I have a cold coming on so this link is a prediction as well as a survey result. By the way: send me some real email, tight-lipped ones. I haven’t had a proper message since Friday. Don’t you people love me any more? I can’t find all this time-wasting content on my own, you know.
Read MoreFebruary 2004
You Don’t Say
The San Jose Mercury News reports from Ohio the shocking truth: “Poll: Democrats want someone who can beat Bush”
Read MoreEgo-surfing: The Next Level
Googlefight! Regular PooterGeek readers might want to try “Claire.Berlinski” vs “Damian.Counsell”—just as an experiment of course.
Read MoreAnother Cat In A Hat
Judith will like this one for two reasons: it’s about Lyle Lovett, in typical New Yorker style the article uses the word “début” and retains the e-acute. The New Yorker is probably the last popular magazine in the English-speaking world where the editors insist on the diaeresis (not umlaut) in “cöoperate”. The Lovett article comes […]
Read MoreNiche Publishing
This essential book brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “comedy romance”.
Read MoreThe Price is Right
I was chatting with Leasey over lunch about house prices yesterday (as the English do, just after they’ve finished discussing the weather). They are in the news again. What does this mean “on the ground”? Well, I found this bargain for a start. A quarter of million quid for a converted garage in Peckham? I’ll […]
Read MoreIt’s Only Words
Had a quick browse round The Word Spy today. My current two favourite neologisms there are “mucus trooper” and “resistentialism“.
Read More“Completely unacceptable”
The demise of the delightful Ann Winterton will warm the cockles of my father’s heart.
Read MoreHound Dog
At work today, Wiqqi and I had a chat today about the ongoing Goodhart debate. (Is there a reasonable Left liberal case for arguing that multi-ethnic societies are inherently divided?) Then we pondered the question of exactly how mad Muammar Gaddafi, the Michael Jackson of World heads of state, is. (Does this mean Kim Chong-il […]
Read MoreSpies Like Us
Claire‘ll have a thing or two to say about this one. Katharine Gun, formerly of UK snooping centre GCHQ (direct descendant of Bletchley Park), has been acquitted of charges under the Official Secrets Act, having told the World that the US had asked the British to tap the phones of representatives of anti-Iraq war countries. […]
Read MoreArtistic Licence
You have probably found it difficult to avoid some knowledge of the Paris Hilton affair, even if all you’ve heard about it is from spam offering you the “full, uncut version”. You only need a superficial idea of what she got up to with her boyfriend and a video camera to find this one of […]
Read MoreConspicuous Contempt
Murph comments on the “Conspicuous Compassion” question over at Oliver Kamm’s place. I think he’s Australian. He’s probably not English because he is so in touch with his feelings. According to Murph, Diana Spencer was “a selfish simpleton and a tart”—and as for anti-war protestors: “[M]orons. Never have I seen such a sorrier pack of […]
Read MoreFriends and Family
Thank you for your cards and gifts!
Read MoreSpring Is Early This Year
It’s a certain person’s birthday today, but in the fortnight leading up to it everyone I know has been giving birth. Congratulations to Matthew and Jenny for Douglas, Nicholas and Hind on Adam and Patrick and Catherine for Joshua—the last two within 48 hours of each other this weekend. I have a feeling there will […]
Read MoreFingering the Dyke
Another Motley Fool member dissects some typical BBC bias.
Read MoreMade-Up News?
The Sunday Express has been claiming that Osama bin Laden and his sidekick, Mini-Me, are trapped in an area of 100 square miles by UK and US special forces. No one else seems to have picked up the story, except to hold it at arm’s length.
Read MoreThree-frame epics
Joey Comeau and Emily Horne run an eerie photo-based ‘Blog. Some of their entries in it are well worth checking out.
Read More“Visitors For You, Mr Hussein”
Oh the irony.
Read MoreOz-fest
I went to an excellent farewell do yesterday evening to say goodbye to J-FK before she flies off to run Australia. Our foursome took a corner of the huge table of guests at a Korean restaurant on the Holloway Road, just a stagger from Highbury and Islington Station. Airport has a lot of friends who […]
Read MoreModern Pop Is Rubbish
Things are so bad with British popular music that even my dad has noticed. He watched The Brits and actually took the time on the phone to point it out to me. This article in The Times [sorry, you foreigners will need a subscription] points it out too, ironically by harking back to the days […]
Read MoreJust Like Us
Ultimately, the goal of the work I contributed to in my Master’s thesis (1996) was to find a new computational technique for examining 3-D images. With it, psychiatrists would be able to detect variations in in the structure of human brains (in something called their “torsion”) and identify schizophrenics without having to dissect their heads […]
Read MoreHave a Kit-Kat
…but not a coffee break. According to the New Scientist, it’s bad for teamwork.
Read MoreHoly Fucking Hell. What Next?
I should introduce this one by pointing out that, a couple of years ago, having read an excellent article of Prof. Jardine’s about a piece of science history that interested me, I contacted her to ask if she would be interested in working with me on something related. She might not have received my email, […]
Read MoreBedside Manners
You don’t have to be a medic to enjoy this ward round story from the British Medical Journal.
Read MoreThose Crazy Filipinos
…can be thanked for this late Valentine’s Day story.
Read MoreHappy Birthday, Leasey!
Does this get me off the hook, then?
Read MoreThe Undoing of Dean
Claire joins in Judith in the Democrat-bashing by pointing me at this Christopher Hitchens piece in Opinion Journal about Howard Dean. From the quotes and reports I’ve read so far I have to admit I don’t feel any wish to defend the faltering ex-frontrunner in the race for the Democratic nomination.
Read MoreThanks for the Tip
My favourite science/technology headline of the week.
Read More
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