here is a dummy on some grass. i took two photos of it. one with legs in the background and one without.

i wasn't sure which one i liked best, so i thought i'd show you both. which do you prefer ? as usual, you can click photos for big versions.

with

or without

this is quite a common dog sign, but it's the positioning which we should note to be quite unusual. it's at the top of some stairs leading to a bridge over a small road.

kezia was very excited so stood and pointed

the girls and i went with andy, adam and luke to poleseden lacy for bank holiday fun.

as it traditional, it rained, but we were lucky with the weather as it also didn't rain.

here is an attempt to get luke, kezia, adam and esther in the same picture (note luke running off in the distance)

here is adam videoing esther on a maze

and here is esther on a ropey maze tangly thing

and here we are picnicking in what we thought was a little barn suitable for picknicking in (but was actually a nature hide).

on the way round we also bumped in to kezia and esther's best friends who were also visiting on the same day !

very strange hidden camera on a plant pot. it was pointed at a park bench. very mysterious.

here's a chap guarding 10 Downing Street. he looks very jovial, which is what you'd expect to see from a traditional british bobby in a tourist hot spot.

click to enjoy his jolly smile

remember tim westwood's mum-truck ? well, one day a few months back it had a flat tyre. and then it became a red one, with nearly the same number plate. but then the original one came back and this one remained.

so it looks like he's got two cars. i assume he lives somewhere near where these cars are regularly parked ?

jane and her guitar reflected in my bass guitar pickup

esther has recently developed a more subtle approach to painting. note the bold triangle surrounded by whispy blue bits.

she calls this piece "two clowns getting married".

this is the modern version of 'pin the tale on the donk'. it was very suspicious that the birthday boy scored a direct hit on the target ...

Total volume of music on my computer:
I use Napster To Go so only tend to rip my more obscure CDs on to my PC (about 4GB's worth).

If you've got Napster you can search my Library (member name funkypancake) which now has around 45,000 tracks in it.

i dump around 5GB of these at a time on to my Zen Micro and listen to them day and night.

Playing right now:
The Fall War Against Intelligence

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:
Mind Train, Yoko Ono
Sister Ray, Velvet Underground
I Think I'm In Love, Spiritualised
Rasputin, Boney M (our wedding first dance tune)
Gordoni Mix - Brakes on mix, Air

The last CD i bought

i'm just loving anything faust at the moment.

Radio Stations I listen to:
XFM
Radio 2 (Mark Radcliffe)
Resonance for potluck

where next ?
i'm working my way through the Record Collector 100 Greatest British Psychedelic Records. It's pleasantly surprising how many of these are on Napster !

thanks to russell davies for asking me to do this (i quite enjoyed it in the end)

i'm not going to pass this on specifically to 5 other people, but if any other readers have a blog and want to tell everything then let me know !

jane's still busy marking so i'm in charge of the girls at weekends. after sticky tape on their faces we went to Cliveden House again.

we decided that the blossom on the trees was so beautiful that we should give it a round of applause every time we saw some particular nice example.

unfortunately this made our walk quite slow, and quite noisey. but it was fun.

why don't you applaude nature out loud over the bank holiday weekend ?

i've thought about providing some links to a photo buying service via the website for people who might want to buy one of my photos. but then i think no-one would be interested anyway, so why depress myself by setting it up if it wouldn't be used.

but maybe if i sold cakes featuring my pictures, well that would be a different matter ! here's an example birthday cake (not featuring one of my pictures)

nice low hedges:

eery statues:

and some nice high hedges:

and nice topiary:

a couple of years ago you couldn't move in our house for sticky tape. esther took a shine to it and everything was covered in a small plastic layer. the remnants of this time still exist on door handles and table tops.

i was pleased to see the sticky tape returned this morning when i was looking after the girls.

they thought it fantastic fun to stick strips of blue paper to the face of their dolls so they could communicate with each other. they were making blue-tooth headsets for their toys !

here is one of kezia's babies with the blue communication device attached.

if they'd stopped there that would have been fine, but esther and kezia also decided they needed to stick blue paper to their own faces too. the design fault here was the sticky tape went over their lips so they couldn't speak !

esther went one step further and incorporated a dial pad in to her headset:

aha. the holy grail of street stuff is the lost photo. the lost passport photo is the king of the crop.

so imagine my excitement when i saw this on the floor. could it be a passport photo ?

i picked it up and yes !

a little along the street was this slightly burnt 'passport photo holster'.

i'll add this to davescollections when i get a chance

kids love slap stick comedy. i usually find this sort of antic anoying, but this chap was very excellent.

and it was great watching the kids concentrating on his show, and watch them watching him telling jokes that the grown ups had heard thousands of times before.

but for the kids it was the first time they'd heard them and they reacted accordingly

here's andy videoing everything/everyone that moved at his son's birthday party

here is a stormy weather picture inverted. as usual you can click it for a big version, or there a slightly zoomeder in one here

if i ever go back to the brussels art museum i'm going to track down this delightfully random painting and get a better picture of all of it (rather than just this man in a zimmer frame)

not quite cola but it'll do. this one looks quite nice big.

what do all these thing REALLY mean here ?

look at this great no dog fouling sign from my long lost flat mate jeremy.

i like how they've used the word 'refrain' in the sentence. it's usually 'please refrain from letting your dog ...'. here you've simply got to 'refrain your dog'

but the highlight of the sign is the accuracy of the fine formula. truely this sign was created by a mathematician
.

gloves, combs, nail brushes and pegs all used to lure us in to this shop.

why do they bother with such things ? if they'd just had a picture of a glove i'd have gone in.

we went to Cliveden House last weekend. it's famous for the profumo affair. it's also a national trust property

the sun shone a bit

and there's nice (though steep) walks down to the thames

and the views are nice (if you are tall enough)

from jeremy.

memorise these controls. you never know when you might have to rejig a cherry picker configuration in the dark.

ignore me at your peril.

these things are weird with their eyes looking and their mouth pursed.

here is a close up of the sign of the brussels modern art museum.

my long lost university flat mate jeremy (who isn't really long lost, i just haven't seen him for a while) sent me these pictures of things he found in Cornwall. lost and found.

dummy:

hat:

another hat ?

look at this dog. i've featured him before both here and here but not in such detail. the eyes are baaaad eyes. he's not happy about not being let in.

he's also had his head chopped off (note the red line which goes under the dog, but we can clearly see it through its gaping neck hole).

not a nice sign.

katie, kezia and esther put on a puppet show on a table. nothing much was happening from an audience point of view so i took this photo under the table.

we've reached the age of performances, but not quite reached the age of quality control

katie and esther

here is one of kezia's gardening gloves (every 3 year old should have some). it was on our living room floor being illuminated through the window.

update: Desktop Sized picture here

this photo isn't what it should have been.

what it should have been was a photo of this washing machine, taken by me lying on the floor looking up at it, with BT tower tower-ing over it in the background.

i had it all planned when i saw it the evening before, but it was raining then so i decided to come back the next morning.

but just as i arrived two blokes were dragging it (the washing machine, not BT tower) up the street a bit then placed it against the wall, so there was no chance of me getting the photo i wanted.

if i'd have arrived 5 minutes earlier i could have got the photo for you.

sorry about that

kezia decided she wanted to take some portraits with my camera. so she set up her baby and angelina her 'balernina'.

the results are quite impressive (and work better bigger)

i've been ill for the last 4 days with some fluey man-cold. cold shivers, achey joints, sore throat, general uselessness etc.

by saturday night i was feeling human-ish again and we went to a friend's 40th birthday party. there were loads of really nice people there but i couldn't talk to anyone as i couldn't hear anything thanks to my cold bunging up my ears.

so i just stood in groups of people and smiled on cue. i quite enjoyed it.

here are some sausages.

i bumped in to a friend on the tube last week i hadn't seen for about 3 years. he's called al, but i call him alvin.

and then i saw him again randomly in paddington station a few days later.

on one of the times i saw him i also saw this glove

i used to wear a coat like this. but i wore black skintight jeans with mine rather than red flares as seen here.

that's how i knew it wasn't me when i saw this person walk by in Brussels Grand Place.

here is jane in a belgian art gallery considering whether this was an exhibit. by the time we'd finished our visit they'd moved this stuff out the way so it wasn't.

sometimes art is so difficult.

an interesting display of mopeds in a shop window. it's for a shop which sells glasses.

you're obviously meant to walk past it and say "i don't believe my eyes, i better buy some new glasses"

the fun of stained glass windows.

they save you having to put up fancy wallpaper:

or buying expensive carpets:

i've mentioned our trip to the Design Museum in Ghent before, but i forgot to tell you about the fantastic little guide to the museum.

my favourite phrase from the book says "The absolute topper is the entirely original dining room ..."

what an absolutely topper phrase !

i love this picture. i like the angle, the double yellas, the kitchen flooring on top and the open powder tray. definitely worth clicking to see the big version

it's scenes like these which make my life as a pedestrian commuter such fun.

i didn't go inside this hutch to see if it contained an actual rabbit or an actual guinea pig. anything left on the streets of london is asking to be eaten !

i was talking to esther about the thames being tidal and took this photo to prove i wasn't speaking rubbish (she already knows to question everything i say !)

anyway, i thought others might not realise how much the thames rises and falls in an average day. i certainly didn't until i started regularly visiting the south bank for work meetings.

these aren't great photos but may be of interest !

here's another one with some people in to get some perspective:

these two cards were face down so i flipped them over.

this pile of hoover heads was out in the street all day long.

i know they probably aren't 'hoovers', but vacuum cleaner heads didn't sound so good.

i'm still enjoying the new Dr Who series on the modern television. are you ?

and what kind of a name is 'mustang' for a vacuum cleaner anyway ?

regular appearer in the Robot section is mr robot.

mr robot wrote to me to inform me he has a new initiative. it's fresh pigeon. check it out

(i think the links are work safe, but can't be sure !)

what's this boring photo about mr funkypancake i hear you asking. well, let me answer.

it's a train board in paddington station. these things normally tell you where the train is going, but this one just had three dots.

as if to say "and ..."

or perhaps they are full stops. ie the train has come to a full stop at the station. which it had.

my lovely wife jane and her friend lynn are doing the London to Brighton Bike Ride on the 19th June.

they are raising money for the British Heart Foundation and the local pre-school (which kezia goes to, and esther used to go to).

if you fancy sponsoring her then you can donate to the British Heart Foundation via her online page

or, if we know you in the real world, you might like to sponsor for the preschool in person.

the picture above is for indicative use only. young child included as an illustration and will not be participating in the event itself.

no dwarves. always run away from old flames. don't go in the box. go in the box. phone for sausages. all very strange

it's obvious in hindsight, but i should have amalgamated my 'coffee on railings' and 'cola on railings' categories in to 'caffeine drinks on railings'.

if i'd done that i wouldn't have had to worry about whether this stimulating drink was to go in the coffee or cola category. i went for cola as it's a cold drink in a can. unlike coffee. which isn't.

here's a sign from the belgian design museum. you'd expect it to be good, but this is most excellent.

they had two giant posters of airport signage on display in a special exhibition but there was no photography inside which was a shame. you'll just have to visit yourself.

not visit yourself. visit the museum. visiting yourself would be slightly odd. unless you were a timetraveller. but even that would be odd, unless you were going forward in time in which case you'd already know you were a timetraveller and it would be less odd.

but what is this ? a cat with its eyes closed drinking through a straw ?

it's another one of those famous belgian outside toilets

oh no - these beer barrels are going to throw themselves off this ledge. there's a bad joke in here somewhere. i'm sure you'll find it for me.

if you go to ghent you must go to the design museum. it's very good. they had an exhibition on the history of commercial aviation, flying in airplanes to you and me, which was very amusing.

there were quite a few things for kids to do, including looking for Playmobile people hidden in the exhibits. one playmobile chap was sitting in an ornate lampshade thing which was their pride and joy.

you don't get such frivolity and enjoyment in a National Trust property. or at least not deliberately.

the other museum you should go to is the mental one

here's a belgian sign warning about children crossing. here it is in context with my lovely wife jane wearing her rain coat because belgium is always rainy.

the devils definately, non-literally, in the detail in this, so i urge you to click to inspect the fullness.

i took our girls to a cafe at the weekend and we all had a go at scopping up blobs of ice-cream with hot chips.

it tasted quite horrid. so i wouldn't recommend it. unless you like eating horrid things. then you can.

i tried inserting this chip in to esther's 99. unfortunately the heat of the chip cut through the low grade ice-cream like, well, a hot chip through ice-cream, and fell on the table. that doesn't happen with flakes we said to each other.

that day, my daughters and i learnt an important lesson about food. unfortunately i've forgotten it since so i can't pass it on.

andrew suggested this might make a good photo so i tracked it down and here it is. you'll probably need to click it to see the big version to get the detail

each side of the bench comes with a complimentary packet of cigs.

here is an umbrella adapted for the summer months. in theory, no rain so no need for any material.

not ideal for british summers i admit.

i like this sign as it introduces a new way of writing. personally i'm not too bothered about capital letters. some people like them of course.

here we see a liberal lack of punctionation and an equally liberal use of capital letters. but note how the last letter in each word is still capitalised but slightly smaller.

that really cocks a snoot at those who believe sentences should start with a capital letter and end with a full stop.

like, how old fashioned is that ?

i got an email from project-euh.com informing me that funkypancake makes a good kaleidoscope on account of its large amount of pictures.

so why not take a look at the funkypancake kaleidoscope. you can select funkypancake from the drop down favourites menu.

click on kaleidoscope again once you get bored to create another varient.

nice stuff !

it's been nearly two years since we last saw one of these. so it's good to see they are still in use. in fact this one looks even more enticing - and i don't even play slots (despite the best effort of blog comment spammers to convince me)

there's nothing like making a sign easily readable. and this is nothing like a readable sign.

access for wheelcha-
irs only

i know what you are thinking - what ever happened to laura, the receptionist where i work who didn't quite become famous by not appearing on the Salon ?

well, she's well on the road to fame as she appeared in Now magazine a week or so back

she was very keen for me to update you on her progress to fame and sent me a copy of the magazine as proof for me to share with you:

well done laura !

i can't believe their self control. Kezia still has one Easter Egg left. here she is breaking in to it.

Esther meanwhile has at least three left !

vin sent me this scrabble O he spotted in Acton.

here is an advert for a beach party on the thames

a good use of the word 'ishs'

here is a most illuminated most holy lady. best viewed big.

when charles married camila a few weeks ago there was an obvious question we all wanted to ask - where will they live ?

although the queen has lots of houses with lots of rooms, nearly all of them are full of crowns and royal gifts, so camilla couldn't live there.

instead they decided on this rather nice camper-van just outside the front gate.

ideal for royal visits and an economical alternative to the Royal Yacht (which was actually a giant boat i think)

liberachi's car in Selfridge's window on Oxford Street. more reflection than car i'm afraid but that adds to the effect.

if you were a flower would you really want to walk on a mown path ? mown path suggests grass which has been cut. if i was a flower i'd want to stay clear of such destruction in case it came my way

someone else's bag

so how does london compete with a mannequin pis belgian weeing statue ? With a Weee man of course.

there's more info here and here

it's right by mayor ken's place. the weeeman doesn't look too pleased about ken's place though

interestingly this heap of pointlessness is in exactly the same place as blaine-in-a-box was hanging out 18ish months ago

he's only around in london until the 27th May so be quick !

It's the mannequin pis again

it's not everyday you get an email from top london auction house Christie's, but i did yesterday.

Apparently, lot 5683 titled ""Mechanical Music,Technical Apparatus and London Street Signs" has 73 City of London street signs for sale. the signs start at item 234.

the auction is on the 26th May, so start saving you pennies [insert appropriate local currency here] now

(photo from the Christie's site)

it rains a lot in belgium. i noticed that. even as an englishman. here's the view of a church from our hotel window

regular reader Vin spotted this strange phenominuum in Acton yesterday. it's a tie attached to a car. or perhaps it's a road kill's tie and the poor victim is stuck up there under the bonnet (or 'hood' if you are phoning the site from the New World)

it reminds me of those funny anti-static rubber dangling things that were popular on cars in the late 70s. did they ever work ?

we need to work together to find a car with such a device on the road in these modern times. if you see one, take a photo and email it to me

here's a weird coincidence. i was speaking to a friend yesterday who said one of his colleagues had been in posh restaurant the day before and had spotted Gwen Stefani complete with husband and kids a few tables away in a restaurant.

when i got home i inspected this picture of a CD i found in the street to see what it was. and guess what ... Gwen Stefani. eeek.

my underground rabbit picture is on the back page of the London Line this week. get it while you can.

i'm not sure how i feel about being squashed against Belle Du Jour !

(shame about the blob on my camera lense - hope it's not a permanent feature)

where do you go if you need an emergency stop sign in an emergency ? and how would you stop a delivery of emergency emergency stop signs ?

emergency is one of those words that if you repeat out loud to yourself enough times loses its sense and becomes just sounds. and it looks weird (as does the word weird)

i've always said that camera phones in the shape of shoes are a bad idea. this sign adds weight to my argument.

tree surgeons dressed in clean gowns lie trees down on their operating tables and place them under anaesthetic (like i stand any chance of spelling that correctly!)

here's a funny thing i spotted through whilst travelling on the central line last week. it's appeared on going underground and may make it in to the London Line (london's best free paper which costs a penny).

do you think the problem in the thames may result from the toilets up stream ?

while on a walk a few weeks back we found this pink welly in a green forest. there's something very funny about things perched on the end of a stick. this was no exception

but quite how do you lose just one welly ?

or perhaps it was a modern footpath direction arrow thingymbob

of interest to those studying british police car design. (and the word police written on roads)

some splatty oil painting in a belgian art gallery. worth clicking on to enjoy the coloured moonscape

in a nod to Russel's hotel telly photographs, here is a photo of someone putting a medal on a cow at midnight on our hotel telly.

we stayed at the novatel in ghent. it's fantastically centrally located and was mostly good.

the one bit which wasn't was when a gentlement came in to our room through an internal door from the room next door ! he looked round, said something which didn't sound like 'oops, sorry' and went away again.

needless to say i complained to reception which resulted in these complimentary drinks:

here is a rare steak and a pile of raw meat. yum (or perhaps not)

here is jane on two trains.

on the left is our first class meal on the eurostar.

on the right she is on a local belgian train. she is laughing heartily at the colour of the table. it was very blue which she thought was a hoot !

it's death, as seen last september, getting ready to go back on the streets of brussels and give plenty of belgian cheer to passing tourists.

the blog's been running on auto for the last week. did you notice ? i had a hectic week work-wise last week, then jane and i went to belgium for the weekend on friday and got back late sunday. so i uploaded a week's worth of the usual junk last tuesday.

so we missed me voting. here is the sign on the side of the voting caravan which was parked in the pub carpark. this time i went on my own so couldn't have a crafty drink with esther like last time

earlier that day i also spotted some ministers' cars awaiting collection of their VIP passengers in paddington station:

photo from brother in law kev

i learnt early on it was best to let others win at beer drinking races. here i am with my father in law (as seen through brotherinlaw kev's mobile)

fans and heaters. no wonder the weather's been weird of late

the driver of this rols royce is so post he/she gets someone else to caryr his/her car through town. he/she/it can simply sit there listening to Radio 3 with their feet on the car mantelpiece (next to the carriage clock)

one advantage of starting the marathon at the back was i got to see this fantastic view before i set off !

i was hoping this would be a panarama but it didn't quite work properly. so have two bits instead.

these photos are ages old, but it shows the fickleness of fame

one day the presenters were there:

and the next they weren't:

surreal graffiti from weblandlord matt

i like these two new signs which have appeared on the south bank in recent weeks

sudden drop suggests a trap door. but i don't think there was one

here is an upswaydown self portrait in my new wig

and here is kezzy in the same a bit later

another shot of here from another angle

in the days before carpet they had tiles:

click for desktop size

the south bank of the river thames has its own eco-system meaning there is always a haze of water in the air and a selection of strategically placed puddles on the floor.

from tony

did you ever wonder how the famous piece of london 'graffiti' on Primrose Hill got there ? here's the exclusive !

i took a picture of it almost exactly a year ago when i went for a lunchtime walk.

i had an email earlier today from the artist who created it. she's never told anyone this story before and was happy for me to publish it. So we've got a funkypancake scoop - thanks Angela !

It's from Angela, now resident in Australia:

modern wheelchairs have these big metal sticks out the back so they can be used on dodgem rides at the fair for added fun.

company drinks

now with added apron

if it wasn't we would be more worried (thanks to andrew for sending me this)

i went to see hitchhiker guide to the galaxy with Big Eye last night. it was very good in a quirky way and you'll probably enjoy it !

here are the food and drink i attempted to consume during the film. cinemas are funny old places. these days are they are generic warehouses.

in the good old days they used to dress the place up in the theme of whatever film (singular) which was showing. these days, you're lucky for a poster.

but there's more chocolate and fizzy drink available than ever before !

we went to Ham House yesterday as it was bank holiday monday (ba-ho-mo for short).

here are some signs with the word 'ham' in them

when we got home kezia said "it wasn't really made of ham was it". i was glad she noticed that.

richard sent me this. he invites us to spot the bollard.

esther and kezia spotted something on the floor

it was a blue speckled broken egg. i took a photo as someone might know what sort of bird (or other egg laying animal) it belonged to

esther cut a few flowers (with permission!) from our garden to make a little arrangement. it worked out quite pretty i think.

jane and esther on the tag-along bike. i took this whilst cycling along. i thought i'd give it a go after my marathon moving photography success !

i think as long as i don't crash or drop the camera everything will be fine.

we had a family meal last night. it was a raclette and we all had to dress up fancy. esther was a fairy and kezia was a ballerina (ballernina as she says it). jane and i wore our bestest clothes

much fun (and cheese) was had by all

it's nice to see a chained bike occasionally. so here's one to make up for all the no bike signs

i spotted this at the side of the road when i was doing the marathon. probably part of someone's fancy dress.

it's bank holiday this weekend in england so we've been out having fun. it usually rains on bank holidays, but so far it's been very nice. (compare to last year's rain dancing) !

anyway, we went to Grey's Court for a walk through the woods which are covered in bluebells at this time of year.

and here's some slightly different variety i pass on the way to work:

photo of cutty sark i took as i whizzed by whilst doing the marathon. it looked quite good and i think we'll go visit some time.

this little chap steers the giant sails of the windmill to ensure they point directly in to the wind.

like a small rudder it ensures the maximum efficiency of some seemingly greater element.

makes you think, doesn't it. what's steering your life ?

(you need to look at the big version to see this)