December 2003

16Dec03 — 0

Ug

Just as in politics the extreme Left and the extreme Right converge, in fashion the extremely cool and the extremely uncool are separated by the thickness of a page of Vogue. Regulars probably know my dad used to be an English teacher. It is the duty of teachers everywhere to define the “square”. Teachers’ clothes, […]

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15Dec03 — 0

New Danger

As I read the BBC’s summary of the Arab world’s responses, I must admit that the capture of Saddam Hussein brings a new danger: the danger that I will laugh myself hoarse.

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14Dec03 — 0

Savouring The News

It’s delicious. As pointed out elsewhere, a perfect time to read Nick Cohen (long-time Left-wing opponent of Saddam’s regime) review Noam Chomsky’s latest rubbish. Those people cheering and sobbing with joy at Paul Bremer’s news conference and hurling abuse at Saddam on video weren’t Americans; they were Iraqis. I particularly enjoyed the moment when the […]

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12Dec03 — 0

Sharp Eyes

Leasey emailed to make an observation about BBC typos. After noting in passing that BBC News used the word “denies” twice in a row with reference to Maxine Carr and the Soham murder case, she proposed her Typo Theory of Celebrity Doom: …the girl who plays Hermione went to the Lord of the Rings première […]

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11Dec03 — 0

Thunderbirds Are G-!

I’ve been looking forward to a new, live-action film of the model-and-puppet based Thunderbirds television series for years now. The rumours have flitted around, green lights have been given and then burned out. Finally it seems the movie will, as the Americans say, get a theatrical release in 2004. The creator of the original “Supermarionation” […]

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11Dec03 — 1

Secular Argument

If you listen carefully you can hear the sound of the improbably named M. Stasi dumping a French government-sponsored truckload of excrement onto the vast whirring turbine blades of a Concorde jet engine. (Don’t forget to check out the Beeb’s unfortunate misspelling of “discreet”.)

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11Dec03 — 0

Autism, MMR And The Lying Media

Ben Goldacre went to medical school with Hind (the same medical school I dropped out of, in fact). For a while Ben and Hind shared a student house, where he took a keen interest in the cultivation of tropical plants. Ben also once edited a piece I wrote for the Oxford Student to the point […]

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10Dec03 — 1

Distant Drums

Thanks to Neil Kumar and the power of the Web another old drumming band mate I haven’t heard from in years emailed me in the small hours. The band mate, Richard Willoughby, now owns The Coldroom, the studio we used to rehearse in. In the nineties some rather more successful bands worked there too. Now […]

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10Dec03 — 1

Men, Women, Children and Multitasking

The day before yesterday I had a long chat with Nick about epidemiology, academic fellowships and the nature of vast bureaucracies (the UN, the European Union, or the Medical Research Council, say ;-). While we were talking he had to answer the door to carol singers and try to persuade Maryam not to remove all […]

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09Dec03 — 2

Boring Technical Details

Leasey only spotted one mistake this morning! But she didn’t spot my misspelling “Moroccan”. Despite the date, the last PooterGeek entry was mainly written on the evening of the 8th of December. For those who care about such things, the software that runs this ‘Blog, Movable Type, attaches a time-stamp the first time I save […]

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07Dec03 — 0

Flurry of Articles

A busy weekend, what with Airport‘s lovely Christmas party and much flitting about London. I had a superb lunch with Sonya at The Triangle restaurant in Crouch End—a Moroccan “fusion” place. I remarked that, even in the daytime it looked like the sort of venue where they knew how to party and this review seems […]

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05Dec03 — 1

Why Nerds Are Unpopular

My car-sharing partner on Campus was pretty skeptical when I started enthusing about the article with this title I found on the Web. She isn’t a nerd. I must warn you that it is long and (surprising, given the author) poorly formatted for screen reading, but I think it is full of insights, some I […]

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03Dec03 — 0

Whiney Beyoncé

We hate moaning celebs at PooterGeek. Leasey listened to Her Royal Beyoncéness griping about the “pressures” of superstardom this morning on Radio 1. Here’s some text—if you can bear it.

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02Dec03 — 1

Geopolitics And The English Language

This morning I listened to the increasingly hysterical John Humphrys do his increasingly silly anti-Iraq war thing on the Today programme on Radio 4. After two Iraqi academics had repeatedly told us that the Americans had done “Nothing. Nothing!” for the Iraqi people, John had a rant at the UK diplomatic representative in Baghdad, Jeremy […]

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01Dec03 — 0

Act Locally

Most PooterGeek readers will probably start to doze off if I mention local government again, which is all the more reason to read this article recommended by local hero Allan Brigham.

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