another afternoon working from home. not sure if I'd want to work from home all the time. got lots done today because the house is empty, but it does mean you go a bit mad.

the silence was broken by an ice-cream van driving by. It was playing a souped up version of Popeye The Sailor Man and looked very modern. I was too slow with my recording device to catch the tune for you.

I once heard of a girl who's parents told her that when an Ice Cream van played its tune it meant that it had run out of lollies and ice creams.

a fantastic parent lie. i think it's a fair response.

This week I have been mostly listening to:
BBC Radio Player

drummers are funny people. but everyone knows that. here is the holiday club drummer.

bass players and drummers have to be telepathetic ... he's got a telly and i'm pathetic. [joke to be removed by quality control at a later date].

this concerns me. what will they do to Top Of The Pops ? Is Andy Peters the right man for the job. why does anyone still listen to veteran DJ DLT aka the Hairy Cornflake. why can't they just leave stuff alone

british trains are expensive, but at least you get punctuality, airconditioning and courtious staff.

one thing your ticket price doesn't include is the cost of litter bins. the world of terrorism has a lot to answer for. in the end i did something i don't normally do. i put my rubbish on the floor.

here is the rubbish, which represented over £6 worth of Virgin Trains catering fodder:

i was sent to coventry today. whilst there some men demonstrated the future of telephones (it's much like the present with telephones, only you get some video as well and you can see who is phoning on your TV). my two colleagues and I were joined by a Saudi Princess for the presentation, which was nice. she didn't say anything, but that's what being sent to coventry entails.

what do you get if you cross a motorway with a skateboard ?

i read this on the BBC news this morning. It makes no mention of wooden ties (which are secured by an elastic loop).

"A tight necktie can be considered a risk factor in men who prefer to wear tight neckties, men with thick necks, and white collar professionals."

my ear is still giving me jip which means I didn't sleep very well (at all) last night. lieing awake at night is a weird thing, especially with two children in the house. esther had a nightmare at one point so i went through to see her (she was ok and just went back to sleep).

But the funniest thing of all was Kezia who woke up between 1am and 2.30am and was highly animated in her speech. She tried a dozen different ways of saying 'Mummy' and then a dozen ways of saying 'Daddy'. When that failed to get a reaction she sang a note perfect 'Happy Birthday to you' to Esther. I was really impressed. During the day she doesn't say half as many things.

I'm sure she also said "yes please" a few times whilst chatting to herself.

well, here I am 24 hours later and this morning the sunrise isn't red. normal sky in the morning, shepherds yawning. you can tell a lot about the weather by looking at it. that's how the weather pixie works.

proof of appearance. note the cotton wool in ear. i am completely deaf in that ear at the moment, so i have been playing my bass guitar in mono.

i'm near the middle with my hat on - sitting on my bass amp so i can feel the notes as i can't really hear them.

the tent where dave plays:

the tent where jane plays (note how hers is more open plan):

300 kids and 3 toilets. thats a high kids to toilet ratio.

portable toilets like this are never pleasant.

red sky in the morning, shepherds warning. it's 5.30am and the sky is red. how relevant is a shepherds wisdom in modern urban england ? we shall find out in due course I imagine. I shall update this entry throughout the day.

update: bad things which happened throughout the day
1) woke up with excruciating ear ache at 3am and didn't get back to sleep
2) found my computer has locked me out of most of my accounts so it's tricky to work from home (though I have found a sneaky non-ideal way)

However, we also know that every cloud has a silver lining, so here are some good things:
1) cotton buds, codeine, oral and aural antibiotics all combine to numb the pain (and give me a slighlty euphoric feeling
2) my work email account has sprung back in to life and i can access my emails again (hoorah).

amaze your friends with road knowledge.

UK Roads: Roads by 10

and here's one on pathetic motorways

and here is a general one (home of the A roads section above)

when not being ill i have been in a marquee playing my guitar.

It's the church holiday club this week which happens in a school field. work has kindly allowed me to work flexibly around my bass playing duties, which may mean I start my working day at 5am and finish at 9pm (with a break in the middle).

been no blog entries this weekend as I have an ear infection and am in a massive amount of pain. will attempt to catch up tonight :-/

here is elton and kezia. elton is a hairdresser in Sheffield and is one of the funniest people I know. he's also one of the kindest. the two are not incompatible.

we had a barbeque for anyone involved in music at our church and Elton did a fine job barbequing in the rain. we couldn't allow him in the house as he doesn't go to our church. this picture was taken just before we threw him out in to the rain.

esther and elton balance cats on their heads

this was spotaneous art which took ages to set up. the little ball kept slipping out of esther's toes when she raised her foot above the globe. i'm sure you agree that the final picture was worth the effort.

unnoticed by most people, the communications act became law today. this marks the beginning of a new era for telecommunication (and tv) regulation.

oftel marked the occasion by sending me a pile of paper in 12 different envelopes.
total height of the combined contents is 2.2cm.

here is the number 5 in the street. it's on a flip pad type arrangement with, i suspect, the other numbers accessible by flipping over pages. perhaps it belongs to a bygone quizmaster who has now gone digital

some nice graffiti here. done in whiteboard marker so it can be rubbed off easily (as has partically happened here).

the artist has written "I am free" and then obviously run away to prove it. free from what you ask. Free to do what he wants, without being hassled by the man. obviously.

here we are with our friends the gooddys and the newells at dinton pastures.

not an instruction, more of an alternative.

this was written on a handdrier in Dinton Pastures. A fantastic name.

Here is a link to the modern Stiebel Eltron. nice trousers lady.

the long awaited back lash has started against the stupid black flies which have recently entered our house. I counted 7 flies in our house (spread over various rooms)

we are approaching the eradication on two fronts - chemical and physical.

Here is Kezia enjoying the new fly swat.

Current fly count is 4 (and falling). they are dropping like flies it seems

the highway code suggests you should slow down and stop if pedestrians are using a zebra crossing. the highway code makes no comment about reversing backwards over zebra crossings and hitting people that way. a white van took full advantage of this fact earlier today and nearly sent me flying across Charlotte Street.

Had I been tieing my shoelaces or taking a quick nap, i would surely have been one less dimensional by now.

we went to warwick castle today - was most excellent.

view from a window

sign in a shop

of course they used to make coca-cola in wooden barrels in the medieval days. i suspect a rather more sinister marketing ploy

sign at warwick castle

warwick castle is great for all the family. you have to watch out for your kids though. here is the rat catcher (right), esther (middle) and the jester (left)

Yours in His Service

Herve says"wobbleometer"

the sentence everyone is asking today is "did you feel that". Our whole building is shaking because of a drilling digger thing going on next door.

herve was sceptical this morning, prompting Sara to repeatedly ask "can you feel it now".

here is the beast causing the tremours:

i once got an email from one of our sales people who speaks in 'jive'. he ended one very cryptic email with the phrase "do you feel me ?".

I didn't.

this morning there were old milk bottles all over the place. the whole of london is rancid. I must have seen around 10 bottles / cartons of old milk spewing milk blobs. nice.

i often see dog catcher vans round london. nowadays they capture furniture (it contains the future remember). here are two gentlement catching a sofa and a bookshelf. they were distracted by a 9volt power supply in a box, so didn't spot me taking this photo.

these people are a menace, and an enemy to the casual furniture / white good spotter.

here is a smart car with an attachment on the back.

i think it might be a backpack attachment thing so you can carry your car on your back in the tube.

or possibly, someone realised it looked like a dodgem and has adapted the car to run on car overhead electric cables (which unfortunately don't exist outside of funfairs)

90% of our waking hours today were spent on church activities.
the fun was split between music related activities and the church family BBQ.

the BBQ was christians burning steak, rather than being burned on one.

Unique Dog Gift Collectibles from Dog In a Shell

the furniture contains the future

jane and kezia compare tongues

A totally cool thing is veeperization.

It's TOTALLY BONKERS (only available for the next 14 days)

see how the elderly gentleman standing next to me is admiring my new found fashion sense (shirt: liquidation sale £6, wooden tie 6euros)

here i am again, this time with some ladies.

photos by herve

according to esther, a jawn and cough sounds like a woova.

don't be baboozled by tautologies

today it was raining. i got very qet. when it rains people use umbrellas. pavements aren't wide enough for multiple umbrellas. this causes people to think vertically when walking. do i crouch to avoid the oncoming umbrella. do i lift my umbrella high above the oncoming walkers.

it appears the etiquette is that the largest umbrella goes highest. golfing umbrellas go way up in the air, whilst small pop up ones can get away with barely skimming the tops of people's heads. this is fair as the golfing umbrellas cover the most area and save the smaller umbrellas from getting wet.

no one likes a wet umbrella. that's the problem with them really.

view from the boat at dusk

this next photo was taken moments later with the bridge just closing. i missed the bridge fully open as i was disembarking the luxury superior quality craft. oh well.

one way to get more laughs whilst giving a presentation is to camp it up. however you need to be careful you don't get too tense (two tents).

on the boat we also saw those massive needle things on the bank of the thames. there was no way they were going to fit through the eye of a camel.

tonight we had the pleasure of a pleasure cruise aboard a superior cruise vessel. we also had the pleasure of a DJ called Paris who had a gameplan. His gameplan worked as people started dancing at the required time. he told me he also has a daughter named 'elektra'. i didn't ask him his surname.

this morning (6.40am)on the way to work i saw lots of snails out on the street as it was nice and wet for them. walking back this evening (11.50pm) i saw snails on the now dry path way. lots of them.

my game was to walk really fast listening to my stereo really loud (Supergrass) whilst dodging the snails on the floor. there were lots of crushed ones, but I managed to avoid them all myself.

a good 'on the way back from the pub' game to play i think.

i walked past two Pop Idol Talent Box vans today. Not a clue what it means but they looked good head-to-head.

UPDATE: more info on a teenage pop idol here

UPDATE2: i went to a wedding of a pop idol finalist. see here

someone had cleverly placed a set of table legs and frame around a bin, thus creating a table bin. brilliant concept. just eat your dinner and push what you don't want in to the hole in the middle.

here is a sign on the Royal Festival Hall door:

It's a very square dog with a mad eye

on Oxford Street no less ...

i walked to chancery lane this morning from paddington station for a 10am meeting. on the way i passed a very posh street next to Hyde Park. It was so posh they even had free magazines in boxes for the locals to read whilst having their afternoon strolls.

All you high society magazines were there: tatler, cosmo etc.

And from the wording on the box they are all provided by the Westminster Council. Their council tax is high, but certainly worth it I imagine.

two nice chairs passed on my way to work this morning

I also saw a pair of knickers hanging out of the bin in the street opposite the office ...

just been discussing our TV aerial with esther.

esther: what's that bird stick on the roof for daddy
me: it's the TV aerial, not a bird stick
esther: what's it for ?
me: it helps you see the TV better
esther: do you have to sit up there to watch it
me: no.

The Onion | Ask The Back Of A Gourmet Potato Chip Bag

it used to be the case that technology companies would have wacky events in their offices to encourage 'out of the box thinking'. Tumbling share prices and burst bubbles put an end to that.

As an act of celebration of my company's half year results, two ladies jumped on to the filing cabinets and did a synchronised dance. it was a precious moment.

If only I had a record player, I could have played the Up Town Top Rankin' record to accompany them.

it used to be that you'd see records everywhere. now it's mostly tapes and CDs in the street.

I was pleasantly surprised to see this piece of vinyl in the street this morning:

Uptown Top Rankin' by Tight N Up
1989 Fanfare Records, it's stereo, 12 FAN 20

here is an old photo of kezia (she was around 12 months old i think). It's not been on the blog before, so here it is.

computers are funny things. you come across all sorts of things in their nooks and crannies. these must be from around 1998-ish i would guess.

here are a few photos I discovered:

dave has many nice shirts. jane appreciates them.

jane points at daves old sideburns (now returned after a few years absence)

dave the sad old hippy. why did i ever cut my hair ?

update: jane thinks these photos were taken after esther was born, ie mid 1999 onwards. she can tell this because of the length of her fringe. fantastic !

being back in a school brunged (brungt?) back all sorts of memories. I had forgotten that schools had their own sort of bins. I was delighted to see this specimen in exquisite surrounds

in the boarding school where we were staying they had an Activities Board. It appears that smoking is the norm in this school as one of the Activities is Not Smoking. It sure is a healthy activity.

we're on a God-holiday weekend in a boarding school at the moment.

it's always interesting to see the peripheral trends in the Christian faith, particularly amongst the youth.

i write this entry under cover of darkness in a bording school in Berkshire. In the near vicinity i can hear a foreign students disco playing agadoo.

hoorah for my ipaq and gprs phone

Bringing my two favourite applications together - SQL and Excel. jummy.
Run SQL Queries in Excel

i'm working from home today and as usual i started at 6.30am sitting wifi-ly in our front room. at 8am the kids came down and wanted to watch CBeebies. Whilst relocating upstairs I caught a little bit of the Fimbles, which is very strange stuff.

found in Praed Street near the wig shop

(click for big version)

recently added to the davescollections site

A Sinclair C5 Odyssey

interested in phone numbers ? you should be. they are grrrrreat.
Phone Search Locator

of course it wasn't a through road. It's closed. in fact, it's the close.

I went to Potters Bar today with a chap called Harry. Here is Harry Potter's Court (see latest harry potter book to see if he aquitted or not)

esther and chums had been making balloon people which involves sticking stickers of body bits (eyes, ears, hands etc) on to a balloon.

unfortunately one popped over night. there were body bits all over the carpet and a mushed up mess of face in a little pile of balloon.

sometimes it's like having Quentin Tarrantineeeno as a cleaning lady.

Mmmm Nice

yeah. esther is 4 today.

the normal routine is for esther to only get out of bed if it's after 7am (and even then she has to check it's ok with us first). Unfortunately for her, her clock stopped at 5 minutes to 7 - so she didn't get up until we went to see her at 7.30am ! poor bean.

Statistics of www.funkypancake.com

Not always updated, but quite interesting ! Search engine referrals are a bit disturbing.

i walked past goodenough college today. that's the college for me. no high flyers or total slackers allowed.

looks like the chap is holding a baby's bottle.

this sign is in st pancras station. just in case anyone transports it somewhere

more transports of delight

look how the orange and yellow blend in with the yellow lines

i've just reminded myself of scratch and sniff stickers. it's no wonder my generation is messed up. we were encouraged to sniff chemicals which vaguely smelt not totally unlike strawberry etc. at the time we thought we were living in willy wonka's chocolate factory. now we realise it was more like nuclear research.

of course things are much better these days. my daughter puts flourescent sparkly makeup on herself which makes her look like a robot and I zap the family home with WiFi, DECT and a microwave oven.

and my mum used to buy dodgy bits of old scrag end meats from the CJD butchers in Queniborough when i was growing up. Hasn't effected me of course. [this last sentence is appropriate for use in my obiturary]

Maths

Pay Rise

i find my best gloves near hospitals or medical places. Harley Street is a good place. Here is a quality glove I saw this morning. See how it retains its shape.

The piece of paper was blank. Which said it all (ie nothing).

some neat (nobodysaysthatinengland) web tricks
davidgagne.net

just updated the blog to version 2.64. Seems to have gone ok.

I also did some SQL stuff to force allow-comments on all my old entries and this should be the default for all new entries.

so now the blog can be very interactive and we can all be happy.

i looked through the postoffice window in Aldwych and saw Diana and William picture postcards. The Prince Williams were going like hotcakes

we went to a party yesterday. i was carrying kezia and she shouted for joy when she saw a giant (to her) bouncy castle. i put her down and she ran to it. instead of jumping on, she threw herself on to the pile of shoes left in front of it and, with much squeels of delight, started playing with them instead.

she loves shoes does our kezia.

another three wheeled vehicle. This one has an inner sanctum and is ideal for cabinet reshuffles.

she lived her life like a candle in the wind. got a light boy ?

first glove of the week.

more congestion charge avoidance schemes. this time a tea-trolley. one wheel has been removed to reduce drag and add additional excitement.

this trolley had been abandoned on the street. i suspect this was because there are no dedicated trolley parks around here (other than in-house supermarket provided ones)

As some of you may know, I suffer from Chronic Pain. It was really bad, but now it's not so bad.

One of the things which really helped me when it was at its badest (and I suspect contributed to my improved condition) was having a good look at my diet.

I was greatly helped by a friend from church called Eileen Fletcher. She wrote a fantastic book and has just produced an even better web version.
Food For Thought

Highly recommended (nice photos too!)

we went to a party this afternoon and had a quick walk round Dinton Pastures on the way back. was looking very nice.

another sign with a dog on it. notice how the person has not bent their knees to pick up the waste. The dog looks eager to get away before any serious back injuring is sustained

found a passport photo today in reading, broadstreet, at about 10.30am

whilst stuck on a train today (usual journey time 5 mins, today 30 mins) esther and i did some spelling practice.

i saw a sign saying 'litter' by a bin. i went through the word phonetically -

"li spells 'li'
double tt is 't'
er is like at the end of esther, so is 'er'

li - tt - er , li-tt-er. what does that spell ?"

"it spells bin" said esther.

"don't be a fool" i said. "it spells 'litter'".

"what's litter daddy" said esther.

and therein lies the problem. kids today read everywhere "do not drop litter" yet they don't even know what litter is.

we started esther's fourth birthday party by makling the kids stand in a line as if in detention. we had to assert the ground rules and a little fear never hurt anyone.

There was a bit of a stampede when the Pin The Tail On The Donkey competition opened. (click photo for bigger version - everyone is in motion!)

the excitement got a bit too much for one of the parents

the girls were made to sit in line for afternoon tea. standards couldn't be dropped just because we had friends round.

jane made the cake which took her ages. it was brilliant and a pile of pooh.

the birthday girl with new hat, sunglasses and face tattoo (hopefully not permanent)

this has a feel of infinity (binfinity maybe). it's on a dog poo bin and seems to requesting kids' waste too.

in the picture the grown up looks like they are carrying a box with themselves and the kid and dog in. or perhaps it's a portable tv showing a video of themselves.
whatever, it's a mirror within a mirror within a mirror or real life don't you think ?

New Ed Sings. We listened but didn't hear

New Edge. Which i think is a musical style in our village

today this station was very busy because of the Henley Regata. The picture doesn't really show how stupid busy it was.

Quote from Thames Trains:
Around 25,000 more passengers will use the Henley branch line during the 5 days of the Regatta, with a staggering 10,000 users expected on Saturday 5th July

it's not really right to take photos of things at the local rubbish tip.
however, i've decided to start looking for a complete deck.

here are my starters: 2 and 7 of clubs

i mended our summer house this evening. Nothing too tricky (otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do it) - it was just replacing the decking at the front.

To get the old decking out I had to chisel out some old bits of wood. Esther asked me what the tool which looked like a screwdriver was. I told her it was called a chisel.

"Why do you call it a twissel ?" she replied

"I don't" i said.

but a "hammer and twissel" has a nice right to it. prancing carpenters. that's the future (perhaps I should commission a series on this for daytime TV)

here's what it looks like now (the decking on the front step is the bit you have to be impressed by!)

don't say dot say dog.
as in funkypancake dog com

i live in a no through road, fairly close to the point of no return. it surprised me therefore to see a bus going up the street.

it surprised me slighlty less when it reversed slowly back down the road a few minutes later.

the lovely ladies in reception are a bit bonkers. The face drawing exercise proved this.

today anita was wearing some headjoy (a bandana thing). it was made from an old skirt i believe.

she removed it just now and her hair sprung forth. scarey stuff.

i was thinking of having a fancy 70s hairstyle. not sure, so i might just mullet over. [boom tish]

Process everything today.

for example, don't say "I am going to eat an apple"

instead say "I am going to consume an apple using The Eating Process"

[i have entered this text using The Typing Process]

the things people throw away. saw this next to a bin this morning.
it's a full glass of lime and soda complete with slice of lemon and black straw.

10 minutes down the road i had seen a can of coke with a black straw in and nearby two baby cans of coke.

i went to the house of commons for a work meeting yesterday. how exclusive i thought. when i finally got in to the building i got lost in corridors looking for my meeting room.

what i did find was loads of school kids everywhere. the last thing they need in the house of commons is commoners. oh well.

i must have walked past these ancient lights tens of hundreds of times, but today, for the first time, i noticed the sign which says "ancient lights"

they are on either side of the pub opposite my office called the Hope and there are two signs next to the two (ancient) lights.

it's next to the Pollocks Toy Museum. next time you are in London, why not visit both attractions at the same time (and take me out for lunch as well)

now, it appears to me that colour is an anagram of odour. if you cut the d of odour with some scissors, then you can get a c and an l as in oclour, which is an anagram of colour. easy.

you can try this trick with other words. simply take the letters, straighten them out in to one long black line and reshape them in to new letters. (you may have to make the letters slightly smaller if you haven't got enough length). this way anything is an anagram of anything else.

whilst we are on the subject of colour and odour, why are smells depicted as brown ? Bisto is an obvious example of a positive brown smell, but of course brown is the official colour of bad smells too. makes you think.

the towel from yesterday has liberated itself from the phonebox.

a repeat of the welly mystery maybe ? I shall keep an eye on this slippery customer.

i was musing on the way to work that most of my blog is regarding human remains - ie people, how they react with the world and the things they leave behind in the their wake.

This thinking was following my usual "do i like working in london or not". an hour and a half (often two hour) commute each way sometimes makes you consider these things.

i then wondered about moving to some obscure part of the country, downsizing as they call it, and whether there would be enough bloggable local material.

could nature itself provide enough blog twaddle ? As if to partially answer the question, i saw these two feathers on the footpath in front of me.

not sure which way that answers my question (which is purely hypothetical by the way)

a woolen thing outside my office. possibly (hopefully) a glove

we've all heard of polo shirts. well here is a polo towel.
sucked polos and a blue towel in a phone box

it's esther's birthday 4th birthday on the 9th july. she's having her party this saturday.

she's been counting down the days since, well, she turned 3.

my mum (her nanna) phoned up yesterday evening to see what esther would like for her birthday.

after a nice conversation between esther and her nanna, the phone was passed to jane to discuss the present proposal (not as in 'current' proposal - we are not thinking of getting esther old shrivelled grapes. not this year anyway).

esther obviously heard half the conversation as she asked "what's nanna going to get me for my birthday". The answer came back "a bucket of mud and an old sausage".

esther's reply was "don't be silly, nanna wouldn't get me a bucket of mud and an old sausage".

perhaps esther is going to get a surprise present from her nanna afterall !

i was wondering if i should tone down the blog and introduce some more sensible content. then i saw this:

i took it as a sign

i saw this photo down a hole today. it was of a building and was printed on a piece of A4 so wouldn't have counted for my collection. But interesting never-the-less.

i don't know about you (actually I don't know anything about you, except maybe your IP address and some other techy details from the access logs), but i like to have nonsense arguments with my wife. (perhaps i should just ask my wife if she has nonsense arguments with anyone else. that would save all the waffle above).

anyway, last night, over the tea table (we have a different table for every meal - it makes cleaning up easier as you can just clean up the day's debris from the various tables at the end of the day), jane and i were discussing the potential opportunities around the house for our children to injure themselves.

this wasn't a real argument, we were just being hypothetical in a comedy kind of way. esther and kezia looked on in their usual bemused way.

we join the climax of our conversation as it homes in on one key issue: leaving stuff in the hallway at night so the kids find it in the morning.

(Not that our children every come downstairs on their own in the morning anyway, but there we go)

jane: "well you leave guns and chemical weapons at the bottom of the stairs"

dave: "well you leave razor blades and knives everywhere"

jane: "well you leave lit bonfires and petrol in the house when you go to bed"

dave: "well you leave bonfires too, AND thousands of lit fireworks"

esther: "don't be silly daddy, you can't have fireworks in the house."

dave: "very true esther. i must have got that wrong"

esther: "you probably meant roadworks"

dave: "you know what esther, i probably did"

[ends]

one of the problems of an outdoor fridge is that of security.
the owner of the fridge has addressed this issue by applying 'carpet tape' to the door thus rendering it, essentially, unopenable