Last 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 […]
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14Aug04 — 1
Babies And Bathwater
Bit of a ruckus breaking out in the comments of my jokey “Staff Shortage” post about the cloning of human embryos. I think the two Davids are both right. Yes, I should be cautious about speculation and yes, as a scientist I ought to try to share my understanding of the technology with others so […]
Read More11Aug04 — 0
Leave Me Alone, You Fat Bastard
On Monday evening I took a brief and long-planned break at a busy time to have dinner with friends in a good local French restaurant, Bruno’s Brasserie. The food was excellent. The company was lovely. The only flaw in an almost perfect evening was the nightmare that followed. In it, Michael Moore was firing a […]
Read More11Aug04 — 0
The End Of Days
Dame Edna Everage has a running joke about her having installed her mother in a “maximum-security rest home”. From its external aspect, the second Google hit for the phrase “rest home” could be such a place.
Read More11Aug04 — 3
The B-Team
My life is very dull indeed. This is one reason why PooterGeek is mostly about other people—or just made up. Robert Harris once wrote an article about how the absence of world war had “deprived” his generation of Englishmen of a real heroic purpose in their lives. His father’s peers would tell their children tales […]
Read More06Aug04 — 3
That Question Again
Yesterday at noon I was packing my bag in a hotel room, booked in advance over the Web, when the television turned itself on and told me that it was time for me to check out. A taxi with GPS picked me up and took me to Glasgow airport. There I waited for a ticketless […]
Read More04Aug04 — 8
A PooterGeek Poll?
What’s more annoying: the one-sentence-per-paragraph formatting of this story or its poor-me, whining celebrity content? Beauty is a curse: Halle Berry Halle Berry. She was the first African-American to represent America at the Miss World pageant. She has won enough beauty titles to last a lifetime. And she has an Oscar (Monster’s Ball) to her […]
Read More27Jul04 — 0
Protect And Survive
PooterGeek brings you extracts from the government's new terrorist advice pamphlet. [Requirements: tin buckets, plastic bags containing sufficient sand to half-fill each receptacle] Distribute the buckets around your home at points located near news sources. At the first indication that you might be exposed to threats to your way of life from self-proclaimed genocidal extremists […]
Read More27Jul04 — 2
Arthropods
[Thanks to Leasey] My street is full of Guardian-readers. I have leafletted it many times for the Labour Party and rolled my eyes at the windows full of anti-war posters and photocopied invitations to “subversive” gatherings of poets and “thinkers”. I've tried hard not to get into arguments about pre-emptive military action and top-up fees, […]
Read More26Jul04 — 0
Singapore Descends Into Anarchy
I like watching Right-wingers flip between saluting Singapore as an “Asian tiger” and squirming at its cramping nannyism. Lately, as this week's Economist reported, the city-state has been doing its best to persuade the rest of the World that the country that banned oral sex between consenting adults and the sale of the magazine Cosmopolitan […]
Read More23Jul04 — 4
One Last Mission
PooterGeek? No one's called me that in a long time. Yeah. We know. How does it make you feel to hear it? It's another man's name. Listen, friend, if you want to ask me about enrolment do it now. My office hours are for students. You know that's not why I'm here. There's an election […]
Read More14Jul04 — 0
An Odd Confession
I 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 More14Jul04 — 1
Road Traffic Accidents And Sex
I was once witness to a spectacular but non-fatal and non-crippling crash. The sequence of events was shockingly clear in my mind. A careless driver was turning right into the road where I lived. He drove straight across the path of an oncoming motorcyclist who was certainly not speeding. I know he wasn't speeding because […]
Read More11Jul04 — 2
What Part of “No” Did I Misunderstand?
“Hello.” “Hello. Damian?” “That's right.” “Hi, Damian. It's Ollie.” “Oh. Hello, Olivia. Goodness. It's been a long time. I haven't seen you since… since that night you threw my Palm Pilot in the Thames.” “Did I do that? Are you sure? I think I knocked you and it slipped out of your hand.” “Yeah. Maybe. […]
Read More03Jul04 — 15
Decree Absolute
My dad introduced me to G. She came to Tamworth from Manchester. If you've grown up in the Midlands it's tempting, but wrong, to see southern types as inherently more sophisticated. She might have suffered from dyslexia, but she was so much cleverer and kinder than her snooty rivals that it was hard not to […]
Read More22Jun04 — 0
Money Tip
Since moving from New York to The Jewish State a few years ago, Judith has discovered that popular prejudice about the country's inhabitants is wrong in many ways. One less important example is that Israelis repeatedly demonstrate to her and her husband (ex-Wall Street workers both) their chronic incompetence in the supposedly competitive field of […]
Read More21Jun04 — 1
“Rich” Is He? Well, I'll Tell You About “Rich”
He torments the Greens and he has a Right-wing 'Blog called “The Edge of England's Sword“. I once half-praised and half-condemned an occasional contribution from Iain Murray's wife, Kris, but this outburst from her yesterday was completely and hilariously sharp. [Yes, that was intentional. I pun and am proud, thank you.]
Read More21Jun04 — 0
Wits Out For The Lads
It was appropriate, given my last post, that I should watch England's alternately dazzling and comical game against Croatia perched next to a pair of extremely knowledgeable American lesbians. They admired “Cole's overlap play” like the girls on the other side of me admired James's torso when he took his shirt off at the end. […]
Read More19Jun04 — 4
“You Don't Look British”
Sorry for the thin 'Blogging; I'm still moving the furniture around in here, though I did take a break earlier this evening to visit our local cheap-and-cheerful Chinese restaurant. I have just paid in advance at the counter. The girl behind it looks at me quizzically. I smile. “Are you British?” she asks. “Yes, I […]
Read More13Jun04 — 0
Homes Of Multiple Occupation
One PooterGeek regular might be interested in this organization. Do you think they deal with very, very close neighbours?
Read More09Jun04 — 0
Help PooterGeek Remould The Fabric Of Reality
While asking after my baby pics yesterday evening, my token Palestinian friend* Hind commented in her unique style, “We all think you love children, really. Why don't you have some?” I mumbled something about how ordering a baby from the Internet in the absence of at least adding a wife to my Amazon wishlist might […]
Read More06Jun04 — 2
Nutter
What possesses someone to spend months building their own tank, climb in, armed to the teeth, smash up a couple of buildings with it, and then kill himself? At least no one else died. If only the poor guy had started a 'Blog, he could have worked all that anger out in a harmless, creative […]
Read More04Jun04 — 1
Big And Dumb
Never go to the supermarket on an empty stomach. As your blood glucose falls, the bright colours and bleeping will disorient you, the myriad choices will overwhelm you, and, worst of all, you will hear the carbs calling, calling. You will leave with enough noodles to start your own Thai restaurant and three family packs […]
Read More31May04 — 0
Almost Like A Whale
Imagine, for a moment, a new men’s fashion: “the ab-shirt”. It is the summer of 2006 and David Beckham is photographed with his second wife, holidaying on a private island. He is sauntering along the beach wearing flip-flops, shorts and… a T-shirt with a rectangular window cut away from the midriff to reveal his toned […]
Read More28May04 — 0
Wait A Minute, Mr Postman
The following is perfectly timed to coincide with this story (which the Normalizer commented on) and an item I heard on Radio 2 news today, about a Staffordshire postie who had 17 000 items of stolen mail stashed in his house. This morning, I came downstairs to find in my post a thick envelope from a […]
Read More24May04 — 11
The Art Of Wally
Just finished the latest Lee Child, slowed down by all the other stuff I’ve had to do lately. It’s a rattling good read and, although it spends more time developing institutional character, than personal characters—the US military machine is one of the main protagonists—it is full of brisk insights into human nature. It appealed to […]
Read More21May04 — 2
Magnifique!
Not 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 More05May04 — 1
The Price Of Groceries Is Eternal Vigilance
My officemate’s brother, Paul Wixon, uses sharp eyes and digital photography to bring us his Bizarre Product Swaps page.
Read More03May04 — 0
But Now I See
I’m running to Cambridge rail station with a rucksack on my back and a suit bag on my forearm. I’m going to Balliol Medical Society’s annual dinner and, as usual when I’m setting off anywhere by train, I’m late. This tends to happen when you think of yourself as living next to the platform. It’s […]
Read More27Apr04 — 0
Superheroes
Another link from Jonathan: a strange story from Reading.
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