Also via Tim Worstall, would you hire a “PR guru” who uses (at least) eight different fonts on his own homepage? Note that, underneath his Superhero Personality Test post, the next two items on Stuart Bruce’s site are about the messiness of the e-democracy Weblog and the importance of using plain text in email. Best […]
Read MoreAt least two of the broadsheets have had agony columns that invite readers to respond with answers to other readers’ problems. A few years back one (I think it was the Guardian) printed a letter from a woman despairing of her live-in boyfriend ever “growing up” and marrying her. The majority of the female contributors […]
Read MoreAs announced prematurely back here by Jackie, here’s news of this month’s celebrity break-up. (But, according to the cover of one of the sleb mags in the newsagent’s George Clooney and Teri Hatcher may be involved in merger talks—denial here.)
Read MoreApparently it costs too much money for publishers to fact-check the non-fiction they produce: Last Thursday, publishing-industry veteran Nan Talese was excoriated on television by Oprah Winfrey for publishing James Frey’s 2003 “A Million Little Pieces,” a bestselling memoir about the author’s struggle to overcome drug dependency that he has since admitted is partly fictitious. […]
Read MoreI’ve written before here about how Armando Unfunnucci‘s consistent inability to raise a laugh with his “humorous” Guardian column used to bond me with complete strangers on the Tube. Now he’s returned, replacing decaying homophobic bore Richard Ingrams on the back of the main section of The Observer. Today his closing flourish of wit was […]
Read MoreTo celebrate my (late) discovery earlier in the week of the Dr Who theme remix site I offer you a chance to participate in PooterGeek’s toughest end-of-the-week challenge yet: The Instrumental Transliteration Tournament. Inspired by the Whovian musicians’ model I give you three examples: Dr Who EEEEEeeeeeeaouuuuw WHOO-eee-OOO [bumbly-bum, bumbly-bum, bumbly-bum] WHOO-eee-OOO [bumbly-bum, bumbly-bum, bumbly-bum] […]
Read MoreGEORGE GORRAWAY MP: Yes, m’lud. That is indeed myself, naked before one of the sons of the Rightful Ruler of that noble yet tragically violated Arab nation, attempting to excite his flaccid member by gently stroking its tip with my moustache whiskers, whilst simultaneously drowning two screaming Kurdish orphan children below the surface of the […]
Read MoreYou must pay attention to the adverts on BBC Radio 4 over the next few days. They are running one that sets a new standard in bathos—and proves that at least one stratum of society is impervious to the “reality” media’s will-to-emote. It starts with a dramatic re-enactment of the last communications from the radio […]
Read MoreYesterday evening, the normally pretty rigorous Spam Karma allowed a comment to be posted to PooterGeek that purported to be written by someone going by the name of “penis enlargement”.
Read MoreHave you ever had that experience when you’re quietly browsing a public library and you (foolishly) strike up a conversation about one of the books on display with one of the other regulars—a slightly intense-looking middle-aged man in a sweater—and you gradually realise you are engaging with someone from the other side of the reality/fantasy […]
Read MoreSome misquotes are more serious than others. [thanks to Claire]
Read MoreThe Simpsons at its best gave us some of the finest television ever broadcast. Here’s how it’s made. [via Slashdot]
Read MoreOkay, people. I’ve got a new business model here. It’s very Web 2.0. It’s very post-marketing. Here’s how it goes: “entrepreneurs” who’ve set up per-pixel advertising Websites pay me money per letter to add their comments to the others from all the other dollar-millionaire wannabes who’ve already left theirs behind on my Alex Tew posts. […]
Read MoreI do a spoof in-prison Saddam Hussein custard endorsement and within days the Guardian is reporting that Saddam’s tailor can’t keep up with the demand for his courtroom “look”. I write a fake Guardian article complaining about better educated students graduating to vote Tory and the same newspaper follows it up by reporting on hardening […]
Read MoreOn the front page of educationguardian the headline is “Segregation, 2006 style” as “Figures on the ethnicity of students in higher education show a disturbing racial divide amongst universities” Inside the cover, Trevor Philips, Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, complains about the “institutional racism” that keeps blacks “students of African-Caribbean heritage” out of […]
Read MoreIt passed me by because I was busy participating in a traditional British lemming trundle along a motorway*, but, now I have had a chance to catch up with it, I think I have just read John Simpson’s final serious news report. It is in many ways a frightening document; I am afraid on his […]
Read MoreBack in September I picked up on Alex Tew’s milliondollarhomepage idea of selling advertising space by the pixel. Just as he planned, he’s approaching dollar millionairehood.
Read MoreBusy busy busy. Go read Google News, peeps.
Read MoreMedia composer Richard subscribes to various lists that offers work for people in his business. As with much of the media world, those offering gigs are fully aware of the desperation of celebrity wannabes to get any kind of experience—so they pay accordingly: peanuts or less. To use the jargon, they take the piss. Such […]
Read MoreIn October 2005, PooterGeek features two posts and twenty-two comments celebrating sheds. In December 2005, the creator of Shedboatshed wins the Turner Prize for Art. Even Dave F’s joke is recycled by a Professor Sam Shuster on the Guardian letters page. Once again, my people, we surf ahead of the wave. On a surfboard made […]
Read MoreFor anyone else who has a Godwinian objection to my recent Channel 4 post, Never Trust A Hippy presents further relevant data: The trailer prior to tonight’s (UK) Channel 4 Dispatches programme ‘America’s Secret Shame’ (part of a series of programmes about the war in Iraq) featured the series’ money quote. It was spoken to […]
Read MoreThis story appeared on the BBC News Website yesterday: “Pakistan’s government is to remove a poem from a school textbook after it emerged the first letters of each line spelt out “President George W Bush”. “The anonymous poem, called The Leader, appeared in a recent English-language course book for 16 year-olds. “ The Pakistani authorities […]
Read MoreYesterday’s serious press carried near-full-page advertisements for Channel 4’s new substation “More4“‘s screening of Downfall, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s acclaimed cinematic imagining of the last moments of former German head of state Adolf Hitler. These advertisements read: “It’s a happy ending. He dies.” But just how happy an ending was it for the once-proud nation that was […]
Read MoreThree months from now clueless articles about “Generation @” will be appearing in British Sunday newspaper supplements. [via Slashdot]
Read MoreYesterday in the Guardian Nicky Campbell joined the minority of press commentators who have mentioned recently deceased footballer George Best’s tendency to slap women around. He did so with a telling quote from one of Best’s exes: “I adored George, and do you know what? In almost two and half years together he only hit […]
Read MoreYou Don’t Want To Do That, a new BBC reality radio show, will follow a group of potential recruits to the Samaritans as they attempt to become full-time counsellors to the suicidal, the depressed, and the lonely. In this preview recording of the first episode, the hopefuls are thrown right into the deep end. They […]
Read MoreTim Worstall [thank you, Tim!] recommended PooterGeek in his article about ‘Blogging today in the Times. This would be wonderful news except for my continuing lack of Internet access at home, the absence of any kind of post on PooterGeek today, and my having allowed my “Best Of” section to become months out of date. […]
Read MoreI realise a gym in Brighton is probably not the kind of place where you would expect to find, say, The Playboy Channel showing on the TV screens, but yesterday while I was working out the video to the latest Will Young single was on. It’s a Top Gun pastiche that opens with a great […]
Read MoreNo time to ‘Blog properly today. [Insert your own joke about the current quality of PooterGeek here.] So I’ll just make one observation about the Guardian, because it’s a quick and easy way of filling space. There’s a piece (in G2?) today about how the Women’s Institute is shedding its mumsy, Home Counties, jam-making image […]
Read MoreIn 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 […]
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