Blogger Mr Eugenides displays courage to rival that of Leonidas (the chocolatier rather than the king of the Spartans) as he takes on intellectual giantess Polly Toynbee in the argument over government surveillance and points up classic fallacy after classic fallacy in her defence of ID cards and CCTV cameras. What case does Mr E […]
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08Nov06 — 0
White Album
I didn’t have time to browse through them all, but there are some excellent photographs in Time‘s White House Photo Blog.
Read More07Nov06 — 2
He’s Not The Anti-Christ; He’s A C-List Celebrity
Did you know that Brighton’s 80s slightly-more-than-one-hit-wonders Frazier Chorus covered Anarchy In The UK? They did. It’s more subversive than the original.
Read More06Nov06 — 5
Sadly Straight
Thursday evening, last week: I’m standing at the bar buying my round in a not-gay pub in Brighton when a man I’ve never met before starts talking to me in a way I am reluctant to categorise as “forward” until he moves in close, starts rubbing his hand up and down my chest, and tells […]
Read More30Oct06 — 8
PM at EM
Today, Tony Blair, or “The Tonester” as I call him at our weekend soft rock jam sessions, writes for the Euston Manifesto Website. As an experiment I’ve opened a Euston Manifesto forum where you can tell him what you think of what he has to say about public service reform—on a day when the biggest […]
Read More26Oct06 — 21
In Our Defence
Shuggy is complaining about Norm’s and my spelling of “defence” as “defense” and Christopher Hitchens’ spelling of “labour” as “labor”: Lenin does it. So does Pootergeek. As does Norm. Politically different, yet the same problem; they all spell ‘defence’ with an ‘s’. Which is an Americanism. I’m happy for the Yanks to do this but […]
Read More19Oct06 — 5
Bugs In The Attic
Via Hak I learn that Madeleine Bunting is resigning as Director of Demos because “her vision for Demos is incompatible with that of the trustees”. Apparently “[Bunting] has decided to focus on her interests as a writer and a thinker”. Since my vision for the Rosalind Franklin Centre for Genomics Research proved incompatible with that […]
Read More18Oct06 — 22
Ungentlemanly English
A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the accordion but doesn’t. Gentlemanly English is when you can read Martin Amis without resorting to a dictionary, but people are unaware of this fact when they read your own writing. Gentlemanly English is when you have a knighthood and a seat in the Lords, but […]
Read More16Oct06 — 5
A Combination of Biblical Awfulness
I do like it when I find an interesting discarded section of a newspaper that I haven’t read: the Friday film and music supplement or the Saturday review from the Guardian for example. I didn’t notice it at the time, but last Saturday The Guardian printed a review by Douglas Hurd of a book about […]
Read More13Oct06 — 12
Waffly Good
Regulars will know that I am not a lover of art house cinema. (I have been meaning to slag off the execrable Volver here since I saw endured it a few weeks back.) But yesterday evening I watched a grim, documentary-style Belgian film and enjoyed it. Hilariously, the plot, such as it is, centres almost […]
Read More11Oct06 — 1
Surfing The Wave
Jackie‘ll like this. And, just as rocket science and brain surgery are not necessarily the most intellectually demanding specialisms of physics and medicine respectively, Tim also points out that organising a piss-up in a brewery is a non-trivial exercise.
Read More08Oct06 — 8
So Nerr
I was having an argument in the pub today with a blogger who’ll remain nameless, but only if he now sends me a grovelling email. He said we should be grateful that Britain doesn’t have a written constitution because if it did the lawyers would be in control. I pointed out that they already are: […]
Read More06Oct06 — 4
Separateness
Yet another constituent is excluded from Jack Straw’s surgery.
Read More05Oct06 — 4
Photos Of “Day For Darfur”, London
One of the drawbacks of taking photos for a living is that the family / personal /pro bono jobs you do tend to slide down your to-do list. Today I’ve been squinting at scans and negs on-and-off since about 10am. I bundled up a bunch of print orders just before the lab closed at 6pm, […]
Read More04Oct06 — 0
Two More Apologies
In response to the previous PooterGeek post I received an email from a reader in Dulwich who wishes to make it clear that, despite buying property there, the Thatchers never actually took up residence in her neighbourhood. I’m sorry for suggesting otherwise. I’ve also toned down the language I used about Susan Greenfield back here […]
Read More03Oct06 — 1
WebThatch
[Through a tiny RealPlayer window it is difficult to make out the gloomy interior of a top-of-the-range Executive Home in Dulwich. The scene brightens as a fluorescently-lit life-support pod opens and we catch a glimpse of a giant electromechanical hand lowering a pulsating mass of hair onto MARGARET THATCHER’s scalp. One lower petal of the […]
Read More15Sep06 — 10
Andrew Marr In Interracial Sex Shocker
I have a gorgeous twentysomething friend “of Punjabi descent” who nurtures a secret love for former BBC political correspondent and Radio 4 culture vulture Andrew Marr: Yes, that’s Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke’s babyfather Andrew Marr: Thanks to the certifiable “I Am An Englishman” I can reveal that her secret love is likely to be […]
Read More08Sep06 — 4
Indispensable
Wikipedia will eventually triumph over all other existing encyclopedias. Does any edition of Britannica or Encarta have a “List of films ordered by the use of the word ‘fuck’“? Yesterday’s featured article was about philosopher and socialist Hilary Putnam, who is the Putnam in the “Quine-Putnam indispensability thesis” and definitely my kind of thinker. (By […]
Read More08Sep06 — 2
And Still One More
Because I linked to Skuds fairly early on in his blogging career I forgot that I hadn’t put him on the blogroll. He’s there now. I’ve met Skuds. I wouldn’t say he’s hard, but he looks like a young Brian Dennehy with a buzz cut, his 14-year-old daughter has been photographed by two newspapers dressed […]
Read More31Aug06 — 1
The Future Of Darfur And The Future Of The Left
Because of a couple of gremlins over at the Euston Manifesto site we’ve accidentally been turning people away from applying for tickets to our meeting next Tuesday evening in London. It’s free and there will be three speakers on the subject: “Darfur: An Urgent Case for Humanitarian Intervention”. Follow the link to email us for […]
Read More25Aug06 — 1
Stop The War(monger Bush And His Poodle Blair)
As you know I’ve been busy, so I’ve only just noticed via Jo Salmon that someone has found an honest STWC/CND flyer.
Read More15Aug06 — 3
My Kind Of Loser
Al Gore seemed to have been engineered by a mad scientist to become President of the United States of America: born in Washington DC to a former senator, elite education, lots of practice being Vice-President to one of the more distracted actual Presidents, George W. Bush for his opponent, tall, good hair. How could it […]
Read More14Aug06 — 2
Reformation
There are excellent posts by Harry, DavidT, and Marcus on the front page of Harry’s Place. Following all the stand-ins and argy-bargy over there it’s like the Beatles coming back on after having The Electric Light Orchestra play support. [Note that, like wardytron, I rather like ELO.]
Read More11Aug06 — 3
Sex And Sensitivity
The Wedding Photography Blog was picked up, via Design | asides, to feature in Designers Who Blog, but I didn’t mention it here when it happened because my friend Fudge said the photo of me they used makes me look as if I’m just about to sneeze. Now I’ve got over this, you can see it too. […]
Read More09Aug06 — 14
Superman
Having popped out a couple of twins, Israeli bloggess Gloria Salt is back. Via the comments on her most recent post, I stumbled upon the output of “nationally syndicated Libertarian columnist and author” Vin Suprynowicz. Via his commentary on the war in Lebanon… It’s typical for those who crave peace to try compromise and appeasement. […]
Read More02Aug06 — 4
Overdue Linkage
I keep meaning to update my blogroll to include some thoroughly entertaining but low traffic sites like Never Trust A Hippy and Rob Newman, who has discovered more amusing real-life lunacy since I last linked to him, but I want to change the format of the links completely—so, right now, the perfect is getting in […]
Read More02Aug06 — 3
Shedding Preconceptions
I know more about science than either football or cricket. For my dad it’s the other way round. This means that our conversations about sport often lapse into arguments in which he’ll say something like, “Tom Finney would be a class above if he were playing today.” And I’ll say something like, “Do you know […]
Read More01Aug06 — 3
Awkward Casting Problem Solved
From The New York Daily News: “According to the incident report obtained by TMZ.com, [Mel Gibson] embarked on a belligerent, anti-Semitic outburst when he realized he had been busted. “F—–g Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” Mee’s report quotes him as saying. “Are you a Jew?” Gibson asked the […]
Read More01Aug06 — 5
Crash Team
One of the discussions I had at Jackie’s party was about government incompetence in IT procurement and management. Gazillions of pounds of our money goes to buy BMWs for “consultants” who I wouldn’t trust to format a floppy disk and the results are exactly as you would expect. Of course poorly thought out and chronically […]
Read More20Jul06 — 6
The Evidence-Based Politics Of Envy
Further to my recent post about executive salaries, here’s an article from Tuesday about how the tech firms that pay their CEOs the most give the lowest returns to investors. [via Slashdot]
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