hey kids, how would you like to see screams of existential despair, obscenely contorted body parts, and anguished figures expressing the idea that life is just a brute animal struggle against inevitable death?" "Yay, daddy, yes please!"

Also saw the Martin Creed Work No. 850, where people sprint through the gallery every thirty seconds. Was fully prepared to hate it as just another knock-off of R. Mutt's great stunt. Fine in its day, but after 91 years of increasingly derivative artists going "hey, bet you didn't expect to see this in an art gallery", we pretty much do.

However it is fun to watch. The runners seem slightly embarrassed but intently serious. But most of the tourists are entirely oblivious as the runners dodge around them. One family spent about ten minutes painstakingly swapping cameras to get pictures of each other across the main gallery; seemingly paying no attention at all to the Art repeatedly panting its way between them.

Cameraphone wasn't really up to the job though. Switched off the flash as I thought it'd be annoying for them. Still, let's hear it for the Vague Blur:

Web
XKCD logarithmic height graph.

If conservatives are cowards, are liberals psychopaths?

10 things never seen in a webcam dance video (NSFW!)

Bailout: Draft. Analysis. Naked Capitalism on conference call

Waiting a couple of weeks because no one has any idea when or where the next bomb will blow up. In other words, all their doomsday scenarios about Black Monday were B.S. They screamed the check had to be written by Monday, but now they're saying they actually have a few weeks before they need to cash it.

Supplementary madness. Publisher firebombed. Casio F-91W watch is evidence of terrorism (MeFi).