vowels
this post from dragoon reminded me that one of the exercises to get the choir to sing a particularly difficult phrase well was to sing it “on the vowels’.
this entailed ignoring the consonants and just making the funny vowel sounds. i was amusing to watch people’s faces whilst they did this.
i recommend you try it on a few sentence.
e e o o ou e o (let me know how you get on)
singing with men
the story of my evening with a load of men:
a nice day for tax
exciting day spent doing tax returns. i agree with taxes generally. i’ve certainly got value out of the national health service over the last few years and the UK is generally a good place for public services (even if they aren’t world class). Doesn’t make filling in the forms any more exciting though. ho hum.
off his trolley
there is man-of-the-street who ‘lives’ somewhere between paddington and oxford circus who collects the kind of junk i take photos of and put them in a trolley. i often see him in the morning transporting his trolleys through the streets of london.
today i saw him with 6 seperate trolleys, all piled high with junk.
here they all are:
trolleys 1 and 2 in front and number 3 behind (with the guy himself sitting down):
number 4 in front and number 5 off in the distance by the lamp-post
number 6 all nicely piled up
milk versus alcohol debate
i saw this note this morning. It says ” NO MILK TODAY. Dear Milkman I would like to cut my milk delivery by half for the time being’
i think the stella bottle suggests the note writer may have found a different beverage of choice.
or maybe the the milkman delivers alcohol. but surely not ?
but then in the next street was this milk van with just one bottle – a beer bottle ! a coincidence ? no such thing …
and when they do deliver it’s a sham
i missed pirate day
ahoy there
i totally forgot it was talk like a pirate day. i was happily reminded by a message on the office ladies guest blog.
i’m out singing tonight with 55 men so i may adopt a pirate stance. they don’t know me and i don’t know them. i’ll just be ‘that chap who turned up one week and spoke like a pirate’
yar.
glove
this glove looked like it’s made from hemp, but was probably just woolen
today is half and hour late
i woke up at 6.30 this morning rather than 6am, so had to run out the door almost as soon as i was awake (vital duties duly dutied). therefore i’ve lost 30 minutes of today and have been running to catch up.
as if to serve me right, my train was delayed 15 minutes on route, thus increasing total delays to 45 minutes.
during the 15 minutes stoppage i looked out of the window and watched this squirrel eating an acorn. he hopped right up next to the train, had a nibble then jumped to another rail etc. i looked around the carriage to catch a fellow commuter’s eye so we could share the moment, but everyone was either asleep or reading their papers.
as a result of the site of the squirrel i now have the White Stripes song Little Acorns in my mind. which makes a change from You Make Me Feel Like Dancing by Leo Sayer which i have had stuck in my mind for the last 7 or 8 years.
red glove
after the glove drought I end up finding three in one day. they’ve all been good.
the speckled blue one, the tied one and now the red one.
this one is nicely presented on some black railings.
man of science
london is great. all over the place are round blue signs like this one which say who once lived where.
this one is my favourite: Thomas Young, Man of Science.
Man of sciences sounds a very old fashioned title. i imagine at the time it was completely futuristic. but now is just sounds strange.
i’m a man of science. i’m made of molecules and atoms and all those tiny things they tell you about in school.
man of science was probably an alternative to ‘man of god’ ie you can’t be a techno-bod and a person of faith. they don’t have to be exclusive though. God invented a fantastic world with physical constants and structures which we can start to understand.
i’m a man of science and i’m a christian. i’m not great at either. but i try.
tennis ball
i found abandoned next to a hospital. there is also a mini-beanbag (green) in the same place. it’s been there for months. i haven’t taken a photo of it though as i’ve been keeping it a secret for myself. i can’t share everything on this blog you know …
glove
here is a very screwed up glove. looks like one of the fingers had been knotted
guest bloggers
i’m potentially unable to blog for a few days next week, so i’ve been asked to consider allowing a couple of guest bloggers.
i’m undecided on this at the moment – there’s a certain randomness in the plan which i like. but an obvious lack of editorial control (and potential for destruction).
thoughts (and volunteers) welcome.
foreign objects
i saw this sign in an office toilet. i like the way an old bit of chewing gum has been stuck on the word chewing gum. i was there with a french man, who has plenty of foreign objects with him (including chewing gum?)
an open door policy
i went to the north of london this morning. there were at least three ntl street cabinets (including one next to a hospital) which had their doors unlocked.
it’s nice that ntl are so trusting – anyone could disconnect anyone’s phones and/or plug a phone in and make ‘free’ calls (illegally of course).
maybe they lost the key ?
glove
i haven’t seen a glove for a while so it was with great relief that I found this today. it has a nice blue speckled effect which is especially appealing
blending in
here is an interesting sport. blending in with members of the public.
The Blenders