plinth
a great word and a sign ignored.
it says “please do not place any items on this plinth”.
items means more than one, and there is only one bin, so it’s probably ok.
reflections
this building is more reflection than real thing
too far
my old tube season ticket used to let me go anywhere. nowadays i walk most places so i just buy tickets as i need them. the cheapest way for me is to buy a Carnet of tickets which works out as 10 tickets for £15.
However, i forgot that these tickets only cover zone 1. so my cunning plan to stay on an extra stop and get off a whitechapel instead of aldgate east backfired when my ticket wouldn’t work to get me out of the station.
i could have paid to be released, but resented that so went back one stop and got off at the proper station. so sorry, but i haven’t got lovely pictures of lovely things this morning.
but i did take this picture of a clock at Whitechapel tube station. i’ve been thinking a lot about analogue and digital clocks this morning. they are very different beasts. perhaps i’ll tell you about it sometime.
oh, and to the person who phoned our house at 2am this morning from a mobile phone. please don’t do that again. it’s made us very tired today.
the mezzanine
here’s a book i’ve just read. it’s a book of the small. and most excellent. it’s by nicholson baker. probably the world has already heard of him, but i hadn’t.
thanks to the person who recommended it (via a comment on this blog somewhere i think!).
stirrers on the ground at paddington station
jack straws. pick up sticks. station stirrers.
tesselations
my colleague has just pointed me in the direction of this excellent website.
it’s one of a small number of websites which live on the same little server as funkypancake so that makes us web-neighbours.
confectionary tales
i just popped out to the sandwich shop to get my lunch and i popped in to the newsagents to get the chocolate element of my lunch. the conversation went like this:
me:[after looking at the chocolate for a while] there sure is a dazzling array of confectionary available for the modern man
newsagent: yes, too much if you ask me. people still want more and aren’t happy with what we’ve got
me: yes, that’s because chocolate can’t satisfy the soul
the newsagent then stared at me like i was completely mad. i took my queue and left.
bubble chamber
set your own art in motion with a bubble chamber picture
robot wars
from my window i could see the robot wars merchandising shop. but it’s shut or moved or something. it’s funny how you miss things when they are gone. i never went in it, but it was quite exciting. now it’s just a load of flourescent yellow and black lines.
toys on lorries
it’s quite common to see kids’ soft toys stuck to the front of dustbin lorries. i suspect this must traumatise some kids – especially if it was their old favourite toy which was stuck on there.
teddy bears were never designed for the outside life and rapidly become brown soggy blobs of fluff through all the heavy street wear. they so provide a nice contrast to the bin men who put them there though. it proves these most menly of men (you rarely see bin ladies) still keep in touch with their femine side.
i may mention this next time i see such a bin lorry. but i may not.
this collection of teddys, dolls and union jacks was on a delivery van. i hope this craze will spread to all modes of transport, and not only restrict itself to commercial vehicles.
blue
my local train station foot bridge has been painted blue. it looked and smelt lovely this morning. please enjoy it with me.
this door is alarmed
this door is alarmed apparently. i’m not surprised. it’s been thrown out in to the street and left next to a bollard. it has no idea what will happen to it next. poor thing
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.
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.
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 ?
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.
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.
