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March 2004

Simon Pegg

i just walked past top UK comedy marvel Simon Pegg. He’s one of my favourite comedians and has been doing a very funny show on XFM for the last four Fridays. His masterpiece was Spaced (the spaced website is superb!)
I wasn’t sure if it was him or not so i said “simon pegg ?” in a loud and questioning voice. he confirmed and i asked permission (which was granted) to take my photo which i then did. marvellous.
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update: i now get lots of visitors to this site from people googling for “simon pegg”. if that’s you then welcome !
Go and see Shaun of the Dead (which is very good though my wife thought it a little gruesome – but that’s zombie’s for you) and/or get the Spaced box set and relive the moments.
meanwhile, make yourself at home.

a conference call in my office

here’s the team having a conference call in my office -harry, pete and john. the other participants are down my phone.
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flourescent vans

drain unblocking vans are always brightly coloured. but why ? i went down and knocked on the window of this van and asked the chap inside.
unfortunately he was incomprehensible but i think he said “it’s management’s idea. our senior management are women aren’t they ?” i said i didn’t know and left it at that.
possibly it’s something of a backlash against their engineers being constantly covered in brown yuckyness ?
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keeping sunday special

A good few years back there were lots of campaigns to ‘keep sunday special’. the basic concept was that we should all have one day a week where we enjoy each other’s company and think about and ejoy life stuff rather shopping.
needless to say the world of shopping won and many shops in the UK are open on Sundays albeit with reduced opening hours.
10 years later, John Lewis have just caught up. their balloons in their Oxford Street window declare they are open every day, especially sundays.
my local john lewis is open on a sunday but shuts on a monday instead just to confuse everyone.
yeah for the world of retail.
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easter

easter has arrived already. here are a load of chicks in a shop window. they’ll be fully grown chickens by easter day.
bank holiday wise, in the UK you get as many holiday days for Easter as you do for Christmas. God-wise, Easter is as important, if not more so than Christmas.
Shopping wise, Christmas wins hands down (with the probably exception of chocolate). Meanwhile, let’s enjoy lent.
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book of signs (page 150)

here is a sign i saw in paddington station this morning.
this sign must be a temporary measure until the engineers come to mend the escalators. yet it’s been professionally produced. it would have probably been quicker to mend the escalator.
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then i noticed it said ‘page 150’ on the bottom left hand corner. i suspect there is a giant book of very specific signs issued to train station managers and they just wrip out the relevant page.
that book must be massive. i shall endeavour to find other pages from this book and report them to you as and when.
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sara’s animal sign

it was a week for contributed signs last week. here is one from Sara from her travels. it’s a road kill bingo card. the winner is the first person to spot (or for double points, run over) all the items on the sign.
this game is obviously slightly cruel so they have a dedicated help line for the animals.
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cousin mike’s dog signs

cousin mike has a dog. he also has a number of dog signs he was happy to share with you all. some are even clickable for enhanced enjoyment.
bags for large pets a speciality:
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enhanced litter functionality:

dogs and bikes aren’t appropriate shoes and very detailed dog instructions:

cousin mike’s general signs

cousin mike went on holiday with cousin catherine and returned with some sign pictures. here the general ones:
signs have feeling too (as also demonstrated here) and a lovely photo spot:
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what is this guy smuggling ? a giant peapod ? a straight banana ? some giant lips ?
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report suspicious people (especially people taking photos of signs) and some high voltage entertainment:
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walking update

update: i may reach Paris by the end of the week.

fun and games

sunday afternoons are a good time for board games and the like.
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paul and liz

we had lunch with my old housemate Paul and his wife Liz. lovely food and lovely company. marvellous. (liz is very pregnant hence the profile bump shot)
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paul is also completely mad:
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squirrel

a squirrel furtively nibbling an acorn
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natural history museum

today was a trip to the natural history museum. it’s fantastic value (free) and is most excellent. dinosaurs were the main draw of course. i liked the earthquake/volcano etc bits. even the building itself is fantastic.
lots of fun was had by all.
and it’s only a shortish walk from Paddington Station so we even managed to avoid ‘tube with pushchair’ misery.
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mysterious dangling bottle

here is a bottle of water dangling from a tree and tied to the top of the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. very mysterious.
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this nightclub is not closing for a refit

this is a very bizarre sign. what’s it saying ?
have people been complaining that the nightclub is too shoddy and the campaign to have it refitted have failed ? or has it closed and the owners want to squash the rumours of a refit ?
or maybe there’s some other explanation ?
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