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everyone in our house loves this little police car. it's got a really nice bouncy suspension and whizzes along nicely.
we once had two then we lost one then we lost the other one then we found this one which was one or the other of the ones we lost (but not the other)
anyway, if you want to buy a full sized one go here
here is laughing harry and laughing walter. they are laughing.
isn't this a classic bit of british understated local advertising ? it was in a car park in a nice oxfordshire village.
kezia and esther had a riding lesson this weekend. thanks to andy for these photos
i played bass yesterday morning for the first time in about 2 months and i think we rocked a little as we also had richard drummer and jane on her strat.
anyway, big eye tony used to complain about the drums being too loud, but he's in a different place now. specifically that place is behind the drums having a sneaky go after the service !
during the talk about vicar suggested that the word 'praise' in the Bible is a bit like the modern equivalent of 'advertise'. i thought that was very interesting and it's made me think. Both about God and advertising !
great news, you may remember that Alan, was very ill over Christmas (see here), well, he made it to church yesterday and is well on the road to mends-ville.
hallelujah (in the true sense of that word)
grebe and wiggly fish
grebe with stiller fish
grebe with swallowed fish
... letting your little sister wobble your wobbly tooth
kezia took a load of photos yesterday. i set her up with a backdrop and explained how the camera worked and she just got on with it. not bad for a nearly-4 year old i think
here she is setting up some shots
we occasionally have the 'is it a bollard or is it a cone' debate here on funkypancake. i use the word bollard to mean both of the things we see in this picture. but in my mind, the plastic bollard is far superior.
there's some good signs here, but my favourite one if on the right.
someone obviously put the arrows on the wrong way round, and rather than putting it on the other side of the door, they came up with the brilliant idea of putting it upsway down !
i bet they were really pleased with themselves for thinking of that. and so they should be. it's a special kind of logic.
you can click the picture above to get a better view
are you familiar with the John Shuttleworth song Pigeons In Flight ? If not, you should be. it's very good.
old BBC, new BBC, BT Tower and All Souls. Bit of a squeeze but i got them all in.
is this one of the best handwritten signs ever or what ?
it reads "The Bell is not working ! Have a loud knoke on the door. thank you very mush"
on the way back from a meeting i walked past jono coleman trying to get britiain smiling (by playing Amarilo).
i think it was to do with this show. i was invited to stand in the background and pretent to be happy, but seeing as i was meant to be at work i thought that would be a bad idea !
i'm sure if all the people just turned round the view would have cheered them up. and it would have been much less anoying than watching jono coleman jiggling to Amarilo.
quiet birds have ears. but does the opposite also apply ? if not, why bother with the sign ?
here's a funny old sign. it's advertising for models. it's not clear whether the sort of model is like the one in the picture, but let's leave that.
what intrigued me was that they are looking for general models for specific haircuts. what's a specific haircut ?
fosters are my most spotted abandoned drink cans. that's interesting.
if you want to make something appealing to kids you need to turn it in to a computer game ... or ... associate it with poo. this classic ball shooting game (drop the balls down a pipe with air zooming through it to fire them) has been renamed as 'shoot your poo'.
the balls are the poos which can get cleansed by the water reeds (the things with teeth and eyes).
see, it makes perfect sense now i've explained it.
as a celebration that kezia has finally got through the chicken pox, we went on a family outing to the london wetlands centre. it's really rather good.
here's a hide
and here's the girls in masks they made
definately worth a visit. beware of camera lens envy if you do go though - it's absolutely packed with photographers with long lenses trying to get their perfect bird shots.
here are kezia and esther pond dipping at the london wetland centre.
here is some of their booty - water snails, shrimps and a funny fly lavae thing
it seems they still only have one customer which is a bit of a sham(e). it was on the same stall as this one
we spotted this dead thing on a walk yesterday. any ideas what it is/was ?
i asked for permission before i took this photo !
this photo nearly worked.
the gates were open so i got to stand next to Isaac Watts grave.
and whilst we're on the subject, here's charles wesley and john wesley's mum's grave stone
i saw these two chaps on the way to work last thursday and i thought it looked like they were holding hands to cross the road. so i took this photo for you.
but i walked past them at lunchtime on the way to church and they'd obviously not done too well
and then yesterday i think they'd given up and gone back to car park duty
remember the great opening of my new office over 2 years ago ?
well, yesterday morning the time came for it to be taken apart.
i knew something was up when i saw this by my phone
and pretty soon the windows were gone
and i became open-plan
on the same day they took the walls away we were given some corporate freebies. here is john sporting his with pride - i wonder if they are planning on turning the heat off ?
just in case anyone is wondering, i really do enjoy my job and the company i work for is very good. and since this it's got even cooler (which is probably why we need the winter gear).
not one of my best shots.
you can't fault their logic. if you've got no hat, you've got no boots. and if you've got no boots, you've got no job.
i was interviewed for the A Chair Fantastic which is a great chair related blog which i'm sure you all read anyway. the interview is here.
they seemed very nice for chair people !
so, we eventually found out London's Avenue of Fame / Walk of Fame / London celebrity name plate things has been taken away as it was only ever a temporary thing.
there were some good names on the plaques, including Ricky Gervais who i once spotted in the streets of london (see here).
i have to say i'm still not satisfied we've got to the bottom of this one, so i'll go and ask in the church next time i'm passing. if you missed the original story it's here
what this looks like now
what a great word 'pedestrian' is.
big eye tony and matthew.
ideal for the more dignified builder
is someone wearing this ?
this glove was balancing on a transport no-information sign
Achtung ! - why German ? is the sign aimed at English speaking Germans ? those well known condiment and cutlery thieves ?
Pl. - nice abbrev.
our customer - note the singular form. if they've only got one customer why don't they just give them the condiments and cutlery by hand ?
and very serious consequences for non compliance. And random underlining
our good friend john was in town for 30 free minutes yesterday so i was able to have a quick drink of fruit juice in a very expensive london bar with him. here is the proof.
i got a very excited email from Mark a few weeks back telling me all about his local bin men. i asked for photographic evidence and here it is ! (i created the animation, so it's probaldy not as quick as this in reality)
Continue reading "bin lifting lorry from north carolina, USA" »
this is actually quite a poor picture of a nice fish in a fish tank in a fish shop. but it's better than this one !
here is regular commenter Rascle. The question is, will he comment on this ?
i've got hundreds of back logged photos to show you. here's an example of how out of date some of my pictures are. it's a nice autumn scene from october.
here's another really poor picture. can you guess what it is of ?
there was an incident with a pudding and a bowl (both ending up all over the floor). rather than rushing to help with the clean up exercise, i took a picture of the spoon which had ended up balancing in the curtain.
here is dave of the blue fish project
we had a party at our house last night and poor old kezia had to stay in her room because of her potential contageousity. we think she might be going down with it though as she went straight to sleep without complaining.
but to be sure i made these posters to warn people of the danger.
do you ever look on the Internet ? you should. you can buy cheap sheds apparently.
but you won't get help. even if you ask.
on the internet no one can hear you scream.
i didn't post this from last october either.
back in September there was much fanfare when the london celebrity walk of fame was opened (see story here).
Here's a picture i took back in October. I thought it was a bit of a death trap as those stars were really slippy in the rain and i nearly came a cropper. i never got round to posting this picture - sorry about that !
anyway, i took a short cut through there yesterday and all the stars are gone ! What's happened to them ?
read the latest on this here
here are a couple of sites you might not know about, or have forgotten about, which have london related fancy photos on.
There's The London Map
and the other one is Digitally Distributed Environments, a great 3D modelling and panarama site i've been visiting for ages. it's also got some cool models of london bits for Google Earth
after weeks of not seeing the sky, it was finally back this afternoon. london looks so good in the sun.
i like (love) cold chocolate, but i'm simply uninterested in warm chocolate. so i wasn't really that bothered by this fantastic giant pouring chocolate fondue thing.
there was an announcement that we weren't to dip the meat pies in it. which seemed fair enough.
here are some freebies i got yesterday from two different sources.
the mug on the right was 'personalised' which actually involved someone writting my name on it in a fat pen ! inside was this helpful note saying i needed to bake the mug if i wanted my name to remain on it. now where's my kiln ...
still, you shouldn't look a gift house in the mouse.
the person on the left is definately floating away. but when you look at it again, i think they are both floating.
photo by brother edd.
look at these signs ! fantastic or what. i think they are genuine too.
a few minutes earlier i had walked past a van with a 'contains radioactive material' sign on the back.
it's funny how days like that happen.
it's all about KPIs (key performance indicators) and targets these days isn't it. how are you getting on with your station top trumps (little britain version here)
this one is further down the line if you are heading in the right direction (or is that left) than this one
i saw this box in the rubbish outside a sports shop and i was quite shocked. they have exercise bikes for 4 to 8 year olds ! You can buy it here
the great thing about this bike is you can put your kid in front of the telly, give them a can of coke and chocolate bar in your nice warm house so they can get fit, instead of running around in the garden/local park.
yesterday we had our final xmas dinner. this time for the 'telco team'
here are john, walter, harry and pete.
here's pete's pudding pie
and here's my cake. i used to be known as cakey-dave you know
is this a leopard or a cheetah ? whatever, it was moving quite quickly up and down its cage and i managed to get one shot with its head vaguely in focus !
it's cold out there.
here are a load of people with digital SLRs all climbing over the ruined Abbey in Reading.
That's Abbey as in church rather than the building society
another one for davescollections, this time found by a cash machine near the station in Reading.
i found these negatives last month. i'll pop them on davescollections too.
green glove
white glove
black gloves
due to chicken pox potential infectiousness i took kezia to a museum rather than church this morning (my logic makes sense somehow).
after much travelling (lots of which was walking by the water (canal) under water (rain)) we ended up at blakes lock museum.
neither kezia nor i were very impressed when we got there as it's not very big and not very interesting (for 3 year olds).
i imagine on a nice sunny day it would be a nice diversion if you happen to be doing a canal walk in Reading, but as a destination it was disappointing but at least we had no contact with pregnant ladies !
do you ever wonder where the old gloves go that i see and photograph. i don't.
but here's one we saw last week, but a week later. it's managed to climb up the hedge.
we had an obligatory family point at this one. even jane joined in (from a suitable distance)
can you see the donks ?
here they are
this isn't really a cola drink on a railing. it's more of a cola bottle in a soggy ditch. these things happen.
did the top just pop off ? don't hide your light under an orange ball.
here's an ironing board. it was dark, so it was a long exposure and someone walked across the photo which is why there's a bit of a white blur over the front.
you can tell this was a christmas picture by the abandoned tree. perhaps someone decided to throw both out at the same time ?
we got over 123 xmas cards this christmas. jane counted them. she counted up to 123 then found a few more.
these balloons are just next to this place
can you guess what this is ? i think it's work out-able through the camera shake !
how funny. i don't see a lost rugby ball for ages then i see two in less than a week. there's no doubt some mathematic reason for that.
here it is a bit closer
it's worth clicking the picture to see the crocs a bit better. they were watching me take this picture.
i saw my first abandoned christmas tree on new year's day. here are two i saw yesterday
this one is looking very sad. i like to think it was actually in someone's house like this. it would certainly take up less room that way
and i saw this absolute whopper on the way back to the station
would you rather get the new funkypancake pictures delivered to your email box everyday ? If so, click on the image to take you to the sign up page
you need to be able to see pictures embedded in emails for it to work (and you need to sign up for the 'html' version)
it's free to sign sign up and easy to cancel if doesn't work for you. let me know how you get on !
seagulls and eagles are actually different words. i've tried explaining that to kezia but she won't listen. perhaps it's me that's got it wrong. it wouldn't be the first time i've got very confused on such things.
kezia and i went to henley yesterday to get out of the house whilst esther stayed at home being itchy with her 'chicken plops' (as kezia calls it - she knows what it's really called but thinks the word 'plop' is quite funny. which it is).
we went to the 'toad house' which is the Wind In The Willows exhibit that we went to before. kezia stops being 3 in a few weeks time so we're taking to everything that's free for 3 year olds and under whilst we can ! Actually, this was her choice anyway.
bird lovers are funny old people. some are even funny young people. they've even put up signs to warn them that their landing places might be a bit slippery
if they are slippery then they've only got themselves to blame.
and what is a landing stag anyway ?
i bumped in to keith and his wife in henley yesterday. i haven't seen keith in yonks so it was great to have a speedy catchup.
this picture isn't the most flatering ever, but at least proves i saw him !
some gloves from the last few days
by the slow sign (top left)
more detailed:
in a hedge:
more detailed:
(from brother edd)
kezia has a fantastic frog in a box spring thing. capturing it in motion is a bit of challenge, so i was quite please with the picture above
poor old esther came out in chicken pox on new year's eve-eve and she's just entered the horrible itchy stage. to ease the itchyness jane dropped a cold spoon down esther's dressing gown.
the success of this small action lead to an escalation to a packet of frozen peas.
poor old esther. no doubt kezia is next in line.
yesterday was our final xmas lunch featuring jane's sister's family and her parents.
christmas cracker toys this year have been very good. yesterday jane's mum got a water pistol which she promptly loaded and fired at all present. not to be outdone jane's dad quickly loaded his gun (using her glass of water)
an experienced water gun handler if ever there was one
and once it was all over, kevin sat alone with napster trying to find boney m
in my thanks to you the blog reader, i didn't thank jane my wife for allowing me the endless hours i've put in to funkypancake over the last [insert number here] of months.
jane's patience with me isn't limitless of course and i went too far on new year's eve by taking photos as we rolled over in to the new year.
for a while it looked like this would be the only photo i'd have of the period around midnight
(i was the only willing subject i had left)
here are cousin thomas and his cousin kezia (not to be confused with his imaginary friend 'kezia') out walking in Burnham Beeches. it's a great place, so you must go.
i like the fact it's run by the Corporation of London which sounds very 'industrial revolution'.
this isn't really a padlock, but i've put it in the category anyway. it is a double fence lock, openable in either direction from either side. good stuff.
rugby and dead leaves. does that sum england up ?
just look at the details of this bike ! incredible.
a new year thought - what's the point to anything ?
here's bother in law kev, who's here for the new year.
i forgot to post this last week (christmas day) so here it is a bit late. sorry about that.
