The “pictures” included a front-page one of the torturer dressed in a pink nurse’s outfit that stopped just above the tops of her black stockings For those of you not up to date with the PooterGeek soap opera, having been made redundant from my first permanent job in science (when the Medical Research Council closed […]
Read MoreNASA ASTRONAUTS ARRIVE ON CENTAURI IV AND ENCOUNTER POPULATION OF HUMANOIDS SO PRIMITIVE THAT THEY STILL HAVE FACEBOOK ACCOUNTS. PANEL OF HISTORIANS VOTES ON MOST HATED FIGURES OF 21ST CENTURY. SADDAM HUSSEIN, CLONED HITLER, HEATHER MILLS-MCCARTNEY TOP POLL. HUMPHREY LYTTELTON FORCED TO STAND DOWN AS PRESENTER OF I’M SORRY I HAVEN’T A CLUE AFTER EXPOSURE […]
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 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 MoreLast Friday I found myself stuck in a room in a Cambridge college waiting to do a photo job so I took Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations down from a shelf and, as an intellectual dwarf perched on Hindsight the Giant, sneered at it. Certain things he said appear absurd in the light of certain experimental […]
Read MoreFoolishly allowing himself to be provoked by the skeptical taunts of Professor Cho the experimentalist, Professor Hawking chooses the annual NASA barbecue as the occasion to collect on one of his bets.
Read MoreYesterday evening, while I was eating me tea, I had the Cambridge Folk Festival on the radio. Luckily I wasn’t paying too much attention to the introductions so I had no advance warning of Salsa Celtica‘s “signature blend of big-band Latin dance music with Scottish accents”. They’re tight as a Highland midge’s nether parts and […]
Read MoreHaving read an article I wrote reviewing bioinformatics courses in the UK, and despite my honest warnings, Wei applied to be a student on one I once taught on. Because the admissions office at [insert name of educational institution easily obtained by googling] failed to process her paperwork properly she had to make do with […]
Read MoreSorry it’s been quiet. I’ve been working my way through hundreds of photo scans. Once I’ve finished I’ll be back in action here and on the Wedding Photography Blog. In the meantime I couldn’t help but notice something familiar about one of the snaps I took on the river in Cambridge at Hot Wheels Helena‘s […]
Read MoreDear Candidate If you want to be selected as the MP for the notoriously geeky and principled Cambridge constituency, spamming Labour Party members with your CV attached as a Word document sent from your work email account is not a good way to start. all the best PG
Read More12:00 NOON, 20 JUNE 2006, CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND The University of Cambridge (est. 1209) is proud to announce news that will bring together the previously too-distant worlds of celebrity and academia in dynamic and ground breaking ways: from Michaelmas term 2006, Paris Whitney Hilton, hotel heiress and celebutante, will be our new Vice-Chancellor. “The crowning of […]
Read MoreA while back I linked to Saturday Night Live‘s excellent “Narnia Rap”, Lazy Sunday. Via An Englishman In New York, I have now experienced Britain’s response to this online hit: Lazy Sunday UK: We Drink Tea. [Requires Macromedia Flash Player.] Unlike the US original, the rapping is painfully inept, but I think that’s the point. […]
Read MoreKerron came in for some stick the other day for describing the result of “The” Boat Race as: “Some Toffs beat Some Other Toffs, Ra!” It is perhaps a bit harsh. You’d have to extend the definition of “toffs” from “members of the aristocracy” to “members of the ruling classes” or “tall blokes whose parents […]
Read MoreOn Friday I went to Cambridge to stay with Jenny and Matthew (and their son Douglas) Crikey! Douglas does his Boris Johnson impression. [click image to enlarge] and to attend Cathal’s leaving party / St Patrick’s Day celebrations. After a few months you forget just how surreal a night out in a Cambridge pub can […]
Read MoreThis photo from my leaving do in Cambridge demonstrates the stunning improvement in my luck with the ladeez as a result of carefully spreading rumours about the size of my redundancy package: Jo, inventor of “Shouty Woman”, is on the left; Hot Wheels Helena is on the right. [click to enlarge]
Read MoreThings really really will be quiet around here for the next few days because I am moving from Cambridge to Brighton this week. During this time there will be a period of complete Internet “cold turkey”. Pray for me. See ya, Tabland. I’d like to say it’s been a blast, but I’d be lying.
Read MoreOn Thursday, as I drove from my appointment at the dole office JobCentrePlus, Cambridge looked beautiful enough to break your heart. Compared to Oxford, you don’t see people in gowns much here, but I passed a line of them walking very decoratively along The Backs that afternoon. The sun was shining low—through trees that hadn’t […]
Read MoreLate this morning: I’m out for a run when I overtake Leasey and companion as they stroll past one of the haunts of Cambridge’s surreal inner-city cow population. I pause long enough in my exertions for Leasey to give me a hug and tell me that she needs to take me shopping for some new […]
Read MoreI have observed before that Cambridge has Goths like other cities have pigeons. Thanks to The Guardian online (in turn thanks to Pashmina in her comment at Quinquireme), I have discovered what they get up to in the summer months: shooting townies.
Read MoreI have mentioned the wacky “campaigning windows” of Cambridge residents before. Today I walked past one that had a picture of a Labrador on display, with the caption “Liberate Laboratory Animals!” Also today I read this story: “Animal rights activists have stolen six huntaway dogs from a Massey University farm, some of which are carrying […]
Read MoreCambridge Sony Shop. Saturday. Your host, Damian “Ebony’n’Ivory” Counsell, and a Sony employee of south Asian descent who’s darker than a sideboard are wincing at the fall of cheap England wickets in their second innings. Mr Sony even goes off on one about a particularly shoddy piece of umpiring in the Aussies’ favour. Meanwhile, all […]
Read MoreIt’s half-past one in the morning and opposite my bedroom there’s a house full of drunk Mediterranean language students with MTV accents singing Oasis’s Wonderwall out of tune.
Read MorePooterGeekers of a grammatical disposition—Pashmina, Norm, Judith, my dad—should look away now. I cannot be blamed for any trauma you suffer by reading further. The Rock is a Cambridge sports pub. Still bolted over the main entrance to the venue is a rigid, commercially produced, full-colour banner. The banner promotes The Rock’s comprehensive Sky Sports […]
Read MoreReading that thing on The Guardian site about Roman soldiers wearing socks and open-toed sandals, I was reminded that this week is the Cambridge Beer Festival. To enjoy the whole event cheaply, two of my happily hetero female friends in town used to pretend to be a couple (for discount Campaign for Real Ale membership) […]
Read MoreI am back from some more letterbox stuffing. The best house sign I read this evening was: “The velociraptors housed behind this door have only been trained to disembowel callers wearing blue rosettes“ Despite this kind of heartening sight, the activists here are nervy. Doing my rounds, I bumped into two—both County Council candidates—and I […]
Read MoreI’m not sure, but I think that my grandad worked in the original Leyland Truck factory in the town of Leyland, Lancashire. [My dad will correct me soon if I’ve got that wrong.] Today, Tim Worstall links to a study of the long slow decline of the endlessly government-subsidised Rover/British Leyland/BMC vehicle manufacturing group. The […]
Read MoreI am carrying a red clipboard and wearing a Labour Party sticker on my raincoat (John Rocha, dahling). The four of us have each been canvassing in a ward which will remain anonymous for the rest of this post. We flit from door to door. We pass each other in the cluster of streets that […]
Read MoreKeen Spanish speaker Brian emailed with a pretty direct translation of the dustbin message: “Bastard rubbish collector, put the rubbish into the (f*****g) lorry and work like some kind of whore’s life” …or similar. It could be Portuguese though. I don’t recognise a couple of the words. I’ll get working on it! He did (though […]
Read MoreI have to apologise to people expecting reports from the Labour canvassing frontline here. This evening I set off to join our candidate on the streets and got completely lost on the way to the rendezvous point. I promise to tell all when I finally get out there and meet the voters, the bastards. At […]
Read MoreI’ve got an article and a grant application to write—and something more important to do—so there’ll be nothing new here for the best part of a week. In the meantime here’s a Zen window in Cambridge: [click to enlarge]
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