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car show rooms

why do all car show rooms have balloons and flags and stuff. here is an example. whenever i buy a car i spend months thinking about it, then read all the magazine and reviews. Finally i go to the garage and find which ones they have available second hand and after a few days thinking about it might make a decision.
i’m unlikely to be persuaded ‘impulse buy’ a car just because they had a few balloons and flags outside the garage (even if they are union jacks).
jane pointed out that the balloons never look flat so the sale people must take them down each night. be great for their kids (unless they hated balloons). “hey it’s dad with a load of balloons again” (“aaaargh”)
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dr patrick dixon

i went to a lecture by dr patrick dixon this morning. the lecture was part of a series arranged by the Reading Church’s Men’s Breakfasts and he’d been asked to speak on personal spirituality in the context of a changing world.
dr dixon regularly lectures around the world on the impact of unceasing change in the modern world. this lecture was different in that he’d been specifically asked to provide an insight in to how he himself responds to these changes and makes sense of the world.
he was most excellent and i highly recommend you see him if you ever get the chance. see the global change website for more info
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transporters

i went to Reading University this morning and my friend Andy spotted all these devices. i’ve seen them before of course, but never in this number
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irritant

here is a little sign i saw on a bottle of bleach. it says ‘irritant’.
i suggest you print this sign on to a label and stick it on people. ideal for dealing with loud mobile conversational people on public transport for example.
you could always do the comedy school boy thing of sticking it on their back. ho ho
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my own lift experience

following jane, esther and kezia’s lift story i obviously felt i needed to compete.
i attended a meeting today and afterwards made my way out of the building. i wasn’t sure which way to go so was quite glad when i found the lifts. i climbed in and pressed G for Ground. The door closed and then straight away opened again. I pressed G again, but this time nothing happened.
it was at this point i realised that i was already on the ground floor and the main exit was just off to the right. d’oh. blame the drugs …

catalogue wife

as you know, occasionally i nice piece of spam takes my fancy. i liked this one and the website is jolly good too. i have a wife and am quite happy with her, but as an act of public service to you the reader (and irina’s once fish catching grand mother), here is the contents of that email for your delight.

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passport photo

here is my latest find. the other day i got off the tube at great portland street when i meant to get off at euston square and found a long lost college friend.
today i got off at euston square when i meant to get off at great portland street and found this photo.
when riding the tube, ignore where you are going. just get off when it feels right.
this is possibly the madest photo i’ve found. at some point i’ll add it to davescollections
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guitar girls

kezia can say the word ‘pick’ and is currently exploring the variety of sounds you can extract from a guitar. she’s gone for the sitar playing style, which adds a nice ethnic feel to her playing. she’s also chosen a non-standard tuning so her chords sound more interesting.
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techno corner

here is my favourite techno corner junk yard just underneath BT tower. yesterday there was a fridge, a table and an old computer
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ear watch update

other ear has the lurgey now, so back on antibiotics. twice the strength, twice the fun, (hopefully) half the pain ?
was nice to see christmas decorations for sale in the pharmacy. hi ho.

anita’s ear trick

here is anita wearing a ‘spock ear’. she couldn’t get it to stay on so she attached it with an elastic band. i believe this is what they do in casualty departments these days. when i picked up my camera, she picked up the knife.
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diet update

it’s thursday midday (in the UK at least). so i’ve not had chocolate/beer/wheat/dairy for 3.5 days. that means i’m quarter of a way through my diet. I WANT CHOCOLATE ;-(

stranger in the office

a man has just wandered in to our office. he had a beard and a clipboard and stared at the ceiling for a while whilst rubbing his chin.
no one apprehended or questioned the man. maybe the clipboard made him invisible to any security measures (or people). perhaps i’m the only one who saw him ?
update: he’s back again at exactly noon, and this time he is staring at the photocopier in the same detached manner.

shop tops

if you walk down Oxford Street in London (or many other shopping streets around the world) you can easily get dazzled and taken in by the lights. but i say to you “don’t be dazzled”.
instead, raise your gaze above the shop fronts, and, in london at least, you are rewarded with a hotchpotch of ancient and modern buildings. some are absolutely excellent (some 70s efforts are less so). the nice ones appear in sharp contrast to the ultra modern shop fronts below.
They’ve opened a new mcdonalds in oxford street (oh goody, we need more of those). i actually spotted the nice building first, then looked at what was in the basement.
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it’s not even a nice looking mcdonalds (though they were giving out balloons which would surely cheer even the most hardened burger hater)
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that nice olde london still exists. you’ve just got to look for it. my advice is to take a bus and sit upstairs.

selfridges window

selfridges in oxford street often has exciting window displays. at the moment they are particularly good.
here is one
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which looks like it might be related to rathergood
and there is an office in a window which is also very good
go see. you enjoy.

gloves

red gloves in oxford street london. interesting that one of them is in a shopping trolley
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logo-tastic

you probably never go there, but i just updated the funkypancake front page with a logo and longer wait before it bounces you to the blog.
here it is for those who can’t be bothered to click the link above (or can’t see the new page because the old one is stuck in their cache)
click for blog

the word on the street

trains were delayed this evening at paddington. when this happens you can never be sure which platform your train will come in to.
i took a punt (a risk, not a boat) and went to platform 13 which is where the 17:52 usually goes from. on the way I saw this wripped up piece of paper on the floor.
it was telling me to ‘turn’. this would have taken me to platform 12 of course (as anyone familliar with paddington station will be able to tell you).
i ignored the warning and continued, taking my life in to my own hands.
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i waited at platform 13 for a while and …

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strange device

here is a mysterious thing i saw on the way back home tonight. it’s a massive black box on the left connected with some wires to some electronical thing on the right. it’s location was outside a strategic British Telecom telephone exchange (i shall not reveal it’s actual location, nor indeed how i know this information)
so what is the device ? is it likely to go boom ? is it part of a telephone exchange ? is it a congestion charge enforcing device ?
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who knows. who cares