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irish terrierism

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.

big vegetables

county shows are brilliant. if you like massive vegetables then these are the places to be.
here are some massive vegetables:
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this man won loads of trophies. unfortunately there wasn’t a category for best turned-out competitor or he would have won that too !
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award winning photography

i’m now an official award winning photographer ! I entered 7 photos earlier in the week for the Swallowfield Show.
My total prizes were:
3 first places
1 second place
1 third place
Best Photo in Show rosette
Best Photo in Show trophy (for one year)
and … £7.50 in prize money
The Best Photo in Show and Rosette:
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the prize envelope (containing the £7.50 winnings):
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winning the trophy was mixed blessings. prize giving wasn’t until after the raffle was drawn (which seemed to have about a million prizes – he mentioned that the ladies filling in the details on raffle tickets had filled so many that they had got “writers cramp”. we call that RSI nowadays don’t we?).
Anyway, we got to the show at around 1pm and didn’t get away until after 5.30pm ! kids weren’t particularly impressed. Although esther is proud of her dad, and of the fact that her knees won first prize in the hoovering picture (see below)
the trophy prizes being announced:
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collecting the trophy
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proud trophy winner
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more details:

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except buses

this bus sign is written in pictures and words in case the bus driver doesn’t speak english. in which case he probably can’t understand ‘except’ and will go up there anyway. if he’s the bus driver then that’s fine cause it’s no entry except for buses.
a picture paints a thousand words. you could save a lot of typing that way.
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count the children

5 children playing (they have to change the sign if they have friends round)
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and just round the corner:
10 slow children playing
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an afternoon out

a country path
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style guru
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three girls in a row
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eyes and ears

the last thing we saw in the festival grounds was this beer selling tent. in the half light and from an angle it DID look like it said “carry out ear”. in fact it said carry out bar. picture isn’t very clear. but then neither was my vision. i think it must have been all the second hand smoke i inhaled (we only drank coke (-a-cola) and water all day)
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cards

at the Reading Festival there were lots of playing cards all over the place on the way back to the train. too many to count and archive individually, so here is just once sample shot:
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hats !

hats were very popular at the Reading festival. here was a stall selling old lady’s hats for £2.
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blur

damon albarn fell off the stage which was quite amusing. we started off down the front but then got squashed so moved back out slightly. from this position it was only worth watching on the giant telly screens and we couldn’t really see hte stage too well. and if you are watching a giant telly, then why not watch it at home.
we watched 3/4 of their set then wandered off for our train home.
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(from the telly screens):
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brmc

black rebel motorcycle club were good. not great, just good. they covered a White Stripes song which was fair enough as it was thanks to White Stripes not playing that they were playing. They sound better on CD in my opinion. it wasn’t helped by the fact there was a massive water fight going on around us.
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beck is bonkers

Beck was totally bonkers. he had a keyboard on a trolley which meant he could play and wander about. his backing band were fantastic with robot dancing..
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crazy clouds

there were some excellent clouds about, including a fantastic sunbeam thing going on.
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and a little later as it was getting dark
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The Doves

I thought the Doves were great. some excellent guitar and keyboard noises.
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the streets

when we arrived the Libertines were playing. they were good, but i didn’t get any photos.
Then came The Streets. I found them a little boring and a bit too ‘ladish’. they had sound trouble which seemed to happen everytime they threw beer all over the stage and each other. I wonder if the sound man was trying to tell them something.
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camera obscura

we got a good standing spot two people from the front on the right hand side of the stage. unfortunately there was a giant camera stick which kept getting in the way. it whizzed above our heads and often obscured our view. here is the camera in the sky and the man working it
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