November 2006

NO2INSANITY

Sometimes your first instinct is to sympathise with a particular cause until you meet the people who believe in it—and find them in your local park dressed in black polythene bags and engaged in a one-sided debate with a squirrel. Like Eurosceptics [Euroskeptics?], anti-ID card campaigners have a whole array of sound, rational arguments at […]

Read More

Calvin’s Crimes

Police find marijuana, cocaine, and a firearm in gangsta rapper’s car… …George Michael in public park, blood at O J Simpson’s place, inconsistencies in statement from Jeffrey Archer, poison in enemy of Russian Mafia and KGB, Houses of Parliament adjacent to Thames…

Read More

Revenge Of The Barlow

With the massive success of the new Take That single, Patience, I am praying that this is the moment when they become the post-break-up David Gilmour-led Pink Floyd and Robbie Williams becomes the post-The Wall Roger Waters. Same initials see, see?! Take that, Mr End-Of-The-Pier karaoke compere!

Read More

Critical Mess

Clive Davis is discouraged from seeing Casino Royale, the new new Bond, by of this review by Cosmo Landesman. He shouldn’t be. Landesman fails to grasp even the basics of the (not particularly complicated) plot and then complains that what he thinks is going on is “absurd”. It’s worse than that: understanding what is actually […]

Read More

Comprehensive Success

Congrats to my sister, Clare, and my brother-in-law, Steve, who are, according to the schools inspectorate, teaching at one of the best of the best of the best in the country. (PooterSis versus Sky update: it’s already looking bad for Murdoch’s empire. Once the dust has cleared, I expect to be appointed Head of Programming.)

Read More

iBox Test

It’s special effects time again on PooterGeek. I’ve replaced the code that displays pictures here, the ingenious but awkward ThickBox, with the even more ingenious iBox. Test it out by visiting a recent photography post: dawn over Brighton, Café Intenso, or the humanist naming ceremony.

Read More

Things To Do

I’m busy catching up after my cold so it’ll be quiet here for the next few days. Read this excellent post by Paulie. Read this and imagine Oliver Kamm throwing a custard pie in Neil Clark’s face forever.

Read More

Public Enemy

I don’t have perfect pitch. One of my long-suffering former Flatland music tutors would however be amused to read that the other day I noticed that my toothbrush was playing the key note of a Kelly Clarkson song and I wandered over to the piano and played the scale along with it—first time! I never […]

Read More

Test Post

This post is intended to test the effect of Damian’s upgrades on the Bloggers4Labour aggregator. You may comment on it only if you manage to work a Lennon and McCartney lyric into your text somewhere.

Read More

Euston Invocation Of The Week

From a review entitled “Understanding Borat” on the blog The Libyan Observer: Moreover, nowadays, when the Jewish State’s influence within the American administration is academically and historically established (The Israel Lobby, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt) when the support for Neoconservatism that has lead to a genocide in Iraq is largely endorsed by the Zionist […]

Read More

A Sound Of Blunder

EDWARD BURNS: Yes, I am Edward Burns, the legendary molecular bio-something-or-other. Like all world-famous interdisciplinary scientists I have a cuboid jawline and impeccable upper-body development. You can tell I’m an intellectual from my stubble, my carefully ruffled hair, and my slightly messy luxury urban apartment. No, they couldn’t afford Matthew McConaughey. ASTOUNDINGLY UNCONVINCING STROLL AGAINST […]

Read More

Punchable Me

I’m sure many people who read this blog want to give me a slap. It’s quite something to see yourself online and get the same feeling. Look at this smug young local businessman collecting his new-age prize* in his tailored pinstripe jacket set off by his smart-but-casual, v-necked, clingy sweater of indeterminate sexual orientation and […]

Read More

Beige Girl In The Ring

Following on from my previous post, the entertaining flickr pages of a posh Asian-Italian woman called Robyn are at the end of this link, including her own pics of Brighton from her recent visit with her man. (They seem to be public so I don’t think this makes us voyeurs. She’s part of the Bobbie […]

Read More

Waiting For The Anonymous Economist

I love photographing people, but sometimes the world looks fine without them. These photos are from the part-roll of film that I took with me that Sunday morning two weeks ago. Next time I’ll take a tripod and a multipack of 100ASA. Click on any one of the thumbnails below to see an larger version. […]

Read More

AOR Rewrites

Squander Two is a clever fella and his impatience with irrationality is (almost) always welcome in my comments boxes. He is also a new father who has endured rather more worry than most recently. I hope his wife recovers completely and quickly. He probably came up with this brilliant revision of Alanis Morissette’s Ironic during […]

Read More

Another Urban Myth Busted

Regular drivers of cars live in terror of flying on commercial airlines. People deadlock their front doors at night to keep out violent burglars and then die of smoke inhalation trying to open them in a house fire. Pensioners stay indoors for fear of assault by teenagers, keep their cash in boxes for fear of […]

Read More

Unmissable

I have returned from the lands of my childhood: the Midlands. With me I’ve brought six crates of my old books, reclaimed from storage at my parents’ house, a new water pump in the engine of my car, and a stinking cold—thank you, Maisie and Sam, you cute little bundles of virions. Naturally I took […]

Read More

Out Of Town

I’ve been away for a few days. If you are waiting for me to reply to your email message or phone call or if you are waiting for another post here at PooterGeek then you won’t have to wait too much longer.

Read More

Orb In Sky

I enjoyed a beautiful drive through Autumn English countryside to a job in West Sussex yesterday. Driving back blind into low sunlight wasn’t quite so pleasant. This random November photo from flickr is lovely too.

Read More

Nutkin

Rob “not the stand-up” Newman’s back with highlights of the grave debate on what my American friends insist on calling “squirls” and, inevitably, with another loon in his inbox.

Read More

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 […]

Read More

Registering Complaints

I hadn’t noticed this until I read Tom Hamilton’s post at Let’s Be Sensible, but the Devil’s Kitchen calls the Mr Eugenides essay that I blogged about “one of the finest posts ever written“. Does Eton College do refunds? Also, having read the latest post at Never Trust A Hippy, I must revise my slur […]

Read More
Older Posts