…what about the shocking behaviour of Australian cricket fans?
Read More11Jan07 — 1
UK
01Jan07 — 6
Sex-u-a-lity
Given that I spent New Year’s Eve alone at my computer keyboard tidying up my remote UNIX home directory, this is going to read like a middle-class white guy wibbling on about how “vibrant” the local “community” is as he moves into a flat in one of London’s tiny ethnic war-zones instead of the Georgian […]
Read More11Dec06 — 8
Fighting Sexism
It appears that there is a serial killer murdering prostitutes in Suffolk. Jeremy Vine has just been interviewing Frances Curran, Scottish Socialist Party Member of the Scottish Parliament for the West of Scotland on BBC Radio 2. She argued that the victims should not be referred to in the media as “prostitutes” because this “invites a judgment” […]
Read More08Dec06 — 6
Straydar*
I’ve just returned from another boozy early evening exhibition party. One of the exhibitors is a painter who does portraits from photographs so it was business as well as pleasure. When things finally started winding down, the last people standing were three gay guys, the hostess, one other woman, and me. At that point the […]
Read More05Dec06 — 4
Overheard In New York
Someone at Harry’s Place comments that Until now, I thought Gwyneth Paltrow was Welsh.” which reminds me of being in a video rental store in NYC in the late 90s with a local. An old Tom Jones song starts playing. “Well, I never,” says I to my native companion in my conspicuously British way, “This […]
Read More30Nov06 — 3
Season’s Magreetings
On the way to Intenso to drop off some photos, I passed the windows of an art supplies shop and snapped these items from the display with my cameraphone.
Read More29Nov06 — 1
Mild For The Time Of Year
In the past week, two shops within two doors of each other in my street have decorated their respective forecourts with a giant fibreglass ice cream cone and a lifesize inflatable Santa Claus.
Read More21Nov06 — 6
Public Enemy
I don’t have perfect pitch. One of my long-suffering former Flatland music tutors would however be amused to read that the other day I noticed that my toothbrush was playing the key note of a Kelly Clarkson song and I wandered over to the piano and played the scale along with it—first time! I never […]
Read More19Nov06 — 2
Beige Girl In The Ring
Following on from my previous post, the entertaining flickr pages of a posh Asian-Italian woman called Robyn are at the end of this link, including her own pics of Brighton from her recent visit with her man. (They seem to be public so I don’t think this makes us voyeurs. She’s part of the Bobbie […]
Read More18Nov06 — 6
Waiting For The Anonymous Economist
I love photographing people, but sometimes the world looks fine without them. These photos are from the part-roll of film that I took with me that Sunday morning two weeks ago. Next time I’ll take a tripod and a multipack of 100ASA. Click on any one of the thumbnails below to see an larger version. […]
Read More10Nov06 — 0
Orb In Sky
I enjoyed a beautiful drive through Autumn English countryside to a job in West Sussex yesterday. Driving back blind into low sunlight wasn’t quite so pleasant. This random November photo from flickr is lovely too.
Read More08Nov06 — 25
Pot-Bellied Man In Speedos Points At Naked Middle-Aged Woman And Laughs
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 […]
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 More31Oct06 — 12
Another Positive Review
A month or so back I was in the farthest darkest reaches of Hove, Actually (practically in Portslade, for the locals reading) having a repair done to my car. While I waited I wandered into a new café called “Intenso”. It’s an unlikely outpost of another Intenso in Ibiza—though not so unlikely with the weather we’ve […]
Read More30Oct06 — 0
The Age Of Beige
Thanks to my dad for telling me about this article in yesterday’s Observer sports section about mixed race sportsmen. There’s lots of pointless hand-wringing about the phrase “half-caste”, but it’s interesting otherwise. During the rise of Tiger Woods and around the time this hit the headlines I used to joke with a colleague who was […]
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 More24Oct06 — 1
Advertisement I Saw In A Post Office Window Today
GOT A TINY SPARE ROOM? EARLY-RETIRED TEACHER (MUSIC AND ENGLISH) WOULD LIKE TO LIVE IN IT IN RETURN FOR ANY COMBINATION OF THE FOLLOWING: CLEANING, SHOPPING, DOG-WALKING, COMPANIONSHIP, LIFE COACHING, LIFE COACHING FOR VEGANS, LIFE COACHING FOR CRICKETERS, PIANO OR ORGAN TUITION, ENGLISH TEACHING, HELP WITH DYSLEXIA, ETC, ETC. [FOLLOWED BY CONTACT DETAILS]
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 More13Oct06 — 4
Armbiguity
I suspect someone working forThe Argus reads PooterGeek and has just won a bet (s)he made with an officemate yesterday.
Read More12Oct06 — 3
Another Argus Classic
08Oct06 — 2
Go See This
I mentioned to a friend after I saw it that I would blog the amazing photo exhibition I experienced on Friday. It’s Lisa Creagh’s collaborative show with the residents of Tidy Street in Brighton. It’s on the “fringe” of the Brighton Photo Biennial. Rather than spoil it though, I would prefer everyone who lives near […]
Read More20Sep06 — 3
Those Beige People All Look The Same
This morning the half-Sri Lankan guy who runs the computer shop mistook me for the half-Indian guy who runs the café.
Read More03Aug06 — 2
Mad Choons
Yesterday 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 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 More31Jul06 — 11
Babes Of Biology: No. 2
Having 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 More19Jul06 — 3
Hot Wheels In Hot Pants
Sorry 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 More17Jul06 — 0
Bush And Blair Burn Up The Mic [Uncut]
Via Normblog I read the Times‘ transcript of an accidentally broadcast conversation between George W. Bush and Tony Blair at the G8 summit. By downloading the original recording and processing it with various digital sound programs I have been able to reconstruct the inaudible parts of the exchange. Here I present the full transcript, with […]
Read More14Jul06 — 10
Admissions
Marvel at this unintentionally revealing Guardian story about the lengths middle-class parents go to to get their children into church schools. It opens with a Jewish mother admitting that she feels hypocritical attending Church of England services so that her two kids can get into the local church school. At least she is honest about […]
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