[UPDATE: Edited to use the version of the body text that actually makes some sense with the originally posted title.] I’m not that old, so I’m often puzzled by people who make historical pronouncements in ignorance of recent, relevant history, sometimes history that happened within their lifetimes but not mine. Of course, as Catholic dogma […]
Read More…did they? [via The Motley Fool]
Read MoreThe 80-year-old Bavarian, who has suffered a number of strokes, believes himself to be God’s representative on Earth and participates daily in what he and his followers claim is a cannibalistic blood ritual, during which they eat the flesh of a centuries-dead carpenter and travelling quack doctor. Officers have returned him to the high-security accommodation […]
Read MoreIf, like me, you are a Pisces, you’ll be concerned by the news in the astrology column of this week’s Brighton & Hove Leader that “Mars is tense close to Uranus”.
Read More[A New England meadow. A delicately beautiful Indian woman in a simple smock dress picks daisies with which to decorate her hair.] INDIAN WOMAN [singing to herself as she gazes into the forest beyond]: “बिछड़े अà¤à¥€ तो हम, बस कल परसों,” “जियूà¤à¤—ी मैं कैसे, इस हाल में बरसों?” “मौत न आई, तेरी याद कयों आई?” […]
Read MoreHilary Mantel is a novelist. I haven’t read any of her books. I have read her review of magician Derren Brown’s Tricks Of The Mind in yesterday’s Guardian. Near the end of her mostly negative assessment she tries to set up a weak joke: she “hopes” that “no intellectual snobbery” will prevent Richard Dawkins from […]
Read MoreYou’ve probably seen this one already because it was on Metafilter and has been going around for a couple of days. I found it via Mick Hartley. If you haven’t yet done so, hop to the Surrey Comet Website, where readers have been invited to comment on a story about how town centre managers have […]
Read MoreA warm “welcome back” to Amsa, Gravesend’s best-looking resident. Paulie, your blog ate my Collymore comment. I would love to visit Portsmouth, but I’ll have to be invited first. Trevor in Sheffield, a man in a long coat will bring you good news of a distant relative.
Read MoreIt’s the sound of ball bearings grinding against fragments of broken glass on a wet pavement. It’s being wired straight into my jaw in full-frequency Dolby surround. Yes it hurts, but if I didn’t have a face full of lidocaine I’d be squealing like a pig in a combine harvester. There’s a man with his […]
Read MoreMovieGeek Michael Brooke is back and he has a link to news on the latest shocking developments in the Chef story.
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 MoreSomeone tried to post a spam link here to the home of a new philosophy called “Normism”. I’m going to do better than that: this post quotes and links directly to the Normism site. I’m sure the spammer chose me as victim because of the many references here to normblog. The marvellous thing is, Normism […]
Read MoreFrom 70s pop stars to Lib Dem MPs to celebrity feminists, the modern public figure seems to be vulnerable to private temptation by the figure of the young man. Everyone knew Germaine Greer’s battiness had set in properly when she wrote that book about beautiful boys, though the female circumcision thing had already given the […]
Read MoreThe idea that there’s Someone Up There watching over us? Or even just that there’s Something that surrounds us and penetrates us, that binds the galaxy together? Sadly, it’s bollocks. But it’s nice to be able to say so in public.
Read MoreHe’s not badly behaved; he’s just got an oddly coloured chakra: Indigo children were first described in the 1970’s by a San Diego parapsychologist, Nancy Ann Tappe, who noticed the emergence of children with an indigo aura, a vibrational color she had never seen before. This color, she reasoned, coincided with a new consciousness. In […]
Read MoreYour meagre anecdotes insult Bast, Perfumed Protector, Cat Goddess. The one you call “Little Mo” has paid the ultimate price for your failure to show sufficient respect. Until all households of the Infidel West are part of the Catiphate our martyrdom operations will continue. Until the sacred lands of the desert again flow with milk […]
Read MoreYeah, it looks like a marble, but there’s a whole other universe in there. But you can’t see it, right? ‘Cause it’s folded up into one of the other twelve dimensions, ‘kay? Blue, man. I’ve never seen anything so blue. Hey. Your hair is, like, moving and there’s no wind. One day, I’m not just […]
Read MoreFurther to one of my shortest and most cited posts, if you don’t mind having Return of the Sith spoiled [hah!], the frankly strange Mike Doughty explains that, because Darth Vader is black, you must trust your feelings and know that he is your father. Mike was an amazingly prescient child: “I have this interesting […]
Read MoreIf, like me, you have found that reading Harry Potter leaves you unmoved, but you feel the need to keep up with the plots so you can discuss the phenomenon with the Pottd People around you, you’ll be pleased to know that Leasey has been reading the latest volume on behalf of PooterGeekers. Apparently, the […]
Read MoreMichael Jackson’s story is Darth Vader’s in reverse. In Star Wars, a whiny, sexually frustrated, white man-child no one trusts turns, via hideous disfigurement, into an all-conquering, super-cool black guy who first made it big in the 70s.
Read MoreThis could be the start of a new series: “Strange Windows In Cambridge”. Trust me: I have more photos at least as weird as this one. This city has the best university and the worst football team(s) (per capita income) in the country and the highest density of eccentrics on the whole planet. What other […]
Read MoreI seem to have upset the proprietor of Blognor Regis lately. Apparently I “was wetting myself over David Carr’s prehistoric Band Aid rant“. I think the figure of speech he was looking for was “taking the piss out of“. Taking the piss is a traditional British craft that some of the Beavis and Butthead types […]
Read MoreI used to have reservations about Ute Lemper as a singer, but on Radio 3 this afternoon, performing with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, she was stunning. I’m sad that I missed the Hebrew and Arabic songs she began her show with. Apart from an abortive attempt to read Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone—I gave […]
Read MoreAs I predicted, the pull of Blade: Trinity was too strong and Leasey and I went along to see it last Saturday. It turned out to be both very entertaining and utter rubbish. The plot is thinner than a 15-year-old on a catwalk; Parker Posey couldn’t act her way out of a parking ticket; and […]
Read MoreEven when disagreeing with me, anti-war Backword Dave has always shown commendable respect for the moral basis of my pro-war Leftie stance. Yesterday, however, he cited the words of Yoda, a Muppet no less, in criticizing Tony Blair’s foreign policy. If Tony reads it he’ll probably have to resign.
Read MoreDespite being away from the lab, I missed my chance to go to “The Wellbeing Show 2004” at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Halls. According to Time Out, if I had attended I could have tried inversion therapy, had myself screened for allergies, or had my aura photographed. Perhaps next year.
Read MoreThis is a fun, skeptical report on the various genome projects. I didn’t catch it when it first appeared in Ha’aretz: ” The circumstances which led to a visit by the head of the U.S. National Human Genome Institute astonished scientists in Israel. Collins has received many invitations to participate in scientific conferences in Israel, […]
Read MoreI suspect that I enjoyed and admired The Chronicles of Riddick so much primarily because I expected so little of it; I hope I don’t diminish anyone’s pleasure with this rave. Do not read about this film. See this on the big screen while you still can. It has been surprisingly unpopular and I only […]
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