got anything you want embellishing ? an ill-formed anecdote or a poor excuse for not meeting a deadline at work ? they'll sort it for you

i saw this giant foot floating around trafalgar square on the way to a reception at 11 Downing Street (nice name dropping hey?). Number 11 is where Tony Blair lives (because he did a house swap (and job swap) with Gordon Brown.

when the formal part of the event finished, i had to rush back out of downing street to a meeting at church and so i went without the free house of commons wine, and the free pint of beer given away with the london evening newspaper to celebrate saint george's day (they know us English too wel).

it turns out i missed this fantastic record attempt in trafalgar square which i'd have seen if i'd done more adventuring before. but i did get to go to downing street and the refreshments at the church meeting were mighty fine.

a funny old day, which could have been slightly funnier. but that's most days isn't it ?

love of film ? ladies and ?

these chaps were carry weed killer tanks on their backs and were studying a map - i assume working out where to go next.

the pipe across the back of the chap on the left obscurred the letter 'd' in weed, making it look like he was wearing some medical 'wee control' device.

i know what you are thinking. i was thinking it too.

why would anyone want a machine which you can go in to nice and clean, but come out dirty

these chaps are facing the wrong way down a one way street. this may have been their final mistake (but it wasn't)

there's a story here somewhere. a music player, a toothbrush and the yellowpages. what's it all about ?

what on earth is this about ?

these weighing things are all over vienna. you can have your weight measured in the street for all to see.

remember the chap who always brings his dog to the conference ? if not, see here or here.

well this year he didn't bring his dog. he brought his wife along instead !

here he is without his dog.

click for big

here's a strange thing. it's a bird poo. but it looks like a man in a hat sitting down whilst waving.

if it had been mother terresa it'd have been a worth a bob-or-two.

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.

esther spotted this before i did. it's a balloon person. just legs and a load of balloons for a body:

click for big

it's the totem pole in windsor great park

this bridge has been stranded at paddington station for ages. it's become a folly for our times (at least until they mend it)

this toilet may be automatic but it doesn't seem very private. it's just an open plan room with a curtain !

i suggest this is a direct result of Britain's involvement in the Europe. we're becoming more like mainland europe every day

click to inspect the loo

british people love queuing. here are a few standing in line by some bins.

that's the good thing about slightly damp cold winter mornings - flower beds are unlikely to burst in to flames.

i'm often accussed of seeing human traits in inanimate objects. i'm not really sure what that means but it probably comes frow watching johnny morris when i was a nipper.

anyway, no one can doubt this looks like a little ghosty:

i thought it might be a kids dressing up mask so i flipper it over. and it turned out to be:

this is like one of those magician tricks where they show you an empty box from the side then proceed to throw a cloth over the top then extract a live rabbit.

i suspect that modern haulage companies are concerned about transporting valuable cargo in their standard lorries and so have decided to use these magical ones instead.

remember the old joke about the chicken and the frog in a library ? the chicken kept saying "book, book, book" and the frog replied "read it, read it, read it".

i suspect i could have told that a bit better ... in fact, it's on this frog joke page if you are that interested)

anyway, here is a concept which could help that little froggy to store his books. it's underwater shelving. part of Ikea's new aqua range no doubt.

perspective is a fine thing.

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

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

two short yellow hoses (viewed from each end)

this lady was carrying a wedding dress angrily down the street on her head. there was a story here somewhere.

i had to laugh when she went in to the wrong door, quickly came out as if nothing had happened and then went in to the next door which actually belonged to the wedding dress shop.

three boxes in a row. the one on the right looks the tallest. but only because it's standing on a plant pot.

what incredible cheek.

you never know when death will catch up with you. if you go to brussels you may find that you end up walking straight in to him like i did a few weeks back.

look at all these boxes chained together. i suspect there was an amateur escapologists meeting last night and they all got stuck.

and look at how they've stacked the boxes on the right. everyone knows when building a tower you should put the biggest boxes on the bottom. they're asking for trouble.

i'm sure this headline refers to something horrible, but let's just pretend it doesn't for a minute.

perhaps it's actually referring to an old lady who decided to have a go at her down decorating rather than paying one of those cowboys to do it for her. she paid the price when she tripped and spilt paint on herself.

my headline would have read "grannies - putting the pain back in to paint".

this giant carboard contraption was about a metre square and looked like it was under huge pressure. it could explode open at any moment.

i took a chance with getting the photo - my flash could have been the thing which set it free. but it wasn't. so we are ok.

but it was tempting to undo the tape and see if it popped up in to a giant carboard house.

it's modern street accomodation for the flat pack generation. ideal for street folk. free with every can of Super Strength Lager.

i thought this was a fancy egg cup. but it's got some stange compartment up the top, so i suspect it's not.

i was particularly impressed by the effect the camera flash had on the pavement on the picture on the right. it turned bland tarmacadam in to shimering jewels. a bit like God does really.

here's your friday quiz. what do you think this ? i think it's quite guessable.

i have a new person working for me. she's called Pilar and so far seems to be enjoying the world of telecommunication regulation.

i noticed today that she was wearing two watches. apparently the battery had run out on one of them so she was wearing an additional working one.

in a few years time she'll most likely have an arm full of watches - all (except one) with dead batteries.

here's a very strange thing sent from regular reader Sarah. i can't attempt to paraphrase her email, so here it is in full:

"I live in Minnesota and at our state fair there is a young woman who wins a contest and gets to be the princess of the dairy farmers. She's called Princess Kay of the Milky Way. And one of the many honors that are bestowed on this young woman is the privilege of having a large block of butter carved into her likeness.

I took a picture of last year's sculpture that sat in the cooler at the fair. Behind it sits this year's Princess Kay of the Milky Way as she sits for the artist who is carving her Butterhead.

I love the Butterhead. I want to bite her nose. And, yes, the butterhead is wearing a tiara."

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

click big biggernisation

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.

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:

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 ?

once there were four. tonight there are three.

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.

viewed from an angle in the Oak Tree Inn

i went to the supermarket with kezia this afternoon as a father/daughter bonding thing. we walked past the men's pants department and i saw these keyhole trunks.

trunks seems a modern word for pants (and i use this term in the most british of senses - non of your trousers here pls).

and what's the keyhole bit all about ? is it for those physiologically challenged ? or a modern day chastity belt ? it's all too much for me to comprehend.

next they'll be saying men need to wear single piece swimming costumes at public pools.

not everything in life is black and white. but some things are.

this man was standing on a first floor window tied on with a rope. i didn't think he looked very safe.

walking down a street i looked up and saw this barbed wire circle. viciously beautiful

these guys appeared to be making a film about how to be run over.

you don't get this kind of thing on the web. i might spell stuff wrong and have rubbish grammar but at least my words don't slide off the page like they did in last night's Evening Standard

this girl seems very pleased with herself. very mysterious.

here is a van delivering cryogenic gas to a theatre. i was struck by the sign on the side of the van which suggests you might like to use cryogenic gas for leisure.

i think that would be a great conversation starter at parties.

do you have any hobbies ?
yes. cryogencs.

the highlight of the country fair is the tug 'o' war. local kids get to take on the local cadets and prove once and for all who is the bestest. i suspect it's where the local gangs setlle their scores. it's a very passionate occasion.

of course the civilians won and against the military which was a nice post-iraq statement (in its own way):

this man is a complete star. he comperes the show all day by basically speaking for 7 hours solid and saying whatever comes in to his head. it's completely mad and really funny. probably drives his wife mad.

it wouldn't surprise me if he organises the entire show so he can do his compering turn. whatever, he's the highlight for me each year.

he was in charge of setting up the rope for the tug'o'war as well as judging the winners:

after the matches this man came and took the rope away (i suspect he was going to sell the old thing for cash):

but what of the local kids who'd been whooped up and wished to celebrate their winnings ? well, they had a massive playfight in the middle of the ring, watching by dozens of bemused spectators:

this tap might be gone by the time i walk down this particular street again. so here it is for your enjoyment. it was enormous. but you can't really tell. and it's out of focus.

but it's the thought that counts.

spring is in the air and the bulbs are bursting forth. these bulbs are gathering in a tangled mess.

it's bin (sorry) a while since the last bin update. look at its new position (and the bin in the distance by the lights on the other side).

they are up to something i'm sure, but i haven't worked out what yet.

this pub has a secret room that no-one can find an entrance to according the bar man. i said i didn't believe him. "there's always a hatch" i said. but apparently there isn't.

look at this protruding screw. be careful not to scuff your shoe.

i forgot to tell you that the toy museum opposite my office which was going to shut down now isn't.

So there's good news for you.

If you are going to visit, drop me an email and i'll wave at you from my window.

i'm working from home today in our dining room. i like to choose different seats around the table to sit at when i'm working and at this moment i'm sitting on jane's chair next to kezia's high chair.

from this angle i can see where kezia puts her feet. to my amazement there's a small man there. he looks quite stern and a little bit like a school teacher.

he can't talk (or at least he's refusing to speak to me right now) but if he could i bet he'd tell us a fantastic story of how he got there.

kids love balloons. it seems that grown ups like them too. classically they are used in car show rooms to encourage people to part with many thousands of [appropriate local currency unit] for a new car.

who is it that impulse buys a car based on the fact the showroom has balloons hanging up ?

this pub has gone for a similar approach. oooh look. balloons. i think i need to buy myself a pint.

this little corner of london often has some art stuck on it. it's proper stuff, not someone messing about.

but it always looks like a random load of rubbish. so the council have to stick signs on it saying "this is art not rubbish, please don't throw it away" (or words to that effect)

there's nothing better than a nice barbeque in this barmy british weather. britain (unlike any man) is an island. so it's ideal to have your BBQ on an island.

these people chose a traffic island in trafalgar square for their barbeque. i would have spent a bit longer trying to get a nice angle so you could have seen the square behind them, but i was on my way for a meeting with some MPs and probably would have been late.

i spotted this two exploded furnitures about 20 minutes apart on my walk to the station last night. a coincidence or something more sinister ?

look at the state of this double glazing. rubbish. i could have done better myself.

actually i probably couldn't.

look at this slice of bread delivered on a massive bread pallet.

"just one slice today please Mr Baker".

coke can off the edgware road. it's definately a real coke can as it said coca-cola in normal writing on the other side.

here is a floating piece of flourescent rubbish in the thames at henley. from the angle we viewed it, it looked like an arrow. but in fact it was a flat piece of yellow wood and it was just an illusion !

i bought this DVD the other day. technically it's a bit tricky to navigate but content wise it's fantastic.

how stupid we were in the 1970s. good job we had people to tell us common sense.

but how scarey are some of the information films - over half of them end up in people being seriously injured on the road, in a factory etc. it's very scarey.

"old fridges can kill" is a particular favourite.

i was to young to remember the Protect and Survive thing, but the info films are really disturbing.

do you know what this is ? it's a 'casualty'. if they die in your safe room you need to poke them through the door after 2 days and label them up. after 5 days you can bury the body in the garden.

you can view some public information films on this excellent website

here are two tuppeny pieces stuck to the floor. they've obviously been there a while as they are well worn. it's nice to think of the generations of people who will have stooped to pick them up (and failed)

everyone knows that kids explode if they run faster than 6 miles per hour. there is a danger zone between 5 and 6 miles per hour when they could go off, but you can't be sure.

best to be careful just in case.

funeral directors are funny old places (without the humour obviously). here is such a place off Brick Lane. It's nice how they have provided some reference clients so you can see what other people got.

it's also a nice idea because of the british weather. it's raining again today, but anyone who's buried in here will be nice and dry because the shop is fully glazed and has modern doors and everything.

here is a classic british scene. it's morris men on a rainy may day bank holiday. they delighted us by doing their usual bell jingling stuff with the added protection of umbrellas.

this group of morris men had blackened up their faces and looked very scarey.

gelatine blows stuff up doesn't it ? not a good plan to put that on your nahds or face surely ? might be good for a face lift if you don't mind your face being a lifted very quickly a few inches above your head.

and why did i say inches. i'm metric boy. through and through.

here's two trees having a sack race up a street. it'll be egg and spoon tomorrow and a three trunked race on wednesday.

the highlight will be the parent trees race on friday when a number of extremely competitive giant pine trees will come barging down the street (much to the embarrasement of the junior trees).

i've just been researching what to do as a family activity today and this caught my eye. it's the Reading Trail. Looking at the map, it looks like you get some good nature to observe:

sewage works, gravel pit, other works, a weir, a main road, a television trasmitter and some electricity pillons. what more could you want for in a family day out ?

the milkman now has a telly, a bar stool and an exercise rowing machine on the back of his float. something for every occasion.

it's been a day for finding odd shapes that look like other things. there was the wombat this morning and now here's a little dog made out of wet pavement i saw when i finally made it back home.

a slight movement closer to the road since yesterday. i hope this isn't a suicide attempt.

here are some ducks in a row at paddington station:

and here is an escapee a few miles away near Harley Street. it's nice weather for ducks today so it should be ok:

this bin moves around a fair bit. yesterday it was by a bollard further down the street. today it's in the middle of the street.

i find this very interesting and will try and keep an eye on it for you.

they are doing up the whole area round St Pauls and it looks great (it'll look even better when they've finished sandblasting the cathedral itself).

i noticed today that they've put up these heads on sticks.

the sculpturer is great at faces, but is lacking when it comes to hats and bodies.

or perhaps they are people with really long knecks and their bodies are underground ? if you go down to St Paul's tube station you can see their feet dangling through the tunnel ceilings. possibly.

following the huge popularity of my pants last week, here are some new pants. i bought these in Reading on saturday for £3.50. they are cream and brown and made of a very unpleasant towelling material.

you can almost taste the quality.

i like collections. i've even got a collection of underpants.

here they are. click for a good look.

here is someone dressed as a dinosaur (or could be a dragon) trying to convince people to buy a camera. unfortunately there weren't many people walking down the street so (s)he didn't have many people to talk to.

it also meant that anyone who did walk past got a very warm welcome. which was not always welcomed.

i'm not convinced this was the best marketing strategy for the shop in question.

maxx asked for something uplifting after the sad chair and zimmer frame pictures. so here it is.

a magic lifting ladder which just appeared outside my window:

funkypancake - you ask and i'll blog it !

look at this poor zimmer frame. it's jack-knived. i hope no one got hurt.

probably a pensioner trying it for speed and took a corner too fast:

this is obviously a common occurance as they have special breakdown lorries to collect them:

Marleybone High Street is a very fashionable place, so where better to see what this summer's fashion is likely to be ?

i just hope this summer is going to be a warm one (the reflection in the window is deliberate so to preserve at least some modesty).

this cashpoint is brokened. so they've put a little sign on it which is a nice idea. i like the way there is a receipt hanging out the top right hand slot of the machine.

the machine itself obviously thinks it's working - or is it just sticking its paper tongue out at us in a style of mockery.

here is a concreted-over door a set of gates attached.

it's a double security feature.

i don't generally do sound. but here is a sound i found down the back of the cooker (on my old computer):
Ooooooh.wav (85KB)

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

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

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

instead i hid in the trees and stalked a photo.

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

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

the oft-unviewed side of a picnic table

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

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

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

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

here is a load of ice cubes under a tree:

here they are a bit closer up:

how funny i thought.

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

it must mean something ? but what ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

people like order amongst chaos.

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

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

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

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

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

more tape fun.

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

i pass a food shop in the morning which sells a wide variety of goods. I noticed last week that they had put up a poster advertising their shop a little further down the street. it's a little strange so i thought i'd share it with you.

a boy with two heads:

apples apparently smothered in cooking oil:

it was raining this afternoon so people were carrying umberellas and wearing hats. this bloke on the tube was obviously worried about getting his hat wet so he had covered it in plastic wrapping. now that is a very good idea.

here is a tree which changes colour halfway up its trunk. i thought this was a little strange at the time so i took this photo. perhaps it was grafted.

it reminded me of my old friend who had a false leg and real feet.

i saw this man walking the streets spraying randomly as he went (he had a little nozzle thing which is hidden by the bus stop). i took his photo in case it turns out he was spraying some deadly poison.

i picked up quite a lot of different pieces of paper off the floor this morning, including this, which is a milkman's delivery schedule.

i was pleased to have found this until i realised there were loads of them all blowing down the street:

one of these bollards has magical powers

this dinner was empty except for an electric drill and a motorcycle helmet

loose limbs in a shop window

this morning i saw a bucket. it belonged to a man who was cleaning a street light with a mop on a long stick (like this one and this one).

His bucket contained a liquid which was so black it was almost a mirror. it was very peculiar and was definately haunted.

and just now i went past a bucket next to a drain cleaner van and it contained this mysterious orange substance. again, the colour was unlike any other i'd seen before (in an orangey/goldy glowey kind of way). it reminded me of the wall on the back of the spaceship on blake's 7 (if my remembory serves me well)

what IS going on ?

jane poured the water out of the cat glass as she was worried the cat might dissolve. i pointed out that that was the point. (lots of words duplication in that last sentence). so i filled it up again. but i took a photo first

click for big version

here are two people. one is carrying a giant wheel and the other is mostly belly

this box is outside a hospital i pass on the way to work. it's marked 'outpatients' and has fragile stickers on it.

patients have to be posted back to their homes to avoid having to buy any more patient ambulances

further random protection items. this time around lampposts. perhaps it's for celebrity dogs.

to my delight a milk float decided to involve itself in the photo

here is a man cleaning high up windows with a brush on the end of a long stick.

you've got to love a man with a really long cleaning brush like this. he obviously loved it too as he was smiling at all the passing ladies.

here is some turf near buckingham palace. it looked good so i photo'd it for you. my photo inspired others to take a photo and before i knew it i was the official turf photographer.

a french lady with two teenage girls decided i should take photos of them all next to the turf. she handed me a camera and said "i have two machines" and passed me another.

i was going to get a photo of me taking the photo of them but i didn't.

here are some end bits:

i've never understood why nature has to cover itself with camouflage. what's it hiding from ? this tree had classic army camo colours (greens/yellow/brown). but i still spotted it.

here are two people painted white snogging on paddington station waiting area. i think they were doing something official

update: having read the comments, i suppose they are trying to recreate 'the snog' as seen in the tate modern

here is a skip full of stuff, in the air. but how is it managing to fly ?

i suspect it's got something with crane it was attached to.

remember the hairy cat ? If not, familiarise yourself with it first, then come back and see what happened next. Thanks to michelle for urging me to get on and do this.

see how we turned it from hairy back to slippery smooth (some of the photos are clickable):

here is a man playing an instrument which just had one string and a funny thing to wiggle to make the note go wobbly.

it was like a theremin without the electronics. i was very impressed. i asked what it was called and he told me. i was none the wiser as it had a chinese name.

here are three photos sent to me from cousin mike.

the chap with kermit is probably my wife's mother's sister's husband. but might not be. spot the china cup which i becoming a regular feature. the other is a dog i think.

and here are some pebbles. i hope they were shadow-proof.

jane ate a boiled egg last night, but the girls had used the egg cups so she used an austin powers shot glass. i think it works.

here are four dictionaries in a bookshop window. the spanish one had faded to be nearly unreadable. the german and the french one were a little better but still looking a big dog-eared. the english one looked fine. makes you think.

i've talked about scarey dolls before. here is another one which has very strange eyes, mouth, eyebrows and a very high forehead. generally very scarey.

Pam had knitted and crochetted this doll's dress, gloves, shoes and even nappy especially for our visit !

click to view in its awful entirety

here is a sinister army based thing which we passed on the way to my granny's house. see the circular buildings and aerials. very mysterious.

if you have a pet dog you take it for a walk. if you have a cat then it does it's own thing which usually involves wandering round the neighbourhood.

but what if you run a mini-rainforest ? how do you keep your captive fish happy ? obvious. you drag them round in their tank on a trolley !

it's not easy being a tea bag. you sit in the dark for ages and then you get thrown in to a pot or mug and have boiling water poured on you. then you get chucked in the bin.

this little tea bag is having a sit down on a bench and is nestling (pun intended) up to a kitkat wrapper.

train signs often seem to be broken. a row of monitors at paddington station had become inverted for no real reason.

good on 'em for daring to be different

after yesterday's sighting, it's obviously the right time of year for snuggling up and keeping warm.

here is another broken BT multimedia payphone thing. the colours are fantastic. it may be broken, but it looks good. there aren't that many things/people you can say that about.

all those nasa/european satellite/rover things have so far only found empty houses on mars) but they haven't found any people. that's because they've all come to earth and have disguised themselves as traffic cones.

they all stand in long lines along roads in a neat martian order. of course, a few of them are showing their true colours:

here is a strange thing under a bridge. the first we saw of it was the flashing lights. and then the thumping music. it appeared to be some workmen chancers fixing a light with their van stereo on.

or was it a new mobile disco concept ? they drive round with cherry pickers with flashing lights on top and stop in dark places (like under a tunnel). For £5 they'll lift you up in the basket and play dance music at you for half an hour.

Ideal for the office worker who can't get out to discoteques in the evening because of commuting commitments but still would love to dance their funky stuff.

and also, since there is only space for one person in the basket, there's less likely to be any inappropriate flirtery.

jane cooked hagis for tea as it's rabbi burns night or something. just thought i'd share this delight with you.

ever suddenly discover your hand is dirty and you have no idea why ? i did last night. here is the evidence.

i see people everywhere. here is a plastic man protecting some bin bags and a man in the shape of a blob of paint. why do they look at me so ?

i walked down the street and picked a buttercup.

actually i picked a 'butter up'.

i should have picked a buttock up but i didn't see one.

i walked past this basement entrance and noticed green gunk oozing out the side of it. i suspect it's just an insulating sealant of some kind. but what if it were evil terrorists planning an evil green gunge attack on the city of london ?

what if they've created a green gunge machine which works based on some self-sustaining chemical reaction and will produce enough goo to stick us all londoners to the streets ?

hopefully, once they see this they'll realise i'm on to them and they'll turn their evil machine off and we'll all be saved.

so, if we haven't all been glued to the floor by green gunge by tomorrow, you'll know who to thank.

how often do we see this - buildings pulled down which are still connected to other ones. i love seeing them like this. it's like someone has taken a knife and sliced the building in two. i once saw a building like this which had a lovely door, flowery wallpapered walls and even a clock above the fireplace which was still keeping time !

today it was a red room with a purple door. i hope there was a side onthe other side saying "don't use this door".

here is a multimedia pay phone displaying information about the National Lottery. it is beconing us to play. however, it's also crashed thanks to Microsoft. But maybe this week's numbers are hidden in the error message.

click on the picture to see the error message and decide for yourself. i won't be held responsible if you waste your money on a ticket. unless you win, in which case i'd be interested in a small, but significant, share.

this is an odd object (an oddject). it's by a building site which used to be an abattoir. here it was a long time ago. it's a long white cycliner with a hook at the end.

i suspect Pete might know

here is a miracle i walked past this morning. it's a pen (looks like an entry-level bic biro - one of my favourites) which is LEAKING COFFEE !

if this had been a statue of the virgin mary drinking milk, or a stone dripping blood this website would be syndicated around the world.

unfortunately i suspect this won't catch the public's imagination.

you may be interested to note the following additional features in this photo:
1) chewing gum (red blob top left)
2) cracked pavement (top left)
3) a melted dustbin (stuff that looks like wax on the bottom of the photo)
4) a few drops of rain

an action packed photo i'm sure you'll agree.

here is someone's old umberella. it has been stuck on a fence and the wind has stripped it's wings bare. poor thing. so many words for such a funny thing.

it's day 17 of the amazing hair growing cat.

The hair is definaltey thicker. I'll give it one more week then chop it up !

click to inspect

here is herve inspecting the cat. i've posted little about it since last saturday, but it continues to grow. maybe some more photos will be coming in soon ...

this whole office survival thing is going too far. i called the lift just now and it arrived full of tools. hammers, saws, power drills etc.

some lifts just have an emergency phone. but what were they thinking. i'm a danger to myself with my DIY (don't injure yourself) skills.

I know i'm bad at DIY and so do you because i told you. I was therefore heartened to see this attempt to hang a picture in the restaurant we went to this evening.

click the picture for a big version to see:

a) a rawl plug with no screw in it to the left of the hanging picture

b) a highly protruding screw in the right place to the left of the hanging picture, suggesting the hole and rawl plug were too small for the screw eventually used

c) the extra (painted) nail in the wall above the picture

here is andrew, his finger and the cat. i've reread the instructions and this growth could go on for another month and probably hasn't reached a peak yet. so, i plan to leave the daily updates for now and come back to it next weekend.

once the growth has finished i may move to an autoposy to extract the mouse.

it's day 8 of the amazing hair growing cat

i suspect we are reaching about the limit of the fur growth now, though i have no evidence to suggest the rate of growth is slowing. i'm just a little scared about what might happen next.

i'm a bit duff at macro photography, but here is my attempt. i've tried a few different lighting positions so you can appreciate the fuzzyness of the hair.

click for big versions

i love old technology. here is a hair drying device:

and here is another hair drier and a tv:

i took these photos at the milestones museum

day 7 of the amazing hair growing cat

it's been out of the bag for a week now and it's still growing. here is a picture from a different angle for variety

click for big version

imagine if this wasn't some weird fur thing, but in fact static electricity made visible by some magical camera technique. i'm not sure if that idea makes it any less eery.

day 6 of the amazing hair growing cat

the fur seems to have taken on a more wirey nature. most peculiar. for the sake of variety, today's photo is from a slightly different angle

click for big version

day 5 of the amazing hair growing cat

once again, incremental growth is small, but significant.

tony inspects the cat:

and here's the latest big picture (click for detail)

day 4 of the amazing hair growing cat

the growth is small, but detectable compared to yesterday

click for big version

day 3 of the amazing hair growing cat

the growth continues ...

click for big version

day 2 of the amazing hair growing cat

click for big version

so, you live in a first floor flat in the city, you've got no garden, but you've always hankered after a shed to keep your mower in.

so what do you do ? obviously, you put up a load of scaffolding and build your shed outside your window.

here is a giant inflatable thing in the middle of London's business district. perhaps they are trying to encourage the economy to bounce back

we've just been to visit the fantastic Pollocks Toy Museum across the road from my office.

here are a few photos of some of the dolls:

and here are some dolls doing a comedy line-up (notice the mysterious floating head on the left hand side):

here is a nice idea. if you run out of office space or meeting rooms, simply order this van and off you go. you can even use it to avoid transport between meetings. for example if you have a meeting in the city at 1pm and a meeting in westminster at 4pm you could work in the mobile office between 2 and 4 and get them to drive across town during that period so you don't waste any travelling time.

fit it wifi and off you go.

update: looks like British Telecom have just stolen the concept ...

here is a random tent set up in the street. no reason as far as i could tell.

they probably set it up in the street as they weren't allowed to erect it in a royal park:

one chap was cleaning the outside, another the inside, and behind them was a giant poster of a lady. the outside bloke's phone rang and the inside bloke checked his watch. all seemed very bizaare (like my spelling). two people so close and could even see each other, but totally oblivious to each other's behaviour !

bet you can't guess what this is ? it's a load of fridge doors covered in baby lotion. as seen in arty selfridges arty window display.

Bobbins is another word for rubbish. Spool is another word for bobbin. you spool through an audio or video tape to skip the rubbish bits. a skip is also something you put rubbish in. bobbins is another word for rubbish. and so it goes on.

bargain of the week - a grey zip up fleece with three pockets for £5.99. here i am modelling it in my catalogue pose:

but what's that logo on the pocket you ask ?

it says Friends Of Kensal Green Cemetery.

we'll all be a friend of a cemetery eventually. i wish i was in their marketing department ...

here is a pile of ice cubes in the gutter. i saw a man emptying them and he let me take the picture which was nice.

here is a device on the wall in the men's toilets near the business lounge at Tegel Airport. it's obviously measuring something, but what ?

(click for big version)

Travelling is an education. whilst waiting for the plane i learnt how to grow very long parsnips (use a drain pipe) and whilst flying I learnt how to transport pets to australia (use a specialist company - allow for around £1000 per pet including flights (via Bangkok) and quaranteen).

when they replace this seat they should include bottles of wine for the winos like they have on this bench:

i love photobooths as they provide passport photos which people lose and i can find

this man was standing in a booth at Paddington Station. I got a £2 coin out to put in the slot at the outside to give him a shock when it took some photos, but unfortunately the coin slot is now on the inside.

so i took this photo from the outside instead

it was very very wet walking in to work this morning. i took my glasses off so i could see better which sort of worked.

this was a mysterious site. a bit like crop circles, only with leaves and on the road.

i suspect that there is some demarkation thing going on between the pavement cleaners and the road cleaners. it's the thawny subject of 'gutter edge ownsership'

pavement cleaners are probably responsible for the pavement and up to half a metre in to the road (to make sure the gutter is cleared). Road cleaners are responsible for the road, which for their pursposes starts half a metre from the gutter edge.

However, there seems to be one of two problems going on here:

1) there is a calibration problem and the pavement / street cleaners measurements are undermeasured

2) the pavement cleaners are measuring the distance from the pavement side of the kerb stone whilst the street cleaners are measuring it from the road side, leaving a gap the size of the kerb stones in the road.

perhaps there are other explanations ...

here is a misfunctioning BT multimedia payphone. the pattern is hypnotic encouraging us to buy more cheese (i suspect)

and here is an ancient public payphone which has seen better days

here is a phone box on the beach

here is a tree called ash. i have a colleague called ash. they are not the same

sara from the office found a giant piece of confectionary. it's a white malteser which is 2cm long (that's .5cm bigger than a normal malteser). she confirmed that it tasted no good, thus confirming my fears over genetically modified items.

here it is displayed alongside it's more normal sized friend:

things you don't expect to find in your house in england in november.

#1 a pretty butterfly

working from home today, so i usually expect low quality blog content. however, i was delighted to see this cooker in a neighbours garden when i opened my office curtains this morning.

more outside warming, but a lot more convenient than a BBQ

more shocking stuff from the mad london milkman. this morning there was a nice chest of drawers on his float. maybe it's his drinks cabinet. i hope to see an arm chair and a television up there tomorrow.

phones are always getting smaller.

this one, modelled here by esther, has a nice polyphonic ring tone and picture messaging facility.

there is always building work going on round london. i spotted this near liverpool street. it's a build it by numbers kit. probably colour coded too. possibly sponsored by sesame street

cranberries have just moved in to the UK. i'd never heard of them when i was a kid, but now they seem to be everywhere. i had ostrich and cranberry burger last week, and now here is a can of cranberry spray. it's for spraying surface or space. worth remembering if you ever join nasa and want to iradicate intergalactic odours.

you know trolley man ? well, there are some mattresses in the place where he usually parks up his trolleys. The mattresses are balanced on a bed base.

on closer inspection it appeared there was in fact someone sleeping on the bed ! I suspect it was trolley man, but i didn't think it was a good idea to disturb him to check.

i warned you about blooming over the summer. it's not just a summer effect though. here is a winter blooming kitkat:

click for big version (yuck)

britain's newest blogstopper, telco-john, was eating an apple whilst reading the funkypancake blog. his concentration lapsed resulting in his consumption of half a fruity label.

this was in the vasser museum:

it reads:
Melker Pavelsson was mongering fish at the market - large and exquisite herring. At the bottom of his firkin, however, the herring was >>small and no good <<

makes you think

put out fires by firing skum at it

stockholm obviously realises its wealth of gloves and incorporates it in to its art:

here is someone hiding under a lampshade in the same art gallery:

and here is a postcard of passport photo shops in Chicago

the screens in heathrow have very small writing. so small you have to be standing right next to it to read it. i suspect it's a rooooos to make us buy binoculars. but we didn't so ha.

someone left a piece of paper on my desk at work with a fantastic story on it. the page has two sections highlighted: "he hated dogs" and "love is a four-fingered glove (you thumbed your nose at me (and all you left was the G))"

mysterious but fantastic. my appetite has been wettened for the rest of this fine novel. i hope that the leaver makes him/herself known to me.

meanwhile i did some googling and came up with something probably unrelated but most excellent.

It's Crouton's World and is some crazy mistranslated japanese thing.

This is crouton.

remember this ? well it's now been nicely converted in to lots of luxury houses. they have a 'show house', which is an old bungalow next to the nice new houses.

so you look round the bungalow and say "it's very nice, but there is no upstairs" and the salesman say "well, if i can find you a house with an upstairs would you buy it" and you reply "well, yes" and the salesman says "well you are in luck as i've loads next door"

i took this picture at 9.30pm when the bungalow was definately not open. if you can't trust them to erect an accurate sign, can you trust them to erect a house ? probably. different things aren't they.

the site used to contain a chicken slaughterhouse and the close nearly got named abbatoir close or slaughter crescent or something. i once saw offal on the street opposite from one of the chicken lorries. "offal way" would be a nice road name

remember my alcohol delivering milkman discovery ? Well, he's been out again, supplementing his regular milk round with beer delivery:

they are shutting battle hospital down in reading and moving everyone out to the royal berks hospital. there is definately a demob happy vibe around the place. there was popular music being played from transistor radios from at least two different rooms down the corridor where i had to sit and wait. it was like waiting in the sitting area in KwikFit listening to the mechanics changing tyres in the other room. or something.

however, at the moment the battle hospital is looking very run down and increasingly empty. it's also up for sale.

so, how about we all club together and by a hospital ? we can call it the funkypancake hospital and i can be the Director (job title of choice). we can all pootle about and have a massive game of doctors and nurses.

what do you think. shall we do it ? shall we ? shall we ?

at last i got to see him. he'd nearly just finished 33 days when we got there. he was moving which was a good sign.

so, let's see the man himself first:

here he is (he's lying with his head to the right with his hand over his face)

here he is from again (head to the right hand side)

now let's look at the commerce associated with the man. obviously he gets loads from TV deals, but does he get anything from the opportunistic sellers of magical starvation necklaces and £2.50 flashing bunny ears ?

as for the security, it was quite minimal. we went in to the inner-sanctury where they 'checked' my bag by vaguely staring at it. instead they went for the truth or dare approach of saying "you're not going to throw eggs at him are you?" the obvious answer they were looking for was "no". so that's what i said. and, as it happens, i wasn't going to anyway.

extremely interesting was that they DON'T ALLOW DOGS IN TO THE INNER VIEWING AREA. i have a number of theories:
1) Blaine hates dogs
2) Blaine loves dogs and it would break his concentration
3) Security are scared people will throw dogs at Blaine
4) Dogs go mad when they see Blaine
5) There is no doggy reason, but people like rules. it helps them feel they are being looked after

here are some cars for sale as suggested by brother edd:

little tank
big watery thing

(links now dead unfortunately)

the big watering thing doesn't have electric windows, central locking or an alarm, making it a very insecure vehicle in my opinion. but it does go on water.

i was given a potato in a bag at paddington station this morning. it's national potato week apparently.

so now i have a potato. at work. i think i'm meant to eat it with tuna sauce (sachet included).

if day one of national potato week is 'eat potato', then i look forward to the rest of the week to see what other fantastic things we can do with potatos. potato prints (they give out a potato and some paints), potato clocks (vegetables at work), spud guns (check out this fantastic page) ?

it's sponsored by the british potato council. do you subscribe to potato weekly ?

it was handed to me by a man dressed as a potato. as jobs go, dressing up as a potato is pretty good.

update: see eggs vs potatos on the BBC website

why do all car show rooms have balloons and flags and stuff. here is an example. whenever i buy a car i spend months thinking about it, then read all the magazine and reviews. Finally i go to the garage and find which ones they have available second hand and after a few days thinking about it might make a decision.

i'm unlikely to be persuaded 'impulse buy' a car just because they had a few balloons and flags outside the garage (even if they are union jacks).

jane pointed out that the balloons never look flat so the sale people must take them down each night. be great for their kids (unless they hated balloons). "hey it's dad with a load of balloons again" ("aaaargh")

here is anita wearing a 'spock ear'. she couldn't get it to stay on so she attached it with an elastic band. i believe this is what they do in casualty departments these days. when i picked up my camera, she picked up the knife.

selfridges in oxford street often has exciting window displays. at the moment they are particularly good.

here is one

which looks like it might be related to rathergood

and there is an office in a window which is also very good

go see. you enjoy.

does anyone say the word "chum" any more ? if not they should do.

i had a meeting in liverpool street this morning and travelled back to the office by foot and tube. i actually got off the tube at the wrong stop so was walking [in] a very strange way.

it was at some random point in some random street where I saw my old university chum 'neil' (last spotted about 6 years ago in sheffield).

we had both been goths at university. neither of us were very good at being goths because even though we looked the part, neither of us was very good at not-smiling.

we reminisced about auditions for Blind Date and attending concerts, and exchanged potted life histories. both of us now lack our goth-locks, instead choosing a close cut style. i blame the excessive use of hair spray.

(this photo was one of the deleted ones which i managed to recover with the unregistered version of Photorecovery - see here)

so, a marvellous coincidence. (i also bumped in to an old school chum a couple of weeks ago in paddington station one morning. i think i was on the way to liverpool street then too. it's like my life is slowly passing before my eyes or something)

Duct Tape Items, from wallets, hats, backpacks, purses and more

here is a mighty fine thing i discovered thanks to Kookportal.

I've always been slightly freaked by facial hair (my own once massive, now slightly large, sideburns excepted). there are two types of beards: those out of control and uncared for, and those which have too much care and attention given them.

the great news is the World Beard and Moustache Championship is heading to London in 2007. i intend to be there ...

Meanwhile i'll get growing a nice handlebar (check out the gallery and read the descriptions).

also at longleat was a postman pat village. it was the world of postman pat shrunken down to toddler size. very good, but slightly eery.

here was a severed arm waving hopelessly (viewed from the side).

and here is a nicely posed picture of kezia and esther looking unimpressed alongside jess and postman pat

i took esther round the doctor who exhibition in longleat. i thought she'd be scared, bored or both. but she loved it and wanted to go round it again. so we did. she enjoyed making her voice sound like a darlek and though davros looked funny.

jane sometimes calls me davros which is nice. and probably only fair.

quiz of the day - which one was gracious enough to marry me.

three photos, one wife.

here is the photo I took of jane by candlelight:

and here is davros from doctor who:

and here is some other chap (thanks to andrew for pointing this out):

the key thing for marketing of products in a retail environment is how you do your point of sale merchandising. i suspect that the popcorn manafacturer didn't recommend they were piled on top of an old dustbin.

but i could have been wrong.

a lady just came in to the place where i'm internetting from and asked if i was in here internetting last night. i said "yes" and she said "oh, that all makes sense now ..."

very mysterious. this is a cool office though - they have a telly on the floor playing a music channel. Just had the Kings of Leon on followed by Elvis. if only i could hear properly i would very much enjoy working in an office like this !

right - must get back to help put kids to bed and head out for our second night out. this time we are going to a very posh restaurant apparently ...

center parcs is so modern. they have a stereo oven in the chalets.

the sony sound system speakers are either side of the extractor fan. nice idea. now you can cook the dinner and wash the dishes whilst having a little boogie. I washed up to Stevie Wonder's Very Superstitious and the Starsky and Hunk theme last night.

here is a cow in front of the view.

when it rained yesterday people realised they might get wet. we were prepared but others weren't.

in the same way at school if you forgot your PE kit then you had to wear the 'spare gym kit' which looked (and smelled) horrible, people here had to but blue plastic bags at £1.50 a throw.

this was their punishment for forgetting their coats. seeing groups together of the 'blue macs' against the green forest was a beautiful thing.

yesterday i put my clothes in locker numbre 697 at the swimming pool.

we also parked our car next to lampost number 697.

guess what number post this is and what number chalet we are in ?

not 697 actually.

i have a spam trap on my email. it has around a 98% success rate. One of my friends sends me emails occasionally and his emails always drop in to the spam trap automatically which amuses me. i think he uses too many exclamataion marks and capital letters.

today i received a non-trapped spam which the spam trap obviously decided was important and targetted enough not to be actual spam. it was if the spam trap was actually saying "go on, this would be good for you".

you know what, i might just give it a go ...

i saw this note this morning. It says " NO MILK TODAY. Dear Milkman I would like to cut my milk delivery by half for the time being'

i think the stella bottle suggests the note writer may have found a different beverage of choice.

or maybe the the milkman delivers alcohol. but surely not ?

but then in the next street was this milk van with just one bottle - a beer bottle ! a coincidence ? no such thing ...

and when they do deliver it's a sham

i found abandoned next to a hospital. there is also a mini-beanbag (green) in the same place. it's been there for months. i haven't taken a photo of it though as i've been keeping it a secret for myself. i can't share everything on this blog you know ...

i went to the north of london this morning. there were at least three ntl street cabinets (including one next to a hospital) which had their doors unlocked.

it's nice that ntl are so trusting - anyone could disconnect anyone's phones and/or plug a phone in and make 'free' calls (illegally of course).

maybe they lost the key ?

here is a strange plastic thing near Gatwick airport. a real mystery

plan next week around the fact that next Friday is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Get your posters downloaded and start practicing now

you have to admire this chap. he pushed a peanut with his nose across london.

'It is the latest in a series of protests by McGowan which have included rolling across London to promote kindness to cleaners and walking backwards with a turkey on his head to fight obesity. '

BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | Nut heads for Downing Street

Much better than Blaine-in-a-box

i have been accused of wearing odd socks. i am a bloke (fact) and both of my socks are black (originally) so they can't be odd (in my opinion).

'odd' and 'pair' are relative terms with a sock continium between them. i believe today's sock choice lies on towards the pair side of the line.

and it was dark when i put them on this morning.

my feet seem a little strange in this picture. for this i can only apologise.

here is an electrical engineer cutting through a rather seriously big mains cable.

this is never a good idea. especially if you are just using a carving knife.

i didn't stick around to see what happened next ...

this high speed train whizzed past my slow train this morning. i noticed there was a lot of blood on the front of it so searched it out when i arrived at Paddington. i suspected it would have been cleaned off by the time i got there, but it was still 'attached'.

you can just about make out a piece of pigeon wing under the window-wipers so i suspect it was this that was splattered (or a fox with a pigeon in it's mouth jumping from a bridge)

here's a nice idea. have a window between the blokes toilets and the ladies so you can wave at each other washing your hands

on the saturday morning there was much drumming outside the conference venue and it had to be halted for a few minutes whilst some anti-fox mauling people marched by.

after the conference (and before the evening activities) i went for a walk and heard more drumming. i went to see what it was and it was a dog parade (fiffi parade):

here is a hound lover

here's a good game to play:

a few moments later i heard some more drums so i went in search of them too and found a drumming festival. everyone in berlin must have a headache.

by the way, i've decided to stop saying the word dog and use the word hound instead. much better.

this bloke wanders round berlin with a false nose and charge people €1 to take a photo. i took his photo only to find out later i should have paid. ooops

i love people's attitude to dogs on the continent. i especially like how it's acceptable for people to take their small dogs with them wherever they go.

this chap has bought his dog along to the conference. he's german, but i think i've seen him at the conference with his dog in previous years.

it's nice to see it nipping about when we are all having our lunch / coffee breaks.

here they are both looking slightly drunk late last night.

additional conference note: there are 90 delegates here from Greece. 40 actually attending the conference and another 50 on the 'partners program' for wives, secretaries etc etc.

i found a few more of those funny bear things scattered around the town.

by accident i stumbled on to hundreds of them:

the british one was an embarrasement

concrete giant teddy

i'm getting a good feel for german culture. or maybe hilton culture.

facial expression of the day must go to the waiter who responded to my request for 'hot water' with a mixture of shock/horror/disdain/pity.

he went away with his tail (and coffee pot) between his legs. not sure what that saying means

i set off early for the conference this morning so i could see some nearby sites. i saw some very strange pink pipes ...

everyone loves chinese tourists. this one had a nice hat so i took his photo

here is some new pigeon fashion. a little white mohecan. maybe it's wants to be a parakeet. spelling mistakes entirely deliberate (if applicable)

usually when you see a bag you see the outside. some people are priviledged to see the inside too.

it seems to me that most of travelling is about looking inside things. they can see inside your mind now before you get on a plane. that little archway thing you go through next to the x-ray machines. that's the mind reader.

here is my bag being scanned by the left luggage office in Paddington. i asked if i could get in the machine so he could take a picture of me in the monitors, but he refused. i imagine he gets asked that all the time.

here are a load of union jack thongs hanging on a stand in Oxford Street

there was a massive power cut in london last night.

i blame mars and david blaine. Blaine is in london to live in a glass box for 6 weeks. he stood on top of the London Eye yesterday morning as it went round. if there had been a power cut then he would have been stuck.

he was probably in the east coast of america when they lost their power a week or so back too.

so i think it's him that has made it happen. the proximity of mars has increased his powers beyond that which even he can control.

here is a a picture of the grid lock around Marble Arch at 9.30pm last night.

here was a strange thing that happened at Paddington Station. for some reason the electronic screen which said "slippery floor" has fallen over sideways

sara in the office folded a £20 note in half and by sheer fluke ended up with a moustachioed queen.

what are the chances of that ?

there was much discussion over the construction of the giant gerkin this morning. some people will complain about any new protrusion.

i went to our Brick Lane office today and took a photo of it from two locations

Here is it can be seen with pictures of people in underwear in the foreground. Ed of london is not to be confused with Brother Edd who is not in london (though he has been to visit london on a number of occasions)

this one shows it together with a petticoat lane sign and the barbican tower:

update: you can also see it in the background here

my brother is called edd. we refer to him as 'brother edd'. even esther calls him 'brother edd' which is a good name for an uncle.

this morning brother edd informed me of the following:

"i'm looking for a couple of wedding present albums but all i get is cutlery sets"

it makes you think doesn't it

at the swallowfield show today there was Terrier Racing. a comedy man was doing the comparing. he was completely potty. he was on old man with a flat cap. and he loved dogs.

his job was to compere whilst organising a race up and down the field for terrier dogs. he announced that he had a chap helping him the day before "but he got sun stroke and hasn't turned up today".

he informed us that Terrier Racing was originally believed to have originated in Ireland: "The Irish will bet on anything. they love gambling they do. they'd even bet on two pies climbing up a wall".

i suspect he said "flies" but i like the idea of competitive pie climbing better.

county shows are brilliant. if you like massive vegetables then these are the places to be.

here are some massive vegetables:

this man won loads of trophies. unfortunately there wasn't a category for best turned-out competitor or he would have won that too !

just been reading the kleeneze catalogue. you can get toilet role holders which have a radio intergrated. nice idea.

off to the reading festival now. byeee

one benefit of working from home is instant access to the day's post.
i was sent this piece of headjoy from some friends in the north. they said it's all the rage in Italy. i put it on to demonstrate. i had to take the photos myself as there is no one else in the house at the moment !

once i had got the thing on:

in the middle of silchester we saw this fork taped to a post. very strange. if it were an emergency fork then it wouldn't have to be a very time sensitive emergency if you wanted to extract the fork.

"we didn't know which way to go as there was a fork in the road"

seen in windsor park

shortly after i arrived at the pain clinic a little old man was helped over to the seat next to mine. he was very sweet, but very old and a little unsteady on this feet.

how do you move an addictive gambler around the country ? answer is to buy a van, put the gambling machine in the back and coax him in with a stick.

outside the hospital is a pedestrian crossing. one crossing, but two sets of buttons each time. good to have a fail safe emergency standby

i got a spam email today entitled "Get Seductive L|ps - no man can resist!" a really tempting offer i have to admit.

they haven't used the letter 'i' in lips. so maybe, rather than seductive lips they are actually selling seductive LPs, as in Long Player records.

maybe someone has thought of an inovative way of flogging their old vinyl.

this bus looks like its been built using the same technology as circus clowns' cars.

this man has drawn a square around himself in chalk using a ruler. he looks set for the duration (whatever that means). in life we all put up barriers.

i may pop back later and see what has developed ...

here are a number of different softdrink cans on a parking meter

We British aren't very good at tanning. Usually we don't get enough sun to make it worth going for a proper tan. This year's extreme weather has caught most of us by surprise. 35.6%C today apparently. But it's placed us Brits in a fully position of having a decent pre-tan on our arms, but a white body underneath.

This man, heavily bearded, chose that now was the time to reveal his hidden self, giving a negative T-shirt effect. I think it works for him though.

my local cashpojnt had crashed with a windows-like error message reading:

Withdrawal Flow
Run time error '91'
Object variable on With block variable not set

"it's not raining"

we've a friend staying with us at the moment who works for the met office. he's an expert on extreme weather and is in demand at the moment for radio interviews a-plenty.

Here he is broadcasting live to the country from our front room.

It's weird listening to him downstairs speaking on the phone, whilst also listening upstairs to it broadcast over the Internet and simultaneously recording it in another room over the cable TV network. I love technology.

His next gig is Radio 4 at 8.45am this morning. Here
are his last words from the Today program. Note the massive pause before the final word. Classic. (File
is 42KB MP3 file, use something like Winamp to play it)

some pubs have peanuts or crisps on the bar. my local pub has something much more appealing. two pieces of quiche and a ham sandwich. they looked like they had been there for a while.

sadly there was no starfish activity this evening.

according to the stats, someone found this website by searching for 'square golfing umbrella'.

so here it is, your official square golfing umbrella blog.

in the paper this evening: story of a man who caught a dead fish and pretended it was something it wasn't. his love of fish ruined his marriage. he's has therapy and everything. his best quote:

"fishing does not make you happy. i know that now"

of course they used to make coca-cola in wooden barrels in the medieval days. i suspect a rather more sinister marketing ploy

Herve says"wobbleometer"

here is a smart car with an attachment on the back.

i think it might be a backpack attachment thing so you can carry your car on your back in the tube.

or possibly, someone realised it looked like a dodgem and has adapted the car to run on car overhead electric cables (which unfortunately don't exist outside of funfairs)

A totally cool thing is veeperization.

It's TOTALLY BONKERS (only available for the next 14 days)

it used to be the case that technology companies would have wacky events in their offices to encourage 'out of the box thinking'. Tumbling share prices and burst bubbles put an end to that.

As an act of celebration of my company's half year results, two ladies jumped on to the filing cabinets and did a synchronised dance. it was a precious moment.

If only I had a record player, I could have played the Up Town Top Rankin' record to accompany them.

more transports of delight

look how the orange and yellow blend in with the yellow lines

another three wheeled vehicle. This one has an inner sanctum and is ideal for cabinet reshuffles.

i live in a no through road, fairly close to the point of no return. it surprised me therefore to see a bus going up the street.

it surprised me slighlty less when it reversed slowly back down the road a few minutes later.

the lovely ladies in reception are a bit bonkers. The face drawing exercise proved this.

today anita was wearing some headjoy (a bandana thing). it was made from an old skirt i believe.

she removed it just now and her hair sprung forth. scarey stuff.

the towel from yesterday has liberated itself from the phonebox.

a repeat of the welly mystery maybe ? I shall keep an eye on this slippery customer.

i was musing on the way to work that most of my blog is regarding human remains - ie people, how they react with the world and the things they leave behind in the their wake.

This thinking was following my usual "do i like working in london or not". an hour and a half (often two hour) commute each way sometimes makes you consider these things.

i then wondered about moving to some obscure part of the country, downsizing as they call it, and whether there would be enough bloggable local material.

could nature itself provide enough blog twaddle ? As if to partially answer the question, i saw these two feathers on the footpath in front of me.

not sure which way that answers my question (which is purely hypothetical by the way)

we've all heard of polo shirts. well here is a polo towel.
sucked polos and a blue towel in a phone box

i saw this van waiting patiently on the street corner

it's nice they have ambulances for patients these days. or maybe we have now moved to a two tier system where the doctors travel in seperate vehicles. since this whole Sars thing, doctors haven't wanted to get too close to ill people.

embrace illness i say.

see the picture. BT tower in the background. they fastened the tower to the ground by screwing it in to a giant hole.

see the foreground. they are doing the same again. a giant drill bit prepares the hole. a giant rawl plug is added. they then bring the building and simply screw it in. Probably with an automatic screw driver type thing.

if you've ever seen the very top of BT tower you will see they opted for a Philips style crosshead rather than a straight slotted. you can learn about screwing here

they've hidden the BBC. Or maybe they have wrapped it in a terrorist proof wrapper.

how weird is this. i bought a clock (the old one in the picture). i took it for a walk through central london. i didn't have a bag so i carried it in my hand.

i turned a corner and there was a man with a clock in his hand ! A similar model, only newer. he was filming a feature on coffee for the Discovery Channel. It's a pity the program wasn't about bizarre coincidences !

this juggler was not disheartened

could have been a daring SAS raid. It wasn't. just window cleaners

crow bars aren't shapped like crows or used for lifting crows as far as i know. if you are going to pick on a bird then i recommend the bird that everyone loves to hate. the flying rat aka the pigeon.

comedy scene of the day:

in henley i saw a young lad accidently propel his lollypop out of its holder and in to his granny's handbag ! It shattered in to pieces as it landed to add to the comedy factor.

granny and childs faces were priceless. didn't get a photo. sorry

another septic tank spam. i have no septic tank

the street of london are paved with gold. everyone knows that. as a result they need polishing. here is one such device. left in the street.

i guess the idea is that people walking to work can buff a little on the way then leave it for the next person walking that way to do a bit more. eventually the most travelling walking routes get the most buffing.

or is it a congestion charge avoidance device ? Floor buffers don't seem to be exempt according to the BBC however.

or it could be one of those new Segway things

it's wide but it's flat. it's a giant strawberry

whilst walking down Oxford Street today I saw tipex splattered all over the pavement and the little tipex pain brush thing casually chucked aside. the painting was Pollock in style. makes you think.

there's an awful lot of coffee in brazil.
and spread all over London's busy Oxford Street.

brought to you by the random tea makers of yesterday perhaps ?

someone had been attempting tea making near my office
but they failed big time.

the milk got run over:

and tea bags went everywhere

My Lords, I hope noble Lords will appreciate how I move seamlessly from corned beef to spam.

My Lords, will the Minister explain how it is that an inedible tinned food that lasted for ever and was supplied to those on active service can become an unsolicited e-mail, bearing in mind that some of us wish to be protected from having an e-mail?

The United Kingdom Parliament

there are all sorts of obstacles in life.

made my journey more tricky.
grab the sand bag and carry it over the two planks of wood
carefully balanced on two plastic bins.

the clock in our bathroom is having a midlife crisis. It no longer conforms to standard time keeping, instead choosing to amble round at its own predetermined speed. I have seen such behavour from clocks before. The first approach of battery drainage and they lose all will to live.

Imagine if we just went at our own speed and ignored real time. fantastic.

meanwhile our poor clock in the bathroom will get slower and slower until one day soon it will just twitch its minute hand back and forth without enough power to move it on to the next position. and the clock in our living room is always 50 minutes slow. we learn to adapt to these things.

person in photobooth in paddington station.
one shoe on, one shoe off. guess you won't see this in the photo

maybe it's a passport photo of a foot.
perhaps the foot will be removed and sent abroad ?

this is in no way related to my find the other day of a photo of feet. though the coinsidence is strangely eery.

getting trapped in a lift is something that happens to everyone at least 7 times in their life according to statitics I just invented. How to get out is the second thing you think of (the first is "how many times have I been stuck in a lift before, is it 6 or 7, and therefore is this an above, at or below average event").

Here in my office lift are the ideal companions. A saw and a spirit level.

my desk is covered in a fine coating of 'grit' this morning. perhaps someone spontaneously combusted over night and their remains are spread around the office ?

I am sceptical about the whole spontaneous combustion thing. i've never seen anyone combust, spontaneously or otherwise. i've never seen the wind, but still believe in that.

i'll just have to see who doesn't come in to work this morning and conclude by a method of elimination

Septic Tanks - What You Should Know

the welly (reported earlier) has moved. it was on a wall. but now it is on a parking meter across the pathway. if the welly is on a journey then i suggest it would make better progress at floor level.

i would love to have seen the jump it made from the wall (which is behind where the photos were taken).

found in Lincoln and photographed by John.
Click for bigger version

there's always something strange going on in the local charity shop. particularly the people that work there. last week it was a man dressed as a woman (proper like, not your fancy dress type thing). conversation which i overheard implied he was one of your actual transvestites. i digress. today when i went in there was a lady wearing a face mask in the anti-sars style. though she may be the one laughing in 10 days times. or maybe it's her that is infectious and she wants to protect the rest of us ...

just saw a bloke sitting on the floor wearing walking boots on his hands (as well as his feet). Maybe it's a new fashion thing. Personally I have no opinion on the whole 'boots as gloves' concept. I would have taken a photo. But it seemed a bit rude. Whitfield Street isn't a cat-walk you know.

always good value - old people eating ice-cream

photo by dave

photo by dave

Bonkers shouty man this morning:

photo by dave