despite being 30 miles away i am able to tell what is happening on the streets of london thanks to my network of spies. here is an interesting picture sent by telco-john. he spotted some pavement eruption.

maybe it's caused by some prisoners who are digging an escape tunnel ? perhaps the villains are hiding in the bins ?

or maybe it's something to do with Goodge Street station and the trouble on the Northern Line. They'll be a lot of pressure building up underground at the moment, it's only natural it should have to release itself.

the best bit about this picture is that it shows that a couple of bins have wandered over to the eruption to investigate. bins care about the street - that's why they are happy to accept all our rubbish.

as we approach the weekend, i advise you to be generous.

yesterday i overheard a man on the train say to his friend "i'm not shy about spending a bob or two". hoorah for the nouveau rich i thought to myself.

what if you can't afford to be generous financially ? well, why not start by filling everything up to the brim ?

(this was the 1000th funkypancake blog entry by the way !)

i'm working from home today. i heard a lot of clonking in the room next to my office so i popped my head round the door and saw this scene of chaos.

esther had been sent under the bed and was extracting everything she could find. jane was happily receiving it, whilst kezia was spreading it around the room. i think they are sorting stuff out for the playgroup toy sale.

i have retreated back to the safety, quiet and (relative) tidyness of my office

a load of techies met up in our conference room yesterday. they brought a couple of switches and a load of yellow patch cables as techies love nothing more than wires, ethernet and IP.

they probably all sat there communicating with each other in total silence (except for the clickety-clickety of techy fingers) using protocols and applications we can only dream of. i suspect they didn't even have computers - perhaps they've all got techy combover hair which when parted reveals a nice RJ45 socket.

i used to be a techy. but now i'm just regulatory. (i still secretly loves wires)

... is more than just being kind to spiders. don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

here is some food found by my colleague rob.

i like how the turmoil of the apple situation of offset against the serenity of the wrapped cheeses. it screams the questions "how did it get there" and "why did rob take the photo".

perhaps it was catapulted using the blue and black strands to the left of the picture ? i'm sure they are significant.

click for big version

my trains were rubbish today and i got to work nearly an hour late. i'm not a bitter blogger, so won't go on at length. but perhaps it was an intergalactic event which triggered all the points failures. i left home at 6.40am when it was all going on ...

2 gloves on oxford street

don't throw babies

poke this to make that happen

profound chalk graffiti off Brick Lane

there is always building work going on round london. i spotted this near liverpool street. it's a build it by numbers kit. probably colour coded too. possibly sponsored by sesame street

wet look glove

cranberries have just moved in to the UK. i'd never heard of them when i was a kid, but now they seem to be everywhere. i had ostrich and cranberry burger last week, and now here is a can of cranberry spray. it's for spraying surface or space. worth remembering if you ever join nasa and want to iradicate intergalactic odours.

wondering about christmas presents or simply want to know where to buy a like wooden tie ? well here are two places on t'internet i found.

i can't vouch for the authenticity/safety of buying from these two places over the Internet as i've never used them myself. however, you may enjoy just looking at the websites !

noveltie for neckties

or how about:

a wooden bowtie ?

i particularly like the idea of a limerick section on a wooden bow tie site.

i've noticed that a lot of the push along street cleaners now have seat attachments. here was one seemingly abandoned in the street. i looked at the dials to see if it had a maximum speed, but none of the dials showed velocity (only fuel and time !).

Maybe there is a distance measurer somewhere and the driver has to do his own velocity = distance/time calculations. Those guys who clean the street - they are all secret rocket scientists. perhaps.

you know trolley man ? well, there are some mattresses in the place where he usually parks up his trolleys. The mattresses are balanced on a bed base.

on closer inspection it appeared there was in fact someone sleeping on the bed ! I suspect it was trolley man, but i didn't think it was a good idea to disturb him to check.

things are getting big round here, especially the cateogry areas. i may install this and see what happens. but not tonight ...

MT Extensions: MTPaginate 1.2.2

it's official. no more wispas.

i phoned Cadbury's today to find out where the Wispas have gone. It turns out THEY HAVE STOPPED MAKING THEM ! the last ones were produced at the end of August 2003.

I was informed that they had been replaced by Dairy Milk Bubbly, which is nearly the same thing. Dairy Milk is Cadbury's flag ship product and they have decided that the Wispa should be rolled in to that family.

So no more 'velvety textured milk chocolate'. instead it's now just 'bubbly'.

I went in search of the last remaining Wispas which are working their way through the newsagent shelves. i was prepared for a long search through the backstreets of london, but found my favourite local newsagents on charlotte street had a few in stock:

The bubbly dairy milk hasn't the same crunch as the old wispa. this is mostly due to its lack of girth (bubbly left, velvety right):

i remember queuing up to get my wispas as a teenager from my old school tuckshop which intriguingly operated out of the science block windows

and so another part of history dies ...

here is a glove i saw on the way home last night. the hour changed on sunday so it's dark going home at 5pm, hence my use of flash. However, the flash does bring out that medical yellowy-brown colour you often see on medical things, which is nice.

it's goth week on 6music this week. hoorah !

i warned you about blooming over the summer. it's not just a summer effect though. here is a winter blooming kitkat:

click for big version (yuck)

britain's newest blogstopper, telco-john, was eating an apple whilst reading the funkypancake blog. his concentration lapsed resulting in his consumption of half a fruity label.

found by Ash at the Angel tube station, about 4.30pm on Saturday.

londoners love their little parks - a small amount of greenery amongst the otherwise grey streets.

however, this feeling is obviously not shared by everyone. in particular the plant activists. they are sick and tired of plants being treated like caged animals and want their plants liberated to roam free in the countryside.

of course these liberators don't want to ruin the environment so have chosen to state their views on a piece of paper cellotaped to a sign at the entrance to the park.

(the views expressed here are not necessarily my own. i am prepared to believe that a plant, properly fed and watered, and sheltered from frost can have a perfectly happy life in an artificial environment)

esther found a glove. here it is:

here is kezia 'smiling' i think she's not quite worked out what the words means yet. it was a good expression so i took the photo anyway !

you'll be glad to know i've kept up my tradition of disrupting church services today ...

today a group of us from our church and greyfriars (our old church) went to a music conference organised by the mwf in Sutton Coldfield.

it's a couple of hours drive to get there, so we set off early and saw an excellent frosty sunrise. there was an excellent red haze in the air (as well as lots of Red Kites)

The conference was really good. lots of ideas, including introducing grunge and reggae in to our little church. i think we are on the way to doing that anyway, so at least we have an excuse now !

Christian conferences always have a bookstore. this was no exception. this might be my best book photo cover ever (modelled by Tony, the Greyfriars webmaster):

click for big version to fully appreciate it.

As for surreal things (which happen quite often in Christian circles), at one point in the proceedings they put a photo of a giant funnel on the screen for us all to admire and be inspired by. I wanted to shout "FUNNEL" at the top of my voice but decided that wouldn't have suited the reflective mood.

I'm embrassed to say my mobile rang loudly during the final talk and i caused general disruption as a result. Other surreal thing was lots of flag waving which is very popular in modern churches. personally i think it's dangerous and it won't be long before somone has someone's eye out and the whole thing gets banned. Here is a multicoloured flag waver:

because it saw the lolly pop

today i plan to log my consumption. i'll update this entry throughout the day.

breakfast 6.15am:

* multifruit juice
* gerbil museuli (peanuts, sunflower seeds and some other nuts i don't know the name of)
* Calcium and Chromium supplements
* Mug hot water

sugar rush 8.30am:

* bottle Ribena
* Big Mars Bar

Drink

* another hot water

Leaving do lunch (13:30):



4oz(actually) Ostrich and Cranberry burger, fat chips ('fries' to the international audience), 2 off 1664 beers, cookie and ice cream cake and a mug of hot water (too hot to drink)

Conference Call Mint (15:30):

Commuter Beer (17:30):

Both of these half pints were free as a result of the Government's 'Beer for Commutters' scheme. (actually it was a London Pride beer promotion which had something to do with Rugby).

Arrive home (19:15) snack

mmmm - crisps ('chips' to the international audience)

Evening Meal at Heather and Clive's



Tomato soup, fizzy lemon drink, chicken, sausage, stuffing, runners (fresh from the supermarket, not the garden), carrots, crumble and custard, hot water, mini mars bar and fancy 'big eye' truffle. All cooked by Heather and tasted mighty fine.

Final supplements

Multifruit juice, garlic, copper, eradicin forte, fish oil and bedside water

I really didn't expect today to go like it foodwise. i don't usually eat at a restaurant during the day and we don't usually get invited out to be fed so fantastically. I also don't usually drink much alcohol - the leaving do during the day and free commutter beer were special events today.

but then everyday is different, so perhaps i don't have a typical dietous day. how interesting (or not)

here is Tony and his BIG EYE

i love excel. it's official. here are some sites that i love because they too love excel. i'd write my blog in excel if i could. actually, i could. i could write it in excel, save as csv then upload in to the mysql database. mmm.

MrExcel
ExcelTip.com

Buy the MrExcel on Excel book. i'd recommend it even if you never do any excel. share the shortcuts. love the application !

ah. just seen concorde fly over my house. last day tomorrow. probably won't see it as will be at work, so was nice to say goodbye. i was too slow to get my camera - it moves quite fast you know (concorde, not my camera)

here was an earlier spotting of it.

Remember my blind photography idea ? Well someone has (independently) taken it forward, which is excellent. i'm really intrigued to see what they come up with !

Thanks to Chris Yuen for pointing this out

i saw a repeat of a fantastic documentary on the BBC Radiophonics workshop last night (i think it was on terrestial TV when i was in stockholm). Most excellent.

Watch the clip called Ziwzih Ziwzih OO-OO-OO

BBC - BBC Four Music - Alchemists of Sound

another non event happening day working from home. my home office is loads less interesting than the streets of london. the lack of people and gloves make sure of that.

i did hear one comedy thing this morning. Esther proclaimed loudly "it's eaten one of my chap's Bible's" (her 'chaps' being her favourit beany toys).

"what has ?" I asked

"the house" she answered.

scared ? i should be.

... but imagine how quiet it's going to be when they ban sound.

here is another congestion charge avoidance scheme. disguise your car as a garden.

this urinal had been ripped off the wall in heathrow. 'welcome to england' it should have said. but it didn't. instead it said "do not use". in case you were thinking of, say, using it.

plane toilets are interesting. the plane on the way back was a 767 (i think) so had toilets all over the place. my intial trip to the loos was a little unsuccessful when i opened a cupboard instead of the toilet door. they all look the same these days.

Anyways, no smoking in the toilets right. if you do they throw you off the plane. if you mess with the smoke alarms they fine you lots of $$$ (probably means American's are more likely to mess with the smoke alarms than £££ UK people).

however, if you do smoke in the toilets (!) then don't throw your fag ends in to the paper waste

and just to really confuse you, here is a nice ashtray !

You can also get some larger than life sanitary items:

And another mysterious sign about not taking stuff out of toilets or something:

or how about this (which i assume means don't throw all your belongings down the toilet:

so many signs in such a small place

here is a row of signage from the side of the Arlanda Express in Stockholm. I saw the sign of the dog described in the train safety instruction book so walked up and down the train looking for it on windows etc.

I didn't find it, so reread the booklet to find that it said the sign was on the outside of the train. As we approached the airport I asked the ticket collector which end of the train dogs were allowed. She said "at both ends, but if you are disabled then you can have them in the middle".

So i ran down to the front of the train to get the sign, but when i got there the sign wasn't there. in fact it was at the back of the train which went whizzing a few seconds later before i could take a photo.

so i made the chap i was travelling with wait 15 minutes for the next train. i postitioned myself at the back of the platform so i could get the photo. the train arrived and ... the dog sign on this train was at the front. so i ran down the platform just in time to get this photo:

definately worth the wait i'd say. look at the variety of signs, and the very angular dog

hoorah. back home. but now to bed. more stockholm remnants to be posted tomorrow ....

this was in the vasser museum:

it reads:
Melker Pavelsson was mongering fish at the market - large and exquisite herring. At the bottom of his firkin, however, the herring was >>small and no good <<

makes you think

the museum also had a comprehensive glove collection showing gloves are not just a modern day stockholm phenominum:

put out fires by firing skum at it

it turns out the hotel i'm staying in has recently recruited a complaints manager as they are having so many people complain about the state of the hotel at the moment ! hehe. my letter has been emailed ...

they've even started wripping plaster off outside my room !

found this on the way to the conference

Arab Strap were most excellent. A bit like the Tindersticks meets to the Pogues. The venue, Debaser, was excellent too. Wish i'd been there instead of the 'stuck-in-the-80s-michael-jackson' place i went to saturday night. oh well

set list:

this chap was the support for Arab Strap. he was rather good. just a bloke and his guitar

he had a song about how timing is important if you are a prophet. he also had a rather good song which went on about not knowing whether "to serve you or save you". which i thought was interesting.

not sure if this is a repeat, but i liked the angled cobbles which we haven't seen before

the lift in this hotel is it's main redeeming feature. it has a sign which says "hit" next to the button and it also says "Hiss for Hogst". I've hissed like a punctured snake everytime i've gone in that lift but never once managed to summon a wild pig.

a lovely idea. if some kids is thinking of doing some meddling then give them a bat.

here is a sign from a baby changing shelf in the blokes toilets in skansen. the kid looks like a bird which is a shame.

it's also interesting to note that like the german's the swedes mark their male toilets "Herr". this is confusing for those who speak english who are used to her being the female possessive and him being the male version. if you are a german or swede reading this then it's probably worth you changing that if you get a chance please.

stick to 'blokes' and 'birds'. everyone knows what that means. and we are full circle back to the picture of the bird on the baby changing signage

there is a fantastic outside museum thing in stockholm. i wasn't convinced it would be any good, but thought i should go there this afternoon (so i did).

it has lots of authentic old swedish dwellings, and is one of those fancy living museums where people demonstrate what they actually did.

it also has some animals in. here is some people being filmed watching the bears. i suspect the film crew were hired by the bears so the people could see how the bears felt being watched all day. it seemed to have back-fired as the people weren't bothered.

here is one of the bears (and a fox)

and here is me outside an authentic dwelling.

Go to skansen if you are in stockholm. it's excellent and really cheap !

here are some nice autumn scenes for you

here is a nice swedish phone box for your enjoyment

stockholm obviously realises its wealth of gloves and incorporates it in to its art:

here is someone hiding under a lampshade in the same art gallery:

and here is a postcard of passport photo shops in Chicago

here are today's found gloves:

carpet doesn't fit leaving little carpet nails sticking up:

smell of sewage in bathroom comes from here:

chipped sharp bit of tile in the bathroom:

hotel under wraps

a welcoming entrance

arab strap are playing in stockholm tomorrow night at a place called debaser which i think is about 15 mins walk from the hotel. hoorah. doors at 8pm if you are interested in joining me there.

i came to stockholm 5 or 6 years ago. at that time i was collecting pictures of doors. what a strange chap i was back then. here is a door:

stockholm has lots of great doors. they are very big on doors. big on big impressive portals.

stockholm is rich picking for gloves !

pretty street in stockholm old town. taken with a cold, but steady hand

i won't go in to details of my toilet experiences on the plane, but here is a sign i saw. not a clue what it means

study this man's head in detail. i did. for two whole hours as he reclined his chair in to my face on the flight.

the screens in heathrow have very small writing. so small you have to be standing right next to it to read it. i suspect it's a rooooos to make us buy binoculars. but we didn't so ha.

here is a cardboard box in heathrow airport marked "fire safety equipment". I guess they hope the cardboard will burn first and let the fire fighting equipment loose. it's a cunning plan ...

when i get better internet i'll tell you about:

¤ the flight - eating, a book review, strange noises and bald heads
¤ the total quality hotel i'm staying in ...
¤ the number of gloves i've already seen (3)

but you need pictures. it's what we all want !

stockholm is very cold. it was a bit drizzly earlier but it's now cleared up (that was for all you swedish weather watchers ¨ i know who you are !

swedish keyboards are good as they have extra letters like öäå

i shäll try ånd supplement wherev€r i cän.

cool hotel claimed the håve bröadbänd in the rööms. unfortunåtely i spent twö höurs when i årrived trying to måke it wörk. they even moved my rööm tö öne withöut åny windöws, but even the läck öf light didn't make it wörk.

sö here i åm sitting in the hötel bår using their public mächin€.

i'll try ägåin in a möment as nö rööm access, nö pictures and i've alreådy göt söme småshers

ooh, i just found a button whïch püts thöse fünny thïngs övër vöwëls. ï mïght gët öne öf th€s€ k€ÿböårds¨ät hömë.

and thêrês alsö thës€ chåräcters: ¤ ½§

off to sweden today. hopefully update later when i get there ...

after a meeting today i popped out for lunch with an ex-colleague. rather than fill our faces with unhealthy food (me) we decided to walk over to the Tate Modern and look at the new installation. It's most excellent.

here is me

here is someone on the balcony

and here are some other people

do you see what i did to get this picture ? when i take pictures around london people stare at me more if i'm wearing a shirt and tie (especially my wooden tie) than if i'm wearing my street-casual-down-wid-it clothes. i suspect they think i'm doing something official. which i am. i'm the funkypancake official blogger.

lots of gloves spotted this morning in different places. possibly the first two are a pair:

glove finger tip (for precision work?):

greet each other with sounds of an animal. chickens, cows, sheep and frogs are a favourite. it's an international language we can all speak.

and why not point to their shoes at the same time for added effect (optional)

well, here is a thing. the identity of one of my found photos was revealed. i met Boy 34 this evening. He was submitted by a work colleague last December and now appears to work for the same company as me.

Boy 34 this evening:

found photo, december 2003 2002:

a coincidence or made up non-truth ? dunno at this stage ...

this is worth having a go with. especially if you have a really important letter to write

Lost in Translation

my job is regulation (this story only get more boring ...)

how does God communicate with a world which is too busy to listen ? does he even bother ?

well, i think he communicates in lots of different ways. how often have we heard people say "if God is exists, i wish he'd give me a sign". i've taken lots of photos of signs - some with dogs in , some without

However, this morning, after posting the pictures of wigs here and here I did wonder if i was overdoing the artificial hair angle somewhat. So it was with delight that i saw this piece of paper blowing down Wigmore Street:

So, the word on the street is more wigs

as you know we lost the entire site a few days ago and i've been gradually rebuilding the various sites i run. on the way i found some real gems.

here is a pop video for a song i wrote. the video features me dressed as Edwin Tidyface and my friend Paul dressed as Rudolf Leider. It was recorded back in 1993ish. a good year for pop videos. Read more about Paul here

High Quality (11,497KB)
Low Quality (2,271KB)

(apologies for download size - the term 'quality' refers to the technical quality of the encoding and NOT the quality of the content !)

here are some 6 month blogaversary hair styles. i went for the retro police mug shot approach. the key thing is to look like i'm enjoying myself.

interesting, one of my entries on the first day of blogging 6 months ago involved wig-wearing (one of the wigs is featured again today to give wig-continuity)

yeah - the blog is 6 months old today !

here are some celebratory postings:

wigs
wigmore
music

here are some more of my collections which i lovely archived a long time ago

someone left a piece of paper on my desk at work with a fantastic story on it. the page has two sections highlighted: "he hated dogs" and "love is a four-fingered glove (you thumbed your nose at me (and all you left was the G))"

mysterious but fantastic. my appetite has been wettened for the rest of this fine novel. i hope that the leaver makes him/herself known to me.

meanwhile i did some googling and came up with something probably unrelated but most excellent.

It's Crouton's World and is some crazy mistranslated japanese thing.

This is crouton.

nicknames are funny things. i never had a nickname given to me at school so i had to make my own up. Getting them accepted by my peers required a choice of name which would capture their imagination.

At School:
Dishcloth Dave
a derivation of 'Dishy Dave' which i would never get away with in a single sex school

Torchon David
the french version said in a french accent

At University:
SpoonChicken
I had a pet wooden spoon and loved chickens

Mr ScragEnd
i used to hang out with tramps at soup kitchens etc - they were often better dressed than me

Goth phase (15-18yrs old):
Occasionally I did get third party nicknames such as little goth during my goth stage. but then you have to expect to be called silly names if you dress up in comedy cloths.

(click for big version - picture from when i was 15ish i think). what incredibly good skin i had back then

So there we are. i'm sure there were others nicknames i forgot and i'm sure Brother Edd will remember.

look what these chaps are doing. they are putting up christmas lights. we've had the decorations up in my local chemist since the beginning of October. But it's serious when they start doing the streets of london.

(actually, I have a plastic santa on display all year round. did you spot him in this picture - he's on the shelf behind the table)

everyone loves red buses. here are a load going up (down?) Oxford Street. There was no traffic on the other side of the road, so i got a nice unobscured view

i'm working from home today and i got a shout that it was time for lunch. i went downstairs to find that rather than just the usual two children at the table, there were in fact 4 ! I suspect this might be a ploy by jane to try to convince me that we need more children in our life.

conversation was inspirational. i made everyone listen to New York funky hip hop. they seem to enjoy it judging by their dance moves. i ate my food as quick as possible then ran back to the quietness of my office !

here is a bit of excitement for us as the blog approached it's 6th month birthday.

we have a google pagerank of 5/10 which i think is probably quite impressive. how we love technology when it brings us nice surprises.

remember this ? well it's now been nicely converted in to lots of luxury houses. they have a 'show house', which is an old bungalow next to the nice new houses.

so you look round the bungalow and say "it's very nice, but there is no upstairs" and the salesman say "well, if i can find you a house with an upstairs would you buy it" and you reply "well, yes" and the salesman says "well you are in luck as i've loads next door"

i took this picture at 9.30pm when the bungalow was definately not open. if you can't trust them to erect an accurate sign, can you trust them to erect a house ? probably. different things aren't they.

the site used to contain a chicken slaughterhouse and the close nearly got named abbatoir close or slaughter crescent or something. i once saw offal on the street opposite from one of the chicken lorries. "offal way" would be a nice road name

here is a sign of a dog from a charity shop door. it's quite like a previously seen dog, but the tail is slightly different. very interesting. perhaps it was from the same doggy's portfolio.

regular readers will know that my mum is on holiday somewhere. i'm not entirely sure where it is, and i'm beginning to wonder if she's joined a religious cult as she's started sending me quality pictures of signs.

i think she's been driving round taking these pictures just so she can be featured on the blog. i thank her for her tireless dedication to the task !

click on these tiny photos for bigger readable versions

she also sent me this picture of a hip rock'n'roll band she had discovered:

it makes you wonder where she's gone and if she'll ever come back again !

well, i had some trouble with missing field text on comments. it was an IE6 parsing error. however, a fantatic chap from uglypeoplesuck.com gave me some instructions on how to solve the problem. (the site is not available at the moment so i can't vet advise you on the content). Many thanks Rob !

this week ... finesse everything

i popped out to get some chocolate a few minutes ago and got captured by students. these ones were canvasing the opinion on the great british public on the controversial issue of the congestion charge.

i am an expert of alternative transport methods and congestion charge avoidance, but i didn't get a chance to explain because, all too quickly the interview was over.

here are the crew

and here they all together. they were very excited to find out they might be on this website. and so they should be !

good luck to them in their future media careers.

BBC NEWS | Health | Under fifties 'blighted by pain'

and here are some useful websites on pain

remember my alcohol delivering milkman discovery ? Well, he's been out again, supplementing his regular milk round with beer delivery:

here is a street cleaning cart. this one is special because it is a convertible. ideal for those warm summer months (or crisp october mornings)

and here is a steam roller. i ran across the road in front of this one (it wasn't moving very fast) but i did wonder what would happen if i tripped and fell in its path. i imagine they don't do emergency stops very well.

notice how the steam roller is stopped at these traffic lights. if you are driving a steam roller you don't need to stop anywhere.

and where's the steam anyway. why do they keep messing with stuff

much excitement as esther managed to cycle her first without stabilisers. hoorah. she's very pleased with herself, and so she should be

esther and I spent a happy hour video conferencing to each other around the house. esther had the wireless laptop and wandered round the house.

we were just getting bored when her best friend, catherine, logged on at her house, so they video conferenced each other instead.

it was fascinating watching two 4 year olds talk and video to each other over the Internet. It's always funny when 4 year olds have a conversation anyway as they don't do small talk - conversating over the Internet was even more funny.

here is a good picture of dog. is it a sign for dogs, about dogs or told by a dog ? can you trust a dog to tell you about strangers ? has the man in black got a dog's head ? is he just a shadow ? are the children strangers (or do they know each other). the sign just contributes to confusion in my opinion.

whatever it means, it does contain a nice detailed picture of a dog:

today we went with lunch at our lovely friends ian and carolyn's house. good food and lots of good fun.

we went to the local park. here is kezia and ian:

and here is esther and carolyn:

the afternoon ended with a disco. (i learnt some tips for next time i have an office disco)

here is a burnt bit of paper i found. it makes mention of the fire brigade. how mysterious.

jane found this in the garden of some friends we visited today. is it yours ? we put it in the hedge so anyone going by can say "ooh luck, a monkey in a tree"

i supervised esther and kezia in their crafting this morning. they found much fun in attaching bits of cellotape to their faces. after a few minutes they both looked like they were made of wax and were melting.

it reminded me of the last time i saw such nonsense

here is a drawing by esther of herself, catherine and kezia

finger trouble by the techies running the site meant we lost all of funkypancake a few hours ago.

i'm hoping i can rebuild most of it, but i'm concerned i haven't got archives of all the photos. i was trying to back up the blog this afternoon and left my work machine downloading the files this evening. i've no idea if it had finished or not. i guess i'll find out on monday ...

so what we (nearly) had here was a low bandwidth, photo free blog :-(

update: i've managed to piece most of it together from my own backups and my Internet Explorer Cache. I'm still missing a few photos though. if you visited the site yesterday (friday) and saw my st paul photos can you drop me an email as the 'missing' photos might be on your computer !

me mending the site at 2.48am Saturday morning. i finally went to bed at 3.15 and got up at 7.45am to look after the kids whilst jane went shopping.

update 2: thanks to Tony, we now are back to a complete blog. hoorah.

here is a handy link to see how much you've spent on booze in your life and whether you are overdoing it. its a healthy comedy item

also, the funkypancake blog is 6 months old next thursday (assuming it survives the journey). we should of course celebrate this fact in some appropriate way. but how ? suggestions please.

also, funkypancake will be down for part of tomorrow as the server it lives on is being physically moved to a different location. hopefully they'll wrap it up nicely in some fluffy bubble wrap and treat it "real good".

hey, someone else is collecting pictures of dogs !

here are some dog signs

(this site was discovered by swara when she was trying to find a random google which would get her back to the funkypancake site - i'm not responsible for the content of the site, some of which might not be family friendly)

'spleening' is a non obvious mispelling of the word 'spelling'.

however, my recommendation for the weekend is to add the letter 'w' after 's' if the word begins with an 's' followed by a vowel (doesn't apply to words beginning with an 's' which don't have a second letter as a vowel).

a couple of examples:

* my mother just swent me an email swaying how much fun she's having.
* swomeday this will all make swense
* sweaty swedes swim swomewhere

if you can involve a squelchy mouth noise whilst speaking the 'sw' bit then that would be ideal. image in cross between a cough and a sniff and you are halfway there.

update: my colleagues swara and swally aren't very impressed with this cunning plan. oops

i had a meeting down ludgate hill today which is the road which approached St Pauls. I used to work on this road so know the area well.

today there was a bit of a 'do' on to remember those who had died in the iraq conflict. 51 british people died (out of how many in total ...). but now isn't the time for politics and discussions on the pointlessness of (this) war.

anyway ... Prince Charles, the Queen, Tony Blair and other senior royals and government people were about, so there was high security.

we don't get armed police in the UK much so when we see them it's quite a shock. here is a picture to shock you (if you are from the UK):

To increase security further they had hidden St Paul's cathedral. They had replaced it by a giant black and white drawing. that would have confused any terrorists ...

Obviously the church service was going to be a sombre occasion. so to lighten things up, the police had brought along a bouncy castle:

(notice my colleague tamara in this photo. she was desperate to have a bounce. but it's good she didn't as all that was in the tent was ... a vicar and a tressle table)

london looks great. some of the time. usually, even if you find a nice new modern block there is some 1970s concrete monstrocity in the background. we must learn to love this diversity.

especially since 1970s monstrocities are now turning 30 and achieving senior management responsibilities, particularly in media companies. i was born in 1972, but i'm not senior or management. and that's monstrous.

here is a nice arch bit near st paul's cathedral

here is my mum on holiday. just so you know. blue ridge apparently. lucky thing. still, it's nice and sunny in the uk too.

they are shutting battle hospital down in reading and moving everyone out to the royal berks hospital. there is definately a demob happy vibe around the place. there was popular music being played from transistor radios from at least two different rooms down the corridor where i had to sit and wait. it was like waiting in the sitting area in KwikFit listening to the mechanics changing tyres in the other room. or something.

however, at the moment the battle hospital is looking very run down and increasingly empty. it's also up for sale.

so, how about we all club together and by a hospital ? we can call it the funkypancake hospital and i can be the Director (job title of choice). we can all pootle about and have a massive game of doctors and nurses.

what do you think. shall we do it ? shall we ? shall we ?

a happy trip to the hospital today. just like the pain clinic, i was told not to come back again. woo hoo !

the specialist was all ready to give me the 'cronic pain is for life my friend, few people get rid of it completely, most just have to learn to live with it'. But before he could say it I launched in to my 'it's loads better now, still occasional pain, but mostly fine' speech. how we laughed.

there was also a comedy moment when a very tall old lady, who had failed to provide enough 'evidence' in her sample tube emerged and explained the situation to a nurse. once the situation was clear, the nurse said:

"has someone brought you along today ?".
the old lady looked at her and said
"no, i came by ... [pregnant pause] ... transport"

i wasn't sure if the nurse wanted her to find a friend to provide the sample instead ?

here is the 8 of diamonds. it was outside blaine-in-a-box so maybe it was his.

at last i got to see him. he'd nearly just finished 33 days when we got there. he was moving which was a good sign.

so, let's see the man himself first:

here he is (he's lying with his head to the right with his hand over his face)

here he is from again (head to the right hand side)

now let's look at the commerce associated with the man. obviously he gets loads from TV deals, but does he get anything from the opportunistic sellers of magical starvation necklaces and £2.50 flashing bunny ears ?

as for the security, it was quite minimal. we went in to the inner-sanctury where they 'checked' my bag by vaguely staring at it. instead they went for the truth or dare approach of saying "you're not going to throw eggs at him are you?" the obvious answer they were looking for was "no". so that's what i said. and, as it happens, i wasn't going to anyway.

extremely interesting was that they DON'T ALLOW DOGS IN TO THE INNER VIEWING AREA. i have a number of theories:
1) Blaine hates dogs
2) Blaine loves dogs and it would break his concentration
3) Security are scared people will throw dogs at Blaine
4) Dogs go mad when they see Blaine
5) There is no doggy reason, but people like rules. it helps them feel they are being looked after

here are a couple of photos of london looking pretty by night for your enjoyment

remember i went to the fiffi parade ? well here is there website (and what an excellent site it is too. i get linked from one of the pages. the magical dog on the front page is most eeery)
fiffi-parade

why not design a little button to stick on things and mark it 'turbo'.

it sure will make things look high tech and 'modern'.

why not send me a few pictures of how you got on ?

here is ash. he's a serial winner. he is holding 4 free meal coupons which he found in crisp packets.

what is his secret ? being an all round nice guy probably.

you probably don't want to here about it, but here we go. it took 1hr 45 mins to get from paddington to cannon street this morning:

here is a dog picture from the london underground. i've never seen a dog on the underground. i've seen pigeons but never dogs. it's a different story in europe of course where dogs are taken everywhere.

here are some cars for sale as suggested by brother edd:

little tank
big watery thing

(links now dead unfortunately)

the big watering thing doesn't have electric windows, central locking or an alarm, making it a very insecure vehicle in my opinion. but it does go on water.

apologies for the short out(r)age. was due to bad server stuff. sorted now. did it remind you of electricity rationing in the 1970s ? no, me neither.

i like to drink hot water. at home this is no problem. when visiting companies often secretaries get it wrong and bring me cold water or worse, hot water in a spindly glass (asphesdos gloves to the ready).

in restaurants and hotels hot water can prove more complicated. ordering it can be difficult as the waiter often doesn't listen properly or thinks you are mad. but the main area of variance is the charge.

i was just charged £1.75 for a small cup of hot water in Cafe Rouge on Tottenham Court Road. i was with someone who bought a Cappucino which costed £1.75 too. outrgeous ! i don't mind paying something as they have to wash the cup, heat the place etc but £1.75 seems a little steep. oh well.

ash was very upset about not picking up the photo this morning. he's made amends by providing me with a lovely photo of a rather agressive trolley.

ash arrived this morning and said he'd seen a photo at tottenham court road tube station this morning. he'd been too shy to pick it up or take a photo of it with his phone.

it took a while to explain exactly where the photo had been seen, but once i was happy i understood the location i whizzed off down to see if i could find it.

unfortunately i couldn't see anything photo like in the area where he had described. i even went down in to the station and had a look round there and came back out to street level walking very slowly and examining everything.

in the end i gave up. just as i was walking away i found a passport photo !

the fantastic thing is that this ISN'T the photo that ash saw. it's a different one. i think i summoned this one to my path by my longing to find a photo.

so where is the one that ash saw ? we don't know. but he's going to go looking for it at lunch time. how do i know ? because i'm going to make him go ...

update: the photo that Ash saw was never located :-(

here are some photos of bt tower i took this morning

reflected in a puddle

by a phonebox

through a gap near a cobbler

here is a sign post for life. changed priorities ahead.

it implies some kind of spiritual renewal. or simply a senior management change.

i guess if someone found God for the first time then in a way that would be a senior management change in their life. but that sounds corny, so i won't say it. sermon over.

i often see business cards in the street. i don't bother about them mostly (they don't bother me either - it's a mutual non-bothering thing). however, there was a flock of them on the street this morning:

it's a nice advertising idea. i thought of a similar thing for church pamphlets which i called 'litter evangelism'. you can share the Good News by throwing colourful brochures all over the street and public transport. i have heard some religious cults already do this - they leave their magazines on the tube.

these cards belonged to the office manager:

please note, i'm not in any way suggesting that the person named on these busines cards is involved in a religious cult. you could always phone up and ask them - i've got their number (and fax and email)

i saw this yesterday, but thought it too good to be a passport photo. it was there today so i checked it (by lifting it up and looking on the back). i was right. it wasn't a passport photo at all. but here it is anyone for your enjoyment

however i did find this:

and this:

here is mr gilbert locking up his wig shop. see earlier entry for gilbert facts. i was lucky to sneak this photo !

i've mentioned the trolley man before. good to see he's still got the fridge (or an identical replacement). we're working the same patch. he has more dedication to this finding lark.

i was given a potato in a bag at paddington station this morning. it's national potato week apparently.

so now i have a potato. at work. i think i'm meant to eat it with tuna sauce (sachet included).

if day one of national potato week is 'eat potato', then i look forward to the rest of the week to see what other fantastic things we can do with potatos. potato prints (they give out a potato and some paints), potato clocks (vegetables at work), spud guns (check out this fantastic page) ?

it's sponsored by the british potato council. do you subscribe to potato weekly ?

it was handed to me by a man dressed as a potato. as jobs go, dressing up as a potato is pretty good.

update: see eggs vs potatos on the BBC website

for some reason the other three people in my office have comemorative t-shirts today.

corporate mugs appeared on our desk whilst i was on holiday:

i've kept mine in its protective rapper so it's worth more if i ever auction it. there is label on the bottom which says "this is photo mug. do not machine wash or place in a microwave oven. HAND WASH ONLY. do not leave in direct sunlight". it's probably best to avoid putting hot liquids in it as well just to be sure.

rumours are that corporate ashtrays were provided at a recent international company meeting. i shall provide evidence if ever i see what of these fabled devices.

here is a bit of photo i found on the way in this morning. obviously a person, but we know nothing else about them. what can it all mean ?

i spotted this today. it's a cupboard on castors. another congestion charge avoiding transport device perhaps. i didn't check to see if there was anyone inside it. it had falled over next to a charity shop in such a way that the doors wouldn't have been able to open.

if i was driving a cupboard i would have put the castors on the back of it and driven it like a canal boat. that would be much more stable and could house more (paying?) passengers.

salmon and cucumber sandwiches

i've put this under the category 'life' but 'death' might be a better category. i was walking across a zebra crossing this morning (which in the UK gives you priority over traffic) and a car nearly ran me over. it came to a skidding halt and i only avoided getting run over by jumping backwards just in time.

the woman in the car looked a little alarmed and mouthed 'sorry' which was reasuring. usually you just get a rude jesture or the verbal equivalent.

however, she had to stop at the traffic lights a little bit further on so i took a photo of her car:

and here she is a bit closer up.

i'm alive and so is she, so no harm done !

here is another picture of a dog. this one has lots of detail. the person's arms look a bit mechanical. however, he's bending his back very sensibly to avoid back strain.

here it is on a seperate occasion facing the other way

as we were about to enter my grandma's house jane started giggling uncontrollably. i asked here what was up and she said we should pretend that we don't speak english when we arrive.

i thought this was a fantastic idea, but i wasn't sure if my rellies would think so, so we didn't do it.

but this week, especially at work, pretend you no longer speak or understand english and see how you get on.

my diet has been a big disaster today. chocolate and bread were presented at all our locations today and it seemed very rude to refuse them. so i didn't. i'll try again this week. perhaps it's just a monday to friday diet ?

the last straw of the day was eating chocolates in the car on the way back home (2 hours). it was very dark in the car so we couldn't see the best before date on the chocolate bars we had found in the car. unfortunately they were quite old and my fudge chocolate bars was fizzy. yuck.

but let's remind myself why i was doing the diet - it wasn't to lose weight, it was just so i felt better/healthier. and i did feel better / healthier the few days i did it, so that was good.

i'll see what happens to my stomach tomorrow after today's bread feast and decide what to do next. ho hum.

after visiting pam's we went to Rothley which is where i used to live and where my dad still lives.

here is the house that i lived in as a kid. someone else lives there now and they've done the front up better and rebuilt the whole of the right hand side. but it's still my old house ...

once we'd done the old-house-drive-by we went to my dad's new house and had tea with him and Ve:

my dad has a camera permanently attached to his eye which feels familiar.

this afternoon we went for a walk in Bradgate Park which is where i learnt to ride my bike when i was little. we took esther's bike so she could keep the family tradition and learn to ride there too. she got on very well.

here is a fantastic thing. you know i love gloves right ?

well imagine my delight when i found these hanging on a special 'glove line' at Pam's house ! (the fingers in the glove on the right were full of water making them more life like which was a good feature).

this love of gloves must run in the family.

we had a trip up to leicester today. it's where i come from and my grandma, pam, and my father still live up there.

i found this trip up there more of a trip down memory lane than previous journeys. perhaps it's the fact that we've got kids of our own now and showing them where i went to school has more meaning ? dunno.

here is pam and esther making our sandwiches

here they are in the garden throwing feeding the birds croutons and boiled egg (strange but true):

diet confessional: this evening on the way back, the antibiotics, pain killers, ear pain and lack of sleep all took their toll and I BOUGHT AND ATE A KING SIZED MARS BAR.

so that's no good and i now feel quite sick. and i feel i have let you, the reader, down too. i've still not eaten any bread or beer and will attempt to stay off the chocolate for the rest of the week.

addiction is an annoying thing.

here is a nice little thing i found relating to mars bars:

KING-sized Mars bars make ideal normal-sized Mars bars, for
giants. NORMAL-sized Mars bars make ideal king-sized Mars
bars for dwarfs, as well as fun-sized ones for giants.
FUN-sized Mars Bars make ideal normal sized Mars Bars for
midgets.

now here is a part of church life which is definately more to do with religion than faith (religion being more about 'tradition' and man made rules, rather than faith which is the real bit).

church crockery is traditionally very pale blue, with spindly cups on spindly saucers. it's been this way since the 1970s.

however, the church we go to has mugs which is much better. (though i have noticed a trend since the mid 90s for forward looking churches to standardise on the use glass mugs).

but i digress. this evening we had a church meeting which included a meal and look how they arranged the cups on the table ! they were presented in groups of 4 cups and saucers. the best bit is the presentation of spoons in the middle.

potentially the protruding spoon handles could have caused sight injury if a member of the congregation suddenly lent forward to adopt the prayer position over the table.

luckily we had all finished our drinks prior to the prayer time. see how God sometimes chooses to protect his flock.

yeah. i had a new bike when i was 12. it was a racer. i fell off it just before my 13th birthday and knocked my front tooth out. i now where a falsey.

now i'm 31 i figured i'm old enough to have a new bike now. so i got one. and so did esther. and i even managed to fix the tagalong bike on to jane's bike.

esther's very excited (and nervous) about her new non-stablised bike i will update you on progress tomorrow ...

jane inspecting my new bike

this was a really marvellous glove find. a bright purple one in a residential street

slight varient on the usual dog sign. more rounded. was on a charity shop door

why do all car show rooms have balloons and flags and stuff. here is an example. whenever i buy a car i spend months thinking about it, then read all the magazine and reviews. Finally i go to the garage and find which ones they have available second hand and after a few days thinking about it might make a decision.

i'm unlikely to be persuaded 'impulse buy' a car just because they had a few balloons and flags outside the garage (even if they are union jacks).

jane pointed out that the balloons never look flat so the sale people must take them down each night. be great for their kids (unless they hated balloons). "hey it's dad with a load of balloons again" ("aaaargh")

i went to a lecture by dr patrick dixon this morning. the lecture was part of a series arranged by the Reading Church's Men's Breakfasts and he'd been asked to speak on personal spirituality in the context of a changing world.

dr dixon regularly lectures around the world on the impact of unceasing change in the modern world. this lecture was different in that he'd been specifically asked to provide an insight in to how he himself responds to these changes and makes sense of the world.

he was most excellent and i highly recommend you see him if you ever get the chance. see the global change website for more info

i went to Reading University this morning and my friend Andy spotted all these devices. i've seen them before of course, but never in this number

here is a little sign i saw on a bottle of bleach. it says 'irritant'.

i suggest you print this sign on to a label and stick it on people. ideal for dealing with loud mobile conversational people on public transport for example.

you could always do the comedy school boy thing of sticking it on their back. ho ho

following jane, esther and kezia's lift story i obviously felt i needed to compete.

i attended a meeting today and afterwards made my way out of the building. i wasn't sure which way to go so was quite glad when i found the lifts. i climbed in and pressed G for Ground. The door closed and then straight away opened again. I pressed G again, but this time nothing happened.

it was at this point i realised that i was already on the ground floor and the main exit was just off to the right. d'oh. blame the drugs ...

as you know, occasionally i nice piece of spam takes my fancy. i liked this one and the website is jolly good too. i have a wife and am quite happy with her, but as an act of public service to you the reader (and irina's once fish catching grand mother), here is the contents of that email for your delight.

here is my latest find. the other day i got off the tube at great portland street when i meant to get off at euston square and found a long lost college friend.

today i got off at euston square when i meant to get off at great portland street and found this photo.

when riding the tube, ignore where you are going. just get off when it feels right.

this is possibly the madest photo i've found. at some point i'll add it to davescollections

kezia can say the word 'pick' and is currently exploring the variety of sounds you can extract from a guitar. she's gone for the sitar playing style, which adds a nice ethnic feel to her playing. she's also chosen a non-standard tuning so her chords sound more interesting.

here is my favourite techno corner junk yard just underneath BT tower. yesterday there was a fridge, a table and an old computer

other ear has the lurgey now, so back on antibiotics. twice the strength, twice the fun, (hopefully) half the pain ?

was nice to see christmas decorations for sale in the pharmacy. hi ho.

here is anita wearing a 'spock ear'. she couldn't get it to stay on so she attached it with an elastic band. i believe this is what they do in casualty departments these days. when i picked up my camera, she picked up the knife.

it's thursday midday (in the UK at least). so i've not had chocolate/beer/wheat/dairy for 3.5 days. that means i'm quarter of a way through my diet. I WANT CHOCOLATE ;-(

a man has just wandered in to our office. he had a beard and a clipboard and stared at the ceiling for a while whilst rubbing his chin.

no one apprehended or questioned the man. maybe the clipboard made him invisible to any security measures (or people). perhaps i'm the only one who saw him ?

update: he's back again at exactly noon, and this time he is staring at the photocopier in the same detached manner.

if you walk down Oxford Street in London (or many other shopping streets around the world) you can easily get dazzled and taken in by the lights. but i say to you "don't be dazzled".

instead, raise your gaze above the shop fronts, and, in london at least, you are rewarded with a hotchpotch of ancient and modern buildings. some are absolutely excellent (some 70s efforts are less so). the nice ones appear in sharp contrast to the ultra modern shop fronts below.

They've opened a new mcdonalds in oxford street (oh goody, we need more of those). i actually spotted the nice building first, then looked at what was in the basement.

it's not even a nice looking mcdonalds (though they were giving out balloons which would surely cheer even the most hardened burger hater)

that nice olde london still exists. you've just got to look for it. my advice is to take a bus and sit upstairs.

selfridges in oxford street often has exciting window displays. at the moment they are particularly good.

here is one

which looks like it might be related to rathergood

and there is an office in a window which is also very good

go see. you enjoy.

red gloves in oxford street london. interesting that one of them is in a shopping trolley

you probably never go there, but i just updated the funkypancake front page with a logo and longer wait before it bounces you to the blog.

here it is for those who can't be bothered to click the link above (or can't see the new page because the old one is stuck in their cache)

trains were delayed this evening at paddington. when this happens you can never be sure which platform your train will come in to.

i took a punt (a risk, not a boat) and went to platform 13 which is where the 17:52 usually goes from. on the way I saw this wripped up piece of paper on the floor.

it was telling me to 'turn'. this would have taken me to platform 12 of course (as anyone familliar with paddington station will be able to tell you).

i ignored the warning and continued, taking my life in to my own hands.

i waited at platform 13 for a while and ...

here is a mysterious thing i saw on the way back home tonight. it's a massive black box on the left connected with some wires to some electronical thing on the right. it's location was outside a strategic British Telecom telephone exchange (i shall not reveal it's actual location, nor indeed how i know this information)

so what is the device ? is it likely to go boom ? is it part of a telephone exchange ? is it a congestion charge enforcing device ?

who knows. who cares

here is part of a playing card. i don't know which one it was originally so it'll just have to be a spare one in the deck if i ever get the complete set

we are all p[r]awns in a bigger game. we all know that.

and now so is my email address. if you have been sent a virus apparently from me, then it wasn't. it was from someone else. so there.

does anyone say the word "chum" any more ? if not they should do.

i had a meeting in liverpool street this morning and travelled back to the office by foot and tube. i actually got off the tube at the wrong stop so was walking [in] a very strange way.

it was at some random point in some random street where I saw my old university chum 'neil' (last spotted about 6 years ago in sheffield).

we had both been goths at university. neither of us were very good at being goths because even though we looked the part, neither of us was very good at not-smiling.

we reminisced about auditions for Blind Date and attending concerts, and exchanged potted life histories. both of us now lack our goth-locks, instead choosing a close cut style. i blame the excessive use of hair spray.

(this photo was one of the deleted ones which i managed to recover with the unregistered version of Photorecovery - see here)

so, a marvellous coincidence. (i also bumped in to an old school chum a couple of weeks ago in paddington station one morning. i think i was on the way to liverpool street then too. it's like my life is slowly passing before my eyes or something)

i had some really nice photos for you today. but i accidentally deleted them. there was a really good one of a man attempting to push a building down the street. here is a very small version:

it was recovered by photorecovery. it's $40 to register (then you can recover the full sized photos) It's not worth it for me for the two photos I want. definately worth considering if i start doing this trick more often though !

i've taken 7300 photos with my camera and this is the first time i've accidentally deleted any :-(