Britain's secret Cold War underground city for sale

It covers 240 acres and has 60 miles of roads and its own railway station. It even includes a pub. But it is 120ft underground, and has a population of only 4 maintenance workers. And it's for sale.

Code-named Burlington - and classified top secret until its decommission last year - it was built in the 1950s (in a former mine near Corsham in Wiltshire, about eight miles from Bath) to house Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan’s cabinet, the royal family and 4,000 civil servants in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack. (A spur line was built inside a tunnel on the main London to Bristol railway as an escape route to the subterranean city.)

The only sentry is a garden gnome outside one of the entrances. Inside, it is like stepping back 50 years. Hundreds of swivel chairs delivered in 1959 are still unpacked. There are boxes of government-issue glass ashtrays, lavatory brushes and civil service tea sets. Pictures of the Queen, Princess Margaret and Grace Kelly are pinned to the walls.

“It was like a set from The Avengers,” said Nick McCamley, author of Secret Underground Cities, who lived locally and first discovered the existence of the site in the 1960s.

(Excerpted from yesterday's Sunday Times. )

Kubrick's lost prologue to 2001

In 1966, Stanley Kubrick filmed interviews with 21 of the world's premier scientific minds - including Isaac Asimov, Margaret Mead, Sir Bernard Lovell, and Freeman Dyson - and asked them about extraterrestrial life and the future of humanity. Their responses were to comprise the prologue to 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Kubrick ultimately discarded the idea due to the film's length. The interviews were never screened, and the footage has never been found. But recently, the transcripts were (by Kubrick's long-time assistant Tony Frewin), and will be published November 8 in the U.K. as Are We Alone? The Stanley Kubrick Extraterrestrial Intelligence Interviews. (No U.S. release date has been announced.)

This of course begs the question of what other treasures have yet to be discovered in the legendary Stanley Kubrick Archives, which were the subject of my favorite article from last year, my favorite book of this year (discussed in this fascinating interview with Christiane Kubrick), and the incredible touring Stanley Kubrick Exhibition (in Melbourne starting November 25; you can take a virtual tour online).

Three latest links I've sent Guillermo

Earlier this week, the good folks at DelToroFilms.com (my friend Guillermo's official fan site) shared the happy news that Pan's Labyrinth has wrapped its 15-week shoot.

In celebration, I thought I'd share the three most recent links I've e-mailed my favorite Mexican over the last month (all of which I think I found on Boing Boing, my favorite blog)...

The Haunted Mansion Secrets is a fantastic behind-the-scenes treasure trove, and a must-browse for fans of the legendary Disneyland attraction. Very cool.

Kader Attia's Flying Rats describes the artist's current installation at the Biennele de Lyon, which consists of 150 pigeons that feed on 45 edible (replica!) corpses of children on a playground. Very disturbing.

Europe Underground is a stunning online gallery of sewer photography. Very creepy. (Sadly it's currently offline due to bandwidth limits, but it should be back soon.)

Virtual bowling on your Treo

Love to bowl? Have a Treo? (Or any Palm OS 5 color device?) Well, then thank your lucky stars you're reading Robogeek right now. The latest PalmSource Newsletter arrived today, plugging several current software specials, but the one that caught my eye was Bowling Deluxe (on sale for $10 now through Monday). Basically, it's a virtual bowling game for your Palm, but it's pretty damn addictive, and takes up less than a megabyte of memory. There are three modes of play ("Stroke", "Simulator" and "Arcade"), three levels of difficulty, and you can adjust your foot position, throwing power, spin, angle of attack, and the weight of the ball. At first glance I gotta admit it looked kinda stupid, but it's actually quite satisfying and rather well designed. (You can download a free ten-day trial version if you want to try it out.)

But if that's not quite hard-core enough for you, behold Ultimate Bowling Fighter, which got a rave review over at Treonauts.com today. It's twice the price and hogs several megs of memory, but is considerably more tricked out in terms of letting you choose from multiple characters, bowling lanes, etc., and generally offers more elaborate design and (comedic) animation. Unfortunately, it's only compatible with hi-res Palm devices, so it won't play on my Treo 600 (but will on the 650). Sure looks cool, though.

Cell Phone Booths & Sonic Grenades

So if (hypothetically speaking) I were, say... starting a bar, or a bistro (or a bar and bistro), I would be very tempted to include a Cell Phone Booth, which is basically a phone booth without the phone. Or, I suppose, just a booth. Well, a B.Y.O.P. (bring your own phone) booth. Anyway, the idea is to provide a private space for people to have a phone conversation, while sparing everyone else from having to listen to it. (It'll also be a much-appreciated convenience for Clark.) A company in Fort Wayne, Indiana, called C.P. Booth had the idea, and is making and selling them in red melamine ($2,650) and solid oak ($3,395), but with an unfortunately tacky font up top and a fairly drab design. Wired did a story on this/them last month (did you know there are 196 million cell phone users in the U.S.?), and I just, um, happened to be reminded of it. (No reason. Move along...)

Meanwhile, some diabolical bastard has created the Sonic Grenade, a brain-piercing alarm that's activated ten seconds after you pull the pin - and can only be deactivated by putting the pin back in. It's advertised (and sold) by Paladone as "the most annoying device ever" featuring "three pitches of skull-shattering sound", perfect for waking unsuspected people out of bed. (And making them hate you for an unspecified length of time.) But even more insidious is the Mind Molester from ThinkGeek, a tiny little device which, once hidden, emits an electronic chirp every three minutes designed solely to drive people insane.

Original Kong reanimated

In case you've been living offline (and missed Wired's excellent October cover story), the fine folks at KongIsKing.net have been posting remarkable behind-the-scenes video Production Diaries chronicling Peter Jackson's forthcoming remake of his favorite film, King Kong. Anyway, over the weekend they released the latest installment, wherein legendary uber-geek Bob Burns arrives in New Zealand to shoot a cameo, and brings the original King Kong armature... which is brought to life one more time.

Behold.

P.S.: A fantastic Collector's Edition DVD of the original King Kong will finally be released on November 22, while a 2-disc set of Peter Jackson's King Kong Production Diaries comes out December 13.

Return to Slumberland with Little Nemo

Winsor McCay published his first Little Nemo cartoon a century ago, on Oct. 15, 1905, in The New York Herald. The first panel shows a little boy in a nightshirt sitting up in bed staring at a clownish figure before him. The narration says: "Little Nemo had just fallen asleep when an Oomp appeared, who said, 'You are requested to appear before his majesty, Morpheus of Slumberland.' " The Oomp then presents Nemo with Somnus, a gentle horse to ride into Slumberland. And thus, a masterpiece was born.

Now, at long last, it has been reborn. Peter Maresca has restored and collected the very best of the classic Little Nemo in Slumberland Sunday comic strips from 1905-1910 in a magnificent 120-page limited edition hardcover subtitled So Many Splendid Sundays - which reproduces McCay's timeless tales at full size (16"x21").

It's been a rather extraordinary year for extraordinary books, but this easily ranks among my Top Three of the year (alongside The Stanley Kubrick Archives and The Complete Calvin and Hobbes).

The Colbert Report = Genius

Last night, Comedy Central premiered The Colbert Report (both t's are silent; heh), the much-anticipated spin-off of The Daily Show. It's a gleefully unhinged work of satirical genius, and a perfect showcase for the relentlessly and diabolically funny Stephen Colbert. (Basically, as their website states, "what The Daily Show is to evening news, The Colbert Report is to personality-driven pundit shows.")

If you missed (or neglected to TiVo) last night's tour-de-force premiere with guest Stone Phillips, it repeats tonight in primetime at 8:30 (7:30 CST), and you can also view promo clips online. Plus, while the show premieres new episodes every weeknight at 11:30pm (10:30pm CST), it repeats four times a day for your convenience (1:30/12:30am CST; 10:30/9:30am CST; 2:30/1:30pm CST; 8:30/7:30pm). FYI, tonight's guest is Lesley Stahl, followed by Fareed Zakaria (Wed.) and Jim Cramer (Thu.).

Yamaha Gen-Ryu hybrid prototype

Starting this Saturday at the 39th Tokyo Motor Show, Yamaha Motor will premiere nine new prototypes, including the Gen-Ryu hybrid motorcycle, which combines their 600cc YZF-R6 engine with a "high output, high efficiency" electric motor in a lightweight aluminum body with several high-tech safety features. (For more details, and a peek at all 21 models Yamaha that'll be on display, click here.)

Where I wish I was right now.

The French Crepe Company, at the Farmers Market on Third & Fairfax in L.A, or Le Casse-Crêpe Breton on Rue St. Jean in Quebec City. (Damn, I'm gonna be craving crepes all day now...)

Fantastic Fest Awards

The inaugural Fantastic Fest was a wonderful success, and is now a mere memory (though we're already had our first meeting to start planning next year's bigger and better event). I forced myself to take a break from the other two dozen things on my plate and saw 15 features, and wish I could've seen more. It was a real treat, and everything was well worth seeing. (I'm particularly proud of the shorts I programmed, including Domoi, Herman the Legal Labrador, The Fuccon Family, and Sredni Vashtar, which were all brilliant.)

Anyway, our awards were unveiled last week (the full list can be found here), and included Jury Awards for The Dark Hours (Best Film and Best Actress, Kate Greenhouse), Feast (Best Director, John Gulager), Hostel (Best Screenplay, Eli Roth), and Wolf Creek (Best Actor, John Jarratt). Audience Awards went to Hostel (Best Film and Best Director, Eli Roth), The Dark Hours (Best Screenplay and Best Actress, Kate Greenhouse), and Wolf Creek (Best Actor, John Jarratt).

Q&A with the Dude

The Associated Press has a great Q&A with The Dude himself, Jeff Dowd, who reveals he's writing an autobiography called "The Dude Abides". Great stuff. Also...

AP: Do you indeed have a rug that really ties the room together?
Dowd: Absolutely.

P.S.: Remember, The Big Lebowski Achiever's Edition DVD comes out Tuesday. (Buy it now!)

Chronicle's "Best of Austin" List

The Austin Chronicle has unveiled their 2005 Best of Austin list, which is available for your perusal here, and cheerily catalogs lots of reasons to love our fair city.

Hollywood Set Slang & Hierarchical Temporal Memory

Two very interesting, very different articles I came across today that have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but are both worth reading...

Bob Thomas pens an amusing feature for the Associated Press about the history and evolution of Hollywood set slang, which is the subject of Dave Knox's recent book Strike the Baby and Kill the Blonde (a title I quite love).

Meanwhile, Technology Review interviews Palm founder and CTO (and amateur neuroscientist and author of On Intelligence) Jeff Hawkins about his intruiging new theory of the mammalian neocortex, which he dubs "Hierarchical Temporal Memory".

Lost Beethoven manuscript found

Three months ago, an 80-page manuscript of Beethoven's 1826 work-in-progress Gross Fuge in B flat major for piano duet was found in a Philadelphia seminary after being lost for more than a century. It will be auctioned by Sotheby's this December in London, and is estimated to fetch up to $2.6 million. (A photo essay can be found here, and additional reporting on the manuscript's discovery here [AP] and here [AFP].)

New iPods add video for free.

A mere five weeks after introducing the iPod nano, Steve Jobs has done it again by unveiling the new iPod. At the same price points of the old iPods ($299 and $399), the new models (30GB and 60GB, in either white or black) are thinner, lighter, have more storage capacity, and bigger screens. Oh, and they now play video, either on the built-in 2.5" 320x240 color TFT screen - or on your TV via a video-out cable.

Of course, the videos themselves aren't free (they sell for $1.99 each via the newly upgraded iTunes Music Store), and they're fairly low-res, but it's still a pretty bold step forward. Just for starters, there are 2,000 music videos available, six Pixar short films, and - via a groundbreaking strategic alliance with Disney - every episode of Lost, Desperate Housewives, and three other TV series. (Expect more soon.)

THR interviews Jeff Robinov, illuminates previz

In today's Hollywood Reporter there's a fascinating interview with Jeff Robinov, president of production for Warner Bros. Pictures. Under his watch, the WB shield that had been tarnished with such crap as Catwoman and Scooby Doo has regained much of its luster with such projects as Batman Begins and North Country. (Currently, Robinov is shepherding such projects as Superman Returns, Wonder Woman, and a Batman sequel.)

Meanwhile, there's also an intersting article on previsualization, and its increasing importance in the production process for studio films - which has sprouted an entire cottage industry in Hollywood.

Sarah Polley recalls Baron Munchausen

When she was just eight years old, Sarah Polley starred in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (a film I thoroughly adore).

In a fascinating and poignant article for the Toronto Star, the now 26-year-old relates how traumatic her experience on that production actually was, sharing her recent correspondence with Gilliam wherein she finally confronts him about it, seventeen years later - prompted by the news that Gilliam's new film, Tideland, is to star a 10-year-old girl.

The resulting exchange is not at all what you might expect.

Fantastic Fest: Day One

Fantastic Fest is here! Read all about it in today's Austin American-Statesman and Austin Chronicle. And check out all the films here, and the complete schedule here. (You can buy badges and tickets here.) Hope to see you there!