Madchester/sadchester: Tony Wilson ... who set up Factory records and the Hacienda has died of cancer ... without him there would be no New Order or Happy Mondays. House music would probably not have taken off in the UK, and all round the world would be a poorer place. He inspired a biopic - '24 Hour Party People' with the memorable tagline, 'Genius, Poet, Twat' ...

Blogs: 'stale and claustrophic' ... sexist and insulting as well ... so say Jimmy Wales and Tim O'Reilly ... Discuss:

"Rooney Shoots, Jesus Saves" No British churchyard is complete without a """witty""" advertising slogan with some punning word play encouraging non-believers to step inside ... Finally the 'Church Poster of the Year competition' has been launched to celebrate this quaint high-street art form. C'mon Monkeys what's the best one you've seen?

Dead baby comes back to life ... Almost enough to make you believe in God ... 2 week old baby has heart attack ... doctors do all they can but can't save him ... given back to parents so they can say goodbye ... whereupon he starts breathing again ... now perfectly healthy. In other baby news: an unexpected side-effect of viagra That's enough baby news: Ed

Curious George: cat-piss annoyance Feline-loving monkeys please help ... One of our cats keeps peeing in her basket ... more inside

Urina Hurry? No pot to piss in? Use a portable urinal. Could be useful in Turkmenistan.

Strangely compelling ... a guide to the UK's most rubbish motorways ...

Monkeys at play North East England MoFi meetup here?

Curious George: Favourite Books What are your five favourite books? This thread made me think ... what about a MoFi reading list? Why not list your five favourite books: more inside

The name is Craig, Daniel Craig allegedly, which will please F8xmulder, Koko, and myself.

Brits are exciting! Cast off the pinstripe suit, the bowler hat and throw away the tightly furled umbrella, us Brits are the "most extroverted and open to new experiences of any of the groups studied." According to a Science Magazine survey. Also proved: Swiss Germans are conscientious, Czechs are nice and Yanks are also extrovert ... but so are Canadians ....

London guerilla graffiti artist visits Palestine. Though Banksy got abuse from both the Israelis and Palestinians ... the latter were slightly less threatening than the Israeli military ...

Michael Jackson not guilty of all 10 charges ... what does this say about the decision to bring charges against him? and the future of celebrity trials?

Wierd. Just wierd. This is perhaps the oddest news story I've ever read: A man found wandering the streets in Kent in a soaking wet suit has not said a word for over a month. But he turns out to be a virtuoso classical pianist. A telephone helpline to try and identify him has received hundreds of calls. (via Boing Boing)

Boring boring boring? Seems as if Labour have won an historic third term in the UK General Election. Their share of the vote, and their majority, appears to be smaller than 2001, probably due to objectors to the Iraq war ... but the Tories have failed to stage a significant comeback and it seems unlikely that Lib Dems have made a breakthrough ...

on the Golgafrinchan 'B' Ark?? More Inside more inside

Curious George; windupornot. Baptist Creation Science Fair I can't decide. Are these people for real ... or is it a very sophisticated piss-take. Let's have a vote! (via B3ta.com) more inside

The virtual locust effect ... The linked site used to host downloads of Chris Morris related media files. A natural fpp for any of the filter/link sites you might think. Unfortunately the result of them being posted on the Blue was that their bandwidth shot up and the site's owners had to take it down until the swarm passed and replace it without the downloads. This raises a question - should we be aware of the locust affect when we link to a site? more inside

US gives up search for WMD in Iraq ... Um. Wasn't this why we went to war? More inside ... more inside

Superman is dead Breaking news filter, but it's just been announced that Christopher Reeve has died.