Cartoons so scary they used to make us cry
Some childhood cartoons linger in the memory with a warm fuzzy glow. Not these. These are five of the most stomach turningly terrifying moments in cartoon history. Whatever you do, don’t watch them. Unless you’re absolutely sure you can handle it…
Tom knocks on heaven’s door. Denied
There’s a sequence from about 2.30 which engendered in my six-year-old self such a fear of missing out on heaven that for a few weeks I begged to go to Sunday school. The message is: sinners get punished, and it makes the Book of Revelations look like a picnic on the beach.
Horrific Heffalumps and wicked Woozles
This is just plain terrifying. There’s not more to say than that really. How anyone ever thought this could be shown to children without causing lifelong psychological scarring and a pathological phobia of honey (or “hunny”) is beyond me.
Mad Madam Mimm being maleficently mad
An underrated Disney (click here for Archimedes the owl’s finest hour, you won’t regret it), with a villainous witch who manages to be hilarious and terrifying in equal measure. Particular kudos to the animators for making a cartoon hen seem scary.
A squirrel dies in Moominland
Yeah yeah not a cartoon blah blah blah. The point is a squirrel (a cute little squirrel, a red one), freezes to death. My god. I’ll let one commenter on the YouTube video explain further. “I always cried when I read about the poor silly squirrel’s death as a child. The ice lady bent down and “scratched him behind an ear, smiling absent-mindedly”, and he looked at her beauty and froze to death.” Good grief.
Krang, the brain on a footstool
I can’t embed this because of intellectual property laws. But click through if you want to see a pink, mucus moulting brain slithering around on a little stool, and at 0.52s rubbing its flaps of excess brain together like hands. Just gross.
10 Feb 2011
London agenda for Thursday 10 February
1. Get completely weirded out with Catfish/Capturing the Friedmans [Le Cool]
2. Get some dragster groove at Fuckshovel [Run Riot]
3. Wander on Hackney Marshes [Tired of London]
4. Hear Actress at CAMP [John Rogers]
10 Feb 2011
New venue alert: The Victory, brought to you by the people who brought you the Stag's Head
Five months after the closure of Hoxton’s Stag’s Head, the crew have come back with The Victory, previously known as the Russian Bar.
Here is their press release:
Yes indeed the late great Stags Head has opened up a new place, just down the road.The place is called The Victory, it is open all week from midday till midnight and on Friday and Saturdays it is open till 3am. With a live venue downstairs and some great nights happening, whilst the upstairs is everything the Stags Head was and more!
Come and give us a visit soon. 281 Kingsland Road.
For up to date information please join the Facebook page
09 Feb 2011
You gotta lose by Obits
Forget the new Strokes single for a moment and succumb to a dose of proper rock n’ roll, courtesy of Obits. Featuring members of defunct US hardcore bands Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes and Pitchfork, as well as Edsel, this is simple, biting guitar music in the vain of The Stooges or The Walkmen. They release second album, ‘Moody, Standard and Poor’, via Sub Pop on March 29th. The ‘(arguably) greatest independent label in the whole wide world’ has also made today’s MPFree, ‘You gotta lose’, available as a free download – in exchange for an e-mail address.
09 Feb 2011
London agenda for Wednesday 9 February
1. Hear the Theatre of Innovation shed light on how hacker culture is changing the way we deal with information at the Book Club [Le Cool]
2. Be inspired by Britain’s most renowned suicide spot, Beachy Head [Run Riot]
3. Drink at the Kenton Arms [Tired of London]
4. Inhabit the ‘Zone of Alienation’ of Chernobyl [Flavorpill]
5. If you can overlook the title ‘Next Big Thing’, see Wolf Gang, R O M A N C E, and Luna Bella at Borderline [London Gigs]
6. Listen to all-around-good-chap Blake Morrison at Apple & Snakes [Jon Davis]
09 Feb 2011
Forget the boroughs. It's time we gave their powers to the Mayor
Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster are the latest London councils to share some of their services to save money.
We’ve already seen other boroughs do this and no doubt we’ll see many more in the future.
Now obviously it’s not the promised new era of localism but it is a sensible reaction to the largest local government cuts in a generation.
However I do wonder whether we’re not all missing the obvious solution here.
Because surely the biggest savings could be made by sharing those services right across London?
I mean why do we need 32 different waste collection and recycling schemes, education authorities, health and social care departments in a city that has a directly elected Mayor?
As it is Londoners already use many services across borough boundaries, be it schools, leisure services or hospitals. Their need doesn’t stop at the border so why should the service?
Now I’m not saying everything should be delivered London-wide, and merging services overnight would incur some extra short-term costs.
But in the long-term I believe that most services could be delivered more efficiently, directly and I believe with greater accountability at a London-wide level.
Of course these extra powers would need to be accompanied with greater democratic oversight, but more power would in itself force greater scrutiny on the work of the Mayor.
Because as it is the Mayor of London is a king without a sword. He has the title but few actual powers.
And for all the talk of boosting his role, the most he’s likely to get in the coming years is a bit more control over grass-cutting and dog turds.
So let’s stop messing around with ragtag coalitions of ideologically aligned councils and come up with a real solution for London government.
We have a Mayoralty with a large mandate and profile but few powers, and 32 councils with smaller mandates, lower profiles, but far more powers.
Isn’t it time we rebalanced that equation?
09 Feb 2011
London's underground entrepreneur strikes again
Ajit Chambers is a familiar figure on London’s political scene. He is a neatly dressed businessman who attends any public event at which there is the possibility Boris Johnson will attend and receive questions from the audience.
At some point in proceedings, Chambers will pounce. His question is always about his ambitious scheme to resurrect some of London’s abandoned tube stations as living museums, nightclubs, storage spaces and event spaces, a plan he first hatched two years ago as the Old London Underground Company.
This afternoon, the story surfaced in the Evening Standard just a couple of years after I first wrote about it in Time Out. Every time it emerges, there is a great flurry of public interest; people love this stuff.
Hardcore City Hall watchers on the other hand, are – to put it mildly – a little sceptical about Chambers’s scheme, not to mention downright irritated by his repeat appearances at public events. They wonder whether it is possible to turn an old tube station into a nightclub, or whether TfL will ever give it the go-ahead. They question the engineering requirements, the political capital that would need be expanded and the economic reality of making the whole thing happen in these austere times (the Old London Underground Company has yet to file any accounts at Companies House).
However, according to the Standard, Chambers is meeting TfL later this month. If you are planning to attend Boris Johnson’s next public meeting, it’s a safe bet you can prepare to say hello to an old friend. Chambers isn’t going to disappear into a hole in the ground quite yet, that’s for certain.
08 Feb 2011
Exhibition Guide: 07 - 13 February
Sky Clouds with Water
401 Contemporary, 13 Mason’s Yard, St. James’s, Piccadilly Circus, SW1Y 6BU
Her first debut solo show, Bianca Brunner’s latest exhibition at 401 Contemporary focuses on the potential to explore, distort and manipulate photographic images. Playing with elegant compositions, the images on display are carefully constructed environments the blur the boundaries between tangible truth and abstract visuals. Until March 5.
Rodchenko and His Circle
Art Sensus, 7 Howick Place, Victoria, SW1P 1BB
One of the most renowned Constructivist artists, Alexander Rodchenko’s latest exhibition includes a collection of unseen photographs from the Russian born artist and his contemporaries. Until March19.
Capelgywn
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, Aldgate East, E1 7QX
Working with watercolour, drawings, installation, sculpture and film, Welsh artist Bethan Huws plays with space, subtly altering the audiences’ experience of each exhibition arena. With her own cultural identity at the heart of her poetic work, Huws infuses this show and the small focal sailing boat with her own memories. Until March 18
The Witching Hour: Darkness and the Architectural Uncanny
PM Gallery & House, Walpole Park, Mattock Lane, Ealing Broadway, W5 5EQ
Drawing inspiration from a wide range of architectural forms, the artwork in this exhibition features looming, haunting cemeteries, dark underground tunnels, run-down housing estates and deserted buildings. Artists showing their work include the renowned Idris Khan, Richard Billingham and emerging talent in the likes of David Rowan, Sally Payen and Chris Keenan. Until March 12
08 Feb 2011
The Fighter <insert cliched positive boxing term here>
As unimaginative and uninvolving as it is, The Fighter still manages to (insert boxing pun) throw a few punches before (here’s another one) the final bell, though admittedly it’s identical to every other underdog boxing movie you’ve ever seen. It couldn’t be more predictable, even if you already know the tale of “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), with the only element of this different to any other pugilistic picture being that there’s a crackhead or two involved. And a greedy mother. Which both seemed to have gotten this one fast-tracked into production.
08 Feb 2011
Five classic poetry readings
Poetry is tough isn’t it? It’s hard to read, it frequently makes no sense, it requires something approaching an attention span, and it’s especially impenetrable on a crowded Tube train after a long day at work. But there must be something to it, mustn’t there? Surely? Here are five online resources that make enjoying poetry a borderline realistic goal.
Under Milk Wood
“…And the dogs in the wet-nosed yards…” Richard Burton’s voice meets Dylan Thomas’s words in one of the most beautiful recordings ever made.
Dylan Thomas reading Auden
“O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time…” More Thomas – this time reading the poetry of others, magisterially. This link takes you to a reading of WH Auden’s As I walked out one evening, while here you can find links to further readings of Hardy, Yeats, Betjeman and more. We couldn’t get the download to work, but if you click on the individual links that will take you to the recordings.
TS Eliot reading The Love Song of J Alfread Prufrock
“…that is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all…” Eliot’s reading voice really is something else. For an interesting approach to studying Eliot’s impossibly allusive The Waste Land, try this strange and instructive site. It’s a little confusing at first, but bear with it and you might find it useful. Basically all the allusions and whatnot are hyperlinked to explanations in another reading pane on the screen. It helps.
Housman’s translation of Horace
“The snows are fled away…” Part of a great YouTube channel of poetry reading, with over 800 poems from classical times right up to Carol Ann Duffy. Good way to sample poets whose names you might have heard, but whose books you’re unlikely to buy.
David Brent’s exegesis of Slough by John Betjeman
“…what? he’s never burped?” The most cogent literary criticism of the last 20 years.
08 Feb 2011
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
- The best church names in London, and where they come from
- Punk brewery just as sexist and homophobic as the industry they rail against
- London has chosen its mayor, but why can’t it choose its own media?
- Random Interview: Eileen Conn, co-ordinator of Peckham Vision
- Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
- Hope and despair in Woolwich town centre
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
© 2009-2026 Snipe London.