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 More14Nov06 — 1
Family
29Oct06 — 1
The Motherland
Brian Micklethwait has a post up about Sierra Leone. It’s opposite of the sort of thing many of journalists would write about the place, being politically incorrect, interesting to the casual reader, and crude but accurate—as opposed to sensitive but misleading. It’s the sort of summary of the place you might get from a mate […]
Read More23Oct06 — 0
Frozen Moment
This is a beautiful example of the possibilities of social software and of the impression of three-dimensionality you can create with slide film.
Read More21Oct06 — 3
…Then There’s Mike Selvey…
…who is usually as reliable as that bloke in the green polo shirt down your local in providing some lazy assessment of the day’s most widely discussed sporting matter. Today he manages to cram ten clichés (two, possibly three, of them misapplied) and three uses of the phrase “in terms of” into a half-page article […]
Read More11Oct06 — 1
Confident Against The World In Arms
After all those heterosexual pairings, here’s a homosexual one. I live in the gay capital of the UK and photograph weddings, yet I had to drive to Stratford-upon-Avon to shoot my first civil partnership. Ivan used to design clothes, some of which my sister used to model, and now he is Costume Co-ordinator at the […]
Read More10Oct06 — 8
Top Ten Scariest Invented Celebrity Couples
Mr Vincent Price and Mrs Katie Price Mr Phil Collins and Mrs Joan Collins Mr Don King and Mrs Billie-Jean King Mr Genghis Kahn and Mrs Jemima Khan Mr Ben Thatcher and Mrs Margaret Thatcher Mr Steve Tyler and Mrs Bonnie Tyler Mr George W Bush and Mrs Kate Bush Mr Patrick Moore and Mrs […]
Read More06Oct06 — 1
No Original
Flickr is amazing. I got an email overnight from a US political magazine asking to use one of those Darfur demo photos. A couple of days ago Norm sent me a link to an article about the death of the photographic original. You’re bored already by my “real film” fanaticism, but even in the days […]
Read More02Oct06 — 4
Advice Of Counsell
I don’t know if anyone from Sky’s legal department is reading this, but I thought I ought to warn you that my darling little sister is preparing proceedings against you because of the problems she’s been having with your domestic phone service. Please, for your own good, send someone round in a van to fix […]
Read More02Aug06 — 3
Shedding Preconceptions
I know more about science than either football or cricket. For my dad it’s the other way round. This means that our conversations about sport often lapse into arguments in which he’ll say something like, “Tom Finney would be a class above if he were playing today.” And I’ll say something like, “Do you know […]
Read More19Jun06 — 0
Not Araucaria
I’m not very good at crossword puzzles. My dad, however, was schooled by Jesuits, did classics at university, taught English for decades, and collects useless information. If you wanted to build an elite special forces crossword-solving unit then that is probably how you would train its members. Since he is a connoisseur of the biggest […]
Read More15Jun06 — 6
For England!
While I’m on the subject of real racism, this is a perfect time to bring up again the matter of “rhetorical racism”: the kind of racism some ascribe to those who have the nerve to disagree with them or merely to offend their refined aesthetics. Working class people who put England flags on their cars, […]
Read More15May06 — 12
More Advertising
Sorry for the thinness of posting and for the “online poker” comment spam at PooterGeek lately. I have been busy with wedding photography and other photography, attending my nephew’s (godson’s) christening, and catching up with friends—as well as this thing of course. Thank you to PooterGeek readers who have been helping me get business (and […]
Read More03May06 — 8
The Wit And Wisdom Of Maisie B.
My niece Maisie is cute, but she’s only three-and-a-bit years old so she still has plenty to learn about the World. This week, presented with a beach ball, she declared: “I saw India on a ball like that. It’s where elephants and peacocks live and it’s a triangle.” On seeing a black woman at the […]
Read More23Mar06 — 0
Attack Of The Northern Anoraks
Over at Stumbling and Mumbling there’s another post by the metaphorically shed-dwelling Chris Dillow that will appeal to my dad: from Freddie Flintoff to Tom Finney in ten steps.
Read More18Mar06 — 4
My Mother The Racist
The Ablutionist published an excellent post yesterday describing exactly the sort of casual wanging around of the word “racist” that I referred to on Friday. I wonder what advocate-but-not-adopter of the Stone Age lifestyle Fiona Watson would have thought if she had overheard my mother on a bus telling me as a child whenever my […]
Read More13Mar06 — 0
Conversation With My Father
PG: Did you see that cricket match?! PG Snr: No, but I’m going to watch the highlights tonight. It’s the looks on the Aussies’ faces I want to see.
Read More06Mar06 — 2
Shelf-Reflection
Two of the many dangers waiting for me on the road to the local supermarket are second-hand shops with tables full of old books outside them. I know that, if I am not strong, I will not only forget what I set out to buy, but will wind up wasting time, space, and money. There […]
Read More06Feb06 — 0
A Sierra Leonean Education
Here is the BBC’s recent picture gallery about education in Sierra Leone. The Benevolent Kumrabai Rogbanah School was once a train station. The children have never seen a train—the railway closed in 1974. It is a reminder of how prosperous Sierra Leone once was. The conditions are cramped with some children forced to sit on […]
Read More04Feb06 — 2
Beyond The Pale
Boing Boing has an item about how “frighteningly easy” it is to use FedEx to send stuff to Afghanistan. Apparently it’s also “frighteningly easy” to send things to Rwanda and Bhutan. Since my mum was on the phone to me earlier this week wondering how she could send some prints of my photos of Maisie […]
Read More17Jan06 — 1
Gratuitous Cuteness
She’s only three years old and he’s only three months, but you can tell from one look in his eyes that a terrible realisation is already dawning on Sam: like his uncle, he will become known as the “The One Whose Sister Is A Model”. [click to enlarge]
Read More16Jan06 — 1
Time For A Petition?
I was recording in Richard’s little studio the other day and he showed me some scenes from a short film he’s doing the music for. (His initial ideas sound excellent and the short not only looks good, but stars Someone Famous Off Telly.) Populated by children’s toys as his and Kate’s home is, I had […]
Read More02Jan06 — 2
Oh Poo
I found out just before Christmas that I’ve been turned down for that SciArt grant I was applying for. This is not exactly a surprise, but I’m still not happy about it. Thankfully, my family took my hint when I told them and I didn’t have to endure a Christmas of them looking at me […]
Read More02Jan06 — 0
Bump’n’Grind
Rock chick? Heavily pregnant? At last an answer to your fashion needs, including something to raise eyebrows down at those pre-natal classes. [via Frank Cheshire]
Read More31Dec05 — 5
Lessons In Pop Culture (Re)learned This Christmas
Clean-cut “youf” operatic quartet G4‘s cover of Radiohead’s Creep is either a crime against music or a post-modern deflation of passive-aggressive indie rock whining. I’m not sure which, but either way I am worried that my sister likes it and that I can’t think of a good reason why she shouldn’t. “Is It Just Me […]
Read More30Dec05 — 3
A Gift-Giving Warning
Last year or the year before, following a request on PooterGeek for you lot to suggest somewhere I might buy a bridge computer for my dad for Christmas, I ordered one for him from DreamDirect. DreamDirect is an evil chimera of The Gadget Shop and SAGA magazine: apart from selling fine handheld bridge computers, their […]
Read More21Dec05 — 8
Beige Christmas
Further to Tim and Eric’s comments, some boring personal information. My mum is from Freetown, Sierra Leone; my dad is from Preston, Lancs. I was born in Nigeria. I left Africa when I was two and have never returned as an adult—even to visit. Since my cousins have all left, and my grandmother there is […]
Read More14Dec05 — 2
Three-Year-Old Unimpressed By Conspiracy Of Teachers
If you’re going to con a small child you’ve got to make some kind of effort. According to my mum, my sister has been phoning up my dad and telling her daughter (my niece) that she has Santa Claus on the line. Maisie picks up the phone and tells Santa (my dad) that she has […]
Read More29Nov05 — 12
Top Ten Discontinued Dulux Paint Colours
Burnt Hummer Institutional Magnolia Sambo Warm Placenta Haliborange Coldplay Yellow Kilroy Autumn Phlegm Coelacanth Brown Conrad Black [Despite / because of my being born into a country in the midst of the Biafran War, a conflict in which one weapon was starvation, it was normal in the house I grew up in for us to […]
Read More02Nov05 — 9
Dis-missive
In a cunning flanking move, The Guardian responds to my post yesterday by publishing a letter from my Old Labour dad today. How can I sustain my free-thinking, post-Thatcherite, Left libertarian, public-private agnostic, open source-advocating online persona when my rellies are wandering around wearing metaphorical “Save Clause Four” T-shirts?: Maybe I’m naive, but what kind […]
Read More
Recent Comments