and here is one with a number which was too far to get to. but i will track it down and find its number:

this post deliberately left blank.

i walked past the box last march (!) and this time it was empty as the actors were having a break. or perhaps they had just given up and gone home.

and here is a Bible in a glass box outside a church:

he thinks the sun shines out of his ...

you spend all morning thinking what to wear and you walk out in to the street and there's someone wearing exactly the same computer advert as you. ho hum.

you can tell easter is on the way. i spotted my first easter card growing wild in a flower bed this morning.

here is something very interesting. it's ANOTHER page 150 but looks different from the previous page 150.

does anyone actually wear a cloak these days ? they're all probably packed away with monacles and cravats in a box marked 'dandy'

we took esther to the west end last night to see joseph and his amazing technicolour draincoat. it was very good. tuesdays are half price.

first we had some food

then we went to the theatre

here are two of kezia's babies: poo and tiny.

(i took this on my negative day but forgot to post them)

people ask why i don't drink tea or coffee and prefer to stick to hot water.

it's not easy and sometimes i really crave for a nice blend of glucose syrup and vegetable fat to whiten my drink. instead i use tippex (or another generic brand of white paint based correct fluid)

what is vegetable fat ? sprout blubber ?

why not invent a new device and call it an underscope ?

a budget home medical kit ?

i saw the minis again this morning. they've got unique numbers on. today's were 33 and 265. let's see if we can find all 350.

traditionally more famous for chocolate than gloves, belgium offers a wide variety of glove poses. these pictures were sent from Dan near San Francisco.

the glove next to the wedding dress is particularly poignant.

there seems to be a new fitness craze in london. it involves 'running' with giant steps, but the object of the exercise is to go as slow as you can with the biggest steps as possible !

these people looked like clowns trying to run through treakle on the moon. i wanted to go closer and see if they were talking really slowly to each other like a slowed down vide tape.

instead i hid in the trees and stalked a photo.

remember the turf ? it's still looking lovely.

as seen from the inside (secure side) of the houses of parliament. you'll be pleased to know my bag didn't fly off the security conveyor belt this time.

it's a while since we've had some street food. here is an orange, an apple, some cheese biscuits and a french roll. and some barriers.

it's very popular to put people in glass boxes in london. here are the latest ones.

they are actors in a bullet proof box in Trafalgar Square. they are reading all the year numbers spanning a million years or something. it's very good.

i didn't have time to stop and watch it all (it runs 24 hours until friday i think).

if i find a link i'll post it for you.

following last week's appalling attempts (and spellings) at finding famous people, here is a group of people who MUST be in a band.

they were standing outside my office looking all pop-starry. but who are they ?

to lighten the mood, here is a picture of walter showing us how firemen put out fires (by blowing on them).

with his headset telephone he looks like he could be a contender for the next pop idol.

as i mentioned earlier, i went to see the Passion of The Christ last night. I didn't think it was much good actually. but that's my opinion.

the music in the cinema was funky, the seats were comfy and the refreshments were plentyful. there was an advert for 'paradise poker' before the film which was a nice touch

here's me with my flagon of coke giving a nice 'post passion' wave:

but what did i really think ? here's my review for those who like to read words:

i spotted this in a shop window this morning. i think it might be subliminal advertising.

do you look like this ? if so, you need clothes. and arms.

i saw the passion of the christ this evening.

i felt sick about 20 minutes in to it and haven't stopped feeling sick since. mostly because i had a gallon of coke and loads of chocolates.

i'll do a proper review tomorrow (posted here) when i've thought about it a bit more. it's not a pretty film but you knew that already.

i love email. and blogs. and life really.

here are some gloves from america. Those travelling from the south of england should turn left on the way up to scotland and keep going. don't be sidetracked by the funny-speaking people on the way - you will meet lots of funny-speaking people when you get there.

when you do get there, go to a place called Phoenix Arizona, and ask for Jason of what's THAT about

he found these gloves whilst out cycling. you can see his tyre on the left

he writes "I've been putting together a collection of 'shoes' in the road images..it always amazes me that there will be one lonely abandoned shoe in the middle of the road and I wonder how it got there.. I wrote a haiku about it. it's on my site."

go find.

great news. i've managed to walk to paris. i walked over 80km last week. marvellous. last time i updated you was here if you want to check back on my progress.

here's a photo of me taking a photo. just so you know what you are looking for if you are stalking me in london.

it's cold and not sunny. but kids love sandpits. and sunglasses

can you see clearly ?

ferret

buffalo

tony

yesterday - another photo from the middle of hyde park. will add to davescollection in due course.

don't go to the building on the right of big ben unless you want your bag to fall off the security conveyorbelt.

i think this might be slightly ambitious. a small pub in london is proposing to host all the rugby games.

i don't know much about sport, but i do know that rugby platers are quite large, and just fitting them in this little bar would be hard enough, let alone letting them run around and bash in to each other.

perhaps it's got a large cellar bar.

i suspect the landlord might be even more deluded if he/she thinks they can avoid serving the players beer by enforcing this policy:

i suspect there may be a lot of dissapointed people in this pub. both on and off the pitch.

here's an excellent website of pictures. Some of the farside ones are especially good

i got sent this lovely sign from Hampton Court from EasyRew. It made me laugh.

i walked past this shop earlier in the week and it was full of jacket potatoes. i should have taken a photo but i didn't. but today the sign shows bacon and sausages where once the potatoes were.

very interesting.

a biker boot on a metal square

a sofa but no scaletrics track this time.

here is a sad story. someone has lost their cat. we lost one of our cats when esther was little and we had to put signs up all over the village and it was very sad. it never showed up our other cat died a few weeks later. now we are catless. oops. that was a sad story.

anyway, esther has a Richard Scary book about a girl's baby doll getting accidentally baked in to some bread. the bread then says "mama" and they find it unharmed

when the baker mews, i suspect the cat may have gone the same way.

i was delighted to spot two more pages from the Paddington Station sign book this morning.

Interestingly there was another page behind page number 93, but the paper was just to thick to read its number and message.

here is a little message left in our church hall. it says "there is a mouse eating biscuits not in a box".

i suspect we can interpret this message in different ways.

i haven't a clue who this celebrity is. and i suspect you won't either (even Tim who seems to know all the celebrities). you can be forgiven for your ignorance which is due in a large part to my poor photography.

i need a camera with a bigger zoom and more pixels. If you are reading this Mr Christmas then please put that on my Xmas list.

this filming involved fake snow which was blowing all over the place and causing the presenter (seen here with white boots on) to get plastic snow in her eyes and to eventually storm off). i got some snow on me. it was plastic.

more moody streetlights.

i walked past this chap earlier and realised he was being filmed. i had ruined it by walking past him. oops. but it did give me a chance to go to the other side of road and take these photos.

who is he ? i vaguely recognised him.

here is his head:

i'll return to this building on a sunny day for some better photos. i like how they have hidden their airconditioning.

is this result of a corporate makeover for the Catholic Church ? Management speak has converted congregation confessional boxes in to 'client admission centres'.

this is a fine sign. watch your step if you are in the breakdancing competition.

the oft-unviewed side of a picnic table

there was a massive struggle this morning involving three men pulling on a massive rope which was also attached to a massive lorry. the middle of the rope went down in to this pub basement and by some cunning means they were lifting a barrel.

on a comedy and terrorism related theme, i went to a very high security government building for a meeting this morning. i put all my valuables (camera, pedometer etc) in my bag before i arrived so they could all go throught the x-ray machine.

reconstruction

the man loaded my bag on to the conveyor belt, turned and looked at me, then turned back, pressed a button and ...

we're all on heightened alert. firemen are practicing their worst case scenarios (with dogs) in abandoned tube stations.

they announced on my train on monday that we should all keep our hand luggage near us to prevent terrorism. on tuesday they said we should keep our hand luggage by us so no-one stole it (you obviously can't trust a terrorist).

they even shut paddington station for an hour yesterday morning as they found a suspicious package, which eventually exploded (because the police blew it up - it wasn't a bomb)

so what would today bring in the fight against terrorism ? razor blades. what ? yes, complimentary razors for anyone of shaving age (and gender) walking through paddington station.

so at least if an attack comes we are all armed to fight back.

on a comedy related theme, i went to a very high security government building for a meeting this morning. i put all my valuables (camera, pedometer etc) in my bag before i arrived so they could all go throught the x-ray machine.

it's been a while since i last walked past this sign, but it's still here. interestingly i managed to include a clock in the picture so i can add this post to two categores.

when will the experiment end ? where will it be written up. who gets to keep the lab coats ?

here is an old tree propped up with metal sticks. how demeaning for this old tree to have to rely on a non-wooden metal post to stay upright.

z-beds are ideal if you need an extra bed temporarily. i wonder why people of the street haven't been making better use of this technology ?

here is a designer unique mini. and it's designer unique mini twin. there's another one in an adjacent street, but i would have had to move a few houses to get all three in the same shot. so i didn't.

i went to Asda last night to get some milk. i had a great time. i didn't take any photos whilst i was there, but there was millions of bizarre things going on. i think i'll do another trip (if i can afford it) and blog the event in detail.

some of the highlights included a pair of shoes by the CD counter which looked like someone had simply stepped out of and left behind, multipacks of crisps spread around aisles (like they had been set free), bottles of alcopop-type drinks by the toilet rolls and, my favourite, a bra hanging in the last minute impulse-buy section with the chocolate at the checkout.

the guy doing the announcements about bargains of teh day was fantastic too. he should have been running a mobile disco for the over 60s. i even phoned jane up so she could listen to his comedy banter.

here is my haul (mostly consisting of light bulbs)

the back lash against no smoking restaurants has begun.

someone hasn't quite got the idea of postboxes. i didn't check to see if the parcel was still there this morning.

remember laura ? she emailed me yesterday to tell me she was on the front page of a national newspaper yesterday. and so she was.

here are some gloves from brother kev (husband of my wife's sister). he was on a walk up a mountain/hill/incline and found them. so excited was he at his find that he phoned me from his windy external position

in his email he informs us that "All found on one walk, Sunday 21st March ‘04, Mothers day. During a walk up, I think it was called, sugar loaf hill, Great Malvern."

good finding kev. well done sir !

i'll get you a better picture of this sometime. it says "caution moving gate". it brought a sad tear to my eye.

here is a very reflecty window picture. it's from BBC Bush House and shows a demo of the BBC Digital interactive channel. you have to press the buttons on the window and you can see it. only you can't. because the monitor on the other side of the window is facing the wrong way. shame.

last time i saw this place it was not covered in firemen. today it was.

they were having a training exercise. it involved dogs at some point. i know this because a sign told me.

i was a bit confused at first because i ended up walking through the middle of the firemen on the wrong side of the security tape ! i then went round and back to the other side of the road to take this photo. this no doubt aroused many suspicions of suspicious behaviour.

here is a load of ice cubes under a tree:

here they are a bit closer up:

how funny i thought.

second later (and then a few minutes later when i took this photo) big chunks of ice started falling to the ground in the form of hail:

it must mean something ? but what ?

i forgot to tell you about a book i read a few weeks back. it's called Do Not Pass Go and is by Tim Moore. It's a very funny book which takes you round the modern day streets of the Monopoly Board looking for glimpses of the past and takes some guesses at why they chose the various streets that they did.

read it if you visit london lots, not much or not at all.

it was story-time for kezia this evening and she pointed at her books and said "kezzy choose". "of course" i said trying to be encouraging.

she grabbed something as quick as a flash and said "this one". this would have been fine, only it was a shoe. my response was to take this photo. we both thought it very funny.

about 4 hours later i've realised that she was probably saying "kezzy's shoes" which were on her bookshelf and not "kezzy choose". oh well.

it's her fault for not being able to speak properly.

here is a cheeky shop which is selling bin bags as umbrellas. but at least they are being honest about it.

who's that in the back seat of that silver car over there in the distance you ask ? well, it's phil jupitus, that's who.

his car drove past where i was walking and i looked in the window and there he was texting away on his mobile. by the time my camera has booted up he was way in the distance.

it's good to see my celebrity spots are back to their usual remote viewings follow a couple of good celebrity spottings.

there's a sofa next to my office which has been thrown out. i noticed it had computer monitor and a carrier bag on it. it's next to a skip and has been there all day so it's obviously for the bin.

in the carrier bag was a load of scalextric track:

john went on a mission to get it:

let's hope ebay can come up with a few cars, power supply and controllers ...

it's a little windy today and there's been a black bin bag floating outside my window for the last 5 minutes.

the wind has transformed an ugly black plastic bin liner in to a beautiful flying machine, dancing and twirling with me as the only audience.

... unless it's invisible laser light that can burn your eyes right off (unverified fact). please avoid the invisible beams.

so it appears there are two sorts of dangers. those we can see and those that we can't. if we avoid both of those then we should be ok.

writing in dirt has been popular since jesus' day (He was a dirt writer, though i suspect he wasn't writing 'clean me' on the floor).

Here is a variation. It says 'lovely ladies' which is nice. with the photo shrunkened down it looks a bit like 'lovely lanes' which is even nicer to have written on the back of a truck.

here is a man mopping the top of the BT Tower. At least that's how it looked a few second before when he was higher up the staircase.

And on the right is a non-reflected picture of the Tower looking very nice today in the sparkly sunshine.

can you guess today's mystery rubbish item ? an over zealous office cleaner has thrown the baby out with the bathwater (sort of).

will you mop this floor then put everything out by the bins?

kezia loves my christmas shoes. anyone who comes to the house gets a quick guided tour which starts with a visit to my shoes "daddy's chrismas shoes".

kezia loves wearing other people's shoes. So it was only right she combined her two favourite things.

kezia likes to do the sound check for the piano when we are playing. she was given a microphone whilst she was playing today but she shooed it away, preferring to concentrate on the accompaniament rather than singing.

it's mothering sunday today in the UK. esther and i made breakfast in bed for jane:

jane's parents came round after church for lunch then we went for a walk:

cheryl asked if she could see my charles and diana glass tankard full of drink.

here is it full of old speckled hen. hmm. old speckled hen. another sponsorship opportunity ?

dan, from san francisco-shire (that's in america you know) found this photo outside his place of employment.

within hours of finding it he jumped on a plane with his family to hand the photo over in person:

and here is the photo (it's quite small and dark so this is as good as it can be):

where do cows park their boats ? i don't know either. i suspect this sign may provide some kind of answer.

here is esther with our friends who read this blog. we had a lovely fun day.

on the train to henley:

in coats:

this coin was glued to the floor of the train to henley using the old glue-a-coin-to-the-floor trick. normally this trick involves a 50 pence piece. this being henley it was a nice round pound.

here is the complete esther picture. notice the kite. i didn't.

here are two pieces are art drawn by esther. the one on the left seems to be a person riding a horse. the one on the right is a person with an eye patch next to a winnie the pooh sticker:

here is a slightly older picture. once again we see the hidden eyes. a key feature of esther's current art.

i don't know it they'll work very well, but i thought i'd have a go. so you now have some lovely polls to fill in on the right. we can all learn about each other in aggregate. the polls should rotate randomly. possibly.

let me know if you have a good idea for a question (and a few answers) or have any problems.

here is kezia with her self-made frog hat on. she insisted on wearing it when she was having her bedtime prayers. it restricted her view slightly.

here is a hanky. it's on the floor in the station and no one has picked it up.

it used to be the case that ladies would drop their hanky to attract the attention of male of the opposite sex who would lean over and return said item to the lady of the opposite persuasion. (i suspect i may be over wording this slightly).

but the very fact that this was left on the station proved that this approach to dating no longer works. people would rather go speed dating instead it seems.

this sign has a multitude of uses. it's nice that people care.

here is a not very brilliant picture of a clock outside a funeral directors. it's constantly reminding us that our time on this planet is very much finite and time is ticking by.

funeral shops are funny old places. they never really get to meet their clients properly.

have you ever wondered how bins work ? here is one handily displayed in a cross section so we can see how it all fits together.

someone has put their rubbish in a paper bag. the paper bag sits in the metal bin. the metal bin (the 'actual' bin in this case) is then slotted in to a concrete holder which has been purpose built for the purpose.

brilliant isn't it ?

remember this chap ? well he was out yesterday with a couple of pensioners dressed up as funky 70s disco dancers with wigs. it was very scarey. their strange jerky arm movements were particularly disturbing.

rats on the south bank

i spotted this newspaper sign yesterday which related to the government's budget statement. you can see what kind of coutry modern britain is by the which things the papers think will concern us most. there were few mentions of the new VAT free status for church repairs ...

here is john outside my office drinking from a giant water bottle. he's been constantly thirsty ever since he got bitten by that foaming-mouthed dog a few weeks ago.

this street cabinet has been resently repainted with anti graffiti blobby paint. it's as black as can be yet seems to be really bright because it was reflecting the sunlight.

it was really quite attractive to look at. i might get our car done in a similar style.

spring is in the air and the pigeons are getting amorous. these two were snogging so passionately i couldn't get a decent photo.

everything about this shop screams quality. click for a bigger view. the door on the right is presumably unconnected with the main shop.

a great word and a sign ignored.

it says "please do not place any items on this plinth".

items means more than one, and there is only one bin, so it's probably ok.

this building is more reflection than real thing

here is the markings on a more modern postbox (as requested here). i spotted this one as it had its EiiR painted nicely.

my old tube season ticket used to let me go anywhere. nowadays i walk most places so i just buy tickets as i need them. the cheapest way for me is to buy a Carnet of tickets which works out as 10 tickets for £15.

However, i forgot that these tickets only cover zone 1. so my cunning plan to stay on an extra stop and get off a whitechapel instead of aldgate east backfired when my ticket wouldn't work to get me out of the station.

i could have paid to be released, but resented that so went back one stop and got off at the proper station. so sorry, but i haven't got lovely pictures of lovely things this morning.

but i did take this picture of a clock at Whitechapel tube station. i've been thinking a lot about analogue and digital clocks this morning. they are very different beasts. perhaps i'll tell you about it sometime.

oh, and to the person who phoned our house at 2am this morning from a mobile phone. please don't do that again. it's made us very tired today.

here's a book i've just read. it's a book of the small. and most excellent. it's by nicholson baker. probably the world has already heard of him, but i hadn't.

thanks to the person who recommended it (via a comment on this blog somewhere i think!).

jack straws. pick up sticks. station stirrers.

my colleague has just pointed me in the direction of this excellent website.

it's one of a small number of websites which live on the same little server as funkypancake so that makes us web-neighbours.

i just popped out to the sandwich shop to get my lunch and i popped in to the newsagents to get the chocolate element of my lunch. the conversation went like this:

me:[after looking at the chocolate for a while] there sure is a dazzling array of confectionary available for the modern man

newsagent: yes, too much if you ask me. people still want more and aren't happy with what we've got

me: yes, that's because chocolate can't satisfy the soul

the newsagent then stared at me like i was completely mad. i took my queue and left.

set your own art in motion with a bubble chamber picture

from my window i could see the robot wars merchandising shop. but it's shut or moved or something. it's funny how you miss things when they are gone. i never went in it, but it was quite exciting. now it's just a load of flourescent yellow and black lines.

it's quite common to see kids' soft toys stuck to the front of dustbin lorries. i suspect this must traumatise some kids - especially if it was their old favourite toy which was stuck on there.

teddy bears were never designed for the outside life and rapidly become brown soggy blobs of fluff through all the heavy street wear. they so provide a nice contrast to the bin men who put them there though. it proves these most menly of men (you rarely see bin ladies) still keep in touch with their femine side.

i may mention this next time i see such a bin lorry. but i may not.

this collection of teddys, dolls and union jacks was on a delivery van. i hope this craze will spread to all modes of transport, and not only restrict itself to commercial vehicles.

my local train station foot bridge has been painted blue. it looked and smelt lovely this morning. please enjoy it with me.

this door is alarmed apparently. i'm not surprised. it's been thrown out in to the street and left next to a bollard. it has no idea what will happen to it next. poor thing

i just walked past top UK comedy marvel Simon Pegg. He's one of my favourite comedians and has been doing a very funny show on XFM for the last four Fridays. His masterpiece was Spaced (the spaced website is superb!)

I wasn't sure if it was him or not so i said "simon pegg ?" in a loud and questioning voice. he confirmed and i asked permission (which was granted) to take my photo which i then did. marvellous.

update: i now get lots of visitors to this site from people googling for "simon pegg". if that's you then welcome !

Go and see Shaun of the Dead (which is very good though my wife thought it a little gruesome - but that's zombie's for you) and/or get the Spaced box set and relive the moments.

meanwhile, make yourself at home.

here's the team having a conference call in my office -harry, pete and john. the other participants are down my phone.

drain unblocking vans are always brightly coloured. but why ? i went down and knocked on the window of this van and asked the chap inside.

unfortunately he was incomprehensible but i think he said "it's management's idea. our senior management are women aren't they ?" i said i didn't know and left it at that.

possibly it's something of a backlash against their engineers being constantly covered in brown yuckyness ?

A good few years back there were lots of campaigns to 'keep sunday special'. the basic concept was that we should all have one day a week where we enjoy each other's company and think about and ejoy life stuff rather shopping.

needless to say the world of shopping won and many shops in the UK are open on Sundays albeit with reduced opening hours.

10 years later, John Lewis have just caught up. their balloons in their Oxford Street window declare they are open every day, especially sundays.

my local john lewis is open on a sunday but shuts on a monday instead just to confuse everyone.

yeah for the world of retail.

easter has arrived already. here are a load of chicks in a shop window. they'll be fully grown chickens by easter day.

bank holiday wise, in the UK you get as many holiday days for Easter as you do for Christmas. God-wise, Easter is as important, if not more so than Christmas.

Shopping wise, Christmas wins hands down (with the probably exception of chocolate). Meanwhile, let's enjoy lent.

here is a sign i saw in paddington station this morning.

this sign must be a temporary measure until the engineers come to mend the escalators. yet it's been professionally produced. it would have probably been quicker to mend the escalator.

then i noticed it said 'page 150' on the bottom left hand corner. i suspect there is a giant book of very specific signs issued to train station managers and they just wrip out the relevant page.

that book must be massive. i shall endeavour to find other pages from this book and report them to you as and when.

it was a week for contributed signs last week. here is one from Sara from her travels. it's a road kill bingo card. the winner is the first person to spot (or for double points, run over) all the items on the sign.

this game is obviously slightly cruel so they have a dedicated help line for the animals.

cousin mike has a dog. he also has a number of dog signs he was happy to share with you all. some are even clickable for enhanced enjoyment.

bags for large pets a speciality:

enhanced litter functionality:

dogs and bikes aren't appropriate shoes and very detailed dog instructions:

cousin mike went on holiday with cousin catherine and returned with some sign pictures. here the general ones:

signs have feeling too (as also demonstrated here) and a lovely photo spot:

what is this guy smuggling ? a giant peapod ? a straight banana ? some giant lips ?

report suspicious people (especially people taking photos of signs) and some high voltage entertainment:

update: i may reach Paris by the end of the week.

sunday afternoons are a good time for board games and the like.

we had lunch with my old housemate Paul and his wife Liz. lovely food and lovely company. marvellous. (liz is very pregnant hence the profile bump shot)

paul is also completely mad:

a squirrel furtively nibbling an acorn

today was a trip to the natural history museum. it's fantastic value (free) and is most excellent. dinosaurs were the main draw of course. i liked the earthquake/volcano etc bits. even the building itself is fantastic.

lots of fun was had by all.

and it's only a shortish walk from Paddington Station so we even managed to avoid 'tube with pushchair' misery.

here is a bottle of water dangling from a tree and tied to the top of the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. very mysterious.

this is a very bizarre sign. what's it saying ?

have people been complaining that the nightclub is too shoddy and the campaign to have it refitted have failed ? or has it closed and the owners want to squash the rumours of a refit ?

or maybe there's some other explanation ?

click for big version

here's something outrageously british. apologies to any american's still in shock from janet jackson's superbowl outing ! It's the Cerne fertility giant

It's best seen from the air, but you can see it fairly well from a viewing point. unfortunately we went on a very foggy day.

notice the giant's scissors.

on our recent holiday we went to Monkey World. It's fab ! Go there. now.

there's mad violent scarey things:

Free range Lemurs (you can go in to their enclosure with them):

chimps:

and of course (!) chickens:

here is a sign up a tree. but what does it say ?

squirrels and owls please take note.

Behind our holiday house was a wood where we went for an early morning pre-breakfast walk.

here is a sign to the lovely sounding puddletown:

here is a pond (highly reflective):

and a nice loverly path:

and here is kezia all dressed up puddle jumping:
here is kezia:

have you ever seen a sadder donkey ?

this must be how bees see street cleaners

here are some lads on a stag night. the one at the front is playing bagpipes and dressed in all your classic bag piping garb (scottish readers can feel proud).

the long shutter speed (caused by the rainy conditions) and negative effect (thanks to negative photo day) cause a nice trippy effect i think.

remember the mole hole ? well it's now got two gloves on it and even some blue string. it's a summary of the week's blogging in one steaming pile !

also there's an identical pile of dirt in the street where i live at the moment. perhaps i should dig down and see if they are connected by a tunnel.

the gloves and string don't show up to well because of my choice of photography style for today. sorry.

here is a slightly threatening post-it note. it says "next time something is going over". is this a note from hit man to a client regarding a contract to throw someone off a bridge ? should i phone the police or investigate myself ?

contractual information displayed in an empty shop. notice my matrix like appearance in the reflection. that's what i actually look like.

is it ever appropriate to have beer for breakfast ? i occasionally think i might fancy a pint when i'm walking to work. but by then i have been up a few hours. what's the cut off point before which drinking is unacceptable and you have to admit you have a problem ?

Here is a van advertising Honey Dew, my favourite honey based ale.

it was snowy this morning. here is a no entry gate

and here are the allotments by the station:

it rained one day on holiday so we went to a dinosaur museum in dorchester. it was a bit dull to be honest. the posters claimed it was a multimedia museum, but that meant a few computers with picture databases on which were built in the 1990s.

here is a dinosaur head:

in amongst all the factual dinosaur stuff they had these to scare little (and big) kids with some imaginary life sized people dinosaurs:

crazy 3D effects were courtesy of red and blue glasses (very 1980s):

and i was happy to see some jurasic computer history:

here is another comedy hotel (real this time). to encourage you to stay in their lovely hotel they had installed an ancient crumbly photo montage showing what the rooms were like. if the quality of the photos was anything to go by, they won't be having many happy visitors.

left is the board for the board (and lodging) and right is the bedroom

There's a mini-science museum called Discovery in the Brewers Quay in Weymouth and it's great. it's three smallish rooms choca with physics stuff you can play with ! esther and i went and it we had the place to ourselves.

esther loved the mirrors best - there was a room where you could go in and shut the door and see yourself off to infinity in all directions.

and i always love a fish eye mirror

highly recommended !

my first nautical glove

last time we were here it was a bit warmer. compare and contrast jane nearly one year previous.

randomly, round the beach is a load of fencing. thankfully some of this has been kicked in by the locals (i assume) so there are a few holes where pensioners can see the sea through whilst sitting on benches.

who says the youth of today don't care about the old folk ?

Weymouth is a funny place. we saw this woman last time we were there.

here is a shop which sells fancy goods. what are fancy goods ? well they aren't cigarettes or rock. one man's fancy is another's normal. the shop is boarded up. perhaps someone took the owner's fancy ?

next to the fancy good shop is this excessively elaborate public toilet:

and between the two is this very dodgy looking door which leads to a passageway between the two buildings. it claims to be a hotel !

andrew, who was very kindly babysitting the blog whilst i was away, spotted this Starsky and Hutch photo call today. it's got the new and the old. and the car.

typical. the one day i'm not in london today and i miss it !

he also sent this glove and this trolley disaster:

what kind of a price is £12 ? £11.99 would have been better.

these little stickers are all over my village on lamposts and stuff. probably some pesky kids. but where were they from originally ? and what was the original price ?

i suspect it was a failed marketing campaign. some bright spark thought he'd advertise his £10 goods as newly increased priced at £12 to see if he could make some money. how foolish he would have felt when he'd realised his own stupidity.

it's a while since i set myself an interesting challenge so i thought i may have a black and white photo day tomorrow. i'll set it on my camera rather than remove the colours on my computer.

alternatively i could use the pyschedlic setting which i acidentally actioned for this shot.

what's it to be ? black and white or psychedlic ?

the misery of the modern commutter is sound waves. the noise of squealing wheels and brakes, and modern man speaking on his wires free eletrical telephones and magical musical listening lanterns.

i looked out my train window this afternoon and saw a train with a particularly wide mouthed occupant.

i went to gatwick today and saw gloves galore. i had struck a very rich seam of mostly laytex gloves

where would we be without scissors ? some people are trying to find out.

after nearly three months, the hairy cat is finally no more. last seen it was dropped in to water and all the hair fell off. before that it was very hairy.

jane finally tired of the must in the glass so we put it in a bowl and tried to find the little mouse. but there wasn't one ! what a dissapointment.

here are photos of
1) initial tentative searching for the mouse with an old pen
2) more thorough searching /mushing
3) added more water to soak the mouse out
4) admitting there isn't a mouse and flushing down the plug hole

the cat and mouse experiment is now closed. thank you for your cooperation and interest

here is a completely confusing sign i saw on the edge of a building site. the green goes nicely with the purples, but i haven't a clue what it means.

it appears to be implying that the people in the middle are the centre of gravity.

perhaps it's the holy trinity in the middle (God, Jesus, Holy Spirit in that order). The sign is subtly telling people "hey, this God/Jesus/Spirit thing. think about it. it's the only way of making sense of life".

i suspect it's actually an emergency congregation point. which is also how some people think of God.

a large scourer or perhaps it's an astro turf divert from a roof top london golf course.

at what point in life do you not get excited when fire engines come whizzing down your street ? it's the noise and the colours. red fire engines and yellow hats look so good together.

the gates were closed so i knocked on the door. thank fully there was no one in so i didn't need to explain that i was just taking their sign literally.

or perhaps the joke was on me as there was some fantastic prize for the first person to follow the random street instructions.

we are programmed to obey orders. especially when they are written in such flambouyant handwriting

come to london where the street are paved with CDburning software.

this puzzled me. has someone travelled to work by dirt ?

or has someone stolen a car by digging underneath it and pulling it down a hole ?

or is this a giant cat poo from the giant cat which lives in london ?

this bike as a long tube sticking up in the air on its rack at the back. it reminds me of one of those kids training bikes with a handle on the back. or a dodgem car. perhaps bikes are powered by overhead electricity lines in these modern days.

or maybe it's an undercover police bike and the tube conceals the various aerials and communication paraphanalia [no 'e's for me].

here is a washing machine outside a laundrette. business is growing at a greater rate than their accomodation. they should put up some rotary washing lines instead of the electronic driers.

this might be my favouritistest sign of all time. it made me smile for days. it's a tank chasing a monkey (thanks to jane for doing some fantastic driving to allow me to get out the car and take this photo):

but who would really win such a battle ? having had our car eaten by a monkey i could understand why things had changed by the time we reached the next roundabout:

here are some more monkeyless tank signs:

it appears we know the enemy is tracking our tanks.

people like order amongst chaos.

i was delighted to see two blue ford focus estate cars parked next to each in a massive empty car park. SNAP !

i've mentioned benches before. it's not clear to me if the JOY on the back of this bench is a person or a concept.

this way to the sky.

this ball is a glove showing the British Empire (as was):

a few metres away from this point was a really tame (wild) fox:

it even stood still so we could get a nice photo.

maritime architecture is a fantastic thing. i love looking at buildings near the sea. curved corners seem to be the main feature. absolutely no right angles please.

i was therefore delighted to see this 'modern' building in swanage (a british seaside town). it's quite something.

this sign has a spiritual dimension.

swanage beach in march is cold but good fun (if you are a kid)

and here is jane looking jolly:

esther has come up with a brilliant plan. she's going to wear a star on her hand for 24 hours. where does she get such great ideas from ? it's a performance art thing i recon.

by the way, the lent activity is still going well.

roads themselves don't go anywhere. perhaps it's referring to the slow movement of tectonic plates. that would account for the unevenness (oddness) of the road surface.

they shouldn't let geologists make street signs.

i went to the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall for a meeting this afternoon.

The Royal Automobile Club club is one of those historic gentlemen's club things which were very popular with the upper classes in years gone by. The people who were running the presentation i was attending had hired a room on the 1st floor.

I arrived at the same time as about 10 of my colleagues. As i walked in a very nice waiter/bouncer chap approached me and in front of everyone asked if i had a jacket. i replied i didn't (preferring shirt/tie/suit trousers with jumper rather than jacket). he then said "sorry, you have to wear a jacket to get in".

ooops. luckily he had one in his jumble sale box which i borrowed. i felt like the kid at school who forgot his sports kit. he said i could take it off as soon as i got to the room. i got a few remarks about the jacket, which matched one of the other attendees normal jacket !

here is me wearing the borrowed jacket in the men's toilets and below it and the communal comb and hair brushes provided for club members to brush their receeding hairlines (i decided not to try them out):

why did i call this item RAC IQ ? because i wasn't smart enough.

the lost underground station at The Strand.

this time an urban tree trap.

as regular readers will know, london was once a pine forest on a mountain.

however, did you also know that the new London actually floats on the thames ? here are some of the tethering ropes which go down through the ground and pop out in to the thames where they are anchored.

it's quite common to see these ropes protruding from the street as they wear themselves lose by the bobbing movements.

here's an interesting thing. it's a blog which is a bit like mine, set in the same part of london with the same obsession for signs.

marvellous.

russell davies

i occasionally see beer cans and empty boxes in doorways. these are the tell-tale signs of 'life' left by street people.

i used to help with a couple of homeless projects a while back and the amazing thing was the type of people who ended up homeless. they came from all social classes and backgrounds. it could happen to anyone.

here we see the dining remains of an obviously higher class of street liver. two bottles of red, some breadsticks and humous dip, an apple, some foliage (for decoration) and a pile of takeaway menus. they've never had it so good.

it's rare to find love on the street of london. but here it is. for all to see.

here is a post-it stuck on a door. it says 'no publicity. thank you very much'. i suspect the house belongs to some failed celebrity who is sarcastically thanking the paparatzi for the lack of publicity he has received.

i should have knocked on the door and asked. but i didn't.

random paint splatter on road looks like eye. blogger risks life to obtain photo.

here is a little plastic exit sign which was blowing down the street. it had obviously taken its own advice.

a friend sent me a spam which linked to this site. it's a lovely idea. the ministry in a box concept is nice too.

disclaimer: This site has nothing to do with me and i would highly recommend you don't get ordained. any distater or general badness resulting from your ordination via this route is not my fault. ok ?

Be Ordained Now

there's still a load of holiday stories to tell (we've only got up to last monday night so far). i'll post them later in the week so as not to flood you all with new stuff today !

but for now, here is a falling apart rusty sign from falling apart rusty weymouth. we don't know what award they won ...

henley-on-thames is a posh upper class town in the south of england. i was therefore surpised to see that a new shop has opened selling opium to the masses (or equivalent).

brown sauce is a strange thing. tomato ketchup is sometimes called red sauce, because it is red. and it tastes of tomato which are also red.

but what is brown sauce meant to be ? it's not described as anything other than brown. sometime's it's called daddy's sauce, but that doesn't help much.

i put brown sauce in the same culinary hole as marmite. yuck yuck yuck.

please admire the 70s lighting on this photo. it was a happy accident (like most of the 70s)

here is a funny thing. it's a tree trap. i've read about them, but never seen one in operation before so i sent esther and jane in to demonstrate.

a carnivore tree bends itself flat and reveals its roots. foolish animals (as demonstrated here) then step in to the giant hole left behind. when the moment is right, the tree snaps itself back up vertical thus crushing its prey.

luckily this was a slow one or had already just eaten. either way, nothing happened.

there's a lovely nature reserve near Henley On Thames called the Warburg Reserve. There is a lot of moss there at the moment. Some of it is growing up smaller plants making little moss-trees which look like mini rainforests.

i'm happy to lump the two species together.

i have included a Venn diagram here for your convenience:

as seen by jane and i last year. it wasn't as foggy then.

if you go to lulworth cove and go to the gentlemen's toilets you may be lucky enough to see this bizarre thing. it's the pattern on the wall by the sinks. it does very strange things to your eyes when you see it full size (it went from floor to ceiling if i remember correctly)

someone had scraped the 'no' off but i think this still applies.

here are a couple of beautiful glove pictures. we were so lucky find them set amongst such beautiful scenary. jane took the shot on the left and the challenge was on for me to find a glove to compete with this shot.

i did find a glove (two actually) but her shot was better. everyone loves a good lost glove photo duel.

click for big versions

i love this picture. it was at the highest point of our cliff walk. and it was just there, all silver and unmarked in the middle of field. it contained a man eating a sandwich.

it's obviously a space ship.

after the beach was the walk back (with me carrying kezia this time).

i just hadn't got a clue about the Dorset coast before this holiday. It dates back to Jurassic times (it's known as the Jurassic Coast) and dinosaurs roamed this very place millions of years ago. It's also been the home to neolithic people and romans and everyone since. i just couldn't get my head round the scale of history and geography involved.

here's jane on top of the world (before the kezia swap).

after our long walk we finally reached the beach.

the sea was incredibly flat and sparkly:

so we had a picnic:

and refreshed ourselves with ice cool cans of coca cola (i'm hoping for corporate blog sponsorship):

esther and kezia inspected the thousands of small stones which made up the beach:

and of course i went in search of lost stuff:

There is a fantastic walk you can do from Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door. it's quite steep. especially with a child on your back. i know cuz jane told me.

milestones provide excellent resting points:

Esther took this photo from the top of the hill:

and eventually you see the famous eroded archway:

we then climbed down to the beach

where do seaside buckets and spades come from ? they grow on trees of course. usually such trees are kept hidden away in factories, but this one was clearly visible from the main street leading to Lulworth Cove.

have you checked your ferruls recently ? they may need replacing. especially if they have perished.

it's good to see pictures of dogs some of which aren't already in my collection. here are a selection of dog signs seen whilst on holiday.

luckily this dog is heavy enough to keep this floating man from blowing away:

small dog on silver plaque on brick wall:

dog eager to leave the scene:

life ring supplied in case of real emergencies:

a strange trick of the light resulted in kezia appearing in TV as a reflection from the seat where she was sitting reading a book which she was very much enjoying. [what kind of a sentence was that ?]

click for big version

it's important to eat well on holiday so you have enough energy to have lots of fun. i was delighted to be see the fridge contained nothing but beer and chocolate once we had unpacked.

my only concern was what everyone else would eat and drink. but i needn't have worried as we went to Tescos for a greasy breakfast.

i love holidays !

jane took this photo out the car window. it's the gubbins in traffic lights (before they stuck the head on them)

last sunday esther lost £1. we spent ages looking for it. eventually we found it. it was in the turnup on her skirt at the back. very much like looking for spectacles which are balanced on your head all along. sort of.

we've been on holiday for the last week so there's been no real time updates since last saturday to the blog. best i've had is minimal text access to email.

anyway, i've got tonnes of pictures (i took about 500 photos and have saved about 350). so expect a few days worth of mega-blogging before it's back to business as usual.

here is where we stayed near Thomas Hardy's birthplace near Dorchester. The place was built by his dad and was very good !

here is a small chap called benjamin. he has an electronic eye. or so he told us.

there was a glove nearby, but i didn't see it (it was reported to me later). but i did see this hat on a bench.

more tape fun.

most of london is now covered in danger tape. including this electricity cabinet with no front door.

there's definately too much red tape these days. and yellow.

this site has been going a while but i love going back to it to the latest Bible stories which have been built in lego.

a ram in the street.

a nicely presented glove

as a blueprint for life, i don't like snakes and ladders. for some in becomes a complete allegory for the rest of their lives:

this picture was esther's idea. she said "look at all the wheels". so we did.

this flag is all worn out. that's probably symbolic.

this sign informs us that if you push your trolley past this point then the trolley will stop suddenly.

perhaps the reason it would stop suddenly is that you will have driven it in to this brick wall ?

someone (yrret?) had written their name on the floor in the tate modern in Iraqi war villain playing cards which was nice. it worked quite well in reflection from the mirror ceiling.

i'm pleased to see that rope and knots are still in use in modern britain. i thought ropes were only used at the seaside nowadays, with urban man preferring a more secure padlock.

this knot is quite elaborate and one i never learnt when i was in the cubs.

without claudia, alan and the paps, covent garden looked quite empty.

a purple gloves next to the double purple lines on a london street. the purple lines denote that the road is one of London's red routes.

there's a period in life when you don't have to worry about marbles on the floor. for me this was the period between leaving my family home and having children. like all things you forget what the reality of a thing was like until it returns.

marbles are great at just being there when you put your foot down. usually directly underneath your foot.

when i was a kid i used to think that marbles were miniture spy cameras which were put in our house by aliens / the police to spy on me and my family. i was utterly convinced about this and i can remember vividly staring at a marble which had rolled under the sofa in my old old house when i could have been no older than 6 ! i was really spooked back then.

do manx fishes have no tails ? surely that makes them incredibly easy to catch ?

here is something nice for anyone interested in british life. lawnmowing is an essential part of the british psyche. unless you live in the middle of a town.

Visit the British Lawnmower Museum and listen to the music as you peruse the wonderous machines. The photo gallery is a little disapointing.

For real pictures you'll have to go to the Old Lawn Mowers Club which has a mower of the month feature.

(thanks to John and brother edd for the links)

here is my favourity drinking glass. it's probably a highly valuable collectors item, but i use it every day and the dishwasher has slowly faded its beautiful design.

in particular, dear dead diana has become transparent in the body. When filled with Ribena she goes all red.

update: a picture in its full configuration is here

i ate something which was not quite a quiche last night. it was in fact made of goats cheese i think. but to me, it looked like an egg pie.

here is a cottage pie. we don't eat much processed food nowadays. it never ceases to amaze me how space age we've become. each pie individually processed and precooked and wrapped in plastic ready to be reheated.

i think i could live with that idea, but somehow the printed writing on the plastic film makes me think the manufacturers consider this a 'pie unit' and not someone's diner.

It says 'uk Cottage Pie 900G' and is printed in a nice old courier font. 900G is probably the pressure they put the pie under or something.