The BBC has an article a Brit who has set an as yet unverified world record for speed (112mph) on a jet powered street luge. I don’t know if there is a separate category for non jet powered luge or what. They have video as well, but for good pictures you have to go to Gizmodo’s exclusive interview with Joel King. I don’t know how a gadget site scooped us on this, aside from the fact that we don’t pay any attention to street luge. At least we scooped them on the World’s Biggest Skateboard. Joel King bills himself as the Gravity King, which makes me the Duke of Sketch. [Photos: Top and Bottom Right – Richard Eaton. Bottom left and center from the BBC video]

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction? Sort of. It turns out they all aren’t wife-beating child-haters. Portland has had at least one Police officer firmly entrenched in helping skateboarders move forward with the now completed plan to revamp Pier Park. (Name MC?) There’s also an officer in the Cayman Islands who lets kids skate on his backyard mini ramp, and there is also an outreach program in Lee-On-The-Solent or Hampshire ( I know! It’s a UK town or district, I can’t tell with all the wacky names they have) where Bobbies attend skate clinics with kids at local skateparks to reinforce positive interaction with police and kids. [Photo: Left and bottom – Solent News Photo. Top – Brent Fuller for the Cayman Compass ]

Skateboard Fieber had another Made for Skate shoe exhibition, this time in London. More interesting that that, however, is The Mags We Read exhibit on skateboarding magazine. The top image above from the flyer is appropriated from an old Transworld Skateboarding Magazine subscription card. The guy in the car is Per Welinder, and I swear the kid in the nut huggers standing with the totally awesome girls is Anthony Michael Hall. The Mags We Read looks like an interesting exhibit. One cool thing is that they have color copies of some of the old magazines on display so you can flip through them. There are a lot of the usual suspects as well as some of the obscure Europe only publications from days gone by. Poweredge is noticeably absent from the photos of the exhibit. If you guys needed one all you had to do was ask… Then again maybe it just wasn’t shown in the pictures. I wish these exhibits would come to the states. Check out Faux Ami’s coverage of The Mags We Read.

For those keeping track, and I’m guessing that’s about three other people, I’ve resurrected the Broken Kingpins column name in Skate and Annoy. This time around, instead of covering all the roster hopping and product release junk like we used to in our ancient print issues, I’m using it for all the miscellaneous links that don’t merit their own post. Besides, there are about a million other web sites that can tell you who has new shoe models and who got kicked off of what tour. [Photo: Denver Post / Andy Cross]

I didn’t know where Swalecliffe was until I looked it up. Turns out it’s in South East England, near Whitstable. “Whitstable?” you ask? Why I believe that’s near Swalecliffe. SnA reader Neil Brown says they’ve been waiting years for a good outdoor concrete park in his neck of the woods, and he’s stoked to finally get one considering the project got the green light way back in 2005. Sometimes it seems like these things will never get built. Neil’s got a Flickr stream of construction and opening day, but he hasn’t given us a review yet. Probably too busy skating. There’s a rendering of the park plans after the jump. Looks decent enough from afar. Swalecliffe. I like the “e” on the end of the word “cliff.” It’s like “shoppe.” I wonder if it’s called Ye Olde Swalecliffe Skateparke. Get it while the weather’s good!

Not much to say about this 1981 clip of Tony Hawk on the old children’s show Captain Kangaroo. I didn’t know the Captain was still on the air in 1981. It’s a little disappointing actually, since Tony’s appearance isn’t live on set with the Captain. Instead, it’s just video footage of tony skating Del Mar on a Steve Caballero board no less. The Captain’s crew even managed to record an old sea chanty titled Skateboard Johnny, not to be confused with the song Skateboard Johnny featured in this collection of 70’s skateboard tunes, or this UK child molester named Skateboard Johnny. Watch the video after the jump. [Source: Wall of Gray]

Old people skateboarding certainly has been done before. (See Granny Skates for CarMax) This is a pretty good commercial from the UK, although I was disappointed that the old guy was a stunt man. For some reason I thought he was actually going to get on a board. Maybe the happy music made think it was going to be one of those touchy-feely “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” public service type of commercials. Instead it’s an ad for something called 118 118 which, near as I can tell has something to do with a phone directory or phone service. The park is Something called BaySixty6, which is apparently sponsored by XBox, whatever that means. I guess Playstation has a park too, why not. What do these sponsorships mean? Are they permanent? We know who sponsors the park, but what about the stunt rider? Whoever he is, he rides for Vans and Quicksilver. Check out the old school varial in the action sequence. Nowadays it seems like all the pros forego the the varial for the shove-it instead.

As a follow up to the Underground Skate Plaza post it’s time to investigate another project from The Side Effects of Urethane. This one is an installation called A Surface In Between. A Surface In Between was a group art show. The The Side Effects of Urethane (TSEOU) collective organized the show and built out the space, which included the skateable installation you see above. I like the way these guys think. You will too if you keep reading after the jump.

A group called The Side Effects of Urethane working in conjunction with the U.K. skate rag Kingpin have designed and mostly built a skateplaza in some unused tunnels in London. These guys are the Dreamland of street parks, I’m declaring it. Make it so. They even followed the D.I.Y. ethic of funding and making it themselves on unused public property. Unlike London’s tradition of squatting however, they managed to get permission first. More London Skateplaza action after the jump. [Source: Sleestak]

Yes. You have probably seen this video of Martin Sweeney one before, but in my eyes it doesn’t really exist unless it shows up on Skate and Annoy. This video segment is from the BBC show Record Breakers. The video was shot in 1991, and the host is Roy Castle who died in 1994. The source of the video comes from UKSSA, the United Kingdon Slalom Skateboard Association. The UKSSA site has a history of the UK slalom scene, a how-to, and other information pertinent to UK slalomers including a higher quality video than what you can see after the jump. It must have been fun to skate on that road racing course. Nice Shoes Martin!