United States

“That they may see your good works”

I like that one of the authors of this US paper describing gene therapy to restore sight in sufferers from a rare form of blindness, itself a refinement of a treatment first given in the UK, is called “Elizabeth Windsor”: “One of the patients said that the dim red light from his alarm clock had […]

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Temper Temper / Pro Tempore

I keep meaning to write something about the response of the liberal Left media to the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States—there are parallels with the way parts of the Right responded to Bill Clinton’s sexual incontinence—but, as I bring my fingers to the keys, I […]

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Bruce W. Wayne

[WARNING 1: The Dark Knight has been out for long enough now that most of you interested in seeing it should have seen it. To those of you who haven’t, know now: spoilery follows.] [WARNING 2: As usual, I was late to this particular party, so I just wanted to publish this blasted blog post […]

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I LOVE THE BLACK MUSIC

Recently, I was listening to a Marvin Gaye track via last.fm—is it just me or has their sound quality improved lately?—and I noticed this at the top of its user comments: white person wearing chinos on cruise ship LOVES THE BLACK MUSIC Which immediately made me think of Stuff White People Like, a blog that’s […]

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Hasta la vista, Aunty

OPRAH: I’d just like to say what a great privilege it is to have you with us on the show today, Barry. BARRY: Thank you, Oprah. I’m so grateful to God for my good fortune just to be here, but my good fortune is all the greater for my both being here and being here […]

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Future News: Headlines Of 2108

NASA ASTRONAUTS ARRIVE ON CENTAURI IV AND ENCOUNTER POPULATION OF HUMANOIDS SO PRIMITIVE THAT THEY STILL HAVE FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS. PANEL OF HISTORIANS VOTES ON MOST HATED FIGURES OF 21ST CENTURY. SADDAM HUSSEIN, CLONED HITLER, HEATHER MILLS-MCCARTNEY TOP POLL. HUMPHREY LYTTELTON FORCED TO STAND DOWN AS PRESENTER OF I’M SORRY I HAVEN’T A CLUE AFTER EXPOSURE […]

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Parallel Lives

It’s all over for the ‘Head On the front page of The Spectator online, Fraser Nelson suggests that David Cameron could be “the British [Barack] Obama“, which struck me as a coincidence, because I am the British Gore Vidal.

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Amateur Video

While I’m recommending films, I notice that The Amateurs [aka The Moguls] is being advertised on the Apple trailer site as on theatrical release in the States. This is odd because I’ve already seen it cheaply in the UK via Amazon’s DVDs-by-post service. Perhaps it went straight to video here because it had stinking reviews. […]

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Been There Done That

Unlike, I suspect, most remaining readers of The Independent newspaper, I believe it’s to the credit of the people of the United States of America that one of the most common questions they ask of tour guides as they are shown around the Grand Canyon is: “How did we make it?” If the Martians are […]

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Where The Wind Comes Sweepin’ Down The Plain

Scientific research has confirmed that, finally, everything is on the Internet. This woman sells $40 000-worth of tumbleweed a year online. Does the phrase “organic tumbleweed farm” make you think of tanned hippie chicks and hippie fellas on mountain bikes corralling rolling bushes into enclosures as swirls of dust drift across the prairie around them? It […]

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Rent Boys

A. N. Wilson has been writting cobblers for years. What disturbs me now is that The New York Times seems to be willing to pay him to write cobblers in its pages. Over at Tom Hamilton’s place there’s some more nonsense from Wilson. While you’re at Davos Newbies, I also recommend that you read the […]

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More Advertising

A little while back, someone linked me to the Geostationary Banana Over Texas. I thought it was just a Web meme / bit of conceptual art fun. It turns out it’s both of these, but it’s also a real project to launch a gigantic inflatable banana into orbit. It’s worth reading that article right to […]

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Tim-ba!

Talking of recycling, it looks like producer Timbaland has some explaining to do to a Finnish computer musician about a backing track that Mr Land laid down for Nelly Furtado. [The previous link goes to YouTube, but you can follow these links to MP3s of the tunes.] There’s something amusing about a deep-voiced multimillionaire hip-hop […]

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Sullivalanche

Hello Sullivanians and welcome to PooterGeek. There’s more of my stuff at The Wedding Photography Blog. If you’re getting married in 2007 or you just want a photographer then contact me via my professional site, Sepial.com. Yes, I will travel to your country club in Westchester County to record your New York Times-featured, Cecil B DeMille-scale engagement […]

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Geek Music Rant

If you can YouTube and you aren’t tone deaf then I guarantee you will enjoy this. (The guy performing reminds me of my guitar teacher who would liven up lessons by reducing the entire career of any artist I named to a needle-sharp one-minute musical pastiche. Much as I admire the songwriting of The Police […]

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Why Rock Pigs Have Groupies And Music Critics Don’t

According to Technorati, one of the most listened-to albums of the moment is Hinder’s Extreme Behaviour. The cover features a red-lingerie-clad cleavage and a PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT CONTENT sticker. It’s trying harder than a small-town 14-year-old with a bum-fluff beard, hanging around outside Happy Shopper waving a spliff and a can of lager. To my […]

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Clued’oh

But I’ll believe almost anything of the world of the media. Read the tale of OJ and Judith and Rupert before it disappears behind the New York Times‘ subscription wall.

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Overheard In New York

Someone at Harry’s Place comments that Until now, I thought Gwyneth Paltrow was Welsh.” which reminds me of being in a video rental store in NYC in the late 90s with a local. An old Tom Jones song starts playing. “Well, I never,” says I to my native companion in my conspicuously British way, “This […]

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The Ludlum Retirement

Best-selling thriller writer Robert Ludlum, author of The Bourne Identity, The Acquitane Progression, and The Moscow Vector, announced the end of his blockbuster career yesterday. Speaking to a packed meeting at the American Publishing Society conference in Florida, Ludlum said, “There comes a time when a man has to accept that he has run out […]

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Sadly Straight

Thursday evening, last week: I’m standing at the bar buying my round in a not-gay pub in Brighton when a man I’ve never met before starts talking to me in a way I am reluctant to categorise as “forward” until he moves in close, starts rubbing his hand up and down my chest, and tells […]

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My Kind Of PR Professional

I don’t believe that depicting Steve Irwin as a two-dimensional cartoon figure wandering around Hell with a stingray barb sticking out of his chest is admirable (or particularly funny or insightful satire), but I admire South Park‘s spokesman for his response to those who feel it to be disrespectful to the recently deceased TV wildlife-taunter […]

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Consulting Intelligence

Thanks to the Anonymous Economist for sending me a copy of a New York Times article that highlights some of the monumental point-missing of the current debates about (for example) Iraq and the War on Terror simply by asking a dumb question. CAN YOU TELL A SUNNI FROM A SHIITE? By JEFF STEIN FOR the […]

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