Talking of Catholics and movies, Maoi recommends Imelda at “Firecracker Philippines“, the UK’s first Filipino film festival, which runs from tomorrow, Fri 24Sep04, until Sun 26Sept04. The promoters promise “Six of the best recent film [sic] from the Philippines—five of them UK Premieres!”
Read MoreJust back from Leasey’s where she didn’t have to strap me into the harness to watch a chick flick starring Cher. With my psychosexual make-up, the incantation “Winona Ryder plays a Jewish girl who desperately wants to be Catholic” is more effective in overwhelming artistic judgement than “Halle Berry runs around wearing a leather catsuit […]
Read MoreClaire recommended this book to Judith and me today. From the review she pointed us at it sounds fascinating and, as Judith pointed out, one of its themes is one of my long-time obsessions, namely that the the pursuit of happiness is not a right.
Read MoreMy Palm Pilot doesn’t have enough memory for me to say that every friend of Auriol‘s is a friend of mine, but I’ve added a couple of her family members to the “Friends of PooterGeek” over there → and down a bit ↓ .
Read MoreMy friends will, I think, smile wryly at the news that PooterGeek is the sixth hit on Google for “beneficial effects of marriage“. [I could explain the “Alanis” reference here, but why bother shooting a fish in a bucket when plenty of people have bagged it already, including this guy? He’s wrong about her singing […]
Read MoreI sent an email to a “friend” yesterday: “Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 From: Damian Counsell Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803 To: xxxx@xxxx.net Subject: p.s. I have more Gmail invites than I know what to do with, so am welcome to suggestions. x“ It got what it deserved: “Date: Wed, 8 Sep […]
Read MoreI was just going to pop this one in an email to Judith, fan of all things Wodehouse (and an American Jew in Israel, so yah boo sucks), but it’s too good for that: Stephen Fry on Robert McCrum on the other PG. (Why can’t Fry write like that all the time?)
Read MoreI didn’t watch the England game yesterday evening, thank God; I went to a barbecue held by a couple of nice people I know—calling them friends would be an exaggeration, though I certainly wouldn’t be ashamed to do so. N is an old-school, self-taught computer whizz with an interesting life history. I know him through […]
Read MoreWhen I was about 16, Charlotte Jones, now a playwright, beat me in the final of a public speaking competition. Because we were released from the green room to compete one-at-a-time, I didn’t meet her in person until a couple years later when we wound up undergraduates at the same college. We then spent far […]
Read MoreLove and Bent Spoons to Auriol on her engagement! [Auriol is a cousin of fellow ‘Bloggers Chris Brooke and Michael Brooke.]
Read MoreThe misspelling “high-acheiver” has scarred your page on counsell.com for months. It even appeared twice! I am so ashamed it hurts.
Read MoreLast weekend I went with Caroline and Khadija to a wedding. Regulars might be surprised that it was the first time I have ever taken a camera to one. Making good pictures with an old-fashioned SLR can be a bitch, but some days everything seems to go pretty well: [click to enlarge] Sadly it’s not […]
Read MoreOne day in the nineties, my friend Hind, woke up and left her student house to go for a walk in Oxford. She threw on a sloppy sweater, pushed her hair into something like a do, and strolled up the Cowley Road towards the city centre. Some French schoolkids walked past her. One saw her, […]
Read MoreSo I agreed in the end. They renewed my licence to kill; I loaded my PPK; I strapped on the chronograph with its plutonium-powered homing device; I got back into the Aston Martin; and I went into action. I asked for Clooney, Connery, and Berry as co-stars. What did they send me? A bunch of […]
Read MoreThanks to Nicholas and Hind for listening to my woes and cheering me up Friday evening at Nick's impressively well-attended party. Hind told me that one of her friends had come along to my last gig in Brighton and liked it so much he bought the CD. Nicholas told me, to my surprise, that I […]
Read MoreI don't know if it's because half of my best friends are Jewish, but every single time I see the cover of Bill Clinton's autobiography I imagine him shrugging his shoulders and delivering the title in a north London accent. For example: “My life! The girl has this einredenish that I loved her! And that […]
Read MoreI'm having problems sending out email from my main email account. Apologies if any of you are not getting messages from me or getting multiple copies of the same message from multiple sources. NTL claims to be working on the problem.
Read MoreLeasey brings us a fascinating tiny game. I could warn you of the little wrinkles, but you'll have more fun working them out for yourself. She also recommends that we catch up on the latest drama in Britney's life. It's not just the world of international refereeing that's gone topsy-turvy: pork scratchings are becoming a […]
Read MoreFriends of the PooterGeek might be interested in more photos from Paris. The rest of you will probably want to skip the boring pictures of buildings… … and look at Eitan being cute… …or Claire and Judith being cute…
Read MoreYesterday evening my officemate Jo and her fiancé kindly shared their home, food and television with me for the England cock-up. I have mentioned my officemate Jo's brother Paul before. He is a bit of a “character” as we English say, though he himself is married to a foreigner (Japanese) with whom he has produced […]
Read MoreAuriol emails to tell me her friend Rose George has a book out about asylum seekers. (I think) I’ve met Rose a couple of times and (if she is who I think she is) she’s bright and fun. Here’s the first part of something she did about what it’s like being a bus driver in […]
Read MoreNot having even seen Prague and Florence yet, I am hardly in a position to say that Paris is the most beautiful city in the World, but, if it isn’t, then I have some dazzling sights left to enjoy in my life. My goodness, the place lives up to the hype. If you know me, […]
Read MoreMy dad warned me—and I hope Auriol isn’t offended if I write this—but the BBC documentary about the four-minute mile that I ‘Blogged about last week (and my dad kindly recorded for me) sounded in places like a P G Wodehouse spoof. Apparently, after the race in Oxford, the leading runners were driven at top […]
Read MoreMy friend Auriol‘s dad [yellow shirt, right-hand side of photo] wasn’t one of the six men who ran in the mile race in which Roger Bannister broke the four-minute “barrier”, but he should have been. He is still an unbelievably active and adventurous man who yomps around mountainous, remote parts of the World for fun […]
Read MoreI went to a delightful wedding do at The Scotsman hotel in Edinburgh on Saturday. Ros [far left-hand side] and Andy had already had a ceremony in Thailand where half of Ros’s family comes from. I couldn’t afford to take up my invitation to that party. They officially tied the knot in Scotland because, if […]
Read MoreNow Leasey is back at work to read this, I can congratulate her on passing her driving test and having two one-inch molars removed from her head without dying from the loss of blood. Well done!
Read MoreWriting an article titled ” Christianity and Judaism cannot be reconciled”, Bruce Anderson of The Spectator might be the only person on the planet who agrees with me (up to a point) about The Passion. Unlike me, he’s seen the film and recently read the Bible. (Unlike everyone else I’ve linked to on the matter, […]
Read MoreMet up with the Kids of the Campus in the end last night—in the street. How very now.
Read More
Recent Comments