click for biggness

a baby with a full nappy. full to bursting in fact (which accounts for the small 'nugget' on the floor !

it's true you know. in this shop they employ a number of people called malcolm to sit next to you when you are having your hair cut.

it's a lovely, but ultimately pointless idea.

here are some gloves from brother-in-law kev:

and here is another glove:

here is the number 286, but look at the serial number on the tickets. KA77 (which looks a bit like KATT) and puss which looks a bit like PUSS.

Both of these are words are catty words ?

just a coincidence ? i don't think so !

here are jane's sister's family outside their temporary vicarage residence in Nottingham. we went to visit them for the weekend and had a lovely time.

here is cousin thomas and kezia in the Denby Pottery shop. Thomas enjoyed dangling out of his pram grabbing cup handles and plates as he went past the stacks of crockery !

and here are cousin thomas, esther and kezia in a row by a wall

see how this mattress has climbed out of the bin to get a better view of the tower.

who can blame him ?

it must have rained over night as there were loads of little puddles drying out as i walked to work this morning.

i don't know if it was just lack of sleep, but most of them looked like people or animals.

i took a photo of a few for you

i think they look a bit like prehistoric cave paintings.

i saw a few scarves this morning, but this one was the best. it was like a giant knitted snake, snaking across the road.

i wonder how many people get injured with these things dropping off people's roofs and walls ? probably none. but that doesn't make it a silly question does it ?

i asked this question to Ask Jeeves and he suggested i went to a website on Iraq War Deaths. So perhaps it's a problem over there.

few people are aware but in addition to carpentry the young jesus also had a job as a street performer where he and his mum would balance flower pots on his head

i went to a place where they were showing what the future would be like for a drinks reception as part of a conference i went to recently. it was too hot and stuffy and we were trapped because it was a bus ride from civilisation.

someone said it was like being trapped in an Dixon's warehouse, which it was.

there was some good points though. the food was fantastic and i got to see an actual 3D TV which was really showing proper 3D stuff without requiring magic glasses etc. it was totally incredible.

less impressive was this massive bank of flat screen tellies each showing a different program. i've seen the future but i couldn't find the remote control or the off button.

here is a self portrait of me in the chapel in my beligish hotel a while back. it was set up for a wedding and looked mighty fine.

(you know what, this doesn't really look like me ! i set this to auto-update but i must have put the wrong photo in. never mind, this looks better than me. although the hotel chapel did look very pretty dressed up for the wedding)

dog signs on the pavement in Cottingham, Hull-shire.

to make this sign even better it's in Finkle Street. Finkle has got to be one of the best words ever hasn't it ? say it over and over to yourself. first softly then loudly, then slowly in a low pitched voice, then really fast in a high pitched voice.

now you've got it. here's kezia with the sign (and a balloon):

at this time of year it's quite common to see little piles of biscuits in the street such as these.

london underground has the most amazing seat covers. here's one from their transport museum (it was on an original district line carriage). is the idea to hypnotise travellers ?

it's a cupboard under a bridge with a rather attractive handle. very mysterious.

After the success of the last church band bowling outing the event was repeated. Anita (here with clipboard and lovely lampshade hat) organised everything most efficiently and ensured the person to fun ration was optimised for the occasion.

some people thought it better to dance than bowl. here is craig combining the two.

i took a lucky photo through a glass and ended up elongating Mark's nose. mark is a doctor and so is steve, seen on the right keeping a medical eye on proceedings.

finally, here is what it looks like to be a skittle. jane and craig thought they'd like to be in the picture to. so were.

i went to a posh work do last night and comedian Ed Byrne was the entertainment.

he was very funny and here's his picture.

and here is natasha someone or other (BBC morning newsreader apparently):

here is a reflection of a street light in a hideously windowed car park.

the beautiful star was in stark contrast to the surroundings !

click to watch the coat moving movie

i haven't a clue what some of these mean. the one with the chap hopping by the tree is particularly random !

It's Charlie Dimmock from Ground Force wearing a coat on Tottenham Court Road.

click to inspect this celebrity

sometimes even sinks wish to sink down in to a nice comfy sofa. even if it is outside under a tree by the main road.

there was a smashing sunrise this morning as i came out of Paddington Station. The sky was glowing red, not that you can tell that from this picture !

the barbican towers always looks so big and square when you see them on the horizon across london.

but stand up close and they are quite a different shape

for anyone who thinks their job is boring, then just think about this poor person who's stuck inside a sandwich all day.

there's got to be a fantastic joke here somewhere. but for now it escapes me.

i'm sure someone out there can find a suitable sandwich based pun for us ?

click to go large

how cool is this street name !

this is a Christmas picture. but why ?

my true respect for the first to get the correct answer.

i walk past this sign every evening, but it's only in the last week or so i've started looking at it.

last night i took a photo for you and here it is.

but i've been wondering - how do they know it's a humped zebra and not a striped camel ?

long exposure night shot of mini number 244:

here is a glove sent from brother kev. he's recently moved to Nottingham and can confirm that it's rich pickings up there.

i also got an email from Rebecca pointing me to these great sign photos:

cemetry hospital
speed limits (forward and backwards)

another robot has appeared near where i saw the other robot picture.

this one has an email address so i'll investigate further for you.

i wonder about the long term implications of genetically modified plants and stuff. but, like seedless grapes, these modified foods do have some benefits.

here is another example of a convenience franken-fruit. it's a fruit tree which grows its fruit in to a carrier bag.

saves time picking and bagging it.

the bag contained some plums and some bananas, so the tree must be multi-tasking too.

brilliant stuff. next we'll have generic animals which can provide a variety of different meats (vegatarians can look back now).

bags are brilliant for carrying stuff. that's why they are called carrier bags.

here are two bags carrying a plank of wood.

i was working from home today so jane went in to esther's school for lunch. kezzie and i had lunch together and then she decided she wanted to do her own work too so pulled up a table and chair next to my laptop.

when jane got home a few minutes later she told her to be quiet and not come in as we were both working.

i'm sure her book of nursery ryhmns were much more interesting than the thing i was reading.

here is a nice nuclear family picture. if they all had their arms down i recon they could fit one more person in that shelter. but instead they are being very protective of their space:

but how about this toilet sign ?

in particular the baby changing facilities !

there's a model village on the isle of wight and it's a photographer's paradise (according to the sign).

it's built to quite a big scale (1/10) so the buildings come up to your waist rather than you ankles. which i found satisfying as you can see more detail.

here is the (full sized) sign at the entrance:

here is a model of the village church:

and here are some dinousaurs going by on a train:

click for big

i'm working from home today, so here is a picture of my desk in london i took last friday.

yesterday i spread all my found photos out on our living room floor, helped by my daughters.

i was very pleased with the modern girth of my collection.

see them all at davescollections.com

cartoon drawn on a big piece of wood left on a window sill in the street. it's a very cute robot.

our friends paul, liz and little dougie came round yesterday for a lunch finding adventure. dougie is 7 months old today and is a very cute little chap.

kezia enjoyed having him to visit too.

jane and i went to a male voice choir concert this evening. there was a local choir (containing a chap from our church band) and a welsh choir (contain welsh men). they all sang together for the final few songs which was most impressive.

it wasn't my usual thing but was very enjoyable.

here is a picture of everyone going home.

here is a fan stand. i suspect the fan on top blew too hard and whizzed off somewhere on its own. but where ?

these chaps are incredibly scarey. click to observe them in their scarey fullness.

as kezia says: "drinks makes wees"

more restrictions on park use

street cleaner driving by the This Morning TV studios (which were broadcasting live)

here is a council street junk collecting van. it contained items of furniture, white good (fridge, cooker), trollies, mattresses etc.

it was like the funkypancake blog doing a roadshow.

same car different time of day (and part of town)

when we were on holiday we went to a sweet factory and watched these two chaps make sweets. at the end they brought them round to the drooling spectators to consumer.

esther and kezia watched with wide eyes. they were like kids in a sweet shop.

the shop next to the factory sold all your classic boiled sweets and you could even buy the big jars of them:

i was amused to note that nearly all the jars had the same ingredients, no matter what they contained. they should have just had a generic label at the door saying "all our sweets are made out of the same stuff, it's only the artificial colours and flavours which vary from sweet to sweet):

and of course, there is always chaos near the pick 'n' mix.

did you know the phrase 'fall out' (as in nuclear fall out) comes from this very 'fall out' of sweets on to the floor next to pick 'n' mix dispensors?

i collect numbers. so i was pleased that these numbers were identified as numbers otherwise i may have missed them.

this sign is a typical example of the verbosity of the modern sign writer. 108 mins 164 is -56.

but i suppose if they'd written that then cars would have thought it was the speed limit and started driving very fast backwards down the road.

and that could only have lead to disaster.

so, on second (and third) thoughts, i'm happy they've done what they've done here.

i see a lot of london blue plaques in my daily wanderage but i don't want to overburden you with boring things so i usually don't take their photos.

i was impressed by this one on Denmark Street (aka Tin Pan Alley). I was down there earlier looking at Telecasters. Above 'Rockers' guitar shops (claiming to beat the price on any Fender) was this sign informing us that Augustus Siebe, pioneer of the Diving Helmet lived and worked here.

with the volume of guitar widdling in the music shop i could have done with a diving helmet myself.

another man who could do with wearing a helmet is telco john who just came back from lunch with a trendy-boy haircut:

can you see ? there's a teeny blue box drawn on this big yellow checked box.

this printer was dumped near a chemist shop. i was particularly pleased to see they had thoughtfully left the manual, power cable and one of those funny old fashioned printer connection cables you don't see any more in these days of USB printers.

that kind of thing makes things so much easier for the casual technojunk recycler.

here is an uninteruptable power supply i saw outside an office this morning.

i guess someone interuppted it by throwing it out their front door.

these things are good, but they're not magic.

i was intrigued to see these dumped fence panels down the little path i cut through to get to the train station in the morning.

i like how the front panel has slipped down and made a nice shape which i'm sure can be described mathematically. but i can't remember what it's called.

is this the same chap

i saw this confusing thing on some garage doors and spent ages looking at it. then i realised. so took another photo.

answer here (in case you haven't already guessed)

i went to a conference this morning and one chap gave a presentation which included some doctored street signs. here is one for you.

he also showed a picture of a weener van which was good !

i took this photo a month or so back but thought it time to post it as our thoughts turn to christmas.

christmas work is seasonal for Mr Xmas.

this census was more obligatory than the last one i saw

we can learn a lot from milk cartons. look at how these two get on together, despite being different shapes and colours and having a different approach to things.

makes you think doesn't it.

click to download movie (teeny weeny 56KB)

more photos from our holiday in the isle of wight. this was the windiest day when you could lean back against the wind without falling over !

click them for big versions

it's gyro-tastic

perspective is a fine thing.

in the kingdom of the flat the one eye'd man is king.

here is a dog sign in Windsor Great Park. Kezia, wearing a dalmation hat, was eager to stand by the sign for a photo.

here is a pretty little thatched church on the isle of wight near where we stayed. i stumbled across it on a walk one evening:

to my delight it was unlocked and could experience the calm within:

maplins is a shop i love. it's the british radio shack though i don't think they are related.

anyway, the one just off edgware road has recently installed a giant bouncer to keep trouble out of the shop.

there's nothing worse than battling gadget nerds, and this red suited inflatable giant will quite literally be able to 'bounce' such people out of the shop. he takes up over half the door way !

our good friend andrew went to Japan for two days last week (as you do) in order to take these photos of bollard related strangeness.

here we see illuminated bollards and an animated manequin thing which apparently was waiving a glowing stick.

we went in to town this morning to do some shopping. i went off with kezia to look at guitars and cool stuff whilst esther and jane did proper girl shopping for clothes etc.

kezia and i ended up being in a shopping centre where they were announcing that they were going to turn the christmas lights on and some celebrities were on the way.

so we waited. for 30 minutes. but nothing happened. despite it being past the allotted time. eventually we had to run to meet the others back at the train station.

apparently we were waiting for Bradley Walsh. but we didn't. So sorry about that.

here are some fairies getting dressed behind the tree and a giant bear giving out teeny weeny bears:

here is the bradley walsh detonating device.

i just love the low winter sunlight, it's yellow glow and misty rays.

here are jane and julie wrapped up warm with the sun behind them.

we went out for a meal with our good friends julie, andrew, katie and olivia this evening. i had one of the best meals i've had for a long long time in a restaurant.

it was a Beefeater. Not quite a Bernie Inn, but never mind (whatever did happen to them ?)

i gave quite a lot to other people on the table but still felt totally fed-up at the end of the meal !

one of the other highlights was seeing a high number of bollards in the kids fun pack. On the cover picture it appeared that this young lad is being attacked by three bollards.

there's a bit of the isle of wight which has fantastic coloured sands all in the same area. there's a place where you can make your own coloured sand memorabilia.

esther and kezia made these:

here is the cliff from which the coloured sands come:

click to do a geological inspection)

click to inspect

following on from last's year's experiment, here is today's consumption. much liquid, but little actual food until right at the end of the day.

banana, fruit juice and hot water for breakfast, blueberry muffin for lunch, crisps at 6pm-ish then a cheese fondle and banoffee pie.

i must remember to eat more food in a day. but notice the lack of chocolate (which is nowadays replaced with beer)

it struct me this morning that pigeons survive so well in london becaus they are camouflaged against the grey-ness of the sky, river and buildings.

doesn't stop them being virmin though !

just look at this scene. it's a proper building site.

it's got everything you could wish for - men in flourescent jackets, hard hats, ladders, things high up on scaffolding, holes, dirt, shovels, tractors, wheelbarrows.

brilliant.

the poppy petals were still around this morning. apparently there was one dropped for every person who died in recent wars (including 1st and 2nd).

some cleaners were busy sweeping the memories up, but there were still lots left.

poor thing

i was at a meeting last night which finished just before 6pm so we could go out and watch a couple of old planes fly over and drop pettles on london. so we did.

unfortunately it was dark and although i saw the fly by i didn't get a decent photo so won't show you (this never normally stops me!).

lots of the bridges were lit up in red and the whole town was full of people.

projections on a building and dropped petals:

and i finally found out what these lights were for:

the search lights remained searching way after the planes had gone:

(bottom left bigable by the method of clicking)

look at this yellow cherry picker. i just love the way it extends out of itself. a bit like those bird things

amazingly there's a little street which you can walk down which takes you right under the BT Tower.

the street is full of survellance cameras of course, but should also be full of photographers !

(click photos for big versions)

reflected in the building next to it:

the tower is so completely skinny (especially that base bit) and seems even more so when viewed from this angle. it's sort of locked in to the ground underneath apparently, but i'm glad i didn't take this photo before i went up !

i went up BT tower again this lunchtime and the weather was fantastic. unfortunately the sun haze meant i didn't get any decent shots of westminster this time, but i'm quite pleased with these ones.

click all the photos for big versions - the first one is full size so is 1MB (but you can study it close up) !

compare this last photo to this i took just over a month ago!

sky high catering:

if you know your geography and the height of the tower you can probably triangulate and work out what time i took this photo (or just check the EXIF data if you are nerd):

here are some workmen playing keepy-uppy over their security tape.

here is a shopping list.

nrawn
notatoes (no potatoes)
catrot (cream to stop your cat smelling)
pull-up nannies (they are so tired they need a hand to get off the sofa)
napies (cross between a nappy and a pie - nothing is wasted here)

now here's a strange thing. jane found it in a cupboard in our holiday house on the isle of wight. it says:

STARTER PACK for 'R's sheep
do not insert at once - familiarisation first !

we didn't dare open it up.

it's the Lord Major's show in london at the weekend and strange things are appearing all over the place. i assume these lights in plastic bubbles are somehow related.

they looked like giant bubble wrap. can you imagine the satisfaction in popping one !

1. take a picture with your own shadow in.
2. convert to black and white.
3. convert to negative.
4. adjust brightness/contrast to taste.
5. enjoy the eery result.

click to inspect

i know very little about football. but i did used to collect panini football stickers when i was a kid. (i've been very impressed that panini have diversified in to the chewey bread market).

i used to love football stickers for three reasons:
1) the feeling of removing the back of the stickers after the endless chase to find the corner which would lift up
2) the fanastic smell of the glue
3) the silkyness (and later, shineyness) of the club emblem stickers
4) the hairstyles of the footballers (this was the 70s).

that'll be four reasons then.

it's amazing i've turned out so well adjusted isn't it !

i remember emlyn hughes from those sticker days. and also from when i used to live in sheffield (he was our local celebrity). i once shook his hand you know. i was amused that he had a son called Emlyn Hughes and a daughter called Emma Lyn Hughes. i thought that was't very british.

anyway, he sadly died yesterday. and bizarrely his book was at the front of the pile in our downstairs loo.

if the pine tree is the default smell of outside-ness (as seen on air freshners and toilet cleaners) then the smell of melting tar in the back of a lorry should be the smell of choice to represent town-ness.

it's got to be one of the best smells ever and i'd be very happy to install chemically-produced-equivelent-smelling-products in my life.

what's your favourite town smell ? i don't think there are that many nice ones - cooked breakfasts from cafes in the morning possibly ? keep it pleasant !

this street cleaner moved to the side slightly when it saw me taking a photo. when i squeezed by to get past he switched on his little side water yets and wetted my shoes !

trolley at the Needles, Isle of Wight.

charity shos have to be careful what they sell. they don't want to sell anythng dangerous, but equally they don't want to sell anything which is rubbish.

so that's why Pat the Pianist comes round and plays all the pianos and organs before they are put up for sale. if she doesn't like the timbre of the auto-backing beats or is put off by the vibrato on the inbuilt lesley she'll not let them sell it.

so until she comes a-visiting, it'll sit, looking good, but minus the price ticket

here are two photos sent by me dear readers.

on the left are some humanoid state-side bollards sent from cheryl. she questioned whether these chaps were bollards since they were doing the same job.

my motto is "if it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck" (unless it's a cunning cat trying to catch duck by impersonating them). so, yes. i think it's a bollard

on the right is a glove from nottingham sent by brother-in-law kev who has just moved up that way and likes sending me pictures of gloves

i spotted this out of a taxi window. the sign says "welcome to your local recycling bring site".

the graffiti is about the size of a person.

two little robots:

best of friends:

the lift on the right has gone missing.

well. i caught a Beautiful South video on The Amp earlier.

it's quite excellent and you should watch it. there's a few excellent moments - especially the slippery floor sign and the recreation of the builder sign.

see it here (at the moment):
High Speed Connection
Medium Speed Connection
Low Speed Connection

here are esther and kezia outside church looking at the confetti left from a wedding the day before.

up close the confetti complimented the autumnal colours and the beautiful dew drops.

in a battle between man made and natural, i think the natural was winning.

click the leaves

there's are a number of adventure golf courses on the isle of wight. the theme of this one was a desert island. for some reason it had a real wrecked airplane crashing in to it, complete with a manequin pilot with matted hair and a very scarey starey face.

the neon at the bottom of the picture on the left says "family amusements"

sing along now:

"like a glove on a tyre, like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free"

sunkened boat in the thames.

these kids spent about half an hour trying to drag this lobster pot off the beach. i bet their parents were very pleased when they got it home.

i gave up chocolate nearly 4 weeks ago. but we went to a restaurant today and i decided (in advance) i wanted the chocolate cake. so i did.

i've been thinking about how to make the transition back to everyday life with the chocolate thing. i still need chocolate bars badly, but don't have as much of an issue with cake.

so i've decided to stay away from chocolate biscuits and especially chocolate bars, but otherwise be a bit more flexible on cake and puddings (which i don't often have anyway).

i felt a bit sick after this cake (which was huge) and i thought it was much too sweet. which is excellent news !

perhaps i'm finally kicking the habit ...

here we are having a picnic in a carpark in some cold november rain. british life at its best.

we went to my mum's house yesterday and had a very nice day. she even looked after the girls for a couple of hours so jane and i could go speed-shopping.

when we got back it was time for sparklers.

on our recent holiday on the isle of wight i discovered that fudge would make an ideal chocolate substitute. so we bought some traditional isle of wight clotted cream fudge.

however, the postcode of the place of manufacture showed it was made in Exeter ! still tasted great though.

we haven't got a dog, but i got this rather nice 'thanks for looking after my dog' box 'o' fudge for my mother. doesn't she look pleased with it ?

this sign was definately for the baby changing but i can't work out what it's meant to be showing. it looks more like an alien autopsy.

here is esther on a beach. can you see her ? she's wearing a red rain coat.

click to have any chance of finding her

here is the standard Isle of Wight dog sign. you need to look at it closer up to see its scrawyness. also shown is a faded sign so you can see the difference between the red and black print fade resistivity.

click to inspect the scrawyness

no undressing and avoid bothersome activities

click to view in it's massive largeness

i like the blurryness of this picture.

clickety for full read-y

so i set off down the walk and found this water 'otter

clickety for inspecty

here is a coin slot on a charity box in a car park.

matt, the webserver landlord sent me this picture of a "Bewildering Array of things to do on a Chiltern Clubman train".

he's got a better grasp of capital letters than i have !

clickety click

this was a car apparently stuck in tarmac. of course it was just a full size replica car used as an advert thing. but i was impressed (as was the car)

oh dear. xmas lights are up already. i saw the one on the left near the Ivy yesterday lunch time and the Bond Street ones flashing away in the evening time.

why don't they just leave them up all year ?

jane bought a new vacuum cleaner yesterday. after years of good labour, our old one converted itself in to a loud dust blowing device.

here is jane with her dyson. she was very pleased. and shocked/excited by the amount of cack it picked up off our carpet.

my usually very quiet office has become very noisey of late. people have moved their desks in to what was a conference room and we are now much more than we ever were before.

the result has been less fridge space, more noise and a lack of suitable drinking vessels. i've resorted to drinking from a milk jug.

actually, it turns out the handle is better than a mug and you get more drink in so i may have turned a potential disaster in to a stunning drinking container victory.

here i am considering the situation:

esther wrote a story about trains. it goes like this:

chuffa chuffa, choo choo, on the track
where are you going clickety clack
off to london, then we're coming back
chuffa chuffa, choo choo, on the track

here are esther and kezia performing it for you. Download file (500K).

jaunty angle. good advice.

here's some more advice. don't risk disaster:

there is a problem with things, particularly bits of signs, getting washed away/falling off on the Isle of Wight.

here is a good example. it's a 'big eye' which is the symbol of the Isle of Wight tourist board. but most of it's worn off so it's just a big eye.

not to be confused with Big Eye Tony of course.

i was very nervous about travelling to the isle of wight because you have to go on a ferry. and i'm not good on transport. which is why i walk everywhere.

it was a wet and windy day and the boat was quite rocky. but it's only a short distance over a secluded bay. i thought isle of wight was near france. but it wasn't.

here is someone else's ferry:

and here we are enjoying luxury corned beef sandwiches on the luxury ferry:

when we arrived i was dissapointed to discover that they drove on the same side of the road as us, used english pounds and even spoke english. how frightfully british.

portsmouth is home to some quite dreadful buildings. this one was being pulled down as we drove by in the rain. the graffiti worked well i thought.

i walked past ex radio 1 dj simon mayo. it was dark and my flash wasn't on (and you wouldn't have wanted a flash photo of the back of his head anyway).

so here he is in blurry greatness. interestingly, the bench on the bottom right of the photo is where i saw a long-haired richard e grant over the summer enjoying a al fresco drink (but failed to realise it was him until i was on the next street).

a fantastic mess. it looks like a person sitting down. sort of.

would you believe it, about an hour after writing this i saw the word lush written on a box in the street !

it was the kind of box which would have had tomatoes (another blog post this morning) in.

what a bizarre circular morning.

things sitting in the street outside a restaurant this morning

at what point will this get easier ? i'm still absolutely desperate for chocolate. it's been over three weeks now.

and still chocolate haunts me. this easter egg was outside paddington station. and yesterday i found a full packet of smarties in my jacket pocket (must have been places there by one of my daughters last week).

glove in luscious green grass.

luscious is a word which used to be used a lot by teenage girls (when i was a teenage boy). as in "that's so lush".

maybe they still do.

i also saw this rubber glove and its suspicious looking bag (which was empty)

UPDATE: Having not seen the word Lush for nearly 20 years, i saw it an hour after posting this picture. see hear (look sea)

i spotted this chap last night standing by a street cabinet. he had his laptop and a little TV screen so i wandered round behind him to see what was going on.

this is obviously the control point for one of the congestion cameras and there was a bloke up a ladder somewhere cleaning the camera.

where i was standing it was a like there was a little man trapped in the monitor giving the window a clean with a wet cloth.

most peculiar

it's weird going back to work after having a week with the fambily. i miss not listening to the same tape of winnie the pooh multiple times each day. i also miss not shouting "FLAG!" out loud every time i see a flag (as is popular with the female members of our household).

so here, as a reminder of just a few days ago, are a load of flags so we can all shout flag flag flag flag together.

we can pretend we're all one one big happy bloggy fambily.

hoorah.

here's your comedy stuffed animal pictures of the week. it's from flamingo park on the Isle of Wight. They have a small display of statues and fluffy animals in a barn you can look at if it's raining.

For some reason someone had dressed up these two flamingos on the right in sailor's gear. even more disturbing was the dreadlocked saucy-santa wearing a festive fluffy bikini.

esther pointed out that they looked like real flamingos which had been stuffed. which they did.

i was sent this bollard by our lovely friends in the photogenic north.

richard writes "thought you might be able to empathise with this poor bollard found savaged in a wood near us… I think it is the Blair Witch Bollard"

luckily, i've never been savaged in a wood, so i cannot empathise with this bollard. i can guess how he feels though ...

click to inspect

i love the way birds fold themselves away when they are sleeping. this flamingo and pelican are both compacting themselves down for a rest.

but what about this penguin which seemed to have a removable head ? one minute it was standing there with its head on the top of its neck, the next moment it wasn't:

two short yellow hoses (viewed from each end)

this is a Dog Warden's roving dog poop warning sign. it's quite an old sign - London telephone numbers changed format ages ago.

This indicates that there's been no inflationary pressure on the maximum fine associated with 'fouling' over this period. Perhaps there are other pressures keeping this price down.

Of course the whole dog fouling problem would be solved if dog's rear delivered gold rather than the current stuff. then owners would be very keen to pick it up and take it home.

So either someone's got to invent a way of making dogs drop gold or else we need a dog poop to gold converting machine which would result in a financial value being attributed to each doggie do.

as the saying goes: where's there's muck there's brass. (note the two/three hidden words in 'brass').

such is their commitment that, even when seriously injured, a bollard will still report for duty.

kezia had her first day at pre-school yesterday and absolutely loved it. she made a whale which she painted herself.

To celebrate her growing up she was also allowed to sit at the dinner table on a grown ups chair for tea. She understands it's a probationary period and any messing will result in her being relegated back to her old chair.

how life whizzes by.

i returned from holiday to find my colleague Telco John had found this passport photo for me. what a nice thing to return to.

see it on www.davescollections.com

mains stumps.