Skip to content

October 2003

advertising budget

i often see business cards in the street. i don’t bother about them mostly (they don’t bother me either – it’s a mutual non-bothering thing). however, there was a flock of them on the street this morning:
DSC07259.jpg
it’s a nice advertising idea. i thought of a similar thing for church pamphlets which i called ‘litter evangelism’. you can share the Good News by throwing colourful brochures all over the street and public transport. i have heard some religious cults already do this – they leave their magazines on the tube.
these cards belonged to the office manager:
DSC07260.jpg
please note, i’m not in any way suggesting that the person named on these busines cards is involved in a religious cult. you could always phone up and ask them – i’ve got their number (and fax and email)

hello dolly

i saw this yesterday, but thought it too good to be a passport photo. it was there today so i checked it (by lifting it up and looking on the back). i was right. it wasn’t a passport photo at all. but here it is anyone for your enjoyment
DSC07258.jpg
however i did find this:
DSC07283.jpg
and this:
DSC07276.jpg

trollied

i’ve mentioned the trolley man before. good to see he’s still got the fridge (or an identical replacement). we’re working the same patch. he has more dedication to this finding lark.
DSC07254.jpg

take a potato to work

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 ?
DSC07253.jpg
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

t-shirt day

for some reason the other three people in my office have comemorative t-shirts today.
DSC07246.jpg
corporate mugs appeared on our desk whilst i was on holiday:
DSC07247.jpg
i’ve kept mine in its protective rapper so it’s worth more if i ever auction it. there is label on the bottom which says “this is photo mug. do not machine wash or place in a microwave oven. HAND WASH ONLY. do not leave in direct sunlight”. it’s probably best to avoid putting hot liquids in it as well just to be sure.
rumours are that corporate ashtrays were provided at a recent international company meeting. i shall provide evidence if ever i see what of these fabled devices.

photo bits

here is a bit of photo i found on the way in this morning. obviously a person, but we know nothing else about them. what can it all mean ?
DSC07245.jpg

more congestion charge busting tips

i spotted this today. it’s a cupboard on castors. another congestion charge avoiding transport device perhaps. i didn’t check to see if there was anyone inside it. it had falled over next to a charity shop in such a way that the doors wouldn’t have been able to open.
if i was driving a cupboard i would have put the castors on the back of it and driven it like a canal boat. that would be much more stable and could house more (paying?) passengers.
DSC07244.jpg

death on a zebra

i’ve put this under the category ‘life’ but ‘death’ might be a better category. i was walking across a zebra crossing this morning (which in the UK gives you priority over traffic) and a car nearly ran me over. it came to a skidding halt and i only avoided getting run over by jumping backwards just in time.
the woman in the car looked a little alarmed and mouthed ‘sorry’ which was reasuring. usually you just get a rude jesture or the verbal equivalent.
however, she had to stop at the traffic lights a little bit further on so i took a photo of her car:
DSC07242.jpg
and here she is a bit closer up.
DSC07242b.jpg
i’m alive and so is she, so no harm done !

signs of hounds

here is another picture of a dog. this one has lots of detail. the person’s arms look a bit mechanical. however, he’s bending his back very sensibly to avoid back strain.
DSC07241.jpg
here it is on a seperate occasion facing the other way
DSC07988.jpg

be foreign

as we were about to enter my grandma’s house jane started giggling uncontrollably. i asked here what was up and she said we should pretend that we don’t speak english when we arrive.
i thought this was a fantastic idea, but i wasn’t sure if my rellies would think so, so we didn’t do it.
but this week, especially at work, pretend you no longer speak or understand english and see how you get on.

the diet …

my diet has been a big disaster today. chocolate and bread were presented at all our locations today and it seemed very rude to refuse them. so i didn’t. i’ll try again this week. perhaps it’s just a monday to friday diet ?
the last straw of the day was eating chocolates in the car on the way back home (2 hours). it was very dark in the car so we couldn’t see the best before date on the chocolate bars we had found in the car. unfortunately they were quite old and my fudge chocolate bars was fizzy. yuck.
but let’s remind myself why i was doing the diet – it wasn’t to lose weight, it was just so i felt better/healthier. and i did feel better / healthier the few days i did it, so that was good.
i’ll see what happens to my stomach tomorrow after today’s bread feast and decide what to do next. ho hum.

rothley

after visiting pam’s we went to Rothley which is where i used to live and where my dad still lives.
here is the house that i lived in as a kid. someone else lives there now and they’ve done the front up better and rebuilt the whole of the right hand side. but it’s still my old house …
DSC07236.jpg
once we’d done the old-house-drive-by we went to my dad’s new house and had tea with him and Ve:
DSC07240.jpg
my dad has a camera permanently attached to his eye which feels familiar.

bradgate park

this afternoon we went for a walk in Bradgate Park which is where i learnt to ride my bike when i was little. we took esther’s bike so she could keep the family tradition and learn to ride there too. she got on very well.
DSC07232.jpg

gloves !!!

here is a fantastic thing. you know i love gloves right ?
well imagine my delight when i found these hanging on a special ‘glove line’ at Pam’s house ! (the fingers in the glove on the right were full of water making them more life like which was a good feature).
this love of gloves must run in the family.
DSC07213.jpg

great grandma pam

we had a trip up to leicester today. it’s where i come from and my grandma, pam, and my father still live up there.
i found this trip up there more of a trip down memory lane than previous journeys. perhaps it’s the fact that we’ve got kids of our own now and showing them where i went to school has more meaning ? dunno.
here is pam and esther making our sandwiches
DSC07212.jpg
here they are in the garden throwing feeding the birds croutons and boiled egg (strange but true):
DSC07220.jpg

I am a failure

diet confessional: this evening on the way back, the antibiotics, pain killers, ear pain and lack of sleep all took their toll and I BOUGHT AND ATE A KING SIZED MARS BAR.
so that’s no good and i now feel quite sick. and i feel i have let you, the reader, down too. i’ve still not eaten any bread or beer and will attempt to stay off the chocolate for the rest of the week.
addiction is an annoying thing.
here is a nice little thing i found relating to mars bars:
KING-sized Mars bars make ideal normal-sized Mars bars, for
giants. NORMAL-sized Mars bars make ideal king-sized Mars
bars for dwarfs, as well as fun-sized ones for giants.
FUN-sized Mars Bars make ideal normal sized Mars Bars for
midgets.

church crockery

now here is a part of church life which is definately more to do with religion than faith (religion being more about ‘tradition’ and man made rules, rather than faith which is the real bit).
church crockery is traditionally very pale blue, with spindly cups on spindly saucers. it’s been this way since the 1970s.
however, the church we go to has mugs which is much better. (though i have noticed a trend since the mid 90s for forward looking churches to standardise on the use glass mugs).
but i digress. this evening we had a church meeting which included a meal and look how they arranged the cups on the table ! they were presented in groups of 4 cups and saucers. the best bit is the presentation of spoons in the middle.
potentially the protruding spoon handles could have caused sight injury if a member of the congregation suddenly lent forward to adopt the prayer position over the table.
luckily we had all finished our drinks prior to the prayer time. see how God sometimes chooses to protect his flock.
DSC07205.jpg

bikes !

yeah. i had a new bike when i was 12. it was a racer. i fell off it just before my 13th birthday and knocked my front tooth out. i now where a falsey.
now i’m 31 i figured i’m old enough to have a new bike now. so i got one. and so did esther. and i even managed to fix the tagalong bike on to jane’s bike.
esther’s very excited (and nervous) about her new non-stablised bike i will update you on progress tomorrow …
jane inspecting my new bike
DSC07203.jpg