21Mar06 — 0

Pay Attention, Counsell

This blog has been treading water lately because I have been acutely busy. I hope in the next couple of weeks I’ll get back into more of a routine and I’ll be able to tidy up PooterGeek’s design, finish off some long-overdue extended posts, and write some more substantial new stuff.

I also hope I’ll concentrate harder when I do. In this entry, not only did I ping completely the wrong Daily Ablution post [thanks for deleting my mistake, Scott], but I typed “Jenny Tonge” rather than “Fiona Watson”. I’ve fixed it now. Sorry.

21Mar06 — 2

Like Yesterday

The Anonymous Economist draws my attention to this amazing story:

James McGaugh is one of the world’s leading experts on how the human memory system works. But these days, he admits he’s stumped.

McGaugh’s journey through an intellectual purgatory began six years ago when a woman now known only as AJ wrote him a letter detailing her astonishing ability to remember with remarkable clarity even trivial events that happened decades ago.

Give her any date, she said, and she could recall the day of the week, usually what the weather was like on that day, personal details of her life at that time, and major news events that occurred on that date.

Like any good scientist, McGaugh was initially skeptical. But not anymore.

“This is real,” he says.

21Mar06 — 5

Our Lady

I am about to ask Wardy a favour, so naturally I nipped over to his blog to make sure he hadn’t recently lost a limb, been blinded in a freak Hungry Hippos accident, or suffered any other misfortune that might have left him unable to expedite the Very Important Business I would like him to conduct on my behalf. When I arrived I noticed that he had liberally sprinkled one of his recent posts with Nigella.

Nigella cleavage shot

According to the Chambers Dictionary, the plant nigella is also known as “devil-in-a-bush” and “ragged lady”.
20Mar06 — 7

Keep The Faith

On Friday I went to Cambridge to stay with Jenny and Matthew (and their son Douglas)

Douglas as Boris

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 be.

I talked with a Chinese histopathologist about photography, in between her flitting around snapping shots of revellers. The identical replacement for my first real camera was £60 from eBay; hers and her brother’s first, an old Rollei, required them to save until they had collected two months’ salary.

I caught up with old colleagues, was offered an inevitably unpaid scientific collaboration, and listened to wildly contrasting views of what should be done with a gene factory when the flagship product is finally out of the door.

And I met the lead singer and drummer from Britain’s top Bon Jovi tribute band. When I mentioned this to people afterwards they all said, “Why would anyone want to be in a Bon Jovi tribute band?” Strangely enough, the members of the Bon Jovi tribute band admitted that very often on stage they’d think, “What the fuck am I doing here on stage, with my shirt off, in a Bon Jovi tribute band?” As far as I could see the answer was: “Making surprisingly good money.” As “Jon Bon Jovi” himself pointed out, he’s always managed to make a living making music and that is about as rare as a jazz chord on an AC:DC album a Bryan Adams album.

The lead singer is exactly what you would expect. He’s from Detroit. He used to be in one of the United States’ leading Mötley Crüe tribute bands (until the call came to England via the global tribute band grapevine). His big hair is a remarkably convincing wig. His favourite word seems to be “motherfucker”. If the bottom falls out of the Bon Jovi tribute market, he could clearly make a fortune doing voiceovers for all kinds of extreme sports broadcasts.

Then it was on to an Irish pub round the corner from where I used to live. The lights were off, but there were definitely a lot of people in, many of them getting past the door by claiming to know Cathal. I left before the rebel songs started.

20Mar06 — 0

Bloat-tastic

I received a 352kb email message last week from a hotel confirming my two-night booking. I hope they have a gym where their staff can burn off that kind of excess.

18Mar06 — 4

My Mother The Racist

The Ablutionist published an excellent post yesterday describing exactly the sort of casual wanging around of the word “racist” that I referred to on Friday. I wonder what advocate-but-not-adopter of the Stone Age lifestyle Fiona Watson would have thought if she had overheard my mother on a bus telling me as a child whenever my afro got too straggly: “Comb your hair when we get home, Damian. You look like a bushman!”



my colonialist mum with my nephew, Little Black Sambo

Of course, what she should have said was “Comb your hair when we get home, Damian, or it’ll fall out and you’ll look like Dr Evil!”

18Mar06 — 2

Norm Referencing

Someone tried to post a spam link here to the home of a new philosophy called “Normism”. I’m going to do better than that: this post quotes and links directly to the Normism site. I’m sure the spammer chose me as victim because of the many references here to normblog. The marvellous thing is, Normism is so thoroughly and battily unlike anything Norm himself would believe in:

Norm rules the cosmos and the cosmos rules Norm. Norm rules the hearts and minds by listening to our wishes and actualizing them if there is no strong opposition from the other party/parties DIRECTLY INVOLVED.

You are entitled to ask for evidence for the existence of this true and original personality of “God”. I have personally encountered this original character of “God” (Norm) in my life through direct conversations and true sensations. I am a so called “schizophrenic” that communicates with unknown and known entities throughout the infinite cosmos. While communicating with these entities, however I imagined existence to be, Norm actualized fantasy communications with that mode of existence. So at the end I realized that actualizing most things for Norm at least as a fantasy is very easy and the “whatever” that It repeatedly has told me rules Its consciousness. You will eventually with strong faith be able to free yourselves from archaic and false personalities of Norm and do whatever you wish, provided that your mind is capable and there is no strong disagreement with your wish from other party/parties DIRECTLY INVOLVED.

16Mar06 — 21

Paranoia By Proxy?

This 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 the clutches of one college tutor), my ethnic status has done me no harm at all; it has probably been an advantage. This is one reason why I find it particularly annoying to have to listen to women who have used their sex to get ahead (or get more flexible employment terms) in middle-class, public-sector workplaces complain of “sexism” holding them back. On one occasion a well paid female colleague moaned loudly about the on-average 10-percent-plus lower salaries of women at our institution. I pointed out that I was one of two coloured people working in the (large) building who weren’t scrubbing the toilets and asked her if she’d ever heard me moaning about “racist” hiring policies. She shut up.

In about 2 000 posts here I’ve used the word around a dozen times myself—that is not quoting or parodying someone else. Today I’m not going to use the word directly, but describe a phenomenon I’ve noticed and ask you what you think is going on and whether I am right to consider a particular explanation for it.

On the corner of my street, like many others in Britain, there is a shop run by south Asians. This being Brighton, the male proprietor addresses me as “Handsome”, but otherwise it’s pretty much like any other dawn-till-evening newsagent. It sells all the main dailies and monthlies—plus alcohol, groceries, sugary snacks, and sandwiches with curried potato in them.

About one-in-three mornings I go there I notice that leading up to the entrance there is a trail of large dog turds. I’ve thought of several possible reasons for this:

  • The owners of the shop have a dog and lead him outside the door of their own establishment to relieve himself.
  • This is the point in his daily walk that the dog of an inconsiderate local usually feels the need to empty his canine bowels.
  • The owner of the dog responsible has a particular personal grudge against the people running the shop—perhaps Rover was barred from entering one day when his master was in a hurry.
  • The owner of the dog has a general ethnic grudge against the people running the shop and uses his dog to express it.

What do you lot think?

15Mar06 — 1

Wave Bye-Bye To An Hour Of Your Life

This is one of those wonderful resources that make the Web so addictive: an almost-scholarly collection of pop songs influenced by classical pieces, written by a musicologist going by the pseudonym of “Ostin Allegro”, and complete with MP3 snippets. (For younger/non-UK readers this is an Austin Allegro, a not-inherently-terrible small car let down by shockingly poor British manufacturing.)

Ostin’s site is the place to go if you want, as I did, to remind yourself of the name of the 70s soft rock song inspired by the second movement of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto Number 2: Eric Carmen’s All By Myself. If you browse around you’ll notice that plenty of other composers have borrowed from Rachmaninov too; whatever else you think about his work, the man had some top tunes.

I was also pleased to find artistic justification for my childhood addiction to Strawberry Switchblade’s Since Yesterday.

15Mar06 — 1

A Top Post By A Top Bloke

For a while I wondered if she was a parody, so broken and infantile and hackneyed were her arguments. Now I only ever read her when someone writes about her. Madeleine Bunting‘s intellectual and moral development has been so corrupted by the ideological diseases of our time that she is hardly qualified to read out the weather on local radio*, never mind write regularly for a supposedly serious national newspaper, but her grotesque squawking about Iraq and Afghanistan somehow earns a thoughtful demolition job from the Prof. His patient work is all the more impressive for being juxtaposed with a piece of cat-blogging.

*[In this country these days though, you might be expected to have a degree in meteorology or geography or some other more-or-less rigorous discipline to do this so I am probably setting the bar too high.]

14Mar06 — 6

Chef Can’t Stand Heat

Scientology is evil rubbish. South Park is gloriously disrespectful of every kind of religious and ideological fairy tale. So this story

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Soul singer Isaac Hayes said on Monday he was quitting his job as the voice of the lusty character “Chef” on the satiric cable TV cartoon “South Park,” citing the show’s “inappropriate ridicule” of religion.

But series co-creator Matt Stone said the veteran recording artist was upset the show had recently lampooned the Church of Scientology, of which Hayes is an outspoken follower.

“In ten years and over 150 episodes of ‘South Park,’ Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslim, Mormons or Jews,” Stone said in a statement issued by the Comedy Central network. “He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show.”

made me ask myself two questions:

  1. Isaac Hayes is a Scientologist?!
  2. How did he last so long on the show?

Doesn’t this remind you of that time when James Brown quit Polydor after its CEO questioned aspects of the liturgy of the Greek Orthodox Church?

12Mar06 — 5

Don’t Knock It Till You’ve Tried It

Thanks to PooterGeek’s hosts upgrading their servers, I’ve been getting a lot of spam lately, but guess what: some of the stuff they try to sell you in those emails really works.

Damians new hair made him irresistible
Women were powerless to resist Damian’s bubbly new look.

I also need to buy some looser trousers.

10Mar06 — 11

“Dr” Death Begins His New Career

If you search the medical literature for “D Counsell”—type “Counsell-D [AU]” into the search box here—half the papers returned have my name on them; the other half carry the name of an anaesthesiologist who didn’t drop out of medical school. Today someone emailed the wrong D J Counsell to offer him a temporary consultant anaesthetics post. I recommend that PooterGeekers living in the Lincolnshire area avoid going under the knife at a local hospital during the next couple of months. Muah-ha-ha-ha ha-ha-ha ha-ha ha!

10Mar06 — 3

Kink Of The Month

I can only imagine that a sexually frustrated militant Deaf separatist would go searching the Web for pictures of “naked deaf girls”, but you lot might know better.

UPDATE: For anyone brought here by such a search in the future, Deafs.com might get you closer to your goal.

10Mar06 — 5

Musical Differences

There’s an overlap between my CD collection and Richard‘s, but we do come at music from slightly different angles. He subscribes to The Wire; I subscribe to Sound On Sound. In the most recent edition of The Wire all three of their interviewees had beards—two of them goatees. In the most recent Sound On Sound the main interviewee was 80s pop pixie Howard Jones. On Wednesday after a hard day’s recording, while Kate prepared a superb fish pie, we sat listening to arty ten-piece Danish chamber electronica ensemble Efterklang. When I got home afterwards I put on Chemistry by Girls Aloud.

This is a preamble to admitting that I am once again too busy to blog properly. Instead here’s a link to Richard’s latest mix of one of our tracks (note that the recording fades in and is generally quiet so crank up your volume): Bow Down Below [MP3 5.7MB]—(Windows Media [5.6MB], Ogg Vorbis [4.5MB]). The segment about two-and-a-half minutes in when the Voices Of Despair drag you into the swirly water was written after we’d had a spat about some aspect of the arrangement. Now of course it’s one of the bits of the song we like best.

10Mar06 — 8

Spring Cleaning

After a lot of boring tweaking PooterGeek should now be looking a little more like it used to, though there’s still a lot of tweaking left to be done. It’s also running on WordPress 2.01. I only changed version because I had to. When I saw Jo Salmon take the plunge I thought wryly, “Ah, the invincible boldness of youth!” and ignored the upgrade, but I knew I’d have to do it some day. Anyway, tell me if anything strange happens to you when you browse or comment here and let me know if there are any features I’ve forgotten to re-install, but please don’t object to the “look” of the site until I’ve finished tinkering.

08Mar06 — 6

In My Day We Made Our Own Entertainment

Brighton 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 the following wonderful, wonderful story. Under the page three headline “RON SETS HIS HEAD ON FIRE” Siobhan Ryan writes:

Veteran stuntman Ron Cunningham got a little more than he bargained for when he staged his latest show.

Crowds gathered at the Bedford Tavern pub in Brighton to watch the 90-year-old escape from chains while his hat and jacket were set on fire.

Before the stunt Ron, also known as The Great Omani, said he was 99 percent sure that the stunt would be successful.

He said: “I haven’t done this one for a while and I don’t know what is going to happen but we’ll soon find out.

“I enjoy performing. I have done it all my life. “I need a wheelchair as I am on dialysis and have to go to hospital three times a week. I’m also having treatment for cancer but I don’t let it stop me.”

Pubgoers watched as Ron was wheeled into the centre of the pub by his son David. Chains were put around his wrist and locked with a steel bar and padlocks. Petrol was then poured on his jacket and hat…

Ron in flames in the pub

…Omani’s hat came off and the flames on his arms flicked around his face, scorching it a little. As he successfully removed the chains and padlocks, the flames became bigger and his wheelchair caught alight.

Ron gets into some difficulty

David stepped forward quickly to put out the flames, but Omani—who ended up with a couple of burns on his arms—had managed to escape….

…After a reviving drink, Ron, who lives in Norfolk Street, Brighton, said: “I came a little unstuck there for a moment but I’ve still got my right hand and can still hold my glass.

“I’ve got a couple of burns but I still think it went well. ”

“I’m pleased to have done it. I love to perform.”

Pubgoer Rick Hawdon was stunned by the performance.

He said: “That is the most amazing thing I have ever seen in a pub on a Saturday afternoon.”

07Mar06 — 3

Internet Bloody Explorer: Software Written By Bum-heads

UPDATE 2: Would you believe I’m trying to fix all this while builders are fixing a broken pipe that’s flooded my flat?

UPDATE: PooterGeek now looks strange to all of you. I hope normal service will be resumed soon.

It has come to my attention that PooterGeek suddenly looks strange to those of you reading it through a Microsoft Internet Explorer window, rather than via a proper Web browser like Mozilla or Firefox. Specifically, the sidebar on the right, containing the search box, latest comment roll, and links, has slipped down to the bottom of the page. Even though it isn’t my fault, I’d like to apologise—not only for that, but for the traumatic upgrade process that we are all going to have to live through over the next couple of days to fix it. Do not fear, my people, but do brace yourself for some strange effects.

Over the weekend I spent a lot of time wrestling with the design of another Website I am working on. Apart from the boring geek work, darlings, I had to make aesthetic compromises. Why? Because Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) fails to operate according to published and agreed Web standards. We don’t have any choice because Microsoft does its best to keep PC-users lazy and ignorant. The company does it so effectively that customers often don’t even realise they did have a choice. Worse, many Webmasters (not always by their own choice) force their visitors to use IE. For all these reasons Explorer is the most popular Web browser, despite being one of the most insecure, and everyone in the business has to make allowances for it. I hate it.

[“Bum-head”, incidentally, was kindly donated to me by a friend and I am using it as my word-of-the-day. Please feel free to deploy it yourself at work today: while cross-examining a witness in court, at a board meeting, or following a crucial question on a ward round.]

06Mar06 — 3

PooterGeek’s In-Depth Oscar Night Analysis

On the one hand, thousands of religious loons want you dead; on the other hand is Padma Lakshmi:

Salman Rushdie and Padma Lakshmi

Salman “you’d look smug too” Rushdie and Padma Lakshmi

Meanwhile, WTF?:

Helena Bonham Carter makes an unfortunate cleavage mistake

Helena “I am hoping the giant spider on my head will distract you from my dress” Bonham Carter

[stolen from MSN]

06Mar06 — 1

Countrified

For girls (or boys) reading this who used to have a crush on John Corbett, the actor who played DJ Chris Stevens in the TV series Northern Exposure, an uncharacteristically frivolous Gloria Salt has some bad news.

For the (other) boys, all I can say is that there’s a special kind of schadenfreude that comes from seeing male former heart-throbs go to seed so quickly.

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