Writer (and prolific Harry’s Place commenter) SeanT, aka Toffee Womble, is also displeased with the lack of fact-checking in contemporary publishing that led to the success of the largely made-up James Frey memoir A Million Little Pieces: The second reason I am personally pissed off with James ‘I spent eight minutes in prison’ Frey is […]
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03Feb06 — 2
On The Web No One Knows You’re A Freak
Please believe me, I found this unfortunate intersection of micro-celebrities when I was looking for reflectors for bouncing off-camera flashguns. Using a reflector and a diffuser together, even a geek like me can capture a girlfriend.
Read More02Feb06 — 4
Everything But The Goal
With a fierce flick of the bedside lamp switch, José’s broodingly handsome features were thrown into gloomy relief. In an instant Tami stirred beside him, her trim, petite body sweeping upward from the Egyptian cotton to wrap him in a supportive embrace. “What is troubling you at such an hour, my love?” she asked, watching […]
Read More02Feb06 — 1
Topical Joke
Late one evening a burglar breaks into what he thinks is an empty house. As he cracks the safe in the main living room and reaches in to grab the holidaying owners’ jewels, a voice speaks to him from the darkness: “Jesus is watching you.” He turns suddenly and shines his torch around, looking for […]
Read More02Feb06 — 1
Holding Back The Years
A dermatologist explains to Rachel Johnson why even though yummy mummies look younger for their age than most of us, their cleaning ladies probably look younger: “According to a longitudinal study of 1,826 Danish twins, about 40 per cent of the variations in perceived age (i.e. how old you look as opposed to how old […]
Read More02Feb06 — 0
Unsung Genius
Richard and I have been experimenting a lot with musical rounds and vocal counterpoint lately, but never have we scaled the heights of P D Q Bach, “oddest and least loved of the twenty-odd sons of Johann Sebastian Bach”. How is it that I had never heard of the satirist and pioneer of the classical mash-up (and serious […]
Read More02Feb06 — 2
DREAMdirect update
Hurry! They’ve knocked £100 off the art deco gramophone!
Read More02Feb06 — 1
The Faintest Of Praise
Dave Simpson reviews Brighton bedwetters The Kooks in yesterday’s Guardian: “Ironically, they do white reggae much better than Babyshambles—if not yet as jaw-droppingly as The Clash.” Indeed. As rock’n’roll compliments go, that’s on a par with: Ironically, they do white rap much better than Ali G—if not yet as jaw-droppingly as Blondie.
Read More01Feb06 — 3
Pretty Things
doctorvee’s ‘Blog is looking rather slick these days. He also has a link to “thinking chess” [you need to have Java installed, but it’s worth it] which is even slicker, so slick that it’s got me thinking about doing something I swore off years ago: learning another programming language. Also via doctorvee, this pleasing tally […]
Read More01Feb06 — 12
A Simple Matter Of Taste
I hate to find myself on the same side of an argument as a po-faced foodie, but the man’s right: chocolate is a sacred thing; mixing it with orange is a sin.
Read More01Feb06 — 5
On Religion
The idea that there’s Someone Up There watching over us? Or even just that there’s Something that surrounds us and penetrates us, that binds the galaxy together? Sadly, it’s bollocks. But it’s nice to be able to say so in public.
Read More31Jan06 — 1
Public Sector Search Watch
Today I had a visitor (apparently) from a machine in Brent Town Council’s offices. He/she came looking for “fat young girls”. In connection with which of that London Borough’s administration’s published Objectives do you think the individual responsible was making such an enquiry?: Supporting children and young people Attain, retain and develop excellent staff Increasing […]
Read More31Jan06 — 2
My Life!
As at least one of my Jewish friends will testify, it was during my years living in a North West London flat with a caricature of a Jewish grandmother for a resident landlady (rather than my time in the kosher house on Osney Island) that members of the Global Conspiracy stole my brain and replaced […]
Read More31Jan06 — 3
Too Cheap To Check
Apparently it costs too much money for publishers to fact-check the non-fiction they produce: Last Thursday, publishing-industry veteran Nan Talese was excoriated on television by Oprah Winfrey for publishing James Frey’s 2003 “A Million Little Pieces,” a bestselling memoir about the author’s struggle to overcome drug dependency that he has since admitted is partly fictitious. […]
Read More30Jan06 — 7
‘Blogger Chokes To Death On Self-Pity
“Rebound congestion”: it’s another of those bland bits of medical jargon, like “cerebral contusion”, that give no hint of the actual discomfort accompanying their referents. “Rebound congestion”—roll it around your mouth and then imagine waking up from a nightmare of smothering only to find that you really are suffocating and that your last sight on […]
Read More30Jan06 — 2
Lost Link
A ‘Blog that links to PooterGeek recently published a post about the way commenting on other people’s ‘Blogs always goes horribly wrong and drew an amusing parallel with an everlasting ice-skating disaster. I was going to link to it today, but even my Jedi googling powers have failed me. Can anyone help? UPDATE: Rob’s found […]
Read More29Jan06 — 2
Lazy Hackwork Continues To Attract Payment
I’ve written before here about how Armando Unfunnucci‘s consistent inability to raise a laugh with his “humorous” Guardian column used to bond me with complete strangers on the Tube. Now he’s returned, replacing decaying homophobic bore Richard Ingrams on the back of the main section of The Observer. Today his closing flourish of wit was […]
Read More28Jan06 — 12
The American Disease
I would happily sign the Economist‘s editorial today on US healthcare myself (but for that paper’s irritating misuse of the word “America”). Many ‘Bloggers with an unthinking fetish for “market solutions” would do well to give it and the associated special report a scan: [N]owhere has a bigger health problem than America. Soaring medical bills […]
Read More28Jan06 — 12
Anti-Social Behaviour: Theory And Fieldwork
Yesterday I had an excellent evening of argument. I spent it contending that, since our emergence, we human beings have been, for plausible biological reasons, fundamentally aggressive and suspicious of visibly different members of our own species. In reply it was argued that our behaviour towards others has been characterised by altruistic tendencies and trade. […]
Read More27Jan06 — 8
Dancing About Architecture
To celebrate my (late) discovery earlier in the week of the Dr Who theme remix site I offer you a chance to participate in PooterGeek’s toughest end-of-the-week challenge yet: The Instrumental Transliteration Tournament. Inspired by the Whovian musicians’ model I give you three examples: Dr Who EEEEEeeeeeeaouuuuw WHOO-eee-OOO [bumbly-bum, bumbly-bum, bumbly-bum] WHOO-eee-OOO [bumbly-bum, bumbly-bum, bumbly-bum] […]
Read More26Jan06 — 4
Scandalum Magnatum
GEORGE GORRAWAY MP: Yes, m’lud. That is indeed myself, naked before one of the sons of the Rightful Ruler of that noble yet tragically violated Arab nation, attempting to excite his flaccid member by gently stroking its tip with my moustache whiskers, whilst simultaneously drowning two screaming Kurdish orphan children below the surface of the […]
Read More26Jan06 — 2
Out Of The Valley Of The Slackers
The number of visitors to PooterGeek is tightly coupled to the number of you sitting bored at your work computers. Christmas Day is the annual low-point for traffic here, when the score dips below 200 unique visits and 300 page views in a day. As the holiday unwinds the stats climb gradually back up to […]
Read More26Jan06 — 6
We Must Be Told The Truth About Primitive Knob Jokes
All English comprehensive school desks must by law be engraved, somewhere on their surfaces, with stylized representations of human primary or secondary sexual organs. Why is it whenever some new prehistoric cave art is uncovered it’s always men with spears pursuing unfortunate savannah ungulates? Why do they never find badly-drawn pictures of genitals or breasts […]
Read More26Jan06 — 3
Being There
Responding to the unusually early death of actor Chris Penn, Squander Two writes about acting—and explains much of my problem with (British) theatre: If only Sean Penn were anywhere near as talented as his brother, his films wouldn’t be so irritatingly tedious. Cintra Wilson’s right: truly great acting is something you don’t even notice. That’s […]
Read More25Jan06 — 5
Know Thine Enemy
I was going to post the following when it first appeared on Jonathan Derbyshire’s ‘Blog. Norm’s post today reminded me that I hadn’t. Derbyshire makes a point that even militant atheists should concede: As Jeremy Waldron makes clear in his remarkable book God, Locke, and Equality, the principle of human equality articulated in the Second […]
Read More25Jan06 — 0
70s Revival Continues
I overheard two of the staff in Maplin today complaining that they had had to change the price on some piece of consumer electronics twice in one day. We live in the noughties now so both changes were decreases. A Chinese factory employee probably figured out some way to make ten of of whatever gadget […]
Read More25Jan06 — 6
Beware!
Yesterday evening, two random girls from Lodz phoned me up up to teach me Polish. [Hello, Alice and Monika.] Yes, about three years after everyone else, I now have Skype. But the Linux client doesn’t work properly for me (surprise surprise) so you’ll have to catch me on one of those rare occasions when I’m […]
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