One of the topics of conversation at dinner with Bill and Judy was the provenance of the phrase “cheese-eating surrender monkeys”. I made two claims about it that were wrong. First, it came to prominence during the “diplomatic” row about Iraq not because it was used by a member of the US administration (as I […]
Read MoreOver to Bill and Judy’s yesterday evening for an excellent dinner and debate with the sabbaticalling professor and his wife, whom the immigration authorities would have chained in the kitchen rather than let her steal paid work from the British. Amongst other working activities, Bill has been known to wrestle with a program called Lutefisk. […]
Read MoreThis article is completely atypical in its brutal (by BBC standards) realism about the situation in Saudi Arabia. Has someone spiked their tea?
Read MoreWiqqi pointed me to more fun at the expense of those Nigerian scammers.
Read MoreHome at quarter to one in the morning to a dinner of Ritz biscuits. Anyone would think I was over-worked. Sorry for the lack of ‘Blogging. Leasey has promised us exploding penguins tomorrow. I mean today.
Read MoreThere was an excellent spoof play on the strange comedy show Radio Nine, earlier this week. In it, a bunch of actors put on period Irish accents to do an historical drama “glorifying organized crime”—a tiny, sharp pin in the romantic bubble of Republican myth (and I’m supposed to be a Catholic). Ignore the misleading […]
Read MoreAnd here it is.
Read MoreA scientist friend who wishes to remain anonymous (do you have a naughty lab head by any chance?) tipped me off to two stories about plagiarism in Nature. This brief summary on SciDev.Net has links to the original stories in the journal.
Read MoreThings go wrong with democracy all the time, but at least there’s some hope that they can be fixed. Here’s the latest from The Philippines and India. Some other systems, however, are just broken. I understand we tried feudalism here for a while ourselves, but you need a lot of oil to make an inherently […]
Read MoreYesterday I joined Sonya at the home of Mr R, the father of one of Sonya’s life-long friends, for morning coffee. He used to work as a barrister in the House of Lords. I had to leave after about an hour (an hour enlivened by his excellent stories) to run down the road and take […]
Read MoreI try to avoid ‘Blogging ‘Blogs, but Claire will love this one. Perhaps in an attempt to avoid future accusations of a lack of foresight, the CIA has a kids’ Website. (I picked this up via Mike Daisey’s ‘Blog.)
Read MoreI meant to post this at the start of the week when it was topical. My dad used to think Bill Kenwright was a great producer. Charlotte used to think that Tennessee Williams was a great playwright. Judith used to think Ashley Judd was the most beautiful woman in Hollywood. So that’s three people who […]
Read MoreIt’s proud Uncle Damian time now, so the rest of you can browse somewhere else to check out pictures of other Website owners’ cats. It was my niece Maisie‘s 1st birthday last month. I was at her birthday party and here are some photos I took with a second-hand lens that my brother-in-law Steve kindly […]
Read MoreMicrosoft will offer a bounty of $250 000 to anyone giving information leading to the conviction of virus writers*. Someone on Slashdot pointed out that this was reminiscent of O. J. Simpson swearing not to rest until Nicole Simpson’s real killer is found. *Yes, I know I should use the phrase “worm writers”.
Read MoreFirst Robbie Williams really did declare that he wanted to retire within days of this post on PooterGeek. Now, after yesterday’s post, the Curse of PooterGeek strikes Britney. Don’t mess with The Poot, popsters.
Read MoreIt’s the question every divorcing couple must ask: “Who gets the Beanie Babies?”. The answer: someone on Ebay. [I recommend you read the whole of the seller’s description to enjoy this surreal slice of Internet life fully.]
Read MoreCall me a conspiracy theorist, but I’m beginning to wonder if the Pakinstani and North Korean leaders’ unfortunate hairdos are just to hide the scars where Jiang Zemin has been messing respectively with Pervez Musharraf’s and Kim Jong-Il’s heads.
Read MoreJudith and other music lovers might be interested to know that Marcus at Harry’s Place is ‘Blogging his favourite Joni Mitchell records.
Read MoreAnd you thought they hated the Americans.
Read MoreGoogle Zeitgeist is a cruel place. Every modern decline and fall begins on this page summarizing the current state of Web searches. The latest losers: David Blaine—number two declining query for the week ending 27Oct03 Manchester United—displaced as most popular football team search by Arsenal and Real Madrid Britney Spears—from most popular search on the […]
Read MoreOnce again the Black Man is prevented from competing on an equal footing. The people of Africa are left to clean up before the march of the White Man.
Read MoreSome “boffins” at my and Wiqqi’s other alma mater think they might have located a fat gene. Here’s the press release, the news story, and the science [the journal’s Website is currently overloaded again so you’ll have to be patient if you want to download the PDF of the original paper].
Read MoreI am not going to link to the recent Guardian articles by Tariq Ali and George Monbiot about Iraq, just to the rather better and cleverer (Left-wing) ‘Bloggers who take them apart: Harry Hatchet and Norman Geras. Just as I cancelled my subscription to the right-wing Spectator because it continued to employ the racist, snobbish […]
Read MoreTears for Fears are back! (Just because I own their “best of” album doesn’t make me a hypocrite. It’s my sister’s, okay?)
Read MoreRegular PooterGeekers have probably registered free for The New York Times already. It might be worth it for newcomers to do so too, so they can read its Onion-esque headline about the situation in Iraq today: “Despite Positives, More Negatives Are Predicted“ On Saturday night I went out to a “pirates and whores” party with […]
Read MoreI, for one, laughed so hard I had to leave the church. There’s no question about it: the Pope’s a comedy god.
Read MoreOnly the British would have a swan-a-thon with live radio coverage.
Read MoreThis one’s a little higher brow than yesterday’s test of your ability to distinguish females from “shemales”. Butterflies and Wheels have recently added a new morality quiz. In exchange for five minutes of effort (and some finely Jesuitical reasoning) on your part they will tell you where you fall in their morality spectrum and point […]
Read MoreOne of the many lovely things about my sister’s wedding a couple of years ago was her choice of turn* for the reception: a Beatles tribute band called the Beat-Alls, a bunch of East Midlanders who turn into moptops for the weekends, duplicating everything from the vintage instruments to the accents. And “Paul” learned to […]
Read MoreIf you are going to commit a fraud it might as well be for 2.5 trillion dollars. Read all of this amazing true story and savour every comedy detail.
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