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comedy scene of the day:
in henley i saw a young lad accidently propel his lollypop out of its holder and in to his granny's handbag ! It shattered in to pieces as it landed to add to the comedy factor.
granny and childs faces were priceless. didn't get a photo. sorry
we stumbled upon the henley community festival today. esther got her face painted as usual
and a man balanced a canoe on this chin
kids still work down the pit. nowadays it's the sand pit
how cool to be able to sit outside at 8am in England and do some work
how weird. i was drinking absinthe and 1664s and this story appeared in the Guardian the next day: Absinthe and 1664
leicester square. what a treat
zoom in profile (coin style) on her majesty
another day another glove
New Product Concept: instant ironing in a can
what does it do ?
instant spray on ironing. simply point the can at a crinkled shirt. spray on the effected area and creases are removed.
how does it work ?
it dissolves small amounts of raised areas of the shirt and moves them to 'trough' areas thus redistributing the material in an even way
is it dangerous ?
only if you use it
seen on the way in to Paddington Station (I'll try and get a photo of this):
BIG UP THE DAILY MIRROR (EXCEPT ON CERTAIN ISSUES)
harley street this morning (same place as I found one of the gloves yesterday)
Also saw the other workman's glove from yesterday's collection near the original.
another good day for gloves
the words party and partly are closely related. i've been to three parties in the last few days. all were successful as a 'party', but i wonder what would have made them in to a 'partly'?
Possible a missing cake or the non-appearance of a key guest ? Possibly total lack of interest from the host.
why not throw your own 'partly' and see what (nearly) happens
switch off your monitor on your computer. send 4 emails. switch the monitor back on and see what you sent (and to whom)
chair
kids coat
lampshade
doll with a lazy eye
pub with a lazy i
whilst walking to work i was 10 metres away from a skip lorry dropping a massive skip on to the road from a height of about 1 metre. a fantastic noise was produced. fantastic yes. welcome no.
another septic tank spam. i have no septic tank
when it's slightly open
be the first to write a slightly surreal book about tea bags
the street of london are paved with gold. everyone knows that. as a result they need polishing. here is one such device. left in the street.
i guess the idea is that people walking to work can buff a little on the way then leave it for the next person walking that way to do a bit more. eventually the most travelling walking routes get the most buffing.
or is it a congestion charge avoidance device ? Floor buffers don't seem to be exempt according to the BBC however.
or it could be one of those new Segway things
more party time today. kez is at a difficult age where she needs 100% supervision. low light today was not being able to remember how to spell kezia's name. question was did it have an 'h' on the end or not. apparently it doesn't. i should have these things written down somewhere. or better still, get someone to remember it for me. i usually get jane to remember stuff but she has been staying out the way doing exam marking all weekend (hence me looking after the kids)
kid fight
preparing nails:
walking down street:
my advice for life is to keep in touch with youth.
if you can't stay young yourself then simply hang out with young people and avoid looking in the mirror. delusion is rarely an illusion.
here is a photo of the receptionists. they made me take the photo. hoorah for friday afternoons
just near harley street
you eat that and you'll go blind [-pause for effect-] guaranteed.
went to see John Shuttleworth last night in Reading. Was marvellous.
=CEILING(4.42,0.05)
it's wide but it's flat. it's a giant strawberry
avoid using the word spatula
whilst walking down Oxford Street today I saw tipex splattered all over the pavement and the little tipex pain brush thing casually chucked aside. the painting was Pollock in style. makes you think.
there's an awful lot of coffee in brazil.
and spread all over London's busy Oxford Street.
brought to you by the random tea makers of yesterday perhaps ?
professional graffiti. water co. aware.
imagine that as your job. graffiti stencil and spray paints
they say that in an earthquake you should stand in a doorway.
here is a house which has fallen down and only the doorway arch remains.
certainly if you house is bulldosed then it appears the doorway concept works
interestingly, this house was at the centre of the Cat Conspiracy which i shall write about soon (ish)
someone had been attempting tea making near my office
but they failed big time.
the milk got run over:
and tea bags went everywhere
commuting is so boring i thought i'd take my wife along on the journey.
didn't help. we were both board. such a card
i was against electro therapy initially. but now i see the results and i'm very impressed
the one problem with my velveteen tie is the size of knot required to keep it round my neck.
i have enough ties to wear a different one every working day of the year. I wear ties about three times a week. there is a strict rota for the ties which enables me to concentrate on other more important things.
found by Harley Street:
found by Middlesex Hospital (a little yellowed)
height wise, he was a very tall man
awful
this week, develop your own taxonomies. document them meticulously
The Grumbleweeds are surely one of the best entertainment bands around.
Best of all is the location on its server:
Grumbleweeds, The/Grumbleweeds,The.htm
sure beats the usual index.htm
we went to the Reading Childrens' Fun Day today.
Self portrait on the Greyfriars Church stand. Esther obviously
thinks of herself as a spider
a couple of hours later with tiger face paint and a balloon flower
esther proudly pointing to a lost hat on a train bridge
this is a story about a fairy who didn't have anything except some furniture and one guitar.
one day a cat went upstairs and chewed the cheek of her favourite toy.
(that's as much as we have from her at the moment).
there is a habit in london of bricking up doorways with breeze blocks.
and then doing some nice big graffiti over it (thus ruining the nice
breeze block patter - but there you go - you can't have art without
destroying art I always say)
here is an example featuring an alien:
you can't quite see on the small version, but someone has drawn a
little eye and nose, and converted the mouth to a moustache:
found a passport photo today near middlesex hospital
was of a baby so i have had to pixelate it.
will add to www.davescollections.com this evening
rxplxcx vxwxls wxth thx lxttxr x xn xll xffxcxxl cxrrxspxndxncx
you can sit there for 5 minutes. any longer and i'll have to charge you
you can coach people and train people and even drive them
you can transport them to higher planes
makes you think
My Lords, I hope noble Lords will appreciate how I move seamlessly from corned beef to spam.
My Lords, will the Minister explain how it is that an inedible tinned food that lasted for ever and was supplied to those on active service can become an unsolicited e-mail, bearing in mind that some of us wish to be protected from having an e-mail?
title-less emails are a queer thing. you feel obliged to open them to see what they are about. an email or website title is like a headline on a newspaper, inviting you to read the content. But conversely it is there to warn you to stay clear if you don't want what it offers.
a good title is inviting (or warning).
a misleading title is a social no-no.
a non-title is an cheeky invitation to sample the unknown. dive in my friends it says.
so where do i stand on this issue. good question. thanks for asking.
and i haven't even mentioned the numerous issues relating to attachments ...
found on the way to work.
wripped up flowers.
there are all sorts of obstacles in life.
made my journey more tricky.
grab the sand bag and carry it over the two planks of wood
carefully balanced on two plastic bins.
saw this on the way to work
someone's got a jigsaw with a piece missing. how like life.
god stuff makes sense to me.
we all know about friends reunited. part of the idea behind www.davescollections.com was to reunite people with their lost photos.
well. someone ('old school mate') spotted that a photo had been contributed to the collection by one of their old school friends ('the contributor'). they ('old school mate') emailed me ('the site owner') to see if I ('the site owner') was still in contact with the contributor ('the contributor') and indeed i ('the site owner') was.
i ('the site owner') forwarded this enquiring email to the long lost friend ('the contributor') and got a response acknowledging they did know this person ('old school mate') from school.
however, they ('the contributor') didn't reply directly to the original email sender ('old school mate') so he ('old school mate') emailed me again.
i ('the site owner') have forwarded this email on again and we ('you, me and the garden fence') will have to see what happens. I ('the site owner') will keep you updated ...
the clock in our bathroom is having a midlife crisis. It no longer conforms to standard time keeping, instead choosing to amble round at its own predetermined speed. I have seen such behavour from clocks before. The first approach of battery drainage and they lose all will to live.
Imagine if we just went at our own speed and ignored real time. fantastic.
meanwhile our poor clock in the bathroom will get slower and slower until one day soon it will just twitch its minute hand back and forth without enough power to move it on to the next position. and the clock in our living room is always 50 minutes slow. we learn to adapt to these things.
also found £1 nearby.
come to london the streets are covered with money
"yours in His gracious grip"
thank you in advance for your kind and gracious cooperation on this somewhat sensitive issue
It's always good to see things from a different angle.
here's kez and miriam from the side
speak only in coiffeurisms (hairdresser cliches)
i drank deep from my bottle, expecting sweet orange juice. it was grapefruit. not pleasant. this was the second 'drinks misunderstanding' of the day. the first was when someone fetched me a 2litre bottle of water when i was after a half litre one. as for the tesco grapefruit drink. yuckety yuck.
loaf of bread, partly eaten, on a BT phone box.
makes you think ...
i saw this glove. it was moving down the road on finger tips.
could have been the wind. or something more sinister ...
in offices we often have to dial nine for an external line.
this helps reinforce the idea that an office environment is seperate from the outside world.
in life we often have to dial 9 to connect to the real world.
graffiti: description of contents
went to the London Men's Convention today at the Royal Alber Hall.
Saw a glove on the way there and a painted lady on the way back
bought for £3 from a charity shop in Basildon.
from the box:
Approx 10m of cable supplied
Excellent reliability
Made of high impact polystyrene - giving durability as well as style
Suitable for House, Office, Workshop, Den, Nursery etc.
graffiti on the streets of london stating the kinds of things a quality control officer in a hosiery factory might say
person in photobooth in paddington station.
one shoe on, one shoe off. guess you won't see this in the photo
maybe it's a passport photo of a foot.
perhaps the foot will be removed and sent abroad ?
this is in no way related to my find the other day of a photo of feet. though the coinsidence is strangely eery.
eau my gush.
found this photo in the street. was ripped up and in a pile of wee.
I rescued the feet as shown below. i didn't see any bits of body or heads.
accept that your computer/pda/mobile phone knows how to spell better than you do. this is especially important for peoples names. computers know what you are thinking. understand this and you are halfway there.
always accept any spelling correction offered by your word processor / email package / writing recogniser. always use the first word offered.
tap in to your computer consciousness. just go with the flow and enjoy the ride.
my santa stays up all year round.
here he is enjoying the may sunshine
stand firm against any form of dragooning.
how long is a peace of string ? double the length to its solitude (where solitude equals my pie squared). therefore we can find peace in a square pie.
working from home is a lot quieter than working in the London office. however there are other differences:
In London I get the sounds, smells and bits of cack from the building they are constructing next door.
at home i get the mixed smell of silage and fresh tarmacadam
quote from esther: "this cake is so gorgeous I can't even taste it".
i think she captured the 'mood of cake' perfectly
I've shouted "hello" quite loudly to 4 people this morning (3 street cleaners and one person in the office). No one has acknowledged my greeting.
Perhaps today I am invisible (and the sound equivalent of invisible).
Although I did converse with Laurent as I entered the building this morning. He is French.
So maybe I'm invisible and inaudible (probably the correct equivalent word) to all except the French.
Or maybe French people are just friendlier than English people in the morning.
makes you think
three double mattresses
they were filming something this morning by Langham Place, London.
Don't know what they were filming
Maybe it was a speed camera or a congestion charge trap ?
2 ethernet cards £4
pair computer speakers £6
guess who ? 50p
esther helps poochy blow out her birthday cake
fly kites on windy days.
went to Mecca Bingo in Reading with Jane and Sally this evening. Didn't win money, but did gain a whole lot of fun. Also saw loads of rats near a litter bin. I can highly recommend Mecca Bingo in Reading. They made us feel extraordinarily welcome !
there is a reason why apples comes from the female part of a tree. but it escapes me. www.michiganapples.com may help
try a bit of gerrymandering on anyone with artifically coloured hair over the weekend
getting trapped in a lift is something that happens to everyone at least 7 times in their life according to statitics I just invented. How to get out is the second thing you think of (the first is "how many times have I been stuck in a lift before, is it 6 or 7, and therefore is this an above, at or below average event").
Here in my office lift are the ideal companions. A saw and a spirit level.
modern life has few real dangers. we seldom get eaten by wild animals or killed by infectious diseases (shoddy zoos, SARs, world terrorism, natural disasters excepted). The challenges modern man (i use that term in a non-genderly way) faces are more subtle.
my desk is covered in a fine coating of 'grit' this morning. perhaps someone spontaneously combusted over night and their remains are spread around the office ?
I am sceptical about the whole spontaneous combustion thing. i've never seen anyone combust, spontaneously or otherwise. i've never seen the wind, but still believe in that.
i'll just have to see who doesn't come in to work this morning and conclude by a method of elimination
place a 10 pence coin (or equivalent in local currency) on your head. balance it there all day. keep it there until you forget about it. (purest will resist, but it is permissable to use adhesive).
repeat daily until mastered.
once mastered add another 10 pence coin. again, repeat until mastered.
and so on. until the coins reach 1 metre high (or £99.90 - keep below £100 for insurance reasons).
let me know how you get on.
[an interesting twist on this game is to use only coins which have been found lying in the street - this way the values, sizes and days when additional coins must be added is an additional variable to consider]
(based on an idea from the Fluxus movement)
leebeebee is esther's name for the writing that she did below:
voting is fun. three names on the sheet - no loonies or extremists here. whole thing took 30 mins (incl 25 mins walk)
unfortunately no golf was allowed whilst voting
it's the local elections today which is very exciting. i'm working from home which means i can pop along and vote during the day. i suspect it will be quite empty. i'll let you know.
working from home 'downstairs configuration':
(voting slip next to laptop)
be applauded for using your gumption at least twice this week
Septic Tanks - What You Should Know
