06Jul06 — 37

Beige Girl In Space

Back here I complained that Dr Who was currently prettier than his assistant. Clearly someone at the BBC has been paying attention. Here’s one of several poorly lit publicity photos* of David Tennant and his new sidekick, half-Iranian, half-Ghanian Freema Agyeman:

David Tennant and Freema Agyeman

Having failed to heed the make-up artist’s warnings, David and Freema discover the hard way the true meaning of the hair gel’s claim to offer “exxxtreme holding power”

The future’s bright. The future’s off-white.

(I’m also pleased to note that, before bagging this role, Freema had the jobbing British actor’s double to her name: appearances in both Casualty and The Bill.)

*[Have these people never heard of fill-in flash?]

05Jul06 — 3

Social Engineering Update

Via 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 which began with an objection to all-women shortlists should end with a woman Independent defeating a Labour man whose party had originally insisted on imposing a female candidate.“

(I love that Lee, a Labour Party worker employed by an employee of Sue Essex AM and aspiring Social Policy lecturer with a pet hamster called Charlie is currently listening to Dragonforce’s Inhuman Rampage.)

05Jul06 — 40

Fat Isn’t A Feminist Issue

Two special Ks from the Beeb’s Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 première gallery:

Kelly Brook has curves

Kelly—a figure lusted after by many men

Keira has been shipwrecked for months without food

Keira—a figure aspired to by many women

I used to work with a bright, attractive, independent woman. She even maintained her own classic car. (She’s the only female I’ve ever met who owned her own grease gun.)

One day she horrified her live-in boyfriend by reaching her “target weight”. He begged her to start eating again before he stopped fancying her forever.

05Jul06 — 3

You Leave Something For Five Minutes

My 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.

I told a friend about this on the phone and she told me how her dad once got into his MG in town and drove most of the way home before he opened the glove box and realised it wasn’t his but someone else’s identical one. He returned it to the place he’d found it and then picked up his own car in the next street.

03Jul06 — 5

In Paperwork Hell

Instead 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 another incoming suicide commenter was a welcome distraction.

Last week I registered retrospectively with the Inland Revenue as self-employed and registered the accounting software package I’m using to keep track of my income and outgoings. Anyone who knows me will know how much I hate handling this kind of bookwork—mainly because I am scrupulous to the point of spiting myself.

I did take an all-too-brief break on Sunday to hang out with Leasey and friend by the sea front. (Sadly, I missed their party in crazy downtown Eastbourne.) If you bought the Guardian today the view we saw of the insanely crowded Brighton beach fills the entire middle-page spread. I didn’t take the shot. In fact, I remember looking out at the hordes and thinking: “Blimey, that’s a lot of people. Not much of a photograph though.” So I wasn’t impressed by the result that appeared in the paper, but there was a superb one of a guy herding horses last Thursday.

Anyway, you will all learn to hate my book-keeping binges too, because they will make me even more boring than usual. The Inland Revenue have handled their dealings with me so far with will-sappingly cheerful efficiency. I can’t even make a joke at their expense.

02Jul06 — 7

Backatchya

Derek Trotter Fine Art letterhead

Slashdot links to a tale of how a systems administrator scammed a 419 scammer, helped indigenous craftspeople, and obtained two rather nice wooden sculptures. The Age writes:

“When he found a willing victim, his anti-scam unfolded in much the same way as a typical 419 scam, promising payment only after a substantial investment had been laid down—in this case the receipt of a series of commissioned wooden carvings from a local artist. With some creative photo editing, Shiver Metimbers was able to string along his quarry with claims that the two carvings sent had mysteriously been damaged enroute, the first through a mysterious shrinking process, and the second by a rogue African hamster.”

wooden Creature comforts sculpture
01Jul06 — 3

Have Pity On Their Souls!

On 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.

children.jpg

Surely there is no God.

30Jun06 — 2

Dipole Moment

Bloke 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 proprietary Microsoft Word documents (or “Thinkpieces” as they insist on calling them).

30Jun06 — 56

The People Have Spoken, Bless ‘Em

I 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.

I’ve been a member and/or supporter for a long time, but whatever the “local factors” in Blaenau Gwent, the Labour Party thoroughly deserves the kickings it has received from the people of that constituency because it treated them with contempt and because it attempted to pervert democracy.

30Jun06 — 0

La Nausée

A service station just off the Fifth Circle of Hell, very early in the morning, somewhere around the peak hour for suicide attempts: My journey time has been tripled by the closure of relevant sections of the M11 and the M25. The woman who lives in my sat nav has been asked to re-calculate the route home so many times that I swear her voice is acquiring an hysterical edge.

Not having had a proper dinner, I am desperate for hot food. Both KFC and Burger King are closed; At the counter where they serve recognisable meals, I have just been told that the pasta is off and it isn’t possible for them to toast a panini for me. I pay £4 for a cold sandwich made from spherical, water-filled chickens and take it and my coffee to the only seating area still open to customers.

I choose a table close to one of the many islands of triplets of plasma-screen TVs. I would like to hear the news and reassure myself that my problems aren’t exactly the worst in the World. Unfortunately, I get my wish. In the small hours, it seems, BBC News 24 stops trying to analyse just how bad it is for George W Bush that the US Supreme Court has declared his setting up of military commissions for Guantanamo Bay prisoners beyond his powers, and instead shows documentaries.

The screen is filled by the weary face of a middle-aged woman. She is saying, “If it was consensual, would I have had the internal injuries the doctor found?”

Today is Independence Day in the equally whimsically named Democratic Republic of Congo.

29Jun06 — 8

From The 70s To The 80s

Here are two of the scariest things I ever saw on national TV, in the days when I watched it.

The Black And White Minstrel Show:

The Black and White Minstrel Show
a once-popular entertainment featuring some white people who couldn’t dance very well and who wanted to look like black people (temporarily)

Michael Jackson’s Thriller:

Image excerpt provided by Clipland
Excerpt/Image shown under fair use. All rights of the respective owners reserved.
a once-popular entertainment featuring a black person who could dance very well and who wanted to look like a white person (permanently)
27Jun06 — 5

More Totally Awesome Snakes On A Plane News

Trevor Rabin, 80s hair-guitarist-with-pretensions and the man who wrote Owner Of A Lonely Heart (one of the greatest pop singles of all time) while sitting on his toilet, has scored the orchestral music for Snakes On A Plane! Does it get any better than this?

The film is so important to me now that I fear I may find myself pitching a tent in Leicester Square, and camping out there until the UK opening, wearing Samuel L Jackson sideburns and dressed as an anaconda.

26Jun06 — 5

Idle Hands

On a similar subject, right now I am looking forward to an evening of catching up with accumulated Euston Manifesto email. I should point out that, contrary to the impression you might get from reading PooterGeek, the vast majority of it isn’t from cranks. This is, in one sense, slightly disappointing. Mail from nutters is the most entertaining and the least work to deal with it. Best of all, you get free blog posts from it, like this missive from Satan Himself:

“I am writing to you to let you know I am in the final stages of completing my work on combining both Archimedes and epuiangular spirals into one method.

This will expose the flaw within science and demonstrate what some call the tapestry of God or intelligent design.

It will also demonstrate why the true Earth pole resides at equator and why the world is in fact upside down to our inherited belief.

I enclose verification of who I am in regard to the mark of the beast 666.

I will bring about the destruction of United States of America and the End of Israel.

I will also abolish the Sun Newspaper as they failed to uphold my complaint (Press Complaint Number 053404 dated 29th November 2005)

Yours sincerely

Runningwater

This day being Friday 23rd June 2006”

Amongst his manifold wiles, the Prince Of Demons is truly the Grand Master Of Bathos.

These days, when you are sifting through mail addressed to a Left-leaning organization, the real challenge is finding a way to discriminate between those solipsistic conspiracy theorists who might in their more lucid moments classify themselves as schizophrenics and those who would classify themselves as socialists. Where does “loony” end and “Leftie” begin? There’s probably a whole psychiatry conference in it.

I must go now. The lizards are calling me.

26Jun06 — 22

How To Make A Guardian Reader’s Head Explode

  1. Be coloured.
  2. Approach a bearded white man who’s standing outside Waitrose supermarket brandishing a “BOYCOTT ISRAELI APARTHEID” poster.
  3. 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!”
  4. Brush fragments of his skull off your T-shirt.

[Before I told this story to him, a(n anonymous) blogger I was on my way to meet said to me: “I saw those protestors outside Waitrose and I was going to have a word with them, then I thought, ‘Nah. PooterGeek’ll be along in a minute.'”]

*Of course, the protestor’s subsequent stunned silence might have resulted from his thinking, “Apartheid? In Wales?”

26Jun06 — 6

“Whining”

“Some of you may recall that, back in April, I spent a few moments expressing my distaste for the ‘Euston Manifesto’. Today, thanks to a little playing on Technorati, I discovered that some other blog has, instead of discussing the post in my comments section or sending me an e-mail, taken chunks of the post out of context and then set about whining. Now, I don’t give a fuck what these cowards think or what opinions they express in their own circle of mutual appreciation and mental masturbation, but I find this an unsatisfactory course of action. Rude even. The irony is that these people have only leant credence to the central theme of the original post – that there are certain sections of the left-wing who believe, in the same manner as muslim fundamentalists do, that they alone know the correct state of human existence and that their views, without question, should be dressed up in emotive examples then foisted upon the rest of the world, regardless of what suffering this intervention may cause. Ooh, they irritate me.

“To elaborate on my original point… I am still not convinced that any sort of intervention by the “Western Powers” will cause any long-term reduction in suffering. As I’ve said before, us “civilised” Europeans were killing each other in vast numbers well within living memory. The difference was the degree of balance between the sides; Germany and England were both industrial powers of comparable advancement. Because of the way we have chosen to interfere in the affairs of “developing” countries, there are massive imbalances in power amongst the opposed sides – you have unarmed people being decimated by opponents using high-tech armaments funded by our purchase of the mineral wealth they control. What I’m suggesting is that we should change our behavior to put an end to this situation – Iran wouldn’t have the cash to build nuclear weapons if we weren’t sucking up the oil they control. We have the technology to abandon oil if we want to. Stop buying oil, or iPods, from countries that don’t adhere to the human rights standards you prescribe.”

“Furthermore, I’d like to remind those that were driven to call me a variety of terribly hurtful names that I advocated offering asylum to anyone in need. This is what I find most tiresome about the “worthy” – they don’t listen, they only speak. They don’t question their beliefs and they react to criticism by shouting about the most emotive, headline-grabbing examples while ignoring the important details. Now, this is hardly surprising – such behavior has characterised our New Labour “leaders” for the past decade, however, these are not the actions of the intelligent, enlightened being – you have to discuss and be prepared to move your position slightly. Oh – and in blogging terms, that means no anonymous comments – if you wish to call me a cunt, at least leave some identification.”

22Jun06 — 5

Apologies To Everyone

Yesterday I was away helping Jackie Danicki with her rather good “What MySpace Means” event—and arguing with her fiancé about drug advertising, and meeting up with the Anonymous Economist to have the same argument again—so didn’t get back to DunGeekin’ until 2 o’clock this morning. As a result I am now behind with everything, including my email messages and phone calls. Sorry, friends.

While I catch up, let me leave you with heartily anti-Communist Jackie’s dinnertime justification for her belief that mild-mannered Professor Norman Geras is dangerous:

“The trouble with Norm is that he’s such a nice guy. I don’t want people to get the idea that Marxists are like that.”

20Jun06 — 7

PRESS RELEASE: Paris Hilton Appointed New Vice-Chancellor Of Cambridge University

12:00 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 Noam Chomsky as the World’s Leading Public Intellectual and that of Madeleine Bunting as Director of think tank Demos have taught us that there is more than one way to spell intellectual ‘rigour’; now we want to teach the world that there’s more than one definition of ‘vice’,” explains Dr Lethree Clevadge, Spokesperson for Cambridge University. “Media dons like Simon Schama and Richard Dawkins have been appearing on prime-time television as talk of the importance of the ‘Knowledge Economy’ has swelled, but we at Cambridge pride ourselves on being ahead of the academic wave. The ascent of the ‘differently informed’ to prominent positions in British society—from Chris Moyles to Zac Goldsmith—presages a global transition towards what we are calling the ‘Ignorance Economy’. In this climate, we at Cambridge consider it increasingly key to widen access to those previously held back by their lack of interest in formal education. We want to leverage our investment in differently informed public figures to achieve buy-in from the corresponding customer demographic.”

Dr Clevadge is quick to point out however that, despite her wide-ranging cluelessness, Paris Hilton is no tabula rasa; her unique skills will be a perfect fit for the University going forward. “Ms Hilton’s experience of the international hospitality business will be especially valuable as the University seeks to maximise the return on investment in its accommodation and other conference and event facilities and expand the Cambridge Educational Experience™ into a global franchise. Ms Hilton is already well known to our current and future students and is a role model to many young people. Her visibility on the international stage will also be a huge asset to our ancient institution. In fact, it could be said that even some of our most famous buildings are less familiar to overseas tourists as photographic subjects than Ms Hilton’s own assets—although visitor access to college properties is slightly more restricted.”

Our current Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alison Richard, is indeed a renowned expert on primate behaviour, but few would argue that Ms Hilton’s fieldwork in this area has been more extensive and in-depth. As Dr Clevadge adds hastily, “We are massively grateful to Professor Richard for her contribution during her tenure and wish her every luck as she begins her new venture, launching Givenchy’s new fragrance Eau de UL.”

Ms Hilton was overheard by someone who had cracked her mobile phone as saying, “I am psyched. I’m gonna be the face of Umbrage University, England! Prince William is hot .”

Madeleine Bunting, Director of think tank Demos, commented, “The idea that a world-leading university should be run by the barely literate heiress to a vast fortune. Is that so crazy? Actually, it’s raising a very interesting point, which we all know plenty about—which is that we’ve bred a certain kind of professional academic leader. What kind of person are they? You only have to meet some academics to think, where is the hinterland? Where is the hot pink Motorola Razr with iTunes compatibility? To what extent are these people under such colossal pressure that they’ve actually lost touch with a wider human understanding of life?”

Press Notes

Cambridge University is the second best higher educational establishment in the United Kingdom.

Paris Hilton is the holder of a General Educational Development certificate from the Dwight School in New York and the 2005 Worst Supporting Actress Razzie for her appearance in House of Wax. Until she takes up her position as Vice-Chancellor she will continue to occupy a cosmetics chair at Laboratoires Garnier.

Dr Clevadge has spent too much time under too low a Sun Protection Factor on the patio outside management conference seminars.

Prof Alison Richard is just so five minutes ago.

Madeleine Bunting is having a laugh, isn’t she?

19Jun06 — 12

Will Blog For Links

Thanks to Norm, for linking to The Wedding Photography Blog. It reminded me of something I should have mentioned in my previous post.

If you enjoy PooterGeek and have a blog or a Website then one way you could thank me for the free entertainment would be to put the words “wedding photographer” or “wedding photography” somewhere on your site and link them to http://www.sepial.com/. You only need to do it once (too many citations would probably be counterproductive anyway), but it would help if you put the link somewhere it won’t expire. You could tuck the phrase away in your sidebar for example. In return I’ll link back to your blog from The Wedding Photography Blog—provided you aren’t a fascist of course.

Think of it as enlightened self-interest. If you keep me in gainful employment I’ll continue to be able to afford to run this site. Thank you in advance.

UPDATE: P’raps not: see wise thoughts from commenters below.

19Jun06 — 5

Mad Marketing

I’ve started another blog: The Wedding Photography Blog. To begin with there won’t be much there that’s new to PooterGeek readers: it’s an advert for my photography services. You will have seen many of the photos on show here or on my other sites like Sepial.com. My initial aim is to elevate Sepial’s Google karma in advance of the site’s expansion. The Wedding Photography Blog is already a top hit on Google for “wedding photography blog“.

There’s more to it than that though. It’s also a Danickian experiment in turning conversations with people into mutually rewarding business. I’m going to see if I can be freakishly honest with potential customers and still make money. I have started and will continue to do some perverse things:

  • give away my “trade secrets”,
  • link to my best rivals,
  • admit that my work can be improved, and
  • tell clients that they can do my job (if they practise).

If you like taking photos and would like to know how to take better photos then the blog will, I hope, give you some useful tips. If you just like looking at photos (especially of weddings) then it will give you plenty of nice pics to gawp at. If you are interested in marketing and this all goes horribly wrong then it might just give you a car-crash of a case to study.

19Jun06 — 0

Not Araucaria

I’m not very good at crossword puzzles. My dad, however, was schooled by Jesuits, did classics at university, taught English for decades, and collects useless information. If you wanted to build an elite special forces crossword-solving unit then that is probably how you would train its members. Since he is a connoisseur of the biggest and most cryptic puzzles, I was going to recommend to him a new movie that claims to tell the story of the United States’ most famous crossword setter Will Shortz (just as, a while back, I bought him this book the Christmas after it came out).

The first trailer for it has New York Yankees pitcher and crossword puzzler Mike Messina billing the New York Times crossword as the ultimate height to which all American solvers aspire. The second shows a bunch of celebrities, including Bill Clinton, tackling an actual NYTimes puzzle out loud in front of the cameras. The first two clues? “Missile warhead briefly (4)” and “She helped Theseus out of the labyrinth (7)”. I don’t think I’ll bother PooterGeek Snr with the links.

18Jun06 — 8

Barawque’n’Roll!

This video of a guy playing Pachelbel’s Canon on his electric guitar starts sedately enough, but after a minute you’ll have one foot propped up on your PC base unit and a window open so that the breeze blows through the cascading ringlets of your bubble-perm wig.

For some reason the guitarist keeps his face hidden throughout. My guess is it’s because he is in fact Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and his alternative credentials would be permanently destroyed if the truth about what he gets up to in the privacy of his bedroom ever got out.

17Jun06 — 4

When Humourless Lefties Attack

After you’ve read this blog’s harmless and amusing comparison of real college life with co-ed porn movies, check out the comments, where, for no immediately obvious reason, a visitor launches an irrelevant tirade about, well, you can probably fill in the rest if I reproduce the last couple of sentences:

“I hope those Iraqis kick the living shit out of you. I personally will never consider myself an ally of the United States. And I will tell you one more thing: if the United States were to be attacked tomorrow, it wouldn’t be terrorism, it’d be about Freakin’ time.”

Goodness, those straw men get everywhere, don’t they?

[thanks to Fark and fudge]

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