Isolated a talented striker up front. Lost possession cheaply. Couldn’t score from open play. Vulnerable defending set-pieces. Star player sent off for violent conduct. Beaten on penalties. Who says England weren’t in the World Cup final?
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 MoreVia the Rubbish Man I came upon this. Despite the inherent wrongness of psychoanalysis, it’s rather a good read: “England’s repeated failure in penalty shoot-outs is not down to bad fortune, as the English media, with its empiricist presuppositions, insists. To lose once might be an accident, but to lose five times demands a psychoanalytic […]
Read MoreFollowing Britain’s torrid summer of sporting failure, the organising committee has radically revised the programme for the 2012 Olympics. Here, in alphabetical order, are the new events you’ll be able to enjoy: Binge Drinking Camp Cat Blogging Connery Imperschonating Crazy Golf Croquet Doggy Paddle Druidism English Rules Schadenfreude Extreme Ironing Extreme Irony Fencing (And Decking) […]
Read MoreVia Lee Gregory: “WORLD FIRST AS TRISH LAW TAKES ASSEMBLY SEAT Jul 5 2006 Martin Shipton, Western Mail AS TRISH LAW took her seat in the National Assembly yesterday after winning the Blaenau Gwent by-election, Wales became the first legislature in the world with more women than men. It is supremely ironic that the row […]
Read MoreMy car is parked just round the corner. Yesterday I went to it to get some stuff out of the boot and found that it had been picked up and moved two metres from where I had parked it. The city council had been painting new road markings and it had been in their way. […]
Read MoreInstead of being out-and-about taking photographs, I mostly spent the weekend sorting through heaps of receipts and card statements and other dead-tree crap. This explains my writing new posts on a Saturday and Sunday for a change and responding promptly and grumpily to visitors here until the small hours of this morning. The bleep of […]
Read MoreOn average, over the rest of their lives, each of these children will have to endure the spectacle of England crashing out of international football championships on penalties a further twenty-nine times. Look at those fresh, hopeful faces and imagine a football boot stamping on each one—forever. Surely there is no God.
Read MoreBloke with blog says more interesting things in one post about pressure group Compass than you would find in all of their Chair Neal Lawson’s newspaper articles to date combined. If you want to sample some of accessible, inclusive, anti-big business Compass’s blue-skies thinking then pop along to their Website and download one of their […]
Read MoreI opposed black sections in the Labour Party. I oppose all-women short lists. In any union or party election where I am given a vote and my choice of candidate has been pre-determined by race or sex I make a point of spoiling my ballot paper. There are no exceptions to my anti-racism and anti-sexism. […]
Read MoreBe coloured. Approach a bearded white man who’s standing outside Waitrose supermarket brandishing a “BOYCOTT ISRAELI APARTHEID” poster. As he is handing out leaflets, tell him in a hurt voice with a posh-African accent*, “You people have no idea of what apartheid was like!” Brush fragments of his skull off your T-shirt. [Before I told […]
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 MoreI photographed this painting in a shop window in Hove, Actually. Gawd bless ‘er!
Read MoreYesterday I went to my first (free) Enterprise Agency seminar on starting a business. I took my notepad along, not only to record any top tips that I received from the speaker, but also to catalogue any weirdness that went on for the later amusement of you lot. Reader, there was no weirdness. The material […]
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 More“Looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes.” They said we were in trouble when Bill Kristol and Michelle Malkin gave their support for the Euston Manifesto. But now we have a morris dancer on the books.
Read MoreThis is still a favourite PooterGeek post, and the Argus keeps coming up with more gems, though sadly I don’t always have my camera with me. [click image to enlarge]
Read MoreYes, I’m busy and I hope regular readers will be patient with me. As Norm pointed out to me earlier today, the fourth third hit on Google for the word “Euston” is the Euston Manifesto. Not Euston Station [click image to enlarge] Worryingly, this blog, which has thrived on stories of my loserhood, is being […]
Read MoreI’m in a Brighton musical instrument shop looking for a couple of brackets for my keyboard stand. There’s a teenager sitting slouched at one of the digital pianos in sweats and a baggy jacket. He’s wearing a mesh baseball cap and through it you can see that his buzz-cut hair is dyed a colour Eminem […]
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 MoreHow politically correct is Brighton? I’ll tell you. This local Gospel choir’s Website carries the following warning to those aspiring to join it: Although we are a non denominational [sic], some of the songs taught do include religious references i.e. Jesus/Lord. However we wish to emphasise our aim is merely to celebrate the style of […]
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 evening I’d like to talk shit with you all. It’s interesting that many of the people most eager to brand those they disapprove of as “racist” have never been victims of real racism in their lives. I am wary of using the word. Since I left the town I grew up in (and escaped […]
Read MoreBrighton and Hove’s local newspaper is called The Argus. Its staff don’t have much to write about: the football team and its struggle for a stadium, resident micro-celebrity Zoe Ball and her slightly more famous husband Fat Boy Slim. I think I’ve only bought a copy twice. Yesterday was the second time. Why? Because of […]
Read MoreGloria’s damned sexy when she’s angry.
Read MoreIt’s like the holocaust. No, it’s like Soviet labour camps. It’s like all the baddest things that ever happened all rolled into one evil Blairite slippery end of the wedge of straw on the camel’s back. Bring me my blunderbuss, Elaine, and put another sandbag in the conservatory! I’ll shoot the last bally one of […]
Read MoreBrighton city centre, one block from the sea front: I am walking along the street on my way to deliver some film to a developing lab when I notice that two police have been called to deal with an abandoned suitcase. It has been left flat on its side in the middle of the pavement […]
Read MoreYes, even Hello! magazine would have difficulty finding his good side, but you have got to admire the Beeb’s front-page photo of Abu Hamza: This time you may have triumphed, Captain Britain, but I shall RETURN! Muaha-ha ha-ha ha HA HA HA!
Read MoreDave Simpson reviews Brighton bedwetters The Kooks in yesterday’s Guardian: “Ironically, they do white reggae much better than Babyshambles—if not yet as jaw-droppingly as The Clash.” Indeed. As rock’n’roll compliments go, that’s on a par with: Ironically, they do white rap much better than Ali G—if not yet as jaw-droppingly as Blondie.
Read MoreYesterday I had an excellent evening of argument. I spent it contending that, since our emergence, we human beings have been, for plausible biological reasons, fundamentally aggressive and suspicious of visibly different members of our own species. In reply it was argued that our behaviour towards others has been characterised by altruistic tendencies and trade. […]
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