odd

someone left a piece of paper on my desk at work with a fantastic story on it. the page has two sections highlighted: “he hated dogs” and “love is a four-fingered glove (you thumbed your nose at me (and all you left was the G))”
mysterious but fantastic. my appetite has been wettened for the rest of this fine novel. i hope that the leaver makes him/herself known to me.
meanwhile i did some googling and came up with something probably unrelated but most excellent.
It’s Crouton’s World and is some crazy mistranslated japanese thing.

This is crouton.

remember this ? well it’s now been nicely converted in to lots of luxury houses. they have a ‘show house’, which is an old bungalow next to the nice new houses.
so you look round the bungalow and say “it’s very nice, but there is no upstairs” and the salesman say “well, if i can find you a house with an upstairs would you buy it” and you reply “well, yes” and the salesman says “well you are in luck as i’ve loads next door”
i took this picture at 9.30pm when the bungalow was definately not open. if you can’t trust them to erect an accurate sign, can you trust them to erect a house ? probably. different things aren’t they.

the site used to contain a chicken slaughterhouse and the close nearly got named abbatoir close or slaughter crescent or something. i once saw offal on the street opposite from one of the chicken lorries. “offal way” would be a nice road name

remember my alcohol delivering milkman discovery ? Well, he’s been out again, supplementing his regular milk round with beer delivery:

they are shutting battle hospital down in reading and moving everyone out to the royal berks hospital. there is definately a demob happy vibe around the place. there was popular music being played from transistor radios from at least two different rooms down the corridor where i had to sit and wait. it was like waiting in the sitting area in KwikFit listening to the mechanics changing tyres in the other room. or something.
however, at the moment the battle hospital is looking very run down and increasingly empty. it’s also up for sale.
so, how about we all club together and by a hospital ? we can call it the funkypancake hospital and i can be the Director (job title of choice). we can all pootle about and have a massive game of doctors and nurses.
what do you think. shall we do it ? shall we ? shall we ?

at last i got to see him. he’d nearly just finished 33 days when we got there. he was moving which was a good sign.
so, let’s see the man himself first:
here he is (he’s lying with his head to the right with his hand over his face)

here he is from again (head to the right hand side)

now let’s look at the commerce associated with the man. obviously he gets loads from TV deals, but does he get anything from the opportunistic sellers of magical starvation necklaces and £2.50 flashing bunny ears ?

as for the security, it was quite minimal. we went in to the inner-sanctury where they ‘checked’ my bag by vaguely staring at it. instead they went for the truth or dare approach of saying “you’re not going to throw eggs at him are you?” the obvious answer they were looking for was “no”. so that’s what i said. and, as it happens, i wasn’t going to anyway.

extremely interesting was that they DON’T ALLOW DOGS IN TO THE INNER VIEWING AREA. i have a number of theories:
1) Blaine hates dogs
2) Blaine loves dogs and it would break his concentration
3) Security are scared people will throw dogs at Blaine
4) Dogs go mad when they see Blaine
5) There is no doggy reason, but people like rules. it helps them feel they are being looked after

here are some cars for sale as suggested by brother edd:
little tank
big watery thing
(links now dead unfortunately)
the big watering thing doesn’t have electric windows, central locking or an alarm, making it a very insecure vehicle in my opinion. but it does go on water.

i was given a potato in a bag at paddington station this morning. it’s national potato week apparently.
so now i have a potato. at work. i think i’m meant to eat it with tuna sauce (sachet included).
if day one of national potato week is ‘eat potato’, then i look forward to the rest of the week to see what other fantastic things we can do with potatos. potato prints (they give out a potato and some paints), potato clocks (vegetables at work), spud guns (check out this fantastic page) ?
it’s sponsored by the british potato council. do you subscribe to potato weekly ?

it was handed to me by a man dressed as a potato. as jobs go, dressing up as a potato is pretty good.
update: see eggs vs potatos on the BBC website

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”)

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.

selfridges in oxford street often has exciting window displays. at the moment they are particularly good.
here is one

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.

does anyone say the word “chum” any more ? if not they should do.
i had a meeting in liverpool street this morning and travelled back to the office by foot and tube. i actually got off the tube at the wrong stop so was walking [in] a very strange way.
it was at some random point in some random street where I saw my old university chum ‘neil’ (last spotted about 6 years ago in sheffield).
we had both been goths at university. neither of us were very good at being goths because even though we looked the part, neither of us was very good at not-smiling.
we reminisced about auditions for Blind Date and attending concerts, and exchanged potted life histories. both of us now lack our goth-locks, instead choosing a close cut style. i blame the excessive use of hair spray.

(this photo was one of the deleted ones which i managed to recover with the unregistered version of Photorecovery – see here)
so, a marvellous coincidence. (i also bumped in to an old school chum a couple of weeks ago in paddington station one morning. i think i was on the way to liverpool street then too. it’s like my life is slowly passing before my eyes or something)

Duct Tape Items, from wallets, hats, backpacks, purses and more

here is a mighty fine thing i discovered thanks to Kookportal.
I’ve always been slightly freaked by facial hair (my own once massive, now slightly large, sideburns excepted). there are two types of beards: those out of control and uncared for, and those which have too much care and attention given them.
the great news is the World Beard and Moustache Championship is heading to London in 2007. i intend to be there …
Meanwhile i’ll get growing a nice handlebar (check out the gallery and read the descriptions).

also at longleat was a postman pat village. it was the world of postman pat shrunken down to toddler size. very good, but slightly eery.
here was a severed arm waving hopelessly (viewed from the side).

and here is a nicely posed picture of kezia and esther looking unimpressed alongside jess and postman pat

i took esther round the doctor who exhibition in longleat. i thought she’d be scared, bored or both. but she loved it and wanted to go round it again. so we did. she enjoyed making her voice sound like a darlek and though davros looked funny.
jane sometimes calls me davros which is nice. and probably only fair.

quiz of the day – which one was gracious enough to marry me.
three photos, one wife.
here is the photo I took of jane by candlelight:

and here is davros from doctor who:

and here is some other chap (thanks to andrew for pointing this out):

the key thing for marketing of products in a retail environment is how you do your point of sale merchandising. i suspect that the popcorn manafacturer didn’t recommend they were piled on top of an old dustbin.
but i could have been wrong.

a lady just came in to the place where i’m internetting from and asked if i was in here internetting last night. i said “yes” and she said “oh, that all makes sense now …”
very mysterious. this is a cool office though – they have a telly on the floor playing a music channel. Just had the Kings of Leon on followed by Elvis. if only i could hear properly i would very much enjoy working in an office like this !
right – must get back to help put kids to bed and head out for our second night out. this time we are going to a very posh restaurant apparently …

center parcs is so modern. they have a stereo oven in the chalets.
the sony sound system speakers are either side of the extractor fan. nice idea. now you can cook the dinner and wash the dishes whilst having a little boogie. I washed up to Stevie Wonder’s Very Superstitious and the Starsky and Hunk theme last night.

here is a cow in front of the view.