Monthly Archives: April 2004

Jokism

30Apr04 – 10:13

[edited from The Motley Fool] AMERICAN JOKISM: You have two jokes They share a huge apartment in New York which they pay for by working in a coffee shop One is straight in real life, but gay on TV They were both written by a room full of Harvard graduates FRENCH JOKISM: You have two [...]

By Damian | Posted in Humour | Comments (0)

Too Depressing For Words

30Apr04 – 06:31

The revelations about abuse of prisoners by Coalition forces in Iraq are just grim. I should be making noises about their scale relative to pre-war Ba’athist crimes, about their being debated worldwide rather than hidden from any sight, about the court-martials that will be faced by (some of) the perpetrators. It wouldn’t change the crimes. [...]

By Damian | Posted in Iraq | Comments (2)

Camp Grenada

29Apr04 – 12:36

One of the top Google hits that brings people to PooterGeek is “Hello Mudder, Hello Fadder“. Ron Nilson posted a new comment to the relevant PooterGeek entry yesterday asking what classical piece Alan Sherman’s novelty record was based on. My dad provided the answer. It’s Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” from La Gioconda. And I [...]

By Damian | Posted in Music | Comments (2)

Too Posh To Push?

29Apr04 – 12:26

Having listened to two radio discussions about this on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning respectively, I wanted to ‘Blog at greater length about this story, but I haven’t the time at the moment. I wanted to include a few links for the frighteningly large number of friends (and relatives) I have who might be interested, [...]

By Damian | Posted in Health | Comments (0)

Auntie Drools Over Apple

29Apr04 – 09:16

When does journalism become boosting? When the BBC reports on Apple, says The Inquirer

By Damian | Posted in Media | Comments (0)

Normal To The Surface

29Apr04 – 08:57

For the past four days I have been at the the Cambridge Centre for Mathematical Sciences, a lovely new collection of ultra-modern pagoda-style buildings housing the best maths department(s) in the country. I was attending a workshop on protein structure (and writing it up for a journal). The workshop, incidentally, was the best scientific meeting [...]

By Damian | Posted in Academia | Comments (0)

Blackout

29Apr04 – 01:06

A lot of people are suggesting that American Idol, the US version of Pop Idol talent show, is racist because the black singers on the show have been consistently voted last by the viewers this season. Anyone who believes black people are naturally talented performers of popular music should be made to listen to my [...]

By Damian | Posted in Family, Music | Comments (1)

Aur’s Dad Is Living In My Radio

28Apr04 – 08:55

My friend Auriol‘s dad [yellow shirt, right-hand side of photo] wasn’t one of the six men who ran in the mile race in which Roger Bannister broke the four-minute “barrier”, but he should have been. He is still an unbelievably active and adventurous man who yomps around mountainous, remote parts of the World for fun [...]

By Damian | Posted in Friends | Comments (2)

Hindsight Makes Us All Geniuses

28Apr04 – 08:42

Judith draws our attention to a very smart piece from the New York Times [free registration, your home is at risk if you default on a loan secured on it, rhubarb rhubarb] about the absurdities of contemporary political life in Washington.

By Damian | Posted in Politics | Comments (0)

“He doesn’t hate the United States.”

28Apr04 – 08:38

I missed this story [Washington Post free registration, yadda yadda] about a Saudi student on trial in the US from earlier in the month entirely, but Philip Greenspun didn’t and makes some excellent points about the difference between the way the USA treats its enemies within and without its borders.

By Damian | Posted in United States | Comments (0)

Singular

27Apr04 – 12:00

Tony Blair spams me; Stephen Hawking stalks me. I don’t work for the University, but in my two years in Cambridge I have been to the Department for Applied Mathematics and Physics exactly once and was directed to his office by mistake. (He had an Onion story about him on the door.) Yesterday I was [...]

By Damian | Posted in Academia | Comments (1)

Superheroes

27Apr04 – 12:00

Another link from Jonathan: a strange story from Reading.

By Damian | Posted in Life | Comments (0)

Headline Of The Day

27Apr04 – 07:05

Methodists, run, run from the cloud of gay schism!

By Damian | Posted in Religion | Comments (0)

Mad As A Hat

27Apr04 – 06:56

Muammar Gaddafi vsited the EU today and showed that he is as coherent now as he ever was. Here’s a sample: “…the aging Arab radical showed flashes of his firebrand style in a 45-minute harangue to a joint news conference, at which questions were barred, under the watchful eye of four of his women bodyguards [...]

By Damian | Posted in Politics | Comments (0)

Don’t Mess With The “Emotionally Troubled”

27Apr04 – 06:42

400-pound bear takes on 15-year-old boy. Bear surrenders.

By Damian | Posted in Animals | Comments (1)

Some Should Have Prizes

27Apr04 – 06:38

The willingness of teachers to give out ‘A’ grades to their pupils in one state in the US seems to affect the performance of those pupils. This article summarizes a study of the effect. Ignore the writer’s political slant, but follow his various threads describing the results; they’re important, I think.

By Damian | Posted in Education | Comments (0)

“A Legal Lynching”

26Apr04 – 08:36

The Michael Jackson story somehow becomes even more surreal as one of his brothers implies that Jacko is being persecuted because he is black. In other news, Saddam Hussein’s lawyer claims he has been victimized because he is Jewish.

By Damian | Posted in Celebrities | Comments (0)

Double-Platinum Double Standard

26Apr04 – 08:35

I was listening to Avril Lavigne singing live on Radio 1 yesterday evening. Her voice is powerful and true. Her albums are slickly produced. She has an almost-distinctive sound, that you could describe as “Alanis Morissette‘s Mini-Me“. Vital for a pop star, some of her melodies are memorable and inventive. Where Lavigne’s music falls down [...]

By Damian | Posted in Music, Sex, Sexual Politics | Comments (0)

PooterGeek Fisked

26Apr04 – 06:02

Rupert Read visited this site today and politely pointed out that my statement in a previous entry that he was Balliol JCR President during my time at that college was bollocks (my word, not his). This entry is by way of apology to him and to all readers of this ‘Blog. He was right: as [...]

By Damian | Posted in PooterGeek | Comments (1)

Message From God

23Apr04 – 09:17

Yesterday, I and a colleague had a meeting at a large London teaching hospital. While we were waiting to go in we shared a room with an inflatable rhinoceros. Today, Jonathan [photo by Leasey] sends me this typically Sun-style story for my “blog thingy”. Knowing my luck, these events are telling me: “You are about [...]

By Damian | Posted in Animals | Comments (0)

Two Nations Divided By A Meat Cleaver

23Apr04 – 08:51

In the UK we have cookery programmes like Delia and Two Fat Ladies. Look at the DVD cover for the latter and smile at the eccentric old dears’ roly-poly faces peering over the jolly saturated colours of a flood of fruit and veg. The subtitle “full throttle”—in a non-threatening all-lowercase serif—hints that the eponymous heroines [...]

By Damian | Posted in Food | Comments (0)

A Scott Seltzer Production

23Apr04 – 08:41

Few conspiracy theorists are fully aware of the true extent of Jewish dominance of the entertainment industry. Today I stumbled upon perhaps the most sinister of their exclusive performing arts organisations.

By Damian | Posted in Entertainment | Comments (1)

You Scratch My Back

23Apr04 – 08:23

This morning I received a bottle of champagne (coincidentally my favourite alcoholic drink) from a family of complete strangers, as thanks for my doing them a favour, one I enjoyed doing and for which I had refused payment. Biology geeks might see the connection between this “exchange” and the death of John Maynard Smith on [...]

By Damian | Posted in Biology | Comments (4)

The Bint Is Back

22Apr04 – 09:26

Yvonne Ridley, journalist and former Taliban captive, is standing in the European elections for the “anti-war” RESPECT Coalition, the organisation currently caring for George Galloway, former Labour MP. The strange history of this woman is in itself worth pointing up, but today I just wanted to draw your attention to her use of language: “I [...]

By Damian | Posted in Politics | Comments (0)

Sonic Terror

22Apr04 – 09:10

I have been deeply skeptical of accusations of the US military “massacring innocents” in Fallujah so I was shocked to discover from The Normster that the Marines have publicly admitted to the use of a sound-based weapons system so horrible it falls outside the scope of the Geneva Conventions.

By Damian | Posted in Iraq | Comments (2)

Sitcom Life: Part II

22Apr04 – 08:56

It’s about 7:30pm I’m walking down the stairs from my flat. I have been talking to my landlord. When I arrived, he was vacuuming those stairs, ready for a new couple who he says want to look at the place next door to mine in the block. We chatted, I picked up the things I [...]

By Damian | Posted in Life | Comments (1)

Dragonslayer

22Apr04 – 08:52

Iain Murray over at “The Edge of England’s Sword” needs a link from me as much as Celine Dion needs me to approve of her singing. His Right-leaning ‘Blog makes a hell of a lot more sense than Samizdata and he’s sent some traffic my way today so I’m happy to reciprocate. It is a [...]

By Damian | Posted in Blogs | Comments (0)

Give Her A Clap

21Apr04 – 08:37

I thought these kinds of things only happened in sitcoms. Returning from work, I find a message from a cheery-sounding woman on my answerphone—names omitted to protect the innocent: “Hello. This is Doctor [DELETED] from the [DELETED]. A message for [DELETED]. Following the results of tests after your visit we’ve found that you do have [...]

By Damian | Posted in Health, Life | Comments (0)

It’s The Drug Companies And The Jews

21Apr04 – 08:36

Having had an excellent dinner at which at least one highly educated person was a little too sympathetic to some old myths, I enjoyed coming back to read Anthony Cox’s post about conspiracy theories at Black Triangle.

By Damian | Posted in World Affairs | Comments (0)

The Prime Minister Is Spamming Me

21Apr04 – 08:35

A tip if you’re about to become a Labour supporter: don’t, whatever you do, give the party your email address. Every time Tony Blair gives a speech important enough to have been trailed on the Today Programme two days beforehand he feels the need to send you an over-sized bleeding Word attachment so you can [...]

By Damian | Posted in Politics | Comments (3)