this reminded me of this, but obviously not quite as good !

click big biggernisation

here are a load of fire extinguishers behind a dusty window on marylebone high street. they look like ghosts. but they are not.

it's like a saunarium in my office today thanks to the lack of committment shown by our aircon machine. still. it's all good fun

interestingly there's no maximum temperature rules for UK offices. here's the official guidance. There's a man trying to mend it somewhere in the building so hopefully we'll be icey cool again by tomorrow.

phone box, bin (with leaves), hidden bollard, a white taxi, a drain and a london bus. a classic london street scene.

this man has a giant street paint eraser on the end of a pipe. here is a picture which you can click for teeny weeny video.

yes sir. we've arrived in the 21st Century.

it's been a while since i've found a photo. i think this is punishment for not keeping davescollections up to date, but i will update it. soon ok.

so i was delighted to find this scrap of photo this morning on bentinck street where i once found this jewel.

the olympics have finished and the british atheletes have returned victorious (so i hear on the wireless news forecast). people have a new found interest in sport and have impromtu races whilst going about their daily business.

today, for example, someone has set up some parallel bars which can also be used as hurdles for races up and down edgware road. or 'The' edgware road as some people call it.

so, here is the photo which won the best photo. i nearly didn't bother creating it but then had a moment of madness on saturday morning when everyone else was out of the house.

click to be dismayed amazed

i was doing sound at church yesterday morning. inspired by the reading festival i added a little extra volume and reverb to the occasion.

the services incorporated a number of signs:

and here's pete hiding behind a sign. he's the only way you know. jesus not pete.

here is esther with her rosette for being Highly Commended. She was so proud.

and here is a photo esther took of me with my trophy (and kezia who suddenly decided to remove her t-shirt and come up with me to collect the trophy- i think she needs to get out of this habit quick !):

and esther in the car-park:

the sound systems they use in country fairs are amazing. they're built for voice rather than sound and must be decades old in design.

they make me think of cold war nuclear announcements. and tellytubby land.

can't compare with Maxx's fantastic shots. oh for a digital SLR !

we saw loads of our friends today which was great. here are a couple of them.

"real live" rather than "pretend dead". i couldn't work what that animal was meant to be in the picture. it looked like a sawn off slug.

i've mentioned this numberous times before, but we all love things which are the wrong size. tiny dogs and giant vegetables are our absolute favourites.

here are katie and esther with a couple of giant marrows:

it's been a bank holiday today. esther and i did really well at the Swallowfield Show. we both entered stuff in the craft show. here are our award winning entries:

esther got Highly Commended for her butterfly and vegetable chariot:

i got a second place for 'transport' and 1st place for 'about the home':

i also got second place for the song title (as seen here)

but my best was my '24 hours' collection which not only won 1st prize in the category, but also won best photo in the show:

This year i only won £6. not quite a lucrative as last year.

there were many gloves at Reading Festival and i couldn't hope to take pictures of them all because of the endless pushing crowds, so here are two blue ones that can represent the rest of the unphoto'd

no crowd surfing signs were visible again this year, but this time with explanatory wording:

normally it's don't drink and drive, but at festivals it's don't smoke and drive:

we were invited to our friends craig, isobel, amy and fay (no idea of any of the spellings). a vicar also turned up for a bit (as they do). it was jolly nice.

here is the jelly with teddy biscuits:

no body likes dishonest thieves.

thiefery in england is still legal of course, but the long arm of the law and the slightly stumpy arm of the underground have reached a compromise. thieves can still do their thiefery, but they have to put a sign up outside whilst they are working so the police have a sporting chance of catching them.

here is one such sign:

when jane and i were out festival-ing, esther and kezia went to stay with their friends katie and olivia. here is katie with a sunflower.

we didn't get a very good view this year as we were over the other side and further back. still, managed to get some shots with my camera (whilst avoiding flying cider).

you can read reviews on the nme.com site

the white stripes:

morrisey:

the libertines (viewed by a young kid with a libertine's jacket on his father's shoulders watching them on stage):

franz ferdinand:

the roots:

new york dolls:

har mar superstar (before i worked out my shutter settings - but it's best he's blurred):

kezia finger painting:

esther's painting;

esther's vegetable vehicle (driven by her (my) little poney):

it's a day of music today. this morning i've been trying to take a photo of a 'song title' for a county show tomorrow and this afternoon Jane and I are going to the Reading Festival.

here's my attempt at the song title - i'm forever blowing bubbles:

this is what your desktop has been missing:

click for big

hyde park

bizarre mushroom circle in Hyde Park. why do they grown like this ?

thieves are everywhere. so it's good news there's a security camera in close proximity to old big ben

another street entertainer playing on tourists love of all thing british.

it's very popular to stand in tourist areas painted silver and pretend to be a statue. as a way of making money it seems quite easy. though the actual money involved seems quite small and it might get a bit boring.

here are parts of two such people on the south bank yesterday evening

they were setting up Carter's Steam Fair as i walked home last night. here are a few pictures.

lorry:

ice-cream view with various landmarks behind:

click for big

strong man:

swings:

horse man:

No 1 For Fun:

whoever thought this was a good idea.

no old people for the top 40 chart

it's a giant wardrobe for the london philharmonic orchestra

i've been a bit tardy keeping up with my email correspondence of late, so belatedly here's a bollard photo from Annette of Boston. She's got a page full of bollards with some great pictures.

i particularly liked this one of bollard hero worship ("when i'm bigger i want to smoke"). She's also got some great ones of the Bollard Guantanamo Bay down the bottom.

i should also mention groc who sent this picture of bollards considering whether to take a dip in the sea at Brighton (i think groc was in the sea taking this photo):

and finally, another regularly reader has been inspired to start their own blog. This one is in halifax (in the north of England where the countryside is beautiful, but it rains even more than london) by Gary.

(as always, i'm not responsible for stuff on other people's sites so venture at your own peril !)

here's someone to do list. mostly shopping for water, salad, birthday card, rings for dave and janessa (jewellry always popular), toothpaste and the Internet. and exchange rates for America.

this looks like a gift from elaine and roger from their wedding. how generous to give your guests a piece of ribbon.

but what of that word 'ebration' on the label. is that 'inebriation' (spelt slightly wrong, but that never stops me ?

there seems to have been some rather clever editing done on a number of Stockholm's street crossing signs. here is one such example:

the poor white bollard is pointing downwards to try and get the red bollard to jump down, but the little scamp aint having none of it.

it's always nice to see some nature in the middle of london. here is a blue flower sticking through some railings.

this is a 'Morning Glory' according to my work colleague Harry. i hadn't realised they were so temporal. if i had i would have spent longer than 5 seconds taking the photo.

here is a nice little page with a movie about them

leaves are dropping off the trees. and so are socks.

the trains on my toilets (reverse that) are absolutely horrible. so it came as no surprise to see this tape stuck over the door. biological hazard - danger of infection.

i suspect this isn't an official sign ...

a friend is someone you can lean on.

a yellow pipe in the middle of tottenham court road.

a soggy street cabinet containing lots of important phone lines and broadband connections. not sure who you're meant to tell when you see things like this in the street. so i'll tell you.

i went in to the virgin megastore at lunch to buy a guitar stand, but it was full of urchins listening to thrash metal or something. here are the band as viewed from upstairs.

i wasn't able to hold my camera very steady due to jiggling urchins. And the guitar section was closed so i couldn't get the stand.

expect lots of nice shots like this after we go to the Carling Festival on Saturday.

here is steve. we had lunch today and it was very good. so there.

these new steam powered buses are good fun. here is a view of one from the window of a 1st floor brazilian cafe where the staff were very friendly and the food was excellent and cheap.

here's a picture of a steam bus going under Tower Bridge

if you love rain then you'll just love london. come to london and enjoy our rainy rain days, when it simply rains rain. even our british london queen has been enjoying her long reign whilst enjoying the rain.

rain. it's what londoners love best.

nice arrow work here.

wheely bins and a parking meter join the bollard parade

voicebox isn't a word you see much on signs. it's here on this very intriguing sign though.

there's still lots of pigeons in trafalgar square. you just need to go at the right time of the day. specifically feeding time.

but you won't find a 'don't feed the pigeon sign' as these have all been removed. apparently.

i've taken a picture of this before, but it looks good, so here is another one.

jane now has her own camera so can take photos of things when i'm not there. here is a good shot of esther going down a slide.

no children were hurt in the taking of this photo:

by popular demand, here is a picture of paddington station floor. complete with circling pigeons.

it took 2 and a half hours to get home this evening. not impressed. will be like this all week thanks to train line misery.

it's cold feet / fast show star john thompson. Good to see my celebrity photo capturing skills haven't been lost over the summer.

"prollabably" (say prolla-bably). use it instead of 'probably' today

esther says "ledicious" instead of "delicious" which also works nicely.

have a go and let me know how you get on. i wonder how long until prollabably makes google. find out here

and here for no reason are three old apples on my desk:

here it is. the new road which was under-preparation last week.

and now i have my own version of The Damned's punk classic New Rose going round my head with the lyrics nicely amended to "i gotta new road, i got it good".

i thought this was quite interesting. mobile phones have increasingly made payphones unnecessary. I think BT's payphone marketing people have nicely spun this back round in their latest advertising.

there's probably a word for this in marketing speak. but i don't know what it is.

compare BT's response to the fate of the domestic payphone which was just down the road a bit:

this was in a hat shop window in old town in stockholm. i suspect it's been there since from when the old town was known as new town. it would have fitted in quite nicely with these dolls at Pollock's.

here is my favouritist statue in the whole world. it's the tiny weeny chap in Stockholm. i saw him last October and was really pleased to share him with jane:

we came back to see him late at night when it was quiet (left), but i was very sad to see him early on Sunday morning hidden amongst a massive group of tourists who were throwing money at him and rubbing his head 9right).

i prefer to keep him to myself:

i found 20 kronas on the floor (less than £2). we had just enough money in the whole of our weekend, even down to buying a last coke at the airport with our last notes and coins. at the time we thanked this found note for making the final coke possible.

but i found it when i got back to the UK in my purse. oh well.

number 3

jane and i went on a boat trip in stockholm. i loved this sign which was essentially letters balanced on a stick.

jane spotted this and i didn't believe her so we had to turn the car round and go past it again. when we parked up to take the photo we were in the way so i only had a quick chance to take this photo which is why it isn't great.

but 1000 weeks is quite a long time. nearly 20 years in fact.

wherever i leave my hat, that's my home. Unfortunately if you have are a round straw hat and you drive a car you can't park it here:

we've seen these on street refueling p(o)ints before. here is one on a zebra crossing which is a very sensible place for it.

if this had been guiness it would have made a nice advert with the 'wait' on the sign. but it isn't. so it doesn't.

like the rest of england we went to henley to feed ourselves and the ducks. it must be the olympic rowing which made it so popular today. or maybe the sight of the sun in summer ?

this chap may be legal driving his electric wheelchair down the street, but he's also in danger of being squashed by ever car which went by him.

kezia in the church window again. there's something about this window which is so completely photogenic.

this was the photo i entered in the category of "leaves" which came second place. the comment was that it could have worked better in black and white. so here it is. in black and white.

esther won second prize for her rock cakes. so she's an award winning chef which is impressive for a 5 year old. i got a second and a third place for my photos so i was pleased too !

our bike journey took us through lots of lovely villages.

in most villages people were playing cricket on the green:

and then a cricket on my trousers:

i click to inspect the insect suspect

bike rides can be quite slow when you have to keep stopping to take photos of things left on the road. i missed a few good shots, but i did stop for this glove.

we went on a massive bike ride today.

here is kezia waiting to board her bike seat:

we had a picnic in a random field:

and the girls picked (and ate) blackberries:

it's a village show tomorrow. here are my photo entries. they still need sticking on the cardboard. time is running out and tiredness is running in. an exciting day due tomorrow. (note the final pub picture!)

unfortunately, due to a number of factors, the take-away dinner fell down the fridge and on to the floor. it was ok though. and still tasted great (the rest of it, not the floored stuff)

here is a window. who needs photoshop when you can make your own filters by placing pictures on the other side of fancy windows ?

there's a dishwasher in the street down the road from my house. imagine how old fashioned that house is, having an outside dishwasher. just like the old days.

anyway, here is a photo on the way to the pub and a little bit more daring on the way back. brother kevin has opened the device to check the level of the contents, which he agreed was very executive. did you hear that ? "executive".

i'm working from home today which is good as it's thunder and lightning and massive winds and rain. but it does mean i'm missing a few fantastic signs which have popped up outside my office !

luckily john has walter's camera and here the pictures sent to me by the method of email

it's a sign of the times:

no old dears:

give always:

it's obvious really, but bollards are attracted to other bright objects. work men in tabards, flourescent tape, giant yellow skips:

these two bollards are trying to help this sign stand up straight. "good on 'em" i say

exactly a week ago, jane and i went to the hotel diplomat in stockholm for a weekend. it was totally fantastic. here are pictures of our bedroom / sitting room / office

the view from the window was amazing too. more pictures on this to follow.

airplane interiors are quite small so like caravans everything is designed to be space efficient. this is most obvious in the toilets where everything has a function to assist you in your functions.

even i was shocked by the size of this teeny weeny metal baby changing table. it was only about 3 centimetres long and 1 centimetre wide. they tried to confuse us by putting an even smaller sign next to it, but i'm not stupid.

i'm much happier with this modern picnic food you get on airplanes. it's much more to my taste

the writing on wings of modern airplanes tell us to not stand on certain parts. in my experience it's better not to stand on any part of an airplane's wing. in fact, i think it's much better to just stay inside the airplane.

jane was very pleased to see they'd glued some yellow glasses to the top of the wing.

i worry about small people and how they can't see things that taller people can. luckily in Heathrow airport the Harrods shop has addressed this by putting signs on the under-side of its normal signs.

the advertising could have been a bit more targeted: "premium sandwiches to make you grow big and tall".

or even better "kids, why not nag your parents in to buying you some Harrods chocolates" ?

surely the most manic of all the slippery floor signs ? one from the slapstick comedy school of sign writing:

Brad also sent me this picture of a hound from the Bronx, NY. i can see a whole raft of US lawsuits by poo-pickers if they try and copy this man's poo-picking posture:

Brad sent me this photo of captive bollards. is it right to keep them like this ? i'm not sure. surely they should be roaming free on the roads.

Brad writes: [this] is a Bollard petting zoo with beefy Bronx sized bollards. One is escaping.

esther's art

here's a strange thing. it's a double toilet coincidence.

firstly i took this picture of a toilet:

and then i took this picture:

look at these two chaps helping their injured friend. a very touching scene.

these three trollies have joined up for a trip to the park:

just look at that row of wheels:

this road has been ground down to its concrete base ready for resurfacing. i'm really looking forward to it's new smooth covering. expect photos next week.

i find it very satisfying when i see a small and unimportant thing at the beginning of my walk to work, only to see another slightly related thing further on.

here is a good example. it's some jam tarts (near Paddington) and a pie (near Marylebone High Street). both pastries. both on the street about 20 minutes apart.

i went on my own little photoshoot this evening to get a picture of a local pub to enter in to a competition on saturday. i got some photos but i don't think they are much cop.

unfortunately i also drank a fair amount of beer in the pub whilst waiting for it to go dark. by the time it had gone dark it had also started raining and all decent photo opportunities evaporated. ho hum.

on the way i went through a field of horses. here is one in the sunlight.

you want big ? you want click

ever fancied photo copying three pence ? well, here is the place for you.

if you don't fancy it then i suggest you take a photo of three pence instead

this is my last scottish entry - nearly a month after we left the place !

these comedy items were on sale on a service station near the Scottish border. it wasn't clear to me whether they were meant for:

* english people leaving scotland wishing to remember the scots
* english people on the way to scotland wishing to blend in with the scots
* scottish people heading to england wishing to reinforce national stereotypes
* genuine irony-free scottish accessories

esther spotted these tall bollards on the way back from our scottish holiday. she even volunteered to take a photo so i let her (it was safer than me taking the photo as i was driving).

unfortunately she was too short to see over the dashboard, but you can just see the top of one of them way over to the right

i've written about british motorway service stations before, but in my opinion Knutsford Service Station is the worst one ever.

they had these reassuring signs on the toilet seat lids. toilets, chemical attack, life expectancy. it was all too much for me.

even less reassuring was the toilet cubicles wouldn't lock because each of them had the lock on the wrong side - ie you could lock them from the outside, but not if you were in them ! How COMPLETELY useless is that (except maybe in a prison).

here is the winner of Mr Misnomer 2004:

and here is the exquisite exterior:

here is a dog sign which i found this evening in a local pub. it's only a few minutes walk from my house yet i'd never seen it before. i find that very intriguing. how many other such signs are there around me that i haven't archived.

they've replaced a wall with a brickwall, rebricked it and now want you to divert yourself by climbing up it. don't these road menders have any sense of gravity ?

in my view, if there's an emergency, the last thing you need is a dangerous structure brought along to add to your worries. yet this is exactly what this lorry claims to do.

are these things bollards ? i dunno for sure. i'd say they are. bollards holding barriers.

anyway, whatever they are, they've all fallen in to the road.

here's a very sad thing. it's a red rose that's been abandoned and walked all over in the rain outside paddington station. there's definately a story behind this.

a do it yourself fire exit sign

i went to an italian restaurant today with a colleague. the management were obviously obsessed with coffee and had put signs up all round the room and in red on the bottom of the menu warning about people having milky coffee with their meals. it's tone was very aggressive.

update: due to popular demand, you can now click the image for a bigger version. however, i didn't expect you to read it when i took it so i may need another trip to get a better shot. pizza anyone ?

i've been in two places in the last few days where the wearing of floatation devices was a possibility. in both cases i've considered putting my life jacket on prior to an emergency so as to be ready in case the unlikely event happened.

jane, my wife, suggested this might cause panic on both the airplane and touristy canal boat so i left them tightly packed away for their own safety under my seat.

it seems community police(wo)men have opted for the safe approach. here are two with their life jackets round their backs. they were also quite reflective of my camera flash.

but what does this mean ?

maxx sent me mini 263 which he saw on his recent trip to london. i feel this blog has many eyes and i like it.

it's another street coaster:

these inflatables are in a window leading down some stairs to what i assume is some kind of recording or TV studio.

one morning (before cameras began) i saw the Edge from U2 appear from this door, and another time i spotted (and photo'd) the Sugarbabes when they were at number 1 in the modern hit parade.

today it's just inflatable sea creatures.

i'm not sure whether this is top DJ tim westwood's car or simply a car which advertises him as a person. it's covered floor to ceiling with his name.

i'm thinking of getting one done for funkypancake. maybe not.

melted ice-cream in a tub. it had a fantastically subtle green colouring which you can just about see in the photo.

that's right, jane and i went to visit one of my favouritist dog signs.

plenty more pictures to follow (i took over 300, but won't bore you with them all just yet). and we've still one more day of scottish photos first.

feel free to use the drinking fountain. just don't drink the water.

i think the sign is deliberately up high so that kids don't see it and get poisoned. that's not very nice is it ?

we don't have too many mirrors in our house. sometimes it's best that way.

i love smarties. their chocolate goodness enclosed in a crunchy shell. mmm. these were particularly welcome on a cold day halfway up a mountain.

being a father of girls is a worry. especially with little plastic chaps like this about. his tongue was hanging out and everything. luckily esther wasn't too impressed and the moment passed without trouble.

it was jane's birthday when we were in scotland. i made jane a lovely cake. i pushed the candles in but kept it in is wrapper just in case jane didn't like the cake.

luckily she did:

in the evening we went to a very posh restaurant:

it appeared that noel edmonds had got married there are some point. THAT'S how posh it was:

here's a bizarre place. it's the falkirk wheel. it's a magic lifty thing to get canal boats from the canal at the top to the canal (and vice versa). it saves having a load of locks.

now, i may be wrong, but there seems little point in trying to speed up the flow of traffic on canals since it's very charm is its slowness. and such a thoroughly modern solution is completely at odds with the historic nature of canal travel.

that aside, it is an amazing thing, especially the way the canal comes sweeping out of the countryside on a massive bridge:

looking along the top bit:

this chap was some kind of curator and had a fanastic posh english accent. a proper english gentleman:

click to for big

jane with some highland toffee

here is a carved no dog sign:

this appealed to me. it's an electric cable which runs from underneath the loch to the house on the island (which i've helpfully highlighted for you!). it's was very strange and the water was so clear.

the sign which warns of electric cables on the right wasn't actually anywhere near the cable.

i was hoping for fantastic sunsets when we were in scotland, but the drizzling clouds didn't provide for that. instead i got some quite nice silhouettes.

click for big

esther spotted these bollards in scotland swimming in a loch. we watched them for a while but they didn't move. they must have been scared of us i think

i was sitting outside a bar with my father in law when this chap walked by with his giant drum

a little later we heard the full troupe and went in search:

the sound of pipes is quite amazing. here is one being tuned. this sounded even more amazing.

here's a a tune which i thought was great. it was played by a single bagman. does anyone know what this one is called ? and here's that one that everyone knows.

sorry about the quality of the clips. my phone is a bit rubbish at recording stuff !

when we were in scotland we stayed in a plce called montrose house in balmaha. it's a fantastic place. absolutely massive and handy for walking, a little shop and the pub. there some photos and stuff here

It used to be a holiday house for poor kids and there's a picture of it in the olden days here

here is the entrance stair case:

and here is the dining room table:

and here's what it looks like from the outside:

the view out the front was superb, as was the view from the back.

in fact, if you aren't a regular reader of this blog then just have a look at the scotland category if you want to see what's to do and see around and about.

it seems weeks ago since we were in scotland (because it was). here's some pictures of our trip to Rowardennan

click for bigger

a memorial:

happy walkers:

this sign was on a lamp-post positioned for pedestrians and pub-dwellers to see rather than cars. it's also hidden in a tree.

stealth signs. that's the future.

whenever i've met other bloggers they've always turned out to be fantastically nice people. regular commenter maxx from maxblog was in london today so we met up for a glass of fizzy pop with konstantin from london leben.

both are german but were happy to talk english whilst i was there. i find stuff like that really humbling and completely helpful.

here they are. konstantin on the left and maxx on the right. i can assure you they looked normal in real life !

i see quite a lot of these. perhaps they should have their own category.

this is a nice idea for people on pub crawls across london. it's an en-route refueling opportunity.

london hotels are a funny thing. here's a particularly funny one. probably not the traditional olde london hotel that some of its visitors will be expecting.

it might be quite nice inside, but is lacking some restraint on the outside i felt.

i walked past the filming place from last night to see they were setting their stuff up for today. so if you want to see woody allen or some of his cast then this is probably the place to go today ...

remember trolley man ? i haven't seen him for a while, but did this morning thanks to my decision to walk a different way this morning. i saw the man himself with a few trolleys, but here are a few other trolleys he had lined up around adjacent streets.

i love the fact there's a massive table on the one on the left:

and this one is good enough to be a desktop picture. so click on it and help yourself !

here's a building recently erected near paddington station. i was brave enough to walk through a little passage and have a look on the other side this morning.

i KNEW it was gong to be a celebrity day today. i may have seen posh spice (david beckham's wife for those who don't know who she is, but then you might not know who he is either, and i can't say that's a bad thing). i would say it was a 5% chance of being her (ie not very likely).

then i saw barbara windsor again on the way back to the station in the evening:

then as i continued my journey after a while i saw some massive lights which indicating filming, so like a moth i went closer to inspect them (i did it for you readers). it was apparently a woody allen (see article)

and behind this very window he is making a film. i know this because some local residents were standing next to me complaining that he had stolen their parking spaces. she called woody something quite shocking which i won't share with you.

here's the building. people on the first floor and an old lady on the 2nd floor look out at what's going on:

then, on the train, it only turns out i used to know the lawyer who is representing Libertines singer Pete Doherty (see here). i've not seen him for a while so it was a shock to see his name up there with the stars !

and finally, i think i walked past Richard E Grant a couple of weeks back. probably 80% chance of it actually being him.

(celebrity round up finished)

the end of an era. harts the grocer on marylebone high street is to close on friday.

i like a shop that advertises when it's closed rather than when it's open. i also like it's understated closing down sign. you almost don't realise they mean closing FOR GOOD on the 13th.

and what at great footnote to have on a closing down notice:

click for big

(the website seems to have closed already)

these people pointed at me as i walked by so i took a photo of them enjoying looking at me. so we were all happy (though i was a little paranoid afterwards)

this weird vehicle appeared on the road outside my office this morning. look at the roof thing. VERY strange. i wondered if it was a flux capacitor.

you've heard of a 'band-in-a-box' where a contemporary beat combo are loaded in to a small cardboard box where they play there music in glorious miniaturisation ?

well, no they've started doing the same with orchestras. the BBC concert orchestra parked opposite my office next to the Sony recording studios.

it's britain's best-loved orchestra apparently. how do they work that out ? is it totally amount of people that love them ? what if 100 people loved them, but only one REALLY loved them and the rest weren't really that bothered ? would that make them more loved than the ITV orchestra which might be quite loved by73 people (who only listen for the adverts) ?

and wherever there are winners there are losers. so which orchestra is britain's least loved ?

check out jewel's new blog of photos, including some very nice bollards.

she's only just got going, but is off to a great start. jewel wrote me a nice email and said she was inspired by this site which was very nice !

and it's in the same spirit as this blog so perhaps it's the first funkypancake blog child ?

symmetry in signs

here are some tiles on the floor outside someone's front door. imagine being greeted by this each morning.

click to read it all

the great north south divide is nowhere more apparent than in the centre of london. norther of the river are the great wealths of london's monetary districts and of course the mother of all parliaments 'parliament'.

go south of the river and it's a different story. southwark has always been a place associated with badness. but never have i seen the likes of it.

just LOOK what they've done to these two chaps. bent and burnt.

here is my lovely wife jane. she is lovely. (i hope she's reading this so she knows).

i've walked under this sign for nearly 3 years and only today realised it says "5 races". hoorah for neon.

i've been collected pictures of numbered minis. i saw this one whizz by me this morning and got a photo of it at the lights (i REALLY need a camera with a faster start up time!).

but how would i remember which number it had written on the side ? i decided to use my hands. it's 435 (i didn't have enough fingers on one hand to do a 6 so i used a piece of railing)

this little match box is looking at this pillar in awe.

"Wow ! to be so tall !" they are thinking and they've even taken the roof off their box so they can all see properly.

but don't despair little matches. each of you have the power of fire. something this yellow pretender will never have.

someone has disgarded their blender. but best of all, they've chucked it away in its original box ! there's something slightly strange about throwing something away in the box it came in.

it sort of implies that it wasn't used enough as the box should wear out before the machine surely ? although the box does look pretty worn out.

perhaps they threw it away for precisely that reason "i think i best chuck this blender out dear, the cardboard box is falling apart".

this pile of dirt and stones has been dragging itself along the street. where is it going ? what is its motive ? why do we care so ?

jane bought a candle to scare the wasps away. the manufacturers has spent little time on their instructions and even less on the accompanying drawings.

i'm pretty sure the one on the left is of a dog. click for a bigger inspectable version.

one of the nice things about old churches are the windows. this one might be 13th Century. it might not be. i'm sure someone will tell us (lynda ?).

either way, they must have been so cool back in the days before photos. the colours would have been unlike anything else.

this hat was found and photo'd by esther. she was very pleased.

very similar to this one, but with feet and lacking a line through it.

possible modelled by the same man and dog that modelled for this one ?

from the same place as this one. It's a bit battered, but it's a beauty !

look. blue skies. in a forest. in england. lovely.

esther is hiding in the bushes. can you see here ?

bollard hobos, hitching a ride from town to town:

a black topped bollard playing catch in a science museum with his friend (you can just see the other one poking over the top in the background):

dan says "it was a slow day in Bollardsville USA, so a bunch of them gathered to needlessly taunt a underground worker. So typical. Note the two unstriped ones off by themselves, the black sheep of the bollard gang"

thanks to Dan for his continued state-side bollard monitoring. i think we can safely say that not one bollard is moved in the US without Dan being aware of it. I think we can say that anyway.

esther and kezia giving a belated birthday present to my mum.

i don't know about hose-pipe bans, but i recon we should have age limits on garden hose using. they are crazy little people normally. give them a hosepipe to water your garden and you get that and a whole lot more !

just how many times did i have to shout "watch the washing" causing her to look straight at the washing line whilst subconsciously aiming the water in her direction of gaze ?

photos from tony

tony went to legoland today. i assume he went with his family. anyway, he sent me this photo which shows a bollard made of lego.

click to observe the lego

found near the caravans

found near the caravans

there was a couple of abandoned caravans in the paddock behind where we were staying in scotland:

i think this would make a great desktop picture:

click for big fun (but don't blame it on the sunshine)

donning is such a great word. and it looks so good in print too.

dog sign on Inchy Island

this bit of scotland has only recently become a national park if i understand correctly. they are so proud, yet so protective they've introduced a nice signage system along the footopaths saying "national park - caution do not cross"

follow the yellow brick road white tape:

right, back to the scottish holiday. still plenty of stuff to come all you scots-lovers !

One morning we went to Inchcailloch Island

we set off by boat from balmaha boatyard.

The girls loved it:

and so did my father-in-law:

the boat dropped us off at a jetty and went off:

I then walked up to the top of the hill with jane's parents:

the views were fabulous and would have been even better if the clouds got out the way:

click for big

meanwhile the girls played on the sheltered beach:

then the boat turned up and we got back before the rain:

here are a couple of bollards from regular contributor Dan. They are both slightly strange and worth a longer look.

this bollard seems to be levitating between the two junior bollard inspectors:

this pictures appears to show three bollards having fun in the sand. but don't be fooled, it's possible something more sinister has occured.

look at the traces of bollard blood near the front bollard, and the relatively unmessy nature of the two bollards in the background. one of the bollards at the back is obviously making a run for it too.

i don't like what i see here at all.

bollard fact fans - note the double reflective stripes on these american bollards. a classic decoration for state-side bollards i believe.

remember this abandoned chair in scotland ? well, here are two more abandoned scottish chairs with views. it's interesting they are all the same model.

click to enjoy the view (and chairs)

when we were in scotland we visited jane's aunt who excavated a number of old toys for esther and kezia to play with. it turned in to more of a trip down memory lane.

here are two generic people who most people our-ish age will probably recognise.

i'm not sure what kind of person this is:

but this is a playmobil one:

check out the playmobil site and observe the strange floating heads

what doesn't go up must go down.

i've been listening to this album all day whilst doing some particularly tedious excel work. belle and sebastian are great. Totally mellow yet kinda upbeat and poppy too. and great lyrics. a true indie band in the olden sense of the foppish word.

if you don't know them you should make it your business to find out.

by the way, Dan spotted a bollard on the site, which has now been confirmed

commuting has been misery this week. too hot and too slow. average journey home has taken over 2 hours thanks to rain on the tracks.

it rained so much on tuesday they emptied a load of raw sewage in to the thames. see - in london even poos move faster than the trains. ho hum.

tonight was another signal failure so more delays. i nearly took a photo of the two policemen who were staring at me taking this photo but i decided not to. this terrorism thing is spoiling our fun

we haven't had a numbered sign for a while. to be honest i'm a bit fearful for their future as a new breed of numberless signs have started appearing all over Paddington Station.

it's the new management i recon. but i'll keep looking. here's one i found today. it's page 135

i did do an interview recently for a national magazine which i'm very excited about. i can't tell you any more at present and i don't want to get our hopes up too much. hopefully i'll be able to tell you more next month ...

when i did the interview they requested a nice photo of me 'in action', so here it is. it's me with a local dog sign.

it's not really me in action as i haven't got my camera. luckily pete had it to take my photo.

see the twin storage compartments. how like a cow.

security is paramount in these modern days. i was surpised to see this key stuck on an outside wall protected only by a piece of smashable glass. the key looks like it allows access to the basement of the building it was attached to.

look. it's anotehr sort of slippery sign. this chap has fallen over but is still attempting to run straight up in to the air.

it's no wonder he fell over with such a lack of appreciation for the basic rules of gravity.

i felt a need to walk to work down Oxford Street today, so i did. i'm guaranteed more photos going that route, but it's a bit noisier than my usual backstreet amble.

one thing you can be sure to see at this time of morning is street cleaners. here's a water squirty one:

and here's one being mended:

park police ? surely they can park where they like ? good to see they are crossing the road sensibly though.

once there were four. tonight there are three.

this van was outside the london transport museum at lunch. it's dec'd out like a tube station inside.

i like the idea of the stations moving around town rather than the trains. perhaps i should suggest it to someone.

how about this for a musical "seven dials for seven features". it could be all about a special gadget that did special things depending on how you set the dials ? yes ? no ? oh well.

this is actually quite cool. walk down charing cross road and look out for it in a window.

here's an interesting thing. it was a reflection on the road from the sun in a name plate on an office.

my first thoughts were that it was a crown with a cross on top. aha i thought. It's Jesus - golden crown, the cross etc.

but then i noticed the legs of the person and it looks more like someone arriving at the top of an escalator, or someone on a running machine.

what do you think it looks like ?

it's not heinz, but it is pickled cucumber.

it's another blocked doorway. this time with a little tree rather than flowers.

perhaps it's a tree('s) house

having not seen any playing cards in the wild for a while i spotted two lots today about a mile apart. the first lot are here, but it is this one which really interested me.

i spotted it on the floor and used my usual paper kicking technique to flip the card over, but it would not turn. i kicked again and it just skidded down the pavement. one more kick and it flipped in the air but landed back face down. i gave it one more kick to no avail then decided to stop as it was heading for the road.

so i bent down, turned it over, and it was ... the joker !

some cards on a fire escape

i was chased down the street by this cleaner this morning as i stopped to take pictures of all the food and drink related rubbish i saw. i was happy in the knowledge that it was all being cleaned up, but i think mr street cleaner was worried i was going to report him for not being fast enough.

the tops of these railing have been painted gold since i went on holiday. they look quite fancy now

on my way to work this morning i spotted this heinz baby food tin. it reminded me of yesterday's heinz broccoli find. the colour reminded me of irn bru

here are some other abandoned food and drink items i passed on the way:

the shop owner might be sorry, but the bailiffs were probably less so. at least according to the formal notification posted below their sign.

imagine their surprise at opening their tin of beans to find a little broccoli in there ! it must be why they threw the tin out in to the street.

this melted lolly looked like a precious flower. beauty in decay or something.

black socks gently blowing in the wind.

i spotted this little space ship on the road on the way to work this morning. i've always thought it quite presumptious that alien life forms would be the same shape and size as human beings (or beans).

so it was no surprise to me that now they've eventually turned up they've arrived in a teeny weeny spaceship on what must be to them a giant landing strip.

i was a little concerned that they've parked on the wrong side of the road though, so i suspect they aren't from the UK originally.

i found this headline quite entertaining but i'm not sure why. i'm sure the story itself was quite upsetting for those involved, but it does raise a number of comical images in my mind.

as you will have realised our scottish holiday had a good mix of friends and family as well as sightseeing and walking. here is our family and jane's aunt all looking out for interesting things:

and here is one of those family photos which will hopefully take precidence over the usual boring ones:

definately worth clicking for big

this horse in a play park must have a few storied to tell. it looks like it may have had as many repaints as it has had riders.

and it's perfectly positioned to watch all these things passing.

swings too dangerous for kids ? it's political correctness gone mad.

please look away now

we saw one of these slide by above water whilst walking along, helpfully marked by its escort boats. there was a load of people in red clothes standing on the top - possibly having a last stretch of the legs and fill of the lungs before a few months of claustrophobia.

these things (i carefuly haven't used their name or powering mechanism, but you can follow the link above) are strange anyway, but even more so when floating by for all to see.

it's back to work tomorrow after 2 weeks off. the first week we were in scotland (by the way we are only up to tuesday lunchtime in retro-posts on that week).

whenever we go on holiday we always think about whether we would like to live in the place we are visiting. scotland was a bit wet but was incredibly beautiful.

my main concern would be whether there would be enough blogging material to photo. working in london is great for photos, but would the highlands be quite as good. nature can provide some fantastic photos of course, but it's the human touch on life that i enjoy.

if ever we did move (highly unlikely in the near future i imagine) then i think rivers could provide a solution to my human remains problem. we took a walk along the Clyde in Helensburgh and saw all sorts of junk washed up.

here's a fridge and a squashed buoy:

now here's a remarkable thing - Irn Bru. On our recent trip to scotland we noticed Irn Bru everywhere. it's the coca-colo ('cocalola' says kezia) of scotland.

i tried some at the loch lomond shores which was an irn bru only establishment.

look at the colour of the thing. i'm sure this is why the stereotypical scotsman has red hair:

they sponsor rubbish bins:

and kids play parks:

cans even wash up on the side of rivers:

oh, and i think it tastes horrid. but then i'm probably not man-enough to drink it or something.

32. what kind of an age is that ? oh well.

(drawing by andy)

our friends andy, gill, adam and luke came round for the afternoon and we had a lovely time. they arrived by bike:

andy looking like a monty python by the BBQ with his knotted hanky hat:

it was the final service for the holiday bible club this morning which meant the final outing for the band. he we are in action:

and here we are all sitting down:

and here i am for those who were wondering (with wig which looks like my hair used to look before i chopped it off nearly 2 years ago):