http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain Thu, 23 Aug 2007 05:24:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Me outside a Cardiff church (photo: Simon Sellars). I've always been fascinated by Wales. It's something to do with my interest in 'edge culture', with distorted cultural mirrors sharding mainline nationalism into fragments. I used to hear English people put down the Welsh, mocking their accents and their tradition, and it ... http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain/brit-blog-cardiff A view of the ziggurat student quarters at Norwich's University of East Anglia. This is Brutalism at its finest. (Photo: Simon Sellars 2007). I woke on the train to Norwich. I don't know much at all about Norwich, except a bit about their football team. In John King's book The Football Factory, ... http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain/brit-blog-norwich 'Hey now, baby, I'm beginning to see the light...' The author, waiting to go through customs, ponders the notion of 'flightless travel' (photo: Simon Sellars 2007). At one stage I used to listen to people whingeing about long plane flights and think they were dullards with no imagination, that I was ... http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain/brit-blog-on-the-way Best Film Award, Tropfest 07: 'An Imaginary Life' (Steve Baker). On April 7 Channel Nine, accompanied by the still-infuriating-after-all-these-years Richard Wilkins, screened the films from the finals of the Sony Tropfest 2007 short-film festival, which was held on February 18. Tropfest purports to showcase the work of 'Australia's emerging filmmakers' and ... http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain/tropfest-the-future-of-australian-filmmaking-is-shit Flyer for Northern Void. Last night I attended the second (and last, for now) screening of Philip Brophy's 50-minute film Northern Void, billed as a "live cinema performance" accompanied by the real-time sonics of Ph2 (Brophy and Philip Samartzis). Northern Void is set along Plenty Rd, in the northern Melbourne suburb ... http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain/philip-brophys-northern-void Station Pier (photo: Simon Sellars). There used to be a sign here saying 'Melbourne Welcomes You', the first thing we saw when we got off the boat, I imagine. I was asked to contribute some thoughts about my family's immigration story to the second book in Jim Hammerton's 'Ten-Pound Poms' series. ... http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain/melbourne-welcomes-you Finally, we are in a position to announce the winner of our Micronations competition, where we asked readers to invent their own micronation for the chance to win a copy of the new Lonely Planet book on home-made nations (or model states, or micronations; whatever you care to call them). And ... http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain/micronations-competition-winner Sorry for the delay: I'll be announcing the winner of our Micronations competition very soon...as soon as I get over this terrible flu. More soon. http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain/micronations-competition-an-update COMPETITION: Win a copy of Lonely Planet's new book on Micronations by entering our competition to design your own model nation. http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain/win-a-copy-of-lonely-planets-micronations For the third part of our special feature on Lonely Planet's new guide to Micronations, we present an extract from the book – the entry on the Republic of Molossia. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE REPUBLIC OF MOLOSSIA His Excellency, Kevin Baugh, President of Molossia (photo courtesy Republic of Molossia). The Republic of Molossia is surely the ... http://www.simonsellars.com/sleepybrain/micronations-part-3-molossia