advent day 3
day three of the advent calendar picture challenge – it’s a sleigh:
and here are the photos:
here is a slay(er) of dragons ie a sword
and here is my sledge which is a sort of sleigh i suppose in the garage loft:
probably
allegedly is a weasel word which is used as an excuse to say something which is quite likely true.
probably is a weasel word which is used as an excuse to say something which is quite likely not true.
whenever i see probably on a sign i feel they should add what the probability actually is.
in this case it’s probably (less than 1% chance) that the best music in the world will be played there. unless they are talking about genres then it might be nearer 40%
advent day 2
day two of the advent calendar picture challenge – it’s a bell:
on the left is All Souls Church Spire (which may contain a bell) and some people dancing on Oxford Street (playing bells and drums)
I go to All Souls whevener i’m free on a Thursday lunchtime. if you’re in town, come along too ! it’s the Christmas Carol service on the 18th december.
All Souls is next to the BBC building where i think they still do radio and TV broadcasts. I went in there for a meeting this afternoon but didn’t see anyone famous
more strange transport
two fancy hover-sticks.
refueling
you’ll be aware of my love of street cleaning machines. here is one refuelling.
electrical goods
people of the street have a lot of facilities made available to them by the council. here is a microwave and laser printer
advent day 1
i had a chocolate choir boy in my advent calendar today and was a bit stuck for a photo as per my photographic idea.
luckily i’m not alone in my challenge and the blogging community has come to my rescue. so, many thanks to Feisty Girl for sending me this:
it’s an album sleeve of St Paul’s Cathedral choir from 1996 (a good vintage).
it reminded me that i used to be a choir boy so i went in search of old photos in my old family photo albums. unforunately my history seems to have dissapeared as only jane’s old albums are in the shelf in our dining room ! i’m sure my history hasn’t been destroyed, it’s just out of sight somewhere. a cold trip in to the loft proved unfruitful.
i’m sure my mother (another regular reader) will have a photo of me as a choir boy somewhere in her house. meanwhile i’ll keep on searching for my past …
my advent calendar disaster
i went off to get an advent calendar from the arty boutique called Paper Chase. I chose a nice one, but when i got back to the office and opened the door i found … nothing.
(click picture for big version)
i took it back and got a refund and went looking in other shops. they only seem to sell chocolate ones now, but i wanted one with a picture in it. i even found one which was a countdown to newyear and had 32 windows !
so i went to Marks and Spencers and asked the security guard. he said “the hulk one is the one for you mate. Look at it, it’s awesome”. i took his advice and purchased this very festive item:
and here’s what was behind door number 1:
it’s a little choir boy. where on earth am i going to get a photo of one of them from (without being arrested) ?
tunes
i’ve been accused of offering a one dimensional blog service on account of my lack of audio and video content. i have occasionally branched out that way, but today i offer you a means of providing your own content
let them sing
xmas decorations
people are starting to put their decorations up. i’m keen to get them up early (i have a santa that stays up all year and our Christmas Tree angel has been sitting on our telly for the whole year), but Jane likes to leave it until Christmas Eve. i think we’ll compromise on the weekend before Christmas.
However, i did notice this amongst some bins this morning. Someone is obviously NOT doing Christmas this year.
wet morning
it was very wet this morning. i became invincible and unafraid of anything by taking my glasses off and walking to work unable to see clearly. it was a bit weird to begin with, but i soon got to enjoy the freedom.
unfortunately, i did step in a lot of puddles and got splashed by lots of passing cars as i did spot these usual obstacles in advance.
here is the first thing you see when you leave paddington station on a wet morning. the whole of london glows red because of the steak house neon. there’s probably some metaphor for blood and meat there but that would be too clever for me.
advent photography ideas
here’s an idea for an advent photography project you could try.
take a photo of whatever appears behind the door in your advent calendar each day. this will work especially well with completely random cheap advent calendars.
for example, if the picture is of some holly, go and find a holly tree and get an interesting spikey photo.
if it’s something totally unfindable like a reindeer (if you don’t live in Sweden) then you could take a photo inspired by a picture of a reindeer (like a nice meat pie for example, or someone with a bright red nose).
let me know how you get on. i may have a go at this myself !
advent thought
allow me a Sunday moment …
The run up to Christmas is called Advent. Most people are too busy shopping to bother about the true Christian significance of Christmas.
What if you knew your life would end in a few days time ? Are you prepared ? What do you believe ? We need to think about this stuff, it’s not the kind of thing we can just wing at the last minute !
Christianity, like Christmas, is all about life and freedom. It explains the problem of mankind, but also provides a solution. Don’t miss it because you’re too busy shopping !
here’s a little sign i did for you. an advent advert if you like:
a busy sunday
liz asked esther if she could remember the first time she rode her bike without stabilisers.
esther said “yes, because i am very memorable”.
here is esther eating her dessert of ice cream, clotted cream and custard:
summary of the day:
media review
i don’t watch TV or movies much. but occassionally i will. i’m probably way behind the times on this, but Little Britain on BBC3 is extremely excellent. it’s also about to be shown on BBC2 on Monday nights for those in the UK.
(photo from BBC website)
last night jane and i hired Being John Malkovich. it only took us 4 years to get round to watching it, but it is completely fantastic, particularly the first quarter when it’s completely random.
as for music, esther discovered she likes the Beta Band today and i rediscovered the Brian Eno’s Nervenet album.
we watched a documentary on Robert Wyatt last night and that was fantastic too.
yeah for music, tv and films.
x
i’m making good headway on my alphabet. esther spotted this one in a school playing ground when we were out with her friend catherine. they were happy to pose with the letter.
catherine was cool. she looked at it and said “i suspect there won’t be any treasure under it”. it took me a while to work out what she was on about, but when i did i agreed with her.
a threatening goodbye ?
i started the day with a trip to the emergency doctors to get some more antibiotics and eardrops for my canal infection. i prefer infections in my ear to where i used to get them, but there can hardly have been a clear two months in the last three or four years when i haven’t been on antibiotics. i’m nuclear kid.
i collected my prescription then popped in to Waitrose to get a paper. whilst i was in there i thought i’d check out their offers on beer as i’d drunk all my honey dew the night before to wash down my pain killers.
i got talking with a chap at the beer counter who only drank Newcastle Brown Ale. this bloke was definately a biker type so i talked to him for a while then made my excuses.
i said “good bye, hope you have a good day” but he said nothing. as i turned the corner i heard him shout after me “be careful mate”. did he mean this along the same lines as “take care” or did know something i didn’t ? needless to say i took the utmost caution for the rest of the day
(paul daniels lives by and the lovely debbie magee (his wife) is often spotted in this same waitrose. she wasn’t there today though)
all new top of the pops
oh dear. all new top of the pops is as bad i expected it to be. new does definately not equal good in this case. i am gutted. the website is a bit better though
and i’ve got another ear infection. boo !
update: so what was so wrong with it in my opinion ? well, there was too much messing about, chatting with the stars and general pointless smiling. and all the bands on the program were of the manufactured variety. the only nod towards good music was a short clip of The Darkness on tour in America.
it used to be the case that TOTP would bring you a variety of bands playing back to back with a mix of pop/rap/indie/rock/whatever else so you never knew what was going to pop up next and it made it exciting. for me at least it seemed to have sold out.
i guess the fantastic Later has taken on the role of the muso’s music show in the UK so they can afford to aim the main TOTP show at the teeny market. seems a shame though.
Interesting the second half of the new TOTP on BBC3 (digital) was much better but i think this was because it had better bands on.
i’ll give it a few more weeks and see what happens.