Right now I am doing chores of such hellish tediosity that I am beginning to wonder if time has folded in on itself. That could be one reason why taking a break to watch this YouTube clip was so enjoyable. If you recognize all the Internet memes it references then you’ve spent too much of […]
Read MoreAs I admitted yesterday, I’ve taken part in Talk Toshiba‘s blogger outreach programme. I thoroughly approve of this sort of thing. Not only does it make bloggers feel even more important than we already think we are, but it allows us to play with shiny things for free. (It’s also a boon to those with […]
Read MoreTom Hamilton complains about being spammed by Naomi Klein’s people, looking for publicity for her latest volume of designer politics. (Exactly as I didn’t with Peter Cook’s book back here, I am going to divine without reading it that Klein’s book will be rubbish.) From Tom’s comments, it seems, they also pestered Tim Worstall, Mr Eugenides, and […]
Read MoreSorry about the silence. I’ve been working hard in Portugal and working hard here. Stevie Wonder says I look just like him in these shades My exact ethnic background isn’t immediately obvious from my appearance. Most Sierra Leoneans would call me “white”; most Brits wouldn’t. To a large fraction of the people on this planet […]
Read MoreIt’s one in the morning. About fifteen minutes ago, I got back from working hard at a delightful wedding. Thanks to Jason Hare, I’ve just read this piece by Stephen King about the joys of junk culture and listened to Petra Haden’s uplifting and progressively sillier cover of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’. I’m grinning like […]
Read MoreI’ve just been on the phone with The Tax Man and we had a discussion in which we used the phrase “the bottom line” to mean “the bottom line“. Self-employment is weird.
Read MoreLots on. Things to say, but no time to say them. Sorry.
Read MoreOver the past couple of days of fairly intense work I have been excited every time I’ve checked in on the close race for the lead in the “Who’s the Messiah?” poll.
Read MoreBeachy Head[click image to enlarge it] I was eating breakfast in an hotel in Cambridge the Saturday morning after I shot that college ball. A tall, intense-looking man with a beard sat down at a table nearby. He pulled a hardback book out of his briefcase and began underlining paragraphs heavily with a soft pencil. […]
Read MoreThis has been online for so long and is so funny that it’s hard to believe that no one has sent me a link to it before. Perhaps this is because it’s a German health and safety video and, for the first minute or so, is exactly as entertaining as that description suggests. But it […]
Read Morethe middle of nowhere[click image to enlarge it] [A dirt track in Wales exactly seventy-five miles from the nearest Starbucks. POOTERGEEK is laden with three cameras, several lens bags, and a tripod. He is trying to open the gate to a field full of sheep by pressing a London Transport Oyster card against the hinge […]
Read MoreDismissing David Cameron and his gang as “toffs” is feeble, but I’ve noticed a few commentators refining that line lately. The Spectator blog points at Trevor Kavanagh, Political Editor of The Sun—there’s a job—claiming that the workrate of the Cameroonies compares unfavourably with that of either the Blairites or Brownites (as recounted by Alastair Campbell), […]
Read MoreA couple of weeks back I attended one of the two “reasonably smart” evening occasions that PooterGeekers kindly invited me to in response to my appeal so that I could test out some wacky lighting techniques. This was photographing various Latin American performers at a Cambridge college ball. I’m sure you’ll agree such a setting […]
Read MoreMy dad has long been associated, as a member and officer, with the largest UK teaching union, the NAS/UWT. Indeed, in classic working-class northerner style, he first had a heart attack as he arrived at a union conference. Equally typically, after it was initially misdiagnosed by a junior doctor as a digestive problem, he just […]
Read More…because I stupidly fried my archiving PC on Sunday evening: melted plastic, smoke, the works. I’m boring about these things so I lost no data, but I did lose too many hours to re-building and re-configuring hardware and software and restoring files. And now I’ve just rounded the tedium off by fishing the last couple […]
Read MoreWhen I was in Belgium last week, I was surprised to discover that it was just like the movies:
Read More…Mr Adams, the court has been presented over the course of these proceedings with a stupefyingly lengthy and diverse catalogue of wrongdoing. I restrict myself now to only a handful of the most appalling examples. We have heard from one of your clients, Mr Barry “Knuckles” Law, that, on the 7th of May 1998, he […]
Read MoreDuring the dying months of my doing bioinformatics for a living, I attended a scientific conference in Scotland. I helped to run a few of the seminars there, but had nothing to do with their planning. At one, I marched to the front during a student’s presentation and told a member of the audience to […]
Read MoreMy apologies to people who are waiting for email replies and blog content and other things. I’ve been away and out and I’ll probably begin to catch up with my email backlog on Wednesday.
Read MoreOver the past few years, both here and elsewhere, I have from time to time suggested that Robbie Williams is an individual of limited talent whose output has consisted mainly of hamfisted pastiche, northern English karaoke of the sort that belongs alongside the deliberately lighthearted performances of stand-up comedian Peter Kay rather than next to […]
Read MoreI’ve been staying at my parents’ this weekend—thanks, folks—while I’ve been attending the National Wedding Show [of which more soon at the Wedding Photography Blog]. The show was on at the National Exhibition Centre, round the corner from their place. As a boy I never imagined that I’d grow up to spend working Saturdays, for […]
Read MoreI’m sitting here eating a microwaved vegetable biryani in front of my computer, having returned from a Ginsters-fuelled morning shoot of a band at Shoreham Airport, a cute, art deco building surrounded by dodgy Italian mopeds of the sky—not just propellor aircraft that look like they are powered by elastic bands, but helicopters that were […]
Read MoreYesterday I had two meetings in London, so I spent a bit of time on the Tube. I am fascinated by posters on the Underground. There’s an hilariously “retro” one for the Cyprus tourist board up at the moment that I imagine being devised by two sideburned ad execs, fresh from lunch in the pub […]
Read MoreI’m in Dixons Currys.digital, buying a new computer keyboard. What sounds like a competent cover version of Starship’s We Built This City is playing. For a moment I wonder if it’s the start of one of those godawful trance retreads of 80s guitar hits. You know the sort of thing: Owner Of A Lonely Heart/Max […]
Read MoreI’m taking a few days off from blogging because I’m busy so I will leave you, as always on such occasions, with one of PooterGeek’s famously hilarious repackaged jokes. But first, this is perhaps a good time to link to one man’s account of his attempt to go without the Net for a week: Day […]
Read MoreToday, via Photo Matt, I discovered a phrase that I wish I had known about years ago: “The adage, “Why should I care what color the bikeshed is?“, means: just because you are capable of building a bikeshed does not mean you should stop others from building one just because you do not like the […]
Read MoreOver at my other blog I’ve been writing about touching up women, and summarising what I learned about photographing weddings from watching Armageddon. The latter has proved to be popular with outsiders so I am linking it from here for those who aren’t regulars at The Wedding Photography Blog. I don’t mention it there and […]
Read MoreDespite my slack posting there, in the few months since I started it The Wedding Photography Blog has gone to number two hit on Yahoo UK for the search terms “wedding photography“. This is amazing even to me. If you linked to it then thank you. I must extend special gratitude to the anti-Euston Manifesto obsessive […]
Read More07:30hrs. I’m standing outside Brighton rail station with a suitcase, but I’m having nothing to do with trains today. After a quick discussion with the on-duty policeman and the man on the information desk I plant myself outside the gates. With a flip of the lid, bearing the A2 legend FREE BOOKS FREE CARDS and […]
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