a note of comedy
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 ?
August 2003
an experiment in change management
i had 23 pence left. so i left it in the street to see who would pick it up and take it away. people came and spoke to me and even offered me more money. i waited some time. then my camera batteries ran out. so i left the cash and went on my way.
here is a close up of the monies
things i have never seen (part 1)
i have never seen either of the following:
* a piece of cheese riding a space hopper down the street
* a bearded man who can actually fly
both of these relate to transport which is interesting
more directory enquiry advice
i’m looking at introducing a new directory enquiry service (no honestly, i am).
here were some people advertising 11 88 88. and you thought you had problems (or maybe it was me who just thought that).
gerkin
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
the central cold storage
next to Smithfield meat market is an old building with a massive ancient sign on the wall informing us, the public, that is “the central cold storage”.
I guess this is where they kept their meat cold in days gone buy. it was with some delight therefore that i saw an abandoned fridge outside it’s front door !
let’s all blame the fat kid
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i came across this fat kid in a statue near the Smithfield Meat market. Apparently, in direct contrast to the Mannequin Pis this kid was blamed for starting the ‘great’ fire of london. the religious people of the day said it was God’s judgement on the city’s sin of gluttony. they put up a statue of a fat kid to warn people of what can happen if you get a bit lardy interesting that the kid doesn’t look too fat by today’s standards … |
the hutton enquiry
there is much in the news about the Hutton enquiry. the enquiry itself is of interest, but of equal interest is the media surrounding the trial (which is itself about manipulation of the media etc).
they aren’t allowed to film in the courts so they get people to draw what happened instead.
brief aside: do you remember when they had to do that for people in Ireland. i was too young to understand at the time of course. poor children must have thought ireland was full of drawn characters like in the comics they read like the Beano. i support that is why there are so many Irish comics (it’s the way I tell them) – when they are not betting on pies climbing up walls of course.
anyway, i always assumed that the drawings were nicely scanned in before they appeared on the news. but in fact they are stuck on old doors and filmed for the telly:
here is the media frenzy:
upon closer inspection of the photo i realise i may have been spotted taking it (they appear in the top right of the photo above):
i’m glad there were plenty of barriers between me and them
do the math
hands up if you love maths. hands up if you love regulation. here’s a treat for you people:
i’m reading a tremendous document at the moment. It’s called:
“Fixed Narrowband Retail Services Market Identification and analysis of markets, Determination of market power and Setting of SMP conditions, Explanatory statement and notification”
You can get it in two parts from oftel (part1) & (part2). It’s 365 pages. one for every day of the year.
it contains this terrific formula:
so, i say to you “do the math” (no ‘s’ please)
brother edd says
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
horse story
esther has been having a few horse lessons recently. a friend of ours asked how she got on. i replied with the obvious answer.
back to work
today represents the first day back to work for lots of people. summer hols are officially over after the Bank Holiday.
and so it was with great delight that I saw the vagabond / tramp chap who sits outside the back of Middlesex Hospital. he’s not been on his usual step for the last 4 weeks and i was starting to worry. i suspect he’s been off on holiday somewhere. probably down to the back of a hospital south of the river
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:
this man won loads of trophies. unfortunately there wasn’t a category for best turned-out competitor or he would have won that too !
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:
the prize envelope (containing the £7.50 winnings):
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:
collecting the trophy
proud trophy winner
more details:
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.
