The front page of today’s Argus features this headline: Today’s Argus street placard features this headline:
Read More27Jun07 — 3
PooterGeek
27Jun07 — 5
Philosophers: 2 — Scientists: 0
Last Friday I found myself stuck in a room in a Cambridge college waiting to do a photo job so I took Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations down from a shelf and, as an intellectual dwarf perched on Hindsight the Giant, sneered at it. Certain things he said appear absurd in the light of certain experimental […]
Read More26Jun07 — 1
The Harsh Truth
Hot Wheels Helena is back from Glastonbury with a message for post-modernists, fundamentalists, and plain mentalists everywhere: More info here. [Thanks to Caroline for the pic.]
Read More25Jun07 — 3
Microphone Windshield Catalogue
Now that the afro has been reintroduced widely into the wild, it’s time to revive this visual guide to some of its many variants, reproduced from an I-Spy book that was mysteriously unavailable when I was a child.
Read More25Jun07 — 3
Don’t Blame Me: I Didn’t Vote For Her
…Or even second- or third-vote for her. This is where preference systems get you. It’s ironic that, even though I think she was one of the worst candidates for the job, I also think her election will improve Labour’s chances of winning the next General Election.
Read More23Jun07 — 4
Practical From Hell
I’m probably in a (large) minority in thinking this, but it’s a Bad Thing that we’re raising a generation of science students who won’t get this joke.
Read More22Jun07 — 4
Ash-ian Babes
The Labour aristocracy does seem to be attracted to “sexually highly charged black women“. Not being one of Jackie Ashley’s admirers, I missed her toe-curling tribute to Diane Abbott in The Guardian—where else?—when it appeared last week, but I caught up with it via Peter Briffa: [Diane Abbott MP] was, and is, a cheerer-upper. She […]
Read More21Jun07 — 1
Bismillah!
Did anyone else hear that BBC news soundbite from a representative of the emergency services reviewing the effects of the sub-tropical storms that hit parts of the UK this week? Amongst other things, he described them as “very, very frightening”. If so, did you manage to resist singing, “Thunderbolt and lightning / Galileo! / Galileo!”? […]
Read More21Jun07 — 0
The Whitney of Witney
British Spin fisks Dave’s “comeback” speech: First up, He keeps on with some horribly mixed metaphor. “then, brick by brick, you build your house. That is the plan I laid out when I became leader of this Party and that is exactly the plan we’ve been following. We started by preparing the ground. We stopped […]
Read More21Jun07 — 1
The PooterGeek Argus Headline Collection: Hove Special
I admit that I have, in the past, given my readers the impression that the more genteel half of Brighton & Hove is a sleepy, geriatric, upper-middle-class, conservative place. Indeed, one resident commented here: After all the effort I’ve put into making Hove sound like the hipper and more cosmopolitan sista of Brighton, you’re making us sound […]
Read More19Jun07 — 13
The Decline And Fall Of Radio 4 Comedy: Part XXV
Right now Jo Caulfield is on, doing a routine about Friends Reunited—you know: that Website that was all the rage in 1999. An actor is putting on a nasal voice and pretending to be the school nerd reciting his online profile while she reads between its lines. No, the programme isn’t a repeat. Next week: […]
Read More19Jun07 — 2
Totalitarian Political Nanny Statism Gone Mad
Over at Samizdata, California is becoming a “totalitarian” state because an overwhelming majority of the residents of the city of Berkeley voted for comprehensive regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and because San Francisco can fine pet owners who don’t feed their pets properly and fortune-tellers who don’t have a licence to practise. Britain is […]
Read More18Jun07 — 3
Free Shoot
If you are having a reasonably smart and public evening party/reception/dinner in the near future and would like it to be captured on film, gratis, then contact me. I want to test out some new flash techniques and don’t want to do so on a paying job. That’s the catch: there could well be a […]
Read More18Jun07 — 6
Geek Rock
Last week, Steve Wright interviewed Paul McCartney on BBC Radio 2. At one point, Wright asked him about his latest single. The track is exactly what you would expect of Lord Macca of Loch Kodak: completely insubstantial and terminally catchy. It’s called Dance Tonight. It’s about how everybody is going to dance tonight—and have a good time, […]
Read More15Jun07 — 1
One-Man Gospel Choir
Go here [requires Flash video]. Skip the intro by clicking on “SKIP” in the bottom right-hand corner. Then click on “Video” and choose the first example: “Don Lewis demonstrates…”
Read More13Jun07 — 5
Reductionism
This civil engineering computer simulation [YouTube video] of one of the September 11 impacts is all the more shocking for being created without factoring in the explosions or heat damage. It also omits the fleeing spectating Jews, holographically concealed missiles, and shaped charges planted in the tower by giant lizards. Scientists and engineers, eh? They’re […]
Read More13Jun07 — 1
Earth and Moon
I like this: a to-scale depiction of the Earth and the Moon as if seen from a point in space 350 000 miles away from both of them.
Read More11Jun07 — 5
Through The Magic Door
I’ve been away for a few days so you’ll have to wait while I catch up with other things before there’s any new content here. When I got back from my travels, I found a mosaic of Labour Deputy Leadership-related letters forming a junk mail welcome mat. Ooh, look: there’s a picture of Peter Hain […]
Read More08Jun07 — 7
Finding A Line
While his master leads the England bowling attack, Steve Harmison’s dog, Magoo, participates in the British Dog Agility Championships.
Read More06Jun07 — 2
Mentally Unstable Man Attempts To Board Popemobile
The 80-year-old Bavarian, who has suffered a number of strokes, believes himself to be God’s representative on Earth and participates daily in what he and his followers claim is a cannibalistic blood ritual, during which they eat the flesh of a centuries-dead carpenter and travelling quack doctor. Officers have returned him to the high-security accommodation […]
Read More05Jun07 — 5
Einstürzende Neubauten
In The Ipcress File, Michael Caine plays Harry Palmer, a British intelligence operative. He is deprived of sleep and exposed to loud repetitive noises by enemy agents trying to break his will, erase his memory, and make him believe that he is a traitor. His defensive mantra in the film—“My name is Harry Palmer”—was, like […]
Read More04Jun07 — 0
Netherlands
To my immense amusement, I am quoted in a national Dutch free daily newspaper today, saying (of the Euston Manifesto): “We had no idea it would get so big”.
Read More04Jun07 — 0
Singular Sensation
Foolishly allowing himself to be provoked by the skeptical taunts of Professor Cho the experimentalist, Professor Hawking chooses the annual NASA barbecue as the occasion to collect on one of his bets.
Read More04Jun07 — 1
Rumble In The Jungle On The Savannah
This YouTube video of charismatic megafauna fighting by a waterhole starts slowly, but develops into a riveting drama. It’s got all the ingredients for a Disney animated feature except songs by Elton John.
Read More01Jun07 — 1
Blogging Of Quality And Distinction
After this, Hamer Shawcross goes onto the ‘roll.
Read More01Jun07 — 0
This Looks Like A Job For A Chartered Diversity Co-Ordinator
This isn’t much of a blogpost, I know, but: what he said.
Read More31May07 — 1
Lefties Sell Out
Thank you to everyone who spoke at, helped with, and attended the Euston Manifesto Conference yesterday. Every seat was taken and then some. It was a superb meeting with some of the most interesting and thoughtful lectures I’ve heard in years—and that includes the stuff I thought was wrong. One of the best things about […]
Read More29May07 — 0
Book Hot, TV Hot, Not Hot
Thanks to Judith for this guilty pleasure: a set of author photo juxtapositions: ordinary snapshots versus flyleaf portraits.
Read More29May07 — 2
Grey Matters
You expect celebrity kids to grow up into adults with dependencies; you expect 80s pop stars to turn into casualties: Gary Coleman, Michael Jackson, Jason Donavan; Adam Ant, Whitney Houston, Billy Mackenzie, Billy Idol, MC Hammer, Stuart Adamson… But the phenomenon that scares me is that of the thirtysomething swashbucklers of my youth—then celebrated for […]
Read More27May07 — 2
Today In Your Super Soaraway Sunday Madeleine
BUY OUR MADDY MEMORIAL NECKLACE, FEATURING A VIAL OF MADELEINE’S MOTHER’S TEARS EXCLUSIVE: SEE THE WALLET PHOTOGRAPH THAT INSPIRED THE ABDUCTION PIRATES‘ KEIRA TELLS OF HOW AGONIZING HER AGONY WOULD BE IF SHE HAD CHILDREN AND HAD ONE TAKEN AWAY FROM HER RING THIS NUMBER TO DISTRACT THE INVESTIGATION DAGO COPS “INCOMPETENT AND XENOPHOBIC” SAYS […]
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