August 2007

Published Writer

Even the Nazis didn’t put artists out of work. — Andrew Keen, author of The Cult Of The Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy, talking about the Internet, one minute into this interview The advantage of the Internet, as Keen reveals in the title of his book, is that, […]

Read More

More Happy Stuff

It’s one in the morning. About fifteen minutes ago, I got back from working hard at a delightful wedding. Thanks to Jason Hare, I’ve just read this piece by Stephen King about the joys of junk culture and listened to Petra Haden’s uplifting and progressively sillier cover of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’. I’m grinning like […]

Read More

MUSIC WITH THE CAPS LOCK ON

Sorry to link to my Anastacia post again, but further to its attack on the current oppressive fashion of using limiters and compressors to increase the loudness of pop and rock recordings and my sideswipe here, Slashdot links to an(other) article about the “loudness war“. [If you are a newcomer to Slashdot you should take […]

Read More

Entertainment Elsewhere

While I’m away, you might want to read Let’s Be Sensible‘s “science” round-up and a couple of posts at Mr E’s place. This one is about a news story that highlights the absurdities of religious schools in England and Wales and this one is about the latest Conservative Party screw-up. When they do get rid of Cameron as […]

Read More

Unpickupable

An ex of mine in publishing used to hate my dragging her into remainder bookshops. She saw them as public archives of professional disasters. I love ’em—both because they’re full of cheap, odd books and because they are full of titles that nobody wants to buy. The question I ask about many of the latter […]

Read More

Been There Done That

Unlike, I suspect, most remaining readers of The Independent newspaper, I believe it’s to the credit of the people of the United States of America that one of the most common questions they ask of tour guides as they are shown around the Grand Canyon is: “How did we make it?” If the Martians are […]

Read More

That Post-Match Voicemail In Full

[SVEN-GÖRAN ERIKSSON’s BEDROOM. The former England coach lies cradled in one arm of NANCY DELL’OLIO. As she bends her face over his shiny pate, he adds another tick to his “To Do” list next to the words “have sex” and below the phrases “polish glasses” and “Portuguese lesson”.] SVEN: Nancy, my love-bagel, it iss now […]

Read More

The Sounds That Taste Forgot

Last week I discovered JasonHare.com, a blog full of trivia about the sort of music that only kids in high street electrical shops will admit to liking. Hare is obsessed with 80s cheese and soft rock. There are eleven mulleted musos visible on the current front page alone. It’s brilliant.

Read More

Pulled Post

I just had a go at The Graun for an article about university admissions, but Chris correctly pointed out that I’d misread it, so I’ve removed the post. When I make a mistake here I always leave a record of it on the site so that’s the purpose of this entry.

Read More

Stepping Out

This is another one I’m over a month late to, but it’s magical, just the sort of impossible cleverness that computer games could do with more of. Via plasticbag.org, to succeed playing Echocrome [Flash video demo] you have to accept the physics of Escherworld.

Read More

The Irreligious Policemen

Not having a telly, I didn’t catch the latest from Richard Dawkins, but when I visited his Website to look for clips, I saw this photo of him: All I could think of was Michael Mann directing Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens in an atheist actioner: [A convertible Ferrari screams through downtown in slow motion, reflections […]

Read More

First Post!

Ever found yourself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with something on career Conservative Iain Dale’s blog? Under a photo of Sierra Leoneans queuing to vote he writes: This is the picture that should shame 39% of British adults … Why is it that 39% of people in this country at the last general election […]

Read More

Ex-Scientist Recommends Government Offer Financial Incentive To Encourage Members Of CBI To Study Basic Economics

Following on from Tim’s comment, according to BBC News online: More young people would take science degrees if they were given a financial incentive, claim industry experts. […but obviously we’d rather the government came up with this financial incentive while we continue to offer those with science degrees less than they are worth, and complain […]

Read More

Testing Polling

No one reads blogs on sunny weekends so this is possibly the worst time to try this out, but, being an evil neocon, I have decided to install Democracy 2.0.1 here. Now you can express your feelings about the Things That Matter. Exercise your franchise, PooterGeekers: n Who is the Messiah? David Icke David Shayler […]

Read More

Lightly Worn

Beachy Head[click image to enlarge it] I was eating breakfast in an hotel in Cambridge the Saturday morning after I shot that college ball. A tall, intense-looking man with a beard sat down at a table nearby. He pulled a hardback book out of his briefcase and began underlining paragraphs heavily with a soft pencil. […]

Read More

Achtung!

This has been online for so long and is so funny that it’s hard to believe that no one has sent me a link to it before. Perhaps this is because it’s a German health and safety video and, for the first minute or so, is exactly as entertaining as that description suggests. But it […]

Read More

Pestiferous Rhetoric

R C Metcalf, PhD, knows the erotic power of a polysyllabic adverb and harnesses it to denounce the “diversionary tactics” of public unbelievers, and to, er, divert their attentions to those damned Muslims: The new atheists are a tumescent bunch, unquestionably articulate, yet consummately misguided. Their incendiary rhetoric can’t help but stir the emotions of […]

Read More

…No Dogs, No Irish…

a bitch, currently residing at a fine Welsh bed-and-breakfast establishment[click image to enlarge it] There’s a discussion going on over at Chris Dillow’s place about whether or not guest house owners should be allowed to discriminate against gay couples. Whatever is implied by Chris’s musings on the matter, markets are not the solution to this […]

Read More

Off The Grid

the middle of nowhere[click image to enlarge it] [A dirt track in Wales exactly seventy-five miles from the nearest Starbucks. POOTERGEEK is laden with three cameras, several lens bags, and a tripod. He is trying to open the gate to a field full of sheep by pressing a London Transport Oyster card against the hinge […]

Read More