On the way to Intenso to drop off some photos, I passed the windows of an art supplies shop and snapped these items from the display with my cameraphone.
In the past week, two shops within two doors of each other in my street have decorated their respective forecourts with a giant fibreglass ice cream cone and a lifesize inflatable Santa Claus.
I don’t have perfect pitch. One of my long-suffering former Flatland music tutors would however be amused to read that the other day I noticed that my toothbrush was playing the key note of a Kelly Clarkson song and I wandered over to the piano and played the scale along with it—first time! I never […]
Following on from my previous post, the entertaining flickr pages of a posh Asian-Italian woman called Robyn are at the end of this link, including her own pics of Brighton from her recent visit with her man. (They seem to be public so I don’t think this makes us voyeurs. She’s part of the Bobbie […]
I love photographing people, but sometimes the world looks fine without them. These photos are from the part-roll of film that I took with me that Sunday morning two weeks ago. Next time I’ll take a tripod and a multipack of 100ASA. Click on any one of the thumbnails below to see an larger version. I […]
I enjoyed a beautiful drive through Autumn English countryside to a job in West Sussex yesterday. Driving back blind into low sunlight wasn’t quite so pleasant. This random November photo from flickr is lovely too.
Blogger Mr Eugenides displays courage to rival that of Leonidas (the chocolatier rather than the king of the Spartans) as he takes on intellectual giantess Polly Toynbee in the argument over government surveillance and points up classic fallacy after classic fallacy in her defence of ID cards and CCTV cameras. What case does Mr E offer […]
Did you know that Brighton’s 80s slightly-more-than-one-hit-wonders Frazier Chorus covered Anarchy In The UK? They did. It’s more subversive than the original.
Thursday evening, last week: I’m standing at the bar buying my round in a not-gay pub in Brighton when a man I’ve never met before starts talking to me in a way I am reluctant to categorise as “forward” until he moves in close, starts rubbing his hand up and down my chest, and tells […]
A month or so back I was in the farthest darkest reaches of Hove, Actually (practically in Portslade, for the locals reading) having a repair done to my car. While I waited I wandered into a new café called “Intenso”. It’s an unlikely outpost of another Intenso in Ibiza—though not so unlikely with the weather we’ve […]
Thanks to my dad for telling me about this article in yesterday’s Observer sports section about mixed race sportsmen. There’s lots of pointless hand-wringing about the phrase “half-caste”, but it’s interesting otherwise. During the rise of Tiger Woods and around the time this hit the headlines I used to joke with a colleague who was a […]
Shuggy is complaining about Norm’s and my spelling of “defence” as “defense” and Christopher Hitchens’ spelling of “labour” as “labor”: Lenin does it. So does Pootergeek. As does Norm. Politically different, yet the same problem; they all spell ‘defence’ with an ‘s’. Which is an Americanism. I’m happy for the Yanks to do this but they can’t […]
GOT A TINY SPARE ROOM? EARLY-RETIRED TEACHER (MUSIC AND ENGLISH) WOULD LIKE TO LIVE IN IT IN RETURN FOR ANY COMBINATION OF THE FOLLOWING: CLEANING, SHOPPING, DOG-WALKING, COMPANIONSHIP, LIFE COACHING, LIFE COACHING FOR VEGANS, LIFE COACHING FOR CRICKETERS, PIANO OR ORGAN TUITION, ENGLISH TEACHING, HELP WITH DYSLEXIA, ETC, ETC. [FOLLOWED BY CONTACT DETAILS]
A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the accordion but doesn’t. Gentlemanly English is when you can read Martin Amis without resorting to a dictionary, but people are unaware of this fact when they read your own writing. Gentlemanly English is when you have a knighthood and a seat in the Lords, but […]
I suspect someone working forThe Argus reads PooterGeek and has just won a bet (s)he made with an officemate yesterday.
I mentioned to a friend after I saw it that I would blog the amazing photo exhibition I experienced on Friday. It’s Lisa Creagh’s collaborative show with the residents of Tidy Street in Brighton. It’s on the “fringe” of the Brighton Photo Biennial. Rather than spoil it though, I would prefer everyone who lives near […]
This morning the half-Sri Lankan guy who runs the computer shop mistook me for the half-Indian guy who runs the café.
Yesterday evening, while I was eating me tea, I had the Cambridge Folk Festival on the radio. Luckily I wasn’t paying too much attention to the introductions so I had no advance warning of Salsa Celtica’s “signature blend of big-band Latin dance music with Scottish accents”. They’re tight as a Highland midge’s nether parts and […]
One of the discussions I had at Jackie’s party was about government incompetence in IT procurement and management. Gazillions of pounds of our money goes to buy BMWs for “consultants” who I wouldn’t trust to format a floppy disk and the results are exactly as you would expect. Of course poorly thought out and chronically […]
Having read an article I wrote reviewing bioinformatics courses in the UK, and despite my honest warnings, Wei applied to be a student on one I once taught on. Because the admissions office at [insert name of educational institution easily obtained by googling] failed to process her paperwork properly she had to make do with […]
Sorry it’s been quiet. I’ve been working my way through hundreds of photo scans. Once I’ve finished I’ll be back in action here and on the Wedding Photography Blog. In the meantime I couldn’t help but notice something familiar about one of the snaps I took on the river in Cambridge at Hot Wheels Helena’s 30th […]
Via Normblog I read the Times’ transcript of an accidentally broadcast conversation between George W. Bush and Tony Blair at the G8 summit. By downloading the original recording and processing it with various digital sound programs I have been able to reconstruct the inaudible parts of the exchange. Here I present the full transcript, with […]
Marvel at this unintentionally revealing Guardian story about the lengths middle-class parents go to to get their children into church schools. It opens with a Jewish mother admitting that she feels hypocritical attending Church of England services so that her two kids can get into the local church school. At least she is honest about […]
Isolated a talented striker up front. Lost possession cheaply. Couldn’t score from open play. Vulnerable defending set-pieces. Star player sent off for violent conduct. Beaten on penalties. Who says England weren’t in the World Cup final?
Dear Candidate If you want to be selected as the MP for the notoriously geeky and principled Cambridge constituency, spamming Labour Party members with your CV attached as a Word document sent from your work email account is not a good way to start. all the best PG
Via the Rubbish Man I came upon this. Despite the inherent wrongness of psychoanalysis, it’s rather a good read: “England’s repeated failure in penalty shoot-outs is not down to bad fortune, as the English media, with its empiricist presuppositions, insists. To lose once might be an accident, but to lose five times demands a psychoanalytic explanation. […]
Following Britain’s torrid summer of sporting failure, the organising committee has radically revised the programme for the 2012 Olympics. Here, in alphabetical order, are the new events you’ll be able to enjoy: Binge Drinking Camp Cat Blogging Connery Imperschonating Crazy Golf Croquet Doggy Paddle Druidism English Rules Schadenfreude Extreme Ironing Extreme Irony Fencing (And Decking) Freestyle Queuing 10K Funny Walk Gentle Comedy Getting A Mardy On Happy Slapping Hating The English […]
Via Lee Gregory: “WORLD FIRST AS TRISH LAW TAKES ASSEMBLY SEAT Jul 5 2006 Martin Shipton, Western Mail AS TRISH LAW took her seat in the National Assembly yesterday after winning the Blaenau Gwent by-election, Wales became the first legislature in the world with more women than men. It is supremely ironic that the row which began with an objection […]
My car is parked just round the corner. Yesterday I went to it to get some stuff out of the boot and found that it had been picked up and moved two metres from where I had parked it. The city council had been painting new road markings and it had been in their way. I […]