Surely Margaret Thatcher doesn’t want a state funeral? I mean, that would require the government to pay people to dig a hole and fill it up again.
Read More15Jul08 — 3
PooterGeek
08Jul08 — 2
Good Advice
These are both old (by blogging standards) and from the unlikeliest of sources, but I think they’re excellent: Marketer Seth Godin on how to send email and 79-year-old Catholic priest Pat Connor on how to choose a spouse.
Read More04Jul08 — 1
Lewis Cannoned
From The Daily Telegraph: Less than 24 hours after both men responded to sleaze allegations against Mr Lewis by insisting he had done nothing to compromise his role as a magistrate, it emerged that there was no record of the deputy mayor ever serving as a justice of the peace. A spokesman for the Ministry […]
Read More03Jul08 — 23
“Let Them Eat Smoke!”
Norm asks two questions: People on the wrong end of social and economic inequalities don’t just experience health disadvantages from smoking, but disadvantages across the board – in every area of health, in life expectancy, in the pattern of life chances in general. Shall we impose compulsory legal norms about diet, about exercise, about whatever […]
Read More01Jul08 — 0
Top Tip
You certainly don’t want to go walking through a field of disoriented, agitated and wet honey bees. — Richard Duplain, vice president of the New Brunswick [Canada] Beekeepers Association Unfortunately for one journalist, not everyone got Mr Duplain’s advice in time, says this story. [Thanks, Sue]
Read More30Jun08 — 3
The Trials Of Being A Covers Band
Masters of the live hip-hop mash-up, The Roots, displayed their usual relaxed attitude when asked to comment on events at their first headlining show at Glastonbury this week. Early on in their performance, a member of the audience managed to get up on stage and gained control of a working microphone, through which he continued […]
Read More28Jun08 — 0
Merrit
Do you remember Wei? Well, Wei… …wed… …Bobby… …in Edinburgh earlier this month, and I was hired to shoot the event. It wasn’t my first tri-lingual wedding, but it was my first Cantonese/Mandarin/Scottish one. And it was the first one from which the happy couple excused me in the small hours because the tea ceremony […]
Read More26Jun08 — 0
Outage
Because of an ongoing1 split between two networks: that of my ISP and the one belonging to my server hosts, I can only send messages out of and receive them into my main email account by extremely convoluted means today. Apologies to anyone trying to reach me. I wanted to use “current” rather than the […]
Read More26Jun08 — 4
Racism And Sexism To Be Protected By Law
This is simply wrong: Harriet Harman has defended plans to make it legal for firms to discriminate in favour of female and ethnic minorities job candidates. The equalities minister said firms should be able to choose a woman over a man of equal ability if they want to.
Read More25Jun08 — 1
Satire Again Trumped By Reality
I had drafted a PooterGeek post of semi-exaggerated biographies of the actual candidates for the upcoming Haltemprice and Magnercarter by-election, but it all seems so feeble now that David Icke is in the running. Yes, Britain’s leading conspiracy theorist and retired messiah says he’s going to join the circus. By the way, I think it […]
Read More24Jun08 — 1
Trouble At T’ Degree Mill
Another “shocking state of our universities today” story has appeared on the BBC news Website. A report from the Quality Assurance Agency says the degree classification system is broken. I smiled when I read this bit: The reports from the QAA raise some worries about the effectiveness of the external examiner system, in which examiners […]
Read More21Jun08 — 2
This Makes Me Happy
There’s a new “Where The Hell Is Matt?” video out: a world united in dodgy dancing to New Age wibbling. Go Matt! Higher resolution version intermittently available here.
Read More20Jun08 — 1
Bag Lady Collects Spare Change
It’s not just in the real world that inflation is a problem for those responsible for monetary policy. Right now, the virtual world of World of Warcraft needs to deal with an acute growth in money supply. Its administrators have decided to do so by conjuring many imaginary objects of enormous utility from nothing, giving […]
Read More19Jun08 — 2
Where I’m At
Everyone else did this ages ago. I have a long and boring chore to finish right now, so naturally I am procrastinating with things like the Political Compass test. I didn’t like a lot of the site’s questions and its idea of where the Centre is, but its assessment of my politics relative to those […]
Read More17Jun08 — 1
The Anti-Johansson Sings
She doesn’t get the fancy sound, lighting, backing band, and monitoring mixer; but then Sara Bareilles is a musician not a filmstar. Even if this amateurish video was planted on YouTube as some kind of cunning lo-fi viral marketing trick, there’s no denying the woman’s talent. Her performance starts well and gets better and better […]
Read More12Jun08 — 1
The Truth About 42 Days
42 days is 42 times 24 = 1008 hours. That is, it’s just enough days to exceed the three digit maximum that can be shown in the hour segment of the giant red LED displays that all timer-controlled terrorist bombs use to count down to detonation.
Read More11Jun08 — 2
The Book ‘Em Prize
In an effort to push through an extension to the number of days the police can detain you without charge (if you are suspected of being a terrorist), the government—sorry: “Gordon Brown”, because all current and future legislation is the work of a single overbusy Scotsman—is suggesting that it will compensate innocent suspects held under […]
Read More06Jun08 — 0
Freshening The Blogroll
I have to accept that the fine blogs “Let’s Be Sensible” and “The British Bullshit Foundation” are never coming back. In their respective market niches, PooterGeek now links to “Right Next Time” and “Sadie’s Tavern“. Don’t let me down, people. I’ve also made the following long-overdue additions: Paul Anderson’s blog Gauche, David Thompson’s, er, David […]
Read More03Jun08 — 0
Slapped
The top of the BBC News page about a possible new cure for baldness carries an image of an anonymous baldie: The bottom of the same page has images of Nick Robinson and Terry Wogan: Yesterday, as I was running to the gym past a bunch of army cadets waiting outside a local youth centre, […]
Read More03Jun08 — 0
Another One Of Google’s Smirks
If you type “Gaullism” into Google correctly then this what you see: If you omit an ‘L’, you get this:
Read More30May08 — 0
How Entertainment Industry Feuds Begin
In the space of a few days, My Scarlett Johansson post has become the subject of a round of Bloggese Whispers. First, Clive Davis linked to my “review” on his Spectator blog. One of God’s little jokes is that Clive Davis, London Times music critic, shares his name with Clive Davis, US record producer, executive, […]
Read More28May08 — 0
Taking Irony To The Next Level
This morning I received an email from a community college in Canada asking permission to publish a link on its Website to the Website of Index on Censorship.
Read More26May08 — 4
Falling Down
There is an upside to my not being a drop-dead gorgeous superstar: whenever I’m working with a bunch of stubbly musicians and my singing’s not up to scratch, they tell me, bluntly. I got my first paid residency after helping a pianist move a piano to a restaurant. He asked me to take over from […]
Read More21May08 — 0
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 […]
Read More20May08 — 0
Pussy Pedantry
My last post prompted a reader to send me photos of her tortoiseshell cats. [Thank you!] Such a flow of cat pics is of course unconventional in cat blogging, but it gives me an opportunity to point out that it’s only some of the much rarer male tortoiseshells that are the true chimeras, mixtures from […]
Read More20May08 — 5
Growing Up
[UPDATE: Edited to use the version of the body text that actually makes some sense with the originally posted title.] I’m not that old, so I’m often puzzled by people who make historical pronouncements in ignorance of recent, relevant history, sometimes history that happened within their lifetimes but not mine. Of course, as Catholic dogma […]
Read More19May08 — 1
Jonathan Derbyshire
I’ve converted the archives of Jonathan Derbyshire’s old Typepad blog and built a new WordPress site for him at jonathanderbyshire.com. Update your bookmarks and blogrolls accordingly. (You can email him at that new domain as well.)
Read More14May08 — 3
Thamesmead, Riverside School, 76–78
For a long time, PooterGeek’s homepage has been decorated with a school photo of me shot in, I think, 1979. I’ve taken the sensible advice of one of my readers and moved it. It’s still here, but on the “About” page where it doesn’t unbalance the new site design. The original print from which the […]
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