October 2004

You And Whose Army?

I could rant for England on the subject of the Common Agricultural Policy, but I can’t seem to get very worked up about the European Constitution. This might be stupidity on my part, but what exactly would happen if, after we’ve signed it, a future UK government just refused to accept some part of it […]

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My Twelve Pence Worth

Screw the polls. Screw the pundits. Screw Osama. I’m sticking by my prediction that Kerry will win, not that I can enter Norm’s competition. I’d bet about twelve pence on John Kerry becoming President of the United States of America. I also want Kerry to win, but not very much. Here’s The Economist expressing a […]

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My Gay Trousers

My friend Leasey told me today that she and her girlfriends are going to take me out “on the pull” to a place where repetitive beats are played and alcoholic drinks are served. She has ordered me not to wear my “gay trousers” lest the straight women think I am not interested in them. Apparently […]

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Mutual Backslapping

The ‘Blog Abbreviated To SIAW has written nice things about me recently, but I would have enthused about its accurate summary of the BBC’s celebrity-based current affairs presenting anyway: “[Kirsty] Wark, in her usual not exactly self-effacing way, frequently interrupted both to summarise their remarks, put words in their mouths and generally make sure that […]

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Puddy Tats: Monsanto’s Stormtroopers

When the subject of British public attitudes to genetically modified organisms comes up at Genome Campus breaktime conversations I tend to make two standard contributions. I rail against the “Frankenfood” hysteria of the UK tabloid press (not to mention the bloody Archers) that has all but prevented a rational debate on the subject. I advance […]

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Future News: November

Live from next month, more of “Pooter’s Futures“: The Middle East The body of one of the militants believed to have been responsible for the bombing of the Hilton hotel in Taba on Egypt’s border with Israel has been washed up on a bank of the river Nile near the Egyptian town of Aswan. When […]

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With Friends Like This

This morning I’d just like to thank Judith for making PooterGeek third highest Google hit for “visible thong above trousers“. I need all the help I can get in improving the quality of the visitors here.

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Too Little Too Late

“Sony launches music players with MP3 support” There’s a headline to put alongside “Microsoft acknowledge importance of Internet, release Explorer Web browser”; Sony have also been years too late, but they don’t have a monopoly they can use to crush the opposition anyway. Perhaps they can take advantage of the 80s revival instead and release […]

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Football Follow-Up

As predicted, Ruud is getting his comeuppance and, also following that post and the associated commentary, Football365 has a round-up of the varied press on the Biggest Game of The Season So Far. In response to the commenter who complained that Arsenal had been doing so well because “premiership teams oil themselves up and bend […]

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Private Education

On page 3 of the Cambridge Town Crier there is a half-page advertisement with the following heading: THE PERSE SCHOOL A sixth form school with a notable academic record and a wide range of extra-curricular activities On page 5 of the Cambridge Town Crier a news report begins: “A female teacher at the Perse School, […]

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Nothing To See Here

The BBC and The Guardian: as long as it’s only the fuzzy-wuzzies that are dying, and not rich white people, then terrorism is a figment of the imaginations of our oppressive Western governments.

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The Big Match

They certainly weren’t irresistible today, but Arsenal, at their best, still astonished. There were times when they made Man Utd look like an infants school team in midfield; shame they couldn’t finish anything. The simple truth is you can’t afford to make a mistake like Sol Campbell did at Old Trafford. Man U’s talent and […]

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Too Much Too Young

It’s time for the Razzies to start presenting an “Orson Welles Award” for film careers that have had the steepest fall from an early peak. [Michael Brooke will be round here in a minute to tell me off for caricaturing Mr Sherry.] Apart from giving film bores a truly interesting challenge (choosing Madonna for Worst […]

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God Bless Islington!

Dear British Guardian Readers I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be able to write to you on White House notepaper. I cannot thank you enough for your cruciate support in our country’s recent presidential election. When my colleagues used to show me cuttings from the opinion pages of your newspaper, the cartoons, […]

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A Good Newspaper

It’s lucky that the Tory party is so comprehensively crap at the moment because its house journal, The Daily Telegraph, just gets better and better. As Backword Dave demonstrates almost every week, even people who object heartily to The Telegraph‘s politics and are embarrassed by its other readers take it because it is still a […]

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Too Busy To Fisk

Apparently “Sudan’s Darfur” is “‘safer than Iraq’“. I’d been wondering where those millions of Iraqi refugees had gone to. I think Sudan’s Foreign Minister, Mustafa Osman Ismael, makes everything clear to Europeans when he says that “the international community should leave the complex ethnic politics of Darfur alone” because… “This is an African problem—it needs […]

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Doubles All Round

After last week’s frenzy, ‘Blogging is going to be thin this week because I have a lot on. Congratulations to PooterGeekers on their excellent work with Britney and to Oliver Kamm on making a better case for Bush (this time😉 and on re-making the best case for the second war on Saddam, namely that the […]

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More Racism

Courtesy of The Motley Fool: An Englishman, a Scotsman, and a Nigerian are sitting in the maternity ward of a hospital waiting for the births of their respective children. They are all very nervous, pacing, fidgeting, and fretting. Suddenly a nurse bursts through the double doors saying, “Gentlemen you won’t believe this, but your wives […]

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Punching Through The Glass Ceiling

One of the co-workers of tech company cubicle drone Dilbert in Scott Adams’s inspired eponymous cartoon series is a fierce and talented engineer called Alice. She responds to the sexism and stupidity of her co-workers with extreme violence. She has triangular hair. Apropos of nothing, yesterday’s Economist magazine profiles Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer with […]

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Why Set Out? Why Turn Back? Why Guinea Pigs?

Wonderful, wonderful BBC Radio 4. In how many countries can you come back from a run, stagger into the shower and turn on national radio at 10:30am to hear the scientific history of the year 1907? Almost inevitably the story started in Cambridge, at the British Antarctic Survey. Depending on what you believe, the explorer […]

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Working Like A Dog

My guitar teacher [he’s the one about to fall into the audience] started teaching me A Hard Day’s Night a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t tell me whether it opens with Gm7 add 11 or G llsus 4th. He just told me to stop fussing about the details, enjoy it, and wobble my head […]

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