I wonder if it's time to retire the Lazy Guide. I have found a site which is the Chomolungma of daft web links, the north-west passage of net strangeness, the Victoria Falls of online oddity.
Like Alexander, I weep for there are no more worlds to conquer.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present for your delectation:
GoatOnAPole?
This isn't some metaphor for unseeml
y binary filth. It does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a website devoted to a picture of a goat. A goat as in the animal. Specifically, a goat standing on a pole, as in a big stick.
My work here is done. Thank you and goodnight.
…
But then I discovered
YouTube. Oh joy. YouTube is like
Flickr but for videos.
Users upload videos and tag them up so others can find them. (much like
Google Video.) Sounds simple, works very well.
I have spent the day playing with YouTube. If you yourself have not spent time playing with YouTube, do so now.
My first searches were for Hibs (don't worry, non-football content follows shortly), largely because I have taken to seeking solace in the past where football is concerned. Given that, it was with much delight that I found
footage of all seven of the Hibs goals in the New Year's Day derby game of 1973. Watching that took up only three hours of my day…
I also found
Abdessalem Benjelloun's winning goal against Hearts at the most recent Edinburgh derby. I also found
a clip of the celebrations that followed the opening goal. It consists largely of people howling.
The interesting thing about the last one is that I suspect it is the only one that is online legitimately. The Benji goal is ripped from a German TV broadcast and I'm guessing that the 7-0 highlights were not captured on an early mobile phone.
Copyright issues are a big problem for sites that feature material submitted by users. Personally, I think it is inevitable that they will end up with other people's content on their site. I also think that we need to rethink copyright law as this kind of situation is nearly impossible to police without resorting to ridiculous authoritarianism.
Once I'd finished pondering the nature of copyright (actually I do get invited to lots of parties), I then started looking for Scottish videos and oh what goodness did I find.
Let me recommend
the video of low flying in Scotland, with its impressive shots of mountains whizzing past.
This thrill-seeking led me to look for base jumping clips. (Base jumping is parachuting off buildings or cliffs.) I found this
perfect illustration of why this is a bad idea. Three base jumpers try to fall in formation, which is only slightly spoiled by one of their number plunging into another's chute. Oops. (Mercifully they untangled themselves quickly.)
Base jumping is on my list of Top Ten Stupid Ways To Die, along with sticking coat hangers into toasters and
potholing.
However the pick of the crop was a send-up of the trendy pursuit of free-running (or
Jump Dundee is a Scottish version.)
Its stars walk on walls and smoke.
