Web Sites

Stonehenge Clones

http://www.luckymojo.com/

stonehenge.html

Pagans, postmodernists and Spinal Tap fans will enjoy this collection of simulated Stonehenges,of which there seem to be a least half a dozen scattered around the US. With the Wiltshire original subject to unusually severe export restrictions, various replicas have sprung up, from the Georgia Guidestones to the Missouri Megalith, from Washington's all-concrete version to Stonehenge II in Texas.

Although British visitors to the page have found the concept "tacky", some of the re-creations have their uses for academic research. Others, though, are weird druidical junk sculptures, such as the Carhenges of Nebraska and Ontario - crushed vehicles planted upright with a big-finned car body or two perched on top. Pride of place must go to New Zealand's entry, Fridgehenge.

Also monumental, in some sense or other, is the language on display - when in doubt, say "neo-neolithic" or "retro-archaeoastronomical".

Drink@The Attic

http://www.the-attic.co.uk

More ancient traditions - England's idiotic licensing laws, and complaining about the same - are revived here, at what must be one of the most foolproof promotional strategies by a multimedia house.

The company, Atticmedia, has produced a page campaigning for a 2am drinking licence in London. "Have you got the bottle?" it challenges, but the site is unlikely to make many enemies. Basically just a message board for people to offer support, the site also acts as an informal survey: so far, only five of the 500 respondents have declared themselves against the proposal, and these tend to hide behind fictitious addresses.

Protest.net

http://www.protest.net/

This global one-stop resource for social activists lists events and demonstrations worldwide, rallying them all at a single, easily accessible URL. Entries are wide-ranging and genuinely international in scope, stretching from anti-capital punishment rallies in Virginia and a peace march on the Pentagon, to tonight's meeting of Lambeth and Wandsworth Greenpeace, and Saturday's show of pedal power ("cycling solidarity") in Cardiff. There are separate calendars for the US, Canada, Europe, Oceania and Asia, and also an "Online" category, as well as a reminder service which sends an e-mail a few days ahead of a chosen event. The site's creator hopes to prove there is actually more protest going on now than in the Sixties - it is less visible now only because it is more widely dispersed. But the overall tone is entrepreneurial as well as revolutionary. "Radical Walking Tours" of New York's Lower East Side are heavily plugged, as, more centrally, is the clever event management software which drives the site.

Monster Home

http://www.monsterhome.com/

The magic word "convergence" hovers protectively around this attempt at an Internet movie, an hour-long thriller which claims to be the first feature actually created for the Web. The plot, involving a dying millionaire, squabbling siblings, involuntary organ donation, Nazi genetics and a dead parrot, is split into short RealPlayer sequences. The order of viewing can be chosen within each "chapter", though the interactive options are fewer than with recent DVD attempts. The actors are game enough, but the most effective bits may still be the more web-familiar elements used to pad out the live action: some evocative animation, comic-strip frames, and other narrative shortcuts. There are also hacked e-mails, fake web sites-within-web sites and monitors and surveillance cameras galore - these familiar viewer/voyeur thrills are where the interactivity lies, as much as in the actual structure. Watching this in prime telephone time courtesy of BT could approach the cost of a trip to the movies, all for, depending on the connection, some jittery sound and jerky credit-card size images. But it's basically an experiment - the Canadian company, Image Business, has more ambitious plans once bandwidths allow.

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