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February 2004

lock up

there are lots of mysterious door and buildings in london (as any city). here is one with a door which is extremely well secured shut.
a few minutes before seeing this building, in another part of London, i saw a street paving stone has been lifted up and there was a very long and deep staircase down under the road. i was going to take a photo only there were two security chaps inspecting me inspecting their hole.
i find that kind of thing fascinating.
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amber

amber. the colour or the person ?
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trading nature

i swapped a photo of some leaves or a photo of some snow drops. i think this picture is superb so was more than happy to let my leaves go !
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leap year

it’s a lucky bonus leap year day today. i find the whole thing a little puzzling.
one thing that dissappoints me (other than spelling words correctly) is that they chose February as the month to have the extra day.
why didn’t they put it in june/july/august ? that would make the summer last longer and may even coincide with prebooked holidays thus giving an extra day.
at the very least it should be a public ‘bonus day’ holiday.
all it does stuck on the end of february is postpone the summer for an extra day (and lengthens the winter).
who makes up these rules anyway ?
there’s an excellent page on leap days and wonky calendars here
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a sad shed

i took the girls to a garden centre this afternoon. we walked past this shed a kezia pointed at it and said “that’s a sad one”. so we decided to go in and cheer it up.
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family day

it’s been a family day. here are kezia and esther playing piano (sort of):
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then esther ran round with my coat on pretending to be a bat:
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my god-daughter made me a lovely card (with integral envelope):
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how far have i walked ?

thanks to my pedometer i can now reveal that i am over halfway to Paris from London. here is the graph to prove it. Total so far is 240km and average weekly distance is 60km.

click for detail

lent

can you guess what i’ve given up for lent ? i’ve even surprised myself with the randomness of this plan
UPDATE (also redated to reposition it)
here is the item i have snubbed:
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jane (my wife) said “it’s just a stupid idea. there’s no point. why are you doing it”.
i said “it’s good to have a challenge”.
and she said “well, i think it’s just stupid”.

yeah for wifi

i’ve found a nice pub near St Paul’s cathedral (and therefore near where my next meeting is in half an hour) which has free wifi ! And it’s a really nice pub which was used in some Gwynth Paltrow movie (changing doors or something i think) and the food’s really nice.
lovely.
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tourists love taxis

here are some tourists standing outside a taxi. they had made the taxi driver get out and take a photo of them. anyone who’s ever come in to contact with a london taxi driver will understand the negotiation that probably went in to arranging this.
the funny thing is that behind where i was standing is St Paul’s catherdral. If they had taken the photo from the other side of the taxi it would have made a nice photo. oh well.
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more big cat evidence

so what about the giant cat that is stalking london ? i’m definately on to something here. it’s a load of spreaded shredded paper. Exactly the kind of thing that a giant cat would sleep in.
and where is it most apparent ? round man hole covers. the cat is obviously sleeping underground and comes up through these holes to stalk its pray.
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when it lurches and lunges it causes a vortex which spirals the paper pieces in a circle.
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i’m glad this is my last day in london for a week …

graveyard

we had a music practice at church last night. the pathway lights made some great grave shadows. here’s one.
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4

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barbara windsor

i walked along the street briefly with barbara windsor this evening on the way back to paddington station. she got out of a car next to where i was walking and wiggled along to a nail beautification shop.
i asked if i could take her photo as she went in to the shop and she said she’d prefer not so i didn’t. the same happened with hugh grant you may remember.
i also didn’t mention i saw a two of the guys from a League of Gentlemen outside my office last week but was too slow to get their photo (i was heading off to a meeting in the opposite direction).
i’d never make a proper pap
here is a picture i found on t’internet of barbara windsor. it’s from a while back i think.
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high tea

i like how these cups blend in with london below:
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they look good out of context too:
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where’s walter, harry, john and pete ?

can you see my esteemed colleagues ? they are at the bottom left of my orange and cream office building. click for a big version. this was taken at maximum resolution and zoom. This photo was taken from 158 metres above ground.

here is the shadow of the tower viewed from the tower:
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and here is the inside:
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i may post a couple of ambient view shots later this evening