Given that there are a number of famous urban myths about UK TV teen quiz host Bob Holness in circulation, it’s surprising to discover that he really did play James Bond in 1956. Here’s the trailer for the upcoming Casino Royale. Eric the Unread has a link to the French version, Royal Casino.
Read MoreIn an ad in Sound On Sound, Pete Townshend is quoted as saying: “I’m a huge fan of Ivory. It amazes me every time I use it.” Ivory is, according to the reviews I’ve read, superb software for obtaining grand piano sounds that are indistinguishable from the real thing (they are the real thing), but […]
Read MorePlastered across the front of the Observer this morning I read: “PRESCOTT EXPLOITED ME—SAYS TEARFUL EX-MISTRESS.“ Woman starts affair with prominent married politician and gets screwed over. As a story it’s up there with “DOG BITES CHEWY PLASTIC BONE!” but the punters never tire of it. There’s a reason why men like John Prescott behave […]
Read MoreI’m in a bookshop on the Charing Cross Road. I’ve just come from lunch with an editor at The Economist(, dahling). My mobile rings. it’s the other person from the newspaper I was supposed to meet earlier. She’d been stuck in the City, talking to men-in-suits. I move to the back of the shop and […]
Read MoreThe growing demand for shock-horror “true-life” stories has, apparently, now raised the going rate for a non-celebrity, sub-tabloid confessional to £10K. [Sorry I’ve lost the link for this factoid, but it’s more plausible than most of the headlines I’ve circled in the photograph above.] I suspect that the following from Marie Claire is about as […]
Read MoreThis is still a favourite PooterGeek post, and the Argus keeps coming up with more gems, though sadly I don’t always have my camera with me. [click image to enlarge]
Read MoreThis a is funny post about Grumpy Old Men.
Read More…when I heard this evening’s BBC Radio 4 news describe the September 11 attacks on New York as a “terrorist outrage”. Did anyone else catch that or were the vapours rising from my Matey causing me to hallucinate?
Read MoreThere’s a fascinating rumble going on at Tim Worstall’s place about legal status of certain battlefield practices. Here’s the quote from a Telegraph article that Tim set it off with: Lt Col Glyn Harper, a professor at the New Zealand army’s Military Studies Institute, who co-authored the book, In the Face of the Enemy, said […]
Read MoreI thought this piece was an April Fool’s joke, but it’s dated the third: hyperbole, cliché, metaphors so mixed you can’t tell where the crescendos end and the whirlpools begin. But Stephen Pollard has a point. I couldn’t get into the Tesco carpark today for the customers panic-buying in the wake of the chaotic chaos […]
Read MoreWas this Guardian letter really a parody by the Harry’s Place mob? Please tell me that Chris Martin supporting the Tories was a spoof. Disillusionment with Labour is bad enough, but to lose respect for Coldplay and their music would exacerbate the situation. Michael Pritchard Watford
Read MoreJAMES NAUGHTIE: You’re listening to The Today Programme on BBC Radio 4. In our radio car in Norwich we have the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke. Good morning, Mister Clarke. CHARLES CLARKE: Good morning, Jim. JAMES NAUGHTIE: In a minute I’m going to be asking you about today’s news that the UK’s prison population is larger […]
Read MoreChris, you’re a bright bloke, well-read, great company and all that, but this is plain daft. The Silly Bunt’s article was a steaming pile of cack and responding to her adolescent nonsense about “the Enlightenment” (and her many justified critics in blogland) by wibbling on about “Paolo Mattia Doria’s contemporary five-fold distinction” is a bit […]
Read MoreThere’s even a forum on the Internet Movie Database where members are trying to come up with a tagline for the film whose title is a tagline: Snakes On A Plane: “They’re not after the peanuts.” Snakes On A Plane: “Scared of heights? Scared of snakes? We put them together.” Snakes On A Plane: “This […]
Read MoreI had a copy of The Daily Telegraph (aka The Torygraph) because it’s always worth reading the opposition press on a day of Labour Party smugness. [TEN YEARS OF A CHANCELLOR WHO KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING, YOU TORY BASTARDS! TEN YEARS! HE MAY BE A ONE-EYED WONK FROM PLANET MEDDLE, BUT HE’S OUTPERFORMED EVERY SORRY […]
Read MoreDisplaying his usual deftness, cuddly old Boris takes on the question of religious dress in schools in today’s Telegraph. You could summarise the first part of his contribution thusly: “That Shabina Begum: even dressed like a pillar box you’d do her, wouldn’t you?” And, as usual, he has a point.
Read MoreFurther to the South Park / Scientology story, Richard points out that another celebrity cultist prominent believer, Tom Cruise, might have pushed Paramount to pull the “offending” episode by threatening not to co-operate in the promotion of his latest movie. There’s a chilling ultimatum: “If you broadcast that South Park episode then it’s curtains for […]
Read MoreFor a while I wondered if she was a parody, so broken and infantile and hackneyed were her arguments. Now I only ever read her when someone writes about her. Madeleine Bunting‘s intellectual and moral development has been so corrupted by the ideological diseases of our time that she is hardly qualified to read out […]
Read MoreThere’s an overlap between my CD collection and Richard‘s, but we do come at music from slightly different angles. He subscribes to The Wire; I subscribe to Sound On Sound. In the most recent edition of The Wire all three of their interviewees had beards—two of them goatees. In the most recent Sound On Sound the main interviewee was 80s pop […]
Read MoreBrighton and Hove’s local newspaper is called The Argus. Its staff don’t have much to write about: the football team and its struggle for a stadium, resident micro-celebrity Zoe Ball and her slightly more famous husband Fat Boy Slim. I think I’ve only bought a copy twice. Yesterday was the second time. Why? Because of […]
Read MoreContinuing the follow-ups to this, thanks to siaw in the comments for drawing our attention to this fine attack.
Read MoreOoh, it‘s turning grievous for Younge as Kammo gets in there too.
Read MoreFor girls (or boys) reading this who used to have a crush on John Corbett, the actor who played DJ Chris Stevens in the TV series Northern Exposure, an uncharacteristically frivolous Gloria Salt has some bad news. For the (other) boys, all I can say is that there’s a special kind of schadenfreude that comes […]
Read MoreFirst blood to Tim.
Read MoreFlicking through the opinion pages of the Guardian this morning I can see there are going to be some busy bloggers today. I predict that, by lunchtime, David “we pick on Israel because it’s a democracy” Clark will be lying slumped over his PowerBook, killed in the Drawing Room with the Knife, by the Professor. […]
Read MoreAbove the usual manufactured outrage headline on the front page of the Daily Mail this morning I read the following smaller banner: He’s quizzed over £350 000 “bribe”. Their home is remortgaged three times in four years. Yet not once, says Tessa Jowell, did she ask her husband: “What the hell is going on, darling?” Crikey. […]
Read MoreBernd Schneider reviews Star Trek model kits: The Enterprise-C is one of the very few starship model kits that can be recommended to beginners. It is also one of the best researched kits by AMT/Ertl. Provided the model is carefully painted, it may look very close to the actual studio model. The most annoying flaw, […]
Read MoreBored with an England football coach who hardly ever loses a competitive game and irritated by his getting more sex with hot foreign babes than they ever will, tabloid journalists (and many of their readers) finally get what they wanted all along: England’s new manager to be homegrown: British or Irish candidate with ‘passion’ a […]
Read MoreVia Botheration comes this nice Charles Kennedy, er, come-back recorded by The Independent reporting on his meeting the people: Mr Kennedy was greeted warmly… ‘I love you, Charles,’ said one elderly lady pushing to shake his hand. “Don’t start any tabloid scandal,” he said.
Read MoreMainstream hip-hop has become cock rock in blackface. Twenty years from now we will look back and laugh ourselves silly that it was possible for a lardy munter like the stupidly named “Notorious BIG” (that’s “Bee-Eye-Gee”, ladeez) to be Number One in the UK charts with an unironic Feed-The-World style ensemble display of sexual bragaddocio […]
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