I 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 MoreAccording to NHS data, women in lower income groups are fatter everywhere in England, but there is little correlation between the incomes and weights of men in England—except in the North West where rich men are fatter.
Read MoreOkay, so this post links to an article in the Telegraph, but work with me here. Celebrity newsreader and reality TV ballroom dancer Natasha Kaplinsky has had some difficulty selling her house. This fact opens a piece about other nice middle-class people [British definition] trying to flog their own or their parents’ respective gaffs in […]
Read MoreBritish elites have been inventive and subtle in preserving their advantages. Their most important achievement has been to tilt Britain towards meritocracy and then restrict access to the means by which citizens can prove their “merit”. Those amongst the rich and connected who fancy themselves as progressives have played into the hands of the most […]
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 MoreIs this the beginning? (The motion to restore selective schools in England and Wales was proposed by a teacher who failed his 11-plus.)
Read MoreOne of the many reasons why it would have been satisfying to beat Australia in the first cricket Test at Lord’s is that they and their supporters are not just bad losers, but worse winners. Anyway, though we may field like astigmatics, Aussies are still crap at comedy.
Read MoreMy Auntie Clarina in Sierra Leone is worried that, living in Cambridge and visiting London as I do from time to time, I might be in danger.
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Read More“I will follow you to the ends of the earth,” replied Susan passionately. “It will not be necessary,” said George. “I am only going down to the coal-cellar. I shall spend the next half-hour or so there.” P.G. Wodehouse, quoted by R.W. Burchfield
Read MoreThe RESPECT candidate Salma Yaqoob has just been interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight about the revelation that the London Transport “bombers” were British-born Muslims. She didn’t talk complete cobblers. I am going to lie down now.
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 MoreI made a flip suggestion to some of my bloodthirsty friends yesterday. Hak polished it up into a work of art.
Read MoreIndependently of Stephen Pollard’s comment, a friend of mine emailed me yesterday to draw my attention to the murder by another Al-Qaeda offshoot of the head of the Egyptian diplomatic mission in Iraq. The email implied that there was some connection between the branch of the global Al-Qaeda franchise killing over there and those busy […]
Read MoreTerrible things are happening in London right now. Having had one overseas phone call and one email already today, I find myself in the strange position of posting this to let people know that I am alive and well. Some other people in this country aren’t. Updates are here.
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 MoreNo analysis and no satire, I know, but I just want to say to as many people as possible right now that this policy is so wrong on so many levels that I can scarcely believe that it’s being proposed: More than 100,000 people could get onto the property ladder in the next five years […]
Read MoreUsually I only knock McDonald’s when they are particularly nasty and stupid. It warms my heart to know that a company that beat them in a case you’d have thought McDonald’s would win hands down are, four years later, is still selling East Asian fast food under the cheeky name “McChina“.
Read MoreForgive me, reader, for I have sinned in my thoughts and in my words. My shocking Yazzmonster-style confession is that a tiny part of me had hoped there would be a lower turnout at the UK General Election. I wanted to do a PooterGeek post featuring an Iraqi TV reporter interviewing British people talking about […]
Read MoreYesterday evening I asked a friend of mine why her brother had moved to New York—her reply: “Because he was bored of Norwich.” When a man is tired of Norwich, he is tired of life.
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 MoreUnder the headline “Mythical monsters”, the Lex column in today’s Financial Times deals with xenophobia the best way: not by appeal to warm-and-fuzzy multiculturalism, but by running the numbers. I liked it so much that I am typing this out from a photocopy of the article I made in the Campus library. The original piece […]
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 More[Tony Blair and Gordon Brown face each other in painfully close proximity, like an Alas Smith And Jones head-to-head. A clumsily applied blurring effect is intended to shift our attention from one part of the frame to the other as they take turns to speak. This also keeps the pile of dirty Blair household laundry […]
Read MoreAnyone on the Left who thinks it might be “instructive” for Labour under Tony Blair to suffer a reduced majority and who fancies some protest voting (or, indeed, protest abstaining) needs to reflect on Michael Howard’s re-launch of the Conservative election campaign yesterday. Howard, the Jewish son of Romanian refugees from the Nazis, wants to […]
Read MoreIn tomorrow’s Observer David Aaronovitch will say lots of things I’ve wanted to say and lots of things I intend to say (though I’ll be doing it rather less politely) about those on the Left who have a problem with Labour’s recent record. The problem these people have is that Tony won’t let them stay […]
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