i took my 10,000th photo with my Sony DSC-P71 camera this morning. Here it is. A self portrait of the camera. I bought the camera in September 2002, so that's 10,000 photos in 16 months.

i do love my camera - But i was a little disappointed to discover the numbering has now gone back to 1. which means i will get duplicate file names and may have trouble uploading things to the blog.

here is photo number 10,000 (also known as photo number 1)

here is photo number 9999

does anyone know anyone who know's someone who works for sony and could pursuade them to sponsor the blog and/or give me a new camera ?

Whilst we're talking about numbers, i've now posted over 1,500 entries and have around 1000 comments since april last year. this month we've had over 4,800 unique visitors and shifted 2.2GB of bandwidth !

what a bizarre thing bloggin is.

can butterflies read ? if they are hungry enough they can.

if you have a pet dog you take it for a walk. if you have a cat then it does it's own thing which usually involves wandering round the neighbourhood.

but what if you run a mini-rainforest ? how do you keep your captive fish happy ? obvious. you drag them round in their tank on a trolley !

here are some signs in the living rainforest.

here are two nice signs:

and is this any way to run a rainforest ? i blame global cooling or something

it's been a wet and windy day today, so we thought we'd go to our local rainforest. The place itself is quite small, but it's worth a trip.

Here's a rare picture of me and the girls next to a big pond thing:

here is kezia drinking her ornina (her name for ribena)

if you get a chance to see spiritualized then go ! Jane and I saw them at Reading University this evening and they were amazing.

this abandoned over night bag contained a shirt. i didn't venture any deeper in to it.

one piece found

i found a tube pass. it had a photo in it. But it also had about £250 of unused month's travel on it. so i handed it in at Goodge Street tube station.

tottenham court road is the street with a million shops selling all your modern electronical gadgetry. they have so much they have to throw some out in to the street and you often see keyboards and other peripherals 'growing wild' on bin day.

here is an HP scanner and an Epson printer.

here's a poignent (pungent?) thing. it's a tramp asleep in a door way on Oxford Street. There's a fair amount of them about in london so nothing new there.

but i was struck by the writing in the shop window. was it referring to his life expectancy which he's been daily reducing from 1 week only to last day.

has he read what his life expectancy is or is he carrying on regardless ?

furthermore, this person has got nothing except a sleeping bag. yet the sign above his feet says 'or less'.

i was thinking - imagine we all had little counters at home which showed how long we had to live. that would certainly focus my mind ...

it's not easy being a tea bag. you sit in the dark for ages and then you get thrown in to a pot or mug and have boiling water poured on you. then you get chucked in the bin.

this little tea bag is having a sit down on a bench and is nestling (pun intended) up to a kitkat wrapper.

it's quite common in big cities to see protective fences around and about to protect the celebrity classes from the paupers. This is particularly popular around places like leicester square where they have lots of film premiers.

Here is bench and a little tree protected from the public by barriers. this would be ideal for a celebrity if they were shopping in Selfridges and wanted to have a little sit down and watch the world go by.

i love chocolate. here is some new style galaxy on the floor by my local train station. i didn't eat it. instead i bought a sausage and chips which i ate whilst walking back down my icey street. they tasted great and i loved it.

until i dropped my sausage and became irrationally angry. i reminded myself of jonah when his fig tree died (6-9).

i had no right to be angry with God about my lost lunch.

train signs often seem to be broken. a row of monitors at paddington station had become inverted for no real reason.

good on 'em for daring to be different

here is a sign screwed to the top of a pub table so no one steals it. it's obviously very important.

it snowed, then it melted a bit and then it froze. the result is very icey.

in fact, walking to work this morning was very much like walking across an ice-rink. by which i mean there was a mighty pipe organ playing 70s disco tunes in the cheesiest of ways. possibly.

as if it wasn't slippy enough, i spotted a few discarded banana skins too:

some people were fighting back. here was a curly wurly (still in its wrapper). a curly wurly is an excellent anti-slipping device thanks to its elaborate design:

i've used the word bonnet a number of times recently. i'm glad about that.

this morning i noticed a number of cars with snow writing on their bonnets. here is one saying London.

the other says Arsenal which must be a satirical comment on the Hutton report making a statement on Sadam's supposed military arsenal.

there were a number of other cars around which also had writing on them. all of these contained offensive words (some were even spelt correctly) so i didn't take any photos.

after yesterday's sighting, it's obviously the right time of year for snuggling up and keeping warm.

look at this beauty ! click to inspect

here is a bit of photo i found. it was very dirty and there wasn't any other bits around. this one isn't even worthy of including in davescollections

i suspect there is a giant (king kong style) cat living somewhere in london. i shall search for evidence, but for starters here is a footprint in the snow on a phone box.

anything blaine-in-a-box can do, the queen can do better. he she is on a one pence piece encased between layers of ice.

and here is a towel nearby:

and a little further up the road, a mattress:

and finally, a cigar in very good condition:

when it snows people do strange things. skid mostly. but cars go at different speeds. some way too slow. some way too fast.

how can you indicate this in a sign ? how about this which is a direct replacement for a speed limit sign which was there this morning:

they tried the same at the train station too:

not for the first time in my life i was following my own path

it snowed this afternoon. i know this because it took me 2.5 hours to get home from work. but it was interesting as people broke the rules and spoke to each other.

when i found a train which was working i was dissapointed to find on my exit that the next carriage along had no working lights. i would have LOVED to have been in this spooky carriage. anyhow ...

this sign came hurtling along the road in front of me down Praed Street like it was on castors. it was a nice advertising techique as everyone turned to look at it. it also got stuck in the middle of the road so lots of car drivers looked at it too.

a man on the train said to me he loved the snow and when he grew up in Wales he used to go sledging using a Volkswagon Beatle bonnet. my reply to this random piece of information was "i didn't know they made hats". i don't think he understood, but then neither did I.

why were there so many VW Beatle bonnets in Wales ? I asked him and he said "I dunno, but they had loads. even the schools had some".

(American visitors will note that a 'bonnet' is a 'hood' - which is also a head covering so the joke still works).

here are some wires looking good in the snow:

here's a thing i often see and think is fantastic. is it an accident or deliberate ? either way, look out for it next time you walk up tottenham court road in the northerly direction.

this new building on Euston Road displays a ghostly reflection of BT Tower on the left hand side.

another moped. this time with stick

it's usual to leave your bike chained to something random in london, usually without the front wheel. the idea being that bike thieves are too stupid to think about doing a wheely as they steal your bike.

here, someone has gone for the opposite approach. they've chained their front wheel but taken the rest of their bike with them. i like that approach.

it's a bit like those car radios you can take out so they don't get stolen. people with those should leave the radio in the street and take the car inside. primarily because cars are worth more than the radio.

here is another broken BT multimedia payphone thing. the colours are fantastic. it may be broken, but it looks good. there aren't that many things/people you can say that about.

travelling by dog is a good way of avoiding the congestion charge. unfortunately you still have to pay to park your dog at a meter. i still remember when they called them inches.

all those nasa/european satellite/rover things have so far only found empty houses on mars) but they haven't found any people. that's because they've all come to earth and have disguised themselves as traffic cones.

they all stand in long lines along roads in a neat martian order. of course, a few of them are showing their true colours:

it's a comb. on the pavement. yes.

my local council are brilliant at mending street lights.

And not only that, but they send people round randomly to check lights even when they are working fine !

here is a man doing that very thing:

i was working from home today and to my surprise a man arrived at my window.

why was it a surprise you ask ? well, it's because my office at home is upstairs.

how can he hear my thoughts you ask again ? i cannot answer that question without revealing secrets, sorry

meanwhile, outside my house there was loud dance music and a familiar flashing orange light. i looked again and the man outside my window was in a basket.

"my Lord", i cried, (displaying a rare use of a capital letter) and ran outside with esther and kezia to show them the mobile disco which had pulled up outside our house. the exact same sort i had seen yesterday.

this picture, taken outside our front door, appeals to me from a gravitational pull point of view. the man (who is actually cleaning the street lights and checking the bulbs despite none of them being broken) is dangling over the pavement whilst his van is parked on the other side of the street. he's chosen to hover over some parked cars for dramatic effect.

i may tell you a bit more about street lightbulbs in a moment ... (and so i did)

again, not broken, but not very good either.

what's the most giving program on the telly ?

answer: ER

i'm interested (vaguely) whether this works in other versions of english.

it's another working from home day today. so much work, so little fun.

here is a link i got sent by a reader a while back but forgot to pass on. it's a kind of random camera photo-y thing.

It's called Streetmattress

here is harry looking mouse-like with his fan behind him.

here is a mysterious key hole on a Central Line platform (Bank i think). It's a door in the floor. but it's more than a door in the floor. it's also got a key hole.

it's obviously an entrance to another world. it's not a parallel world because the door is the wrong angle. perhaps it's a perpendicular world instead ?

here is a strange thing under a bridge. the first we saw of it was the flashing lights. and then the thumping music. it appeared to be some workmen chancers fixing a light with their van stereo on.

or was it a new mobile disco concept ? they drive round with cherry pickers with flashing lights on top and stop in dark places (like under a tunnel). For £5 they'll lift you up in the basket and play dance music at you for half an hour.

Ideal for the office worker who can't get out to discoteques in the evening because of commuting commitments but still would love to dance their funky stuff.

and also, since there is only space for one person in the basket, there's less likely to be any inappropriate flirtery.

random street item

nice to start the week with another lost glove. especially one as stripey as this.

Jane and I got married on 17th Feb 1996. I know this because we watched our our wedding video over the weekend with the kids and it had the date stamped on it !

we went out for a family walk this afternoon. after yesterday's walk we decided kezia needed some bigger boots. so we found these.

they are very fancy as they are sparkly and have a high heel. very fancy, but very impractical.

especially for walking through VERY muddy clay-y recently dug fields.

if you've been reading the blog for a long time you may remember this graffiteeed dog poo bin which i drew to your attention.

it caught my eye again today because it was full of dog poo sacks. there had been some unwritten agreement to dangle the handles of the bags out of the lid. it gave the impression that there was a colleciton of octopuses (octopies) in there trying to climb out.

our short walk today brought us in to contact with many interesting things. a cooker, an old shoe and an abandoned TV. The TV still had the mains plug attached, but there wasn't any power sockets in the park to see if it still worked.

it's been a good day for my collections. here are a load of playing cards. unfortunately most of these were too worn out to be identifiable. and i've also made a policy of only including single cards in my complete collection. multiple finds are interesting, but make it too easy to complete the deck

spring has sprung very early this year. here are some actual daffodils. they'll probably all die next week as we are promised sub zero temperatures (more normal for this time of year)

the other barb was prettier. but this one is rustier.

one walk, four gloves

esther and kezia helped us load in the guitars this morning.

it was also the debut of nu:generation, the young people's band. we had two singers, 3 blowy instruments (not sure what they were!), piano, guitar and drums. jane and i joined in on guitar and bass. they had style and volume. a great combination

jane cooked hagis for tea as it's rabbi burns night or something. just thought i'd share this delight with you.

cookham is not an instruction. it's a fantastic village on the thames. we went for a long walk there this afternoon in the beautiful sunshine and pouring rain. esther wore her boots for puddle jumping and kezia went in the backpack.

it's a really pretty place so if you are anywhere near it and/or love Stanley Spencer, go there !

it's the weekend so obviously i present you with the weekly proud father photo of esther and kezia.

find local things to do all over the UK. excellent for people with families or visiting the UK.

useful global wifi finder thing from intel

jane and i watched All Or Nothing last night. it was most excellent. if you want to find out what British Life is really like then this is the film for you.

here is a fantastic site on disused london underground platforms and tunnels.

a glove on my train at 12.15 this morning.

this sign says the show home is open. but it was half past midnight and it blatantly wasn't open. i was dissappointed. what kind of 24 hours society are we running here ?

here is a mysterious thing in paddington station. it raises more questions than it solves i'm afraid.

why can't it be moved ? how did they get it there in the first place (they must have written the words on when it was in place). is it a reminder to the ticket inspectors not to listen to people's sob stories about losing their tickets ? is it for when there is a train strike and is used to accompany the song "we shall not be moved"

and most importantly. if it's not to be moved, why has it got a handle on the top.

ever suddenly discover your hand is dirty and you have no idea why ? i did last night. here is the evidence.

i love this picture. not sure why. but i do. so there.

one thing i enjoy about the tube system is that many of the signposts are in 3 dimensions. here is a good example at Westminster station. I may find some more examples for you.

the toilet signs in the london aquarium are very good

i was lucky enough to be invited to an event in London Aquarium hosted by BT. There were lots of current and ex-colleagues there and i really enjoyed the evening.

I got lost looking for the toilets at one point and ended up wandering around the museum on my own which was very bizarre. just me, the fish and a couple of turtles.

here is a man in with the sharks:

here are some pictures i took last night of london looking nice at night

this woolen glove was in the middle of the road and was extremely flat (like a cartoon character run over by a steam roller).

i was pleased to see it was giving me the 'thumbs up' despite the obvious traumas it had been through.

i found this on the pavement near where i live. it's been there for a few days. in my opinion it's a quality street.

trains are good value (but not in the monetary sense). there is still lots of opportunity to see big mechanical things which are all greasy.

the buffers (i mistyped this the first time with hilarious consequences) at paddington station are a good example of this.

if i were a train driver i'd been tempted to use the buffers to stop my train once in a while. just for kicks like.

there was a sign on this pub which said WE ARE CLOSED FOR A PRIVATE PARTY.

unfortunately the party obviously got out of hand as they had completely wrecked the place and various men in hard hats were carrying bags of rubble and old floor boards out in to the street.

i would have got some better pictures, but i was running to another meeting which turned out to be 30 minutes away (and not my allotted 20 mintes). i arrived on time, but out of breath.

... tedious beyond belief.

but life is like that sometimes and days like this are rare.

highlight of the day was someone describing something as 'same meat, different gravy'. i chuckled, but no one else did.

esther came up with her own art concept this afternoon. it's masking tape twisted widely and stuck on to a piece of paper. on to that she dropped multicoloured pencil sharpenings (the big bits) and dusted it with the small pencil shavings. it was her own idea apparently.

it's more of an installation than a picture so we can't move it from the kitchen table (because all the bits will drop off).

since it's a temporary exhibit i've reproduced it large here. i think it's actually quite beautiful.

the next step is probably fly paper art. we'll stick fly paper around the room and throw some random rubbish about, see what sticks and plop it down on to some paper. houston, i think we have a concept.

click to view big version

A massive thank you to Cheryl of BatonNOiR for my lovely pancakes and help with my colour scheme.

I don't know if she cooked them especially (or whether she had a stock picture of pancakes), but they look good. They have a mysteriously purple color and bits of banana on top which makes them very funky.

i'm even happy to use the lazy American spelling of color on this occasion. but ONLY this occasion !

One of my daily blog reads is Texas T-bone. He's recently published a cook book made up of contributed recipes. it's even got one of my recipes in there !

check out his dinner project page for more info, or download the pdf (145KB) here (right click and save might be safer than just clicking).

i just reminded myself of this. It isn't really a broken joke. it's simply not very good but i haven't got a category for that.

Why do they call policemen coppers ?
Because the change is good as a rest.

i made that up myself you know ...

The BBC place in Portland Place (Broadcasting House) has been hidden for a while for security reasons. whilst it's under wraps they've decided to put some big art displays on it.

i see people everywhere. here is a plastic man protecting some bin bags and a man in the shape of a blob of paint. why do they look at me so ?

there was more dangling today. walter was so excited by what was going on that he pointed at john and laughed

i walked down the street and picked a buttercup.

actually i picked a 'butter up'.

i should have picked a buttock up but i didn't see one.

this man was singing "i can see clearly now the rain has gone". it was raining so i suspect his vision wasn't that good afterall. he did have a nice wah-wah vibe going on though so i forgave him.

my favourite version of this song goes "i can see clearly with my glasses on".

waterloo station is made of girders (like irn bru). they do look very nice and act as mirror to the minimal pairs of metal lines which the train run on at ground level. i wonder if that's what they meant to do.

more likely they were just concerned with keeping the roof up.

nerd alert - switch off now if you aren't interested in telecoms regulation ...

i've noticed that a number of people have ended up at this site looking for the Oftel / Ofcom Review of the retail leased lines, symmetric broadband origination and wholesale trunk segments markets. How disappointed they would have been to end up here.

So, as a service to the telecommunications industry, here is a link to the main document. It seems to have got lost on the Ofcom site. I'll have a word with their webman and see what happens.

the same people might also be interested in the Ofcom broadband review and the discontinuation notices

i walked past this basement entrance and noticed green gunk oozing out the side of it. i suspect it's just an insulating sealant of some kind. but what if it were evil terrorists planning an evil green gunge attack on the city of london ?

what if they've created a green gunge machine which works based on some self-sustaining chemical reaction and will produce enough goo to stick us all londoners to the streets ?

hopefully, once they see this they'll realise i'm on to them and they'll turn their evil machine off and we'll all be saved.

so, if we haven't all been glued to the floor by green gunge by tomorrow, you'll know who to thank.

having kids makes you realise that this bear is one of two things: chaff or chum.

if it's chaff then it's simply another teddy in someone's collection and it's loss will not be noticed (it may have been thrown out deliberately).

if it's a chum then it's a vital friend of the child who will be missing it dearly and searching high and low for it. there will be tears and sleepless nights for all involved.

let's assume it's chaff so as not to upset ourselves on a monday morning.

last sunday we went round to our friend sally, tabatha and zac's house for lunch with a number of other people (there was no festive melting skull table decoration this time). i got to play their PS2 all afternoon and got thoroughly confused about who's heads i should be chopping off.

i wasn't allowed to post this pictures last week as we used them in a competition at the party last night. but i can now. zac is looking good in his wig and glasses, whilst sally is looking mighty fine in the famous blue wig.

(click photos for big versions)

and here is another one of sally:

here are esther and kezia sitting together nicely on a chair. i asked them to smile for the camera. kezia instantly did her mad-mouth-grin thing and esther pouted.

we also found a crisp that looked like an ear (demonstrated by esther) warning - don't eat ears.

here is my stan boardman cup. i got it from a charity shop, but that still doesn't make it right. i found it in the cupboard because we used all our normal mugs at the party last night

stan boardman belongs to a time and era (1970s?) when political correctness didn't exist and mild racism was acceptable if you dressed it up as humour.

i bought this cup as it was ironic, but now i wonder if it's just sad.

perhaps i should put it on ebay. perhaps i should just chuck it out.

stand boardman is currently available for 'nearly any event'. he, and numerous other top british stars (and lookalikes) can be hired from entertainers

one thing i'm looking forward to about being dead is the fact that there is probably going to be lots of parties in heaven. we decided to have a smaller scale party at our house last night for all the people who help out with the music, overhead projector (for the words) and sound stuff at church.

there were around 20 people (i think) including spouses. Here are some of them:

and here is ian and Big Eye tony:

esther has used her calculator so much some of the numbers have dropped off. i spotted this number 3 button on the stairs

this afternoon kezia spent quite a while playing outside in the garden. it was cold and she was playing with water. a combination which eventually became too painful so we went back inside and made a few telephone calls.

she's getting very good at talking on the phone which is a worry.

just trying out some new colour scheme. let me know if you see anything weird.

(i've decided to change this new scheme as it's not very clear ! but might not be until tomorrow until i get time)

of course we all know that any decent kids TV program entertains both kids and parents. i've been watching CBeebies with esther and kezia this morning whilst jane has been mucking out horses.

at one point in the Fimbles, Bessie said to the fluffy thing called Ribble 'Ribble, Ribble, your face is a mess'. Kids were amused and Bowie fans were amazed ! I love things like that !

esther and kezia examine a glove on the wall

i started work early this morning so i could take 4 hours out this afternoon to look after the kids. i'll make up the extra couple of hours this evening.

during this time we (brother-in-law kevin, nephew thomas, esther and kezia) went in to reading to fill the time. esther was desperate to use the microscope in the local museum and we seemed to be in there for ages. luckily there was a very helpful lady to explain everything. kezia just slept ...

here is thomas and kevin:

how often do we see this - buildings pulled down which are still connected to other ones. i love seeing them like this. it's like someone has taken a knife and sliced the building in two. i once saw a building like this which had a lovely door, flowery wallpapered walls and even a clock above the fireplace which was still keeping time !

today it was a red room with a purple door. i hope there was a side onthe other side saying "don't use this door".

esther spotted this and was desperate for me to take a photo. i happily obliged.

here is a clock in the street near where i live. it reminded me of my previous clock coincidence. esther was very concerned as it wasn't working (and neither was I)

click clock to see it in its full glory.

due to a combination of things i've had to start work early this morning so i can finish early. i was aiming for a 4am start, but this didn't fit well with going to bed at midnight following my jaunts of last night.

my alarm clock woke me up at 4am and 5am. my brain was mostly awake but seemed to have lost the ability to control my body which was definately still asleep. instead i listened to the gales outside and watched the curtains suck in as if trying to escape from the window.

i've been up for half an hour working now and it's 6am. it's just me, my laptop, Radiohead (Amnesiac) and the magic soap cat ...

my train took a long time to get home this evening. but then these late night trains do.

when i arrived at my station there were loads of vans parked up and there were strange lights further up the track. i think they were doing some mending.

as i walked away i heard a strange whiring noise. i turned and saw what looked like a dinosaur going along the tracks. i took a photo to show you (it was quite dark):

here is a multimedia pay phone displaying information about the National Lottery. it is beconing us to play. however, it's also crashed thanks to Microsoft. But maybe this week's numbers are hidden in the error message.

click on the picture to see the error message and decide for yourself. i won't be held responsible if you waste your money on a ticket. unless you win, in which case i'd be interested in a small, but significant, share.

here is a lovely man selling the Evening Standard outside Cannon Street Tube Station. it was chucking it down with rain and he sat in his little hut with his old fashioned mini candle lamp and he was so cheerful when he told me directions to my destination.

i asked if i could take a photo and he said yes, so here it is. please buy a paper off him and say you saw him here. it'll make his day (possibly)

here is a bag of banana skins on the District Line this evening. There were obviously some monkeys on the tube earlier (perhaps going to a chimps tea party) as there were banana skins everywhere else as well.

remember sara ? well, she's leaving to go round the world tomorrow so she had a do this evening.

i was only there for a short while as i had to go to another event with MPs, Cabinet Members, Lords, Earls and ... Floella Benjamin (the beaded hair children's presenter from my youth) !

here is a sign on a lightswitch near where some technical people sit. technical people love playing with buttons and switches.

to prevent this happening they've put a post-it on it which says "NO ! I'm a light switch". Of course the light switch doesn't have hands, so how was the note written ?

Thanks to regular commenter dave for spotting this. what a totally marvellous thing

i went to All Souls this lunchtime. The question was 'How good do you have to be to get in to Heaven'.

The answer was that there's nothing you can do morally or spiritually to make ourselves perfect enough to meet the entry requirements, so as human beings alone, we're stuffed which is a shame. and that's where Jesus fits in to the story.

You can listen to the services here. Life makes (more) sense when you've got an eye on the end game. otherwise, what's the point ?

here are two biscuits (one split) at a disco.

at night the glass things on the floor flash different colours in time to the music so the biscuits get the full boogie experience. it's kind of like that michael jackson video. only more normal.

unfortunately, due to a lack of biscuit police, during the day digestives mill around and fight. here we see a chocolate digestive has beaten up a regular digestive.

i blame the parents.

this pile of cack was on the street outside my favourite charity shop. i think it was from a split bin bag (bling bag ?) and was probably charity rejects. there's a level of second hand junk that even charity shops don't want.

including a Hayes V34+ analogue modem (with adapter) it seems.

here is a residential tower block. there is beauty in 1970s concrete symmetry

i got a different train this morning and walked to work a different way. i even bought a different type of confectionary. i was trying to see what it would be like to be someone else doing a different commute.

on the train the window wouldn't shut. this resulted in much angry huffing from fellow passengers who variously tried to slam the window shut to get it to stay closed. each time someone succeeded the train would wobble and it would drop open again.

i was sitting next to the window so i got a steady icey blast from the outside which i quite enjoyed. it's great being wrapped up in a warm coat and hat, with your feet gently warmed by the floor heating, whilst your face is being frozen off.

i might break all the window catches so i can experience this again (in winter)

occasionally the display screens at my local train station don't work. today was one such occasion (though it was working 7 hours earlier, at midnight, when i came home last night).

it was pulsating a nice wobbly pattern, reminiscent of an oscilloscope on a 1970s Open Univeristy program.

There was a man with wild hair and a big beard wearing a labcoat pointing at it with a wooden stick whilst chalking something on a blackboard besides him (i made this last bit up)

i'm reading The Book of Matches by Nicholson Baker at the moment and it is most excellent. a regular reader recommended another book by this author which i couldn't find in my local bookshop so i bought this instead.

excellent for not saying much about anything in a nicely detailed way. read it. marvellous.

this is an odd object (an oddject). it's by a building site which used to be an abattoir. here it was a long time ago. it's a long white cycliner with a hook at the end.

i suspect Pete might know

i've been to some work do tonight. i've been out every night this week so far and will be tomorrow and have a music practice on friday night. this makes me very popular at home.

i found this glove on the floor in the pub next to The Barbican Centre in London. i went in there as i arrived at my meeting 30 mins early.

you can make a job out of anything nowadays. what are you good at ? play to your strengths.

i've just spotted (and heard) this man outside my window at home. he's unloading massive concrete blocks in front of a bungalow.

so far, his skills have included driving up and down our dead end street with his articulated lorry twice - once with an extra trailer, once without it (perhaps it fell off)

he then climbed up on to his little stool and using a mechanical grabber picked up and moved the concrete blocks.

it appears to me this man may have had his training in a fun fair.

driving skills courtesy of the dodgems and the lifting skills finely honed by playing those machines with little grabbers which never quite managed to lift the teddy bear/watch/£10 note/packet of cigs.

today is a day of reading regulatory documents, hence nothing exciting is likely to happen. which is a shame. but there we go. i'll keep you posted.

i work with this chap. he's decided to take a photo of himself every day. i like that idea. a lot. he also takes photos of road paint. another good idea

click the pictures for more of the sane same:

the conditions were ideal, if a little windy, for a lunchtime race on Tottenham Court Road.

It was the first annual funkypancake paper puddle boat race.

There were four boats two from John (top and bottom), one from Pete (on the right) and one from myself (on the left).

i try to look both ways as much as possible:

smart and casual
fat and thin
tall and small
bright and thick

it worried me to ask, but what opposites do you attract ?

yeah, just found another photo:

read all about it on the davescollections website

this cucumber is on the street outside my office and represents a slip hazard. but is it as bad as a vol-eu-vent ? Popular classical songsmith Charlotte Churchslipped on a vol-eu-vent the other day whilst walking past an ex-boyfriend.

She probably could have complained in a french accent that she had been briefly stolen-by-the-wind. But it did make me think how slippy are vol-eu-vents.

my thoughts are that if it were upsway down, then standing on it would expel slippery sauce on to the floor, whilst the pastry mixed with a smaller amount of sauce would stick it to the shoe, thus creating ideal slippage conditions.

i may attach a couple to my shoes for everyday use when i need a little extra speed. we could have a few races.

on the subject of racing, i am proposing a different kind of race with my work colleagues for this lunchtime as the weather is perfect for paper boat on puddle racing. we have wind, big puddles and at the moment it's not raining. we'll haev to see how we are doing by lunchtime ...

here is a man travelling by tea trolley down by Middlesex Hospital (congestion charge exempt). he's pushing fast to build up speed and is about to jump on.

There has been a bit of a pedestrian backlash recently because train travellers soemtimes get drinks trolleys. This chap is a drinks trolley vigilante. i salute him for that. i also quietly applaud his lab coat.

here is a miracle i walked past this morning. it's a pen (looks like an entry-level bic biro - one of my favourites) which is LEAKING COFFEE !

if this had been a statue of the virgin mary drinking milk, or a stone dripping blood this website would be syndicated around the world.

unfortunately i suspect this won't catch the public's imagination.

you may be interested to note the following additional features in this photo:
1) chewing gum (red blob top left)
2) cracked pavement (top left)
3) a melted dustbin (stuff that looks like wax on the bottom of the photo)
4) a few drops of rain

an action packed photo i'm sure you'll agree.

here is someone's old umberella. it has been stuck on a fence and the wind has stripped it's wings bare. poor thing. so many words for such a funny thing.

here is a moped. they are exempt from the congestion charge you know. and you can park them anywhere.

stick not included.

what better way to start the week than with a picture of pete. this is him viewed through the safety glass in the office door.

the new carpet has arrived and it looks good. they've done a very nice job which is rare in these days of cowboy builders (never trust a workman on a horse, or indeed one carrying a gun)

here is a dead dove which has been at my train station for the last week. the disturbing thing is the position of the wings. i hope you don't mind me sharing this with you. (it was very dark when i took the photo and i didn't want to flash in public before 7am)

it's day 17 of the amazing hair growing cat.

The hair is definaltey thicker. I'll give it one more week then chop it up !

click to inspect

here is kezia by our church door. it's been a bonkers morning for weather. one moment gales and sideways very wet rain. the next bright sunshine. this was a sunshine moment. see how baby poo's head and arm glows.

click the one on the right for a big version.

it's sunday so it's church so i see big eye tony so i take another photo of him. from this angle he looks like a roald dahl character. in actual fact he's a jolly nice chap and a very good friend.

not sure if anyone noticed but the server went poorly again last night. i've now implemented a little message thing which i'll put up if it happens again.

it means i can't add any new posts and no comments will be displayed during this time ! hopefully it won't happen that often. if it does you'll see this:

how do you like your custard ? i'm definately thick. very thick.

jane made some custard which was very thick indeed. the test is whether you can take a spoonfull, turn it upside down and see if it can be defeated by gravity.

this custard put up a healthy fight and i loved it. you could even stand the spoon up in the jug. lovely. you can tell by my face i'm loving it.

just recently i've become extremely unphotogenic. for this i apologise.

and here is a boat we saw in henley today, coincidently called 'The Flying Custard':

here is herve inspecting the cat. i've posted little about it since last saturday, but it continues to grow. maybe some more photos will be coming in soon ...

esther spotted this bobble and was adamant that i stand and delivered a photograph of it. so it did. she's pointing at it on the floor on the right hand side

here is a shoe in the river thames. perhaps there is someone upside down ('upsway down' according to esther) still wearing it. we didn't pick it out to find out. sometimes it's best just to leave these things be.

in a strange work-meets-home scenario, we invited my friend and colleague Herve over for the day. we went to a restaurant where we made everyone do some homework. kezia was ok, but esther had to help herve with his word search

and here we all are (except me) by the swing park:

here is kezia's favourite baby. she calls it 'baby poo' as it's always doing poos and needs its bottom wiping (according to kezia).

for a baby it can be a little vicious at times. here it is holding a match and drinking some coke.

those who blog will know of the scurge of blog comment spam. the idea that someone posts a comment with their webaddress name pointing to their website which is usually selling some enhancing or prolonging or age reducing miracle.

when i took this photo i thought it was a glove. upon further inspection in the comfort of my own home it looks more like socks

pizza made by esther. we were all so proud.

this whole office survival thing is going too far. i called the lift just now and it arrived full of tools. hammers, saws, power drills etc.

some lifts just have an emergency phone. but what were they thinking. i'm a danger to myself with my DIY (don't injure yourself) skills.

pay on foot sounds very monty pythonesque. i balanced 20 pence on my shoe. luckily i didn't have a car

i once wondered crafted a phrase which i shall share with you now

"That's not a table, it's a backless widechair"

you can use that if you like.

a three legged chair can be a good thing, but only if you lay the legs out correctly. there is something to learn for us here.

there was a great sunrise this morning. real end of the world stuff.

when i used to live in sheffield i used to help our at a breakfast project at the cathedral for the homeless and needy. it involved getting up at 6.30am i think which was quite early for a student who had been dancing at the discoteques until the early morning.

anyway, there was a chap who used to come along who lived in the local mental hospital. every morning he would 'escape' and end up at the cathedral for his breakfast.

i'll be here there and everywhere today. hopefully nothing will go pie-shaped.

here are three glasses containing soapy water sticking up above the bubble line in the sink. they had a certain beauty in real life which is somewhat lost on this small photographic version

a tree in hyde park

odd job pete showed me how to bind a document today. i chose to bind a copy of the RIPA. Pete taught me well and said "you can do this bit, it's easy" or words to that effect.

i inserted my document in to the squasher and ended up with this mess:

after a happy 10 minutes unpicking the metal bits, pete himself inserted the document and got a perfect result. i didn't take a photo of pete's one as it was too good.

i'm doomed to a life of hamfistedness

kids and parents guide to keeping safe on the internet

i know you like pictures of random people, so here is another one.

this is a man who doesn't work in our building. he works in another building. but he turned up here today. and he was quite soggy hence the kagoool

i have a very complicated ritual for breaking new boots in. Today i've gone back to my old boots until my blisters get a bit better. The beauty is that it allows my old boots to have their last few journeys and gives them a chance to remind me how comfortable they had become.

unfortunately, because it's chucking it down with rain in london, my 40 minutes walk to work also revealed how holey they are. the result is soggy feet which will probably end up infecting my blisters and i'll have to have my feet amputated.

one good thing is that the rain has washed all the mud off.

not sure what to do with your old christmas cards ? how about cutting the pictures out and sticking them on to the end of a stick so you can terrorise your colleagues ?

i know there is at least one architect who reads this blog fairly regularly.

Perhaps someone can explain how they manage to construct offices entirely of clouds. Here is one such building on Euston Road. Is it all done with mirrors ?

in this modern world of daily threats, many people have taken to finding other ways of travelling which don't require you to be squashed in to a little metal tube in a tunnel way under the city.

of course, it's still one of the most efficient ways of getting round town so people still use it.

it's against this climate of fear that i was interested to see a sign which reminded people of the possibility of death on the underground (if they open the door which links carriages)

Death is something we don't generally talk about but it's worth considering as there's a 100% chance it will happen to you (and me). But i'd still rather not have a sign with death written on it whilst travelling !

whatever happened to sally, sara and ash you ask ? well, when i moved downstairs they moved over to our other office. Since i was there for the monday-morning meeting i popped in to say hello.

Sara wasn't there, but sally and ash both say hello. Here they are with their window view. they can see a golfing man on a rooftop and a big red helicopter.

Later, i arrived back at my desk to be informed that the carpets on the stairwell are being replaced so we've got to use the lift today.

Here is walter explaining the carpet situation:

my monday morning meetings at work now happen on a wednesday morning. so on a wednesday i get the tube right the way across, instead of walking halfway across, london.

i don't really like the tube as i generally have less eventful journeys that way (usually because i just read a book). But this morning i saw this great sign on my Hammersmith line train.

It's obviously a spoof one, but very good. It was so realistic i did a double take before i realised it was not a normal sign.

for more tube related strangeness (and signs) check out Going Underground's Blog, in particular this

change is always painful.

my second prediction came true. And today i'm wearing the new boots. I've had them on for two hours now (i booted at 6.30am) and the pain is significant.

It's a good way of discovering pain receptors which i didn't know i had. little toes, top bit of foot (whatever that's called), heal, ankle, lower leg. I shall be stopping by a chemist later for some plasters.

i told you a few days ago how bad i am at DIY. It seems Esther has a similar affinity for the genre. here is her attempt to nail a nail in straight to a piece of wood.

she does nailing at pre-school which i think is great. i was 'mother's help' once and got to supervise 3-4 year olds hammering real nails in to real wood.

they were scared. i was scared. we were all scarred (mentally).

here is a scrap of paper i saw on the floor outside a restaurant where i had just eaten chicken. It says 'hen you die'.

a late office xmas lunch today at the place which sells gypsy's arms. This time we had meat on a stick dangling from a fancy hook thing.

There aren't that many vertical foods. kebabs are the only ones i can think of. i'm sure others can think of food which is served skyward.

companies are a lot more interested in their employees welfare these days. not just at work, but at home too. they realise that a good home life is as important a motivator as a fat pay cheque.

they've obviously concluded that children aren't part of this plan as they have provided some sterilising tablets for our consumption.

They have recently appeared next to our drinks machine, so possibly we have already been consuming them without realising it ? the proof - in the three weeks since i moved floor, no one from the office has got pregnant.

as you may know, london was, until the 1980s, a small village in a giant pine forest on a mountain. In the 80s they removed the trees, flattened the mountain, and moved various historic buildings from across the UK in to the newly formed city of London.

They even extended this concept to the london underground where the various different lines were brought from different towns and villages. This is why each of the lines has its own individual characteristics, and why so few other towns in the UK have their own underground transport. One engineer on the project said "it's like extracting varicose veins and putting them back in someone else's legs, but much more rewarding"

The idea was that a concentration of ancient and interesting buildings in a small area would encourage tourism as well as providing a nice backdrop for those working in the city.

Unfortunately, with progress, nature was destroyed. The pine forest and mountain seem like a distant dream. People who lived in London village just 25 years ago still resent the destruction of their quiet hamlet.

These people protest silently once a year by placing pine trees in the street outside their houses thus hindering pedestrian access.

here are just a few i spotted this morning:

remember laura who cut her finger in a dramatic office accident incident ? well, apparently she's going to appear on The Salon this evening on Channel 4 at 6pm.

She's being sprayed orange. Will she mention the accident which nearly destroyed her receptioning career ?

not sure if i'll get home in time to see it. if i don't, please be my eyes and let me know what you see.

UPDATE:
Laura did not appear on the program and refused to make an official comment.

Instead she said: "I think you should act as my spokesperson as i'm far to famous. Please explain that only Ade and Leo's clients were featured as they are up for eviction this week."

I can only apologise to anyone who had to sit through the program last night. If it's any consolation, i know what you went through !

can't be bothered to take your decorations off your tree ? just chuck it out in to the street like this tree:

it was obviously better decorated than this when it was first put out as there were baubles and tinsel all up the road. here are a few pictures (including one with my muddy boots)

it's the first day back to work for most people so transport misery is guaranteed. so i decided to beat they system and get up at 5am instead of 6am and arrive at work an hour earlier at 7.10am, which meant arriving at paddington at 6.30. this idea was kezia's. she helped me by shouting and crying from 4.30 thus preventing any further sleep from occuring.

getting IN to the office at that time proved more of a challenge than getting out of bed.

here is a new transport idea which seems to be very popular (poplar?) this morning. it's pine tree transport. i think the idea is you take your old christmas tree, ride it around london then park it outside your house.

interesting site if you want to see some tv programs being made in the UK.

I know i'm bad at DIY and so do you because i told you. I was therefore heartened to see this attempt to hang a picture in the restaurant we went to this evening.

click the picture for a big version to see:

a) a rawl plug with no screw in it to the left of the hanging picture

b) a highly protruding screw in the right place to the left of the hanging picture, suggesting the hole and rawl plug were too small for the screw eventually used

c) the extra (painted) nail in the wall above the picture

we went out for a special family treat to a restaurant this evening to bring an end to the holidays.

here is kezia drinking some coke (or 'coat' as she calls it). the other photo is of esther and me. i'm trying to look as excited as i can, but esther isn't convinced. luckily she's seen me do this expression before and it no longer scares her.

top tip for UK restaurant fans - if you are going to eat at a beefeater restaurant and you have kids (under 14 i think) you can get 20% off with a free saver card thing they do. but you have to register first. so pop in a few days before and fill in the form. that way you can use the saver-card on your visit (instead of having to wait until the next visit)

i've been trying to fill jane's tax return in, but the inland revenue site is broken (nice plan) so i thought i'd do some DIY instead.

when it comes to DIY i am rubbish. totally.

my limit is a dripping tap. that's just about doable i thought. just a matter of turning the water off, unscrewing the thing and cleaning the doofa and puttting it all back together.

so i went to our airing cupboard where i thought the stop cocks would be. and this is what i found was a load of pipes (note the absence of anything turny):

so i followed the pipes (some hot some cold) and found this under some floorboards:

i haven't got a clue where anything goes, or what it supposed to do. it's all too scarey. so i'll put up with the dripping tap for a few more weeks until jane's dad's available to do it for me point me in the right direction

meanwhile brother edd is a few miles away rewiring someone's house. either he got all the practical genes or the household he's rewiring should be very scared.

erk - this has got to be my most boring blog entry to date. i apologise.

back to work tomorrow so normal mis-service will be resumed.

we had a great game of dark hide and seek this evening. after our guests had gone, we took it in turns to play hide and seek in the living room. the added fun part was that we turned off all the lights making the room completely dark.

we started off with the finders using a torch (always fun with kids), but then when that got too easy and our eyes got used to the dark we played it completely dark.

esther and kezia (and jane and I) loved it. a highly recommended game for anyone with a dark house (with or without kids)

(artistic representation of our living room with the lights off - i am hiding under the table by the bean bag)

here is andrew, his finger and the cat. i've reread the instructions and this growth could go on for another month and probably hasn't reached a peak yet. so, i plan to leave the daily updates for now and come back to it next weekend.

once the growth has finished i may move to an autoposy to extract the mouse.

we had a great squelchy puddly muddy walk this afternoon. both esther and katie fell in the mud which (luckily) they both found really funny.

get your wellies on and jump in some muddy puddles. don't forget to climb a gate and have a ponder.

it's not been easy for jane having her husband at home for nearly two weeks.

looking after a 1 year old and a 4 year old is easy compared to a 31 year old. this truth is revealed in her weary looks.

it's day 8 of the amazing hair growing cat

i suspect we are reaching about the limit of the fur growth now, though i have no evidence to suggest the rate of growth is slowing. i'm just a little scared about what might happen next.

i'm a bit duff at macro photography, but here is my attempt. i've tried a few different lighting positions so you can appreciate the fuzzyness of the hair.

click for big versions

i love old technology. here is a hair drying device:

and here is another hair drier and a tv:

i took these photos at the milestones museum

brother edd took us to the i took these photos at the milestones museum in basingstoke. it was very good.

here is kezia with her 'sheety'

they had a christmas grotto there, but because it's after christmas it was santa-less. it was the ideal opportunity to pretend to be him for next year. unfortunately kezia was asleep. but brother edd enjoyed it

two signs of interest today

don't drop stuff on people's heads with a forklift truck:

don't carry squares over semi-circles:

day 7 of the amazing hair growing cat

it's been out of the bag for a week now and it's still growing. here is a picture from a different angle for variety

click for big version

imagine if this wasn't some weird fur thing, but in fact static electricity made visible by some magical camera technique. i'm not sure if that idea makes it any less eery.

cross ? i'd be livid if it were me.

i asked the poor road what had come over it. "3 cars and a lorry" was the predictable cracker-joke answer.

having failed to get to windsor park on monday, we did it today instead. last time we went it was lovely and sunny. today it was very cold.

esther has got the hang of starting and stopping which makes cycling more independent.

when we arrived at windsor park esther said "does this all belong to the queen?"
"yes"
"and can we go in there ?"
"yes, that's why we're here"
"that's very kind of her"
and so it is.

so, if you are reading this and are the Queen of England, then "thankyou" from esther.

here is kezia and a christmas tree decorated in security tape outside a park ranger's office

here is a glove jane found in windsor park. it was on a fence post in front of the General Stores.

it may even have belonged to one of her majesty's grandchildren. but probably not.

the sign next to the swan says pedestrians only. who do swans think they are ? i was thinking of doing a citizen's arrest, but wasn't sure whether this was applicable to her majesy's swans. and i didn't fancy my chances of survival.

there's nothing worse for young kids than seeing their father mauled by a swan. so this time i let it go. next time i'll take some kind of electrical device.

i seem to have real issues with swans.

my mum arrived after the girls were in bed last night, so there was still plenty of important present giving and cracker pulling to be done