funkypancake

finally got round to updating www.davescollections.com with the latest two found photos

we had a multitudinal luncheon activity today. 10 round the table which was great. children played in one room whilst adults chatted in another.

well, that's not quite true.

the children DID play in another room, but the adults played dressing up in wigs:

and doing the jigsaws and a marble run which we originally put out for the children:

here is a contributed sign from some friends. they saw it at Hughenden Manor. it says:

"No more food orders due to no more food - Many apologies"

that's the voice of english heritage (national trust actually) saying it like it is

it's still august and not lets forget it. i thought it might be the first of September today, but we have 31 days in August. it's like we are pleading for the summer to continue forever.

my advice is just to go with the flow. the quicker we get this winter started, the quicker it will be over with. let's get our coats out the cupboard and start enjoying some cold weather.

i can smell a chicken cooking downstairs (because there is one cooking) and I feel very Christimasy.

Let's hope Jesus doesn't come back before lunchtime else we won't get to taste it. I suspect they'll have some nice lunches in Heaven though.

we tried to go to Hillier Gardens today.

It looked great but it was closed when we got there because of a concert in the evening. we will visit this place another time ...

blokes toilets at Broadlands.

there was more to it than just this hose pipe and mains lead

there were a load of sinks in a row:

after visiting jane's granny we went to Broadlands, which was the home of Lord Mountbatten.

It costs £3 each (for the growned ups) to go for a walk round the grounds (you can go round the house if you pay more but that didn't seem a great idea with the kids). for £3 you got to go round the exhibition and we spent about an hour there and the guides were really nice. i still felt it was a little expensive.

we picnic-ed in the carpark, but there is a nice picnic area inside

kezia enjoyed shutting these massive gates:

i don't know much (or care about) dogs. but here is a no-dogs sign of a version i haven't seen before.

here is jane's granny:

we went to visit her this morning (she's esther and kezia's great granny). she's 92 i think, but mentally totally alert. fantastic !

the first chair i saw this evening was a swivel chair. it contained an empty can of beer and an old cigarette packet. i suspect this was once the seat of a smoking alcoholic who liked to face in different directions whilst sitting.

the second chair i saw was made of wicker and contained old egg shells. i suspect this chair was once the seat of a bird

i love how unproductivity is catching. here we are celebrating lucy and arjan's leaving again.

the unwritten rule on such occasions is to remain in the venue until the most senior member of staff leaves. any earlier is seen as not being a 'team player' and later reveals you to be a slacker.

we were delighted therefore when will ordered icecream and banana.

it was then passed around the table like a last supper. we were provided with plenty of spoons which was nice.

a couple of my colleagues went to canada and found a glove mountain (as you do). here it is in all it's fingerly glory. doesn't it look gloverly ?

click for big version

here are a load of union jack thongs hanging on a stand in Oxford Street

here is a fridge near Marble Arch. in the background you can see grid locked power outage traffic. interesting that all the lights are on ...

there was a massive power cut in london last night.

i blame mars and david blaine. Blaine is in london to live in a glass box for 6 weeks. he stood on top of the London Eye yesterday morning as it went round. if there had been a power cut then he would have been stuck.

he was probably in the east coast of america when they lost their power a week or so back too.

so i think it's him that has made it happen. the proximity of mars has increased his powers beyond that which even he can control.

here is a a picture of the grid lock around Marble Arch at 9.30pm last night.

here was a strange thing that happened at Paddington Station. for some reason the electronic screen which said "slippery floor" has fallen over sideways

here is a sign on a urinal in a burger restaurant in Oxford Street

last night it was lucy and arjan's leaving do. it will be different without them about. in particular the number of staff on our floor will reduce from 8 to 6 which is different for a start.

here is arjan:

sara got possessed by the spirit of her moustachioed £20 note

sara and herve respect each other's personal space.

everyone looked surprise most of the time

herve shows off my wooden tie

leaving dos are good for catching up with old colleagues. everyone is on their best behaviour of course

mandie left ages ago, but came back wearing the shoes that she got as a leaving present.

I'm sure someone said "what do you want when you leave Mandie" and she said "oh, a nice leaving do". someone misheard it as 'leaving shoe' and rest is history

here are the shoes:

here is mandie again, this time looking sternly at sherella (another ex-colleague)

and here she looks strangely at herve

on a thames train at 11pm in reading

sara in the office folded a £20 note in half and by sheer fluke ended up with a moustachioed queen.

what are the chances of that ?

i had 23 pence left. so i left it in the street to see who would pick it up and take it away. people came and spoke to me and even offered me more money. i waited some time. then my camera batteries ran out. so i left the cash and went on my way.

here is a close up of the monies

i have never seen either of the following:

* a piece of cheese riding a space hopper down the street
* a bearded man who can actually fly

both of these relate to transport which is interesting

i'm looking at introducing a new directory enquiry service (no honestly, i am).

here were some people advertising 11 88 88. and you thought you had problems (or maybe it was me who just thought that).

there was much discussion over the construction of the giant gerkin this morning. some people will complain about any new protrusion.

i went to our Brick Lane office today and took a photo of it from two locations

Here is it can be seen with pictures of people in underwear in the foreground. Ed of london is not to be confused with Brother Edd who is not in london (though he has been to visit london on a number of occasions)

this one shows it together with a petticoat lane sign and the barbican tower:

update: you can also see it in the background here

sh1ft.org projects

next to Smithfield meat market is an old building with a massive ancient sign on the wall informing us, the public, that is "the central cold storage".

I guess this is where they kept their meat cold in days gone buy. it was with some delight therefore that i saw an abandoned fridge outside it's front door !

there is much in the news about the Hutton enquiry. the enquiry itself is of interest, but of equal interest is the media surrounding the trial (which is itself about manipulation of the media etc).

they aren't allowed to film in the courts so they get people to draw what happened instead.

brief aside: do you remember when they had to do that for people in Ireland. i was too young to understand at the time of course. poor children must have thought ireland was full of drawn characters like in the comics they read like the Beano. i support that is why there are so many Irish comics (it's the way I tell them) - when they are not betting on pies climbing up walls of course.

anyway, i always assumed that the drawings were nicely scanned in before they appeared on the news. but in fact they are stuck on old doors and filmed for the telly:

here is the media frenzy:

upon closer inspection of the photo i realise i may have been spotted taking it (they appear in the top right of the photo above):

i'm glad there were plenty of barriers between me and them

hands up if you love maths. hands up if you love regulation. here's a treat for you people:

i'm reading a tremendous document at the moment. It's called:

"Fixed Narrowband Retail Services Market Identification and analysis of markets, Determination of market power and Setting of SMP conditions, Explanatory statement and notification"

You can get it in two parts from oftel (part1) & (part2). It's 365 pages. one for every day of the year.

it contains this terrific formula:

so, i say to you "do the math" (no 's' please)

my brother is called edd. we refer to him as 'brother edd'. even esther calls him 'brother edd' which is a good name for an uncle.

this morning brother edd informed me of the following:

"i'm looking for a couple of wedding present albums but all i get is cutlery sets"

it makes you think doesn't it

esther has been having a few horse lessons recently. a friend of ours asked how she got on. i replied with the obvious answer.

today represents the first day back to work for lots of people. summer hols are officially over after the Bank Holiday.

and so it was with great delight that I saw the vagabond / tramp chap who sits outside the back of Middlesex Hospital. he's not been on his usual step for the last 4 weeks and i was starting to worry. i suspect he's been off on holiday somewhere. probably down to the back of a hospital south of the river

at the swallowfield show today there was Terrier Racing. a comedy man was doing the comparing. he was completely potty. he was on old man with a flat cap. and he loved dogs.

his job was to compere whilst organising a race up and down the field for terrier dogs. he announced that he had a chap helping him the day before "but he got sun stroke and hasn't turned up today".

he informed us that Terrier Racing was originally believed to have originated in Ireland: "The Irish will bet on anything. they love gambling they do. they'd even bet on two pies climbing up a wall".

i suspect he said "flies" but i like the idea of competitive pie climbing better.

county shows are brilliant. if you like massive vegetables then these are the places to be.

here are some massive vegetables:

this man won loads of trophies. unfortunately there wasn't a category for best turned-out competitor or he would have won that too !

i'm now an official award winning photographer ! I entered 7 photos earlier in the week for the Swallowfield Show.

My total prizes were:
3 first places
1 second place
1 third place
Best Photo in Show rosette
Best Photo in Show trophy (for one year)
and ... £7.50 in prize money

The Best Photo in Show and Rosette:

the prize envelope (containing the £7.50 winnings):

winning the trophy was mixed blessings. prize giving wasn't until after the raffle was drawn (which seemed to have about a million prizes - he mentioned that the ladies filling in the details on raffle tickets had filled so many that they had got "writers cramp". we call that RSI nowadays don't we?).

Anyway, we got to the show at around 1pm and didn't get away until after 5.30pm ! kids weren't particularly impressed. Although esther is proud of her dad, and of the fact that her knees won first prize in the hoovering picture (see below)

the trophy prizes being announced:

collecting the trophy

proud trophy winner

more details:

this bus sign is written in pictures and words in case the bus driver doesn't speak english. in which case he probably can't understand 'except' and will go up there anyway. if he's the bus driver then that's fine cause it's no entry except for buses.

a picture paints a thousand words. you could save a lot of typing that way.

5 children playing (they have to change the sign if they have friends round)

and just round the corner:

10 slow children playing

a country path

style guru

three girls in a row

the last thing we saw in the festival grounds was this beer selling tent. in the half light and from an angle it DID look like it said "carry out ear". in fact it said carry out bar. picture isn't very clear. but then neither was my vision. i think it must have been all the second hand smoke i inhaled (we only drank coke (-a-cola) and water all day)

at the Reading Festival there were lots of playing cards all over the place on the way back to the train. too many to count and archive individually, so here is just once sample shot:

hats were very popular at the Reading festival. here was a stall selling old lady's hats for £2.

damon albarn fell off the stage which was quite amusing. we started off down the front but then got squashed so moved back out slightly. from this position it was only worth watching on the giant telly screens and we couldn't really see hte stage too well. and if you are watching a giant telly, then why not watch it at home.

we watched 3/4 of their set then wandered off for our train home.

(from the telly screens):

black rebel motorcycle club were good. not great, just good. they covered a White Stripes song which was fair enough as it was thanks to White Stripes not playing that they were playing. They sound better on CD in my opinion. it wasn't helped by the fact there was a massive water fight going on around us.

Beck was totally bonkers. he had a keyboard on a trolley which meant he could play and wander about. his backing band were fantastic with robot dancing..

there were some excellent clouds about, including a fantastic sunbeam thing going on.

and a little later as it was getting dark

I thought the Doves were great. some excellent guitar and keyboard noises.

some people clapped when they liked the music

Jane spotted Edith Bowman near where we were standing

when we arrived the Libertines were playing. they were good, but i didn't get any photos.

Then came The Streets. I found them a little boring and a bit too 'ladish'. they had sound trouble which seemed to happen everytime they threw beer all over the stage and each other. I wonder if the sound man was trying to tell them something.

we got a good standing spot two people from the front on the right hand side of the stage. unfortunately there was a giant camera stick which kept getting in the way. it whizzed above our heads and often obscured our view. here is the camera in the sky and the man working it

just been reading the kleeneze catalogue. you can get toilet role holders which have a radio intergrated. nice idea.

off to the reading festival now. byeee

it's an exciting weekend ! not only is it a bank holiday, meaning a lucky bonus day off work, but it's the Reading Festival weekend. Jane and I are going for the day tomorrow.

it's also exciting as i'm entering my first photo competition (hence the trip to Swallowfield earlier in the week). it's at the Swallowfield Show see. Go to the site and enjoy the music !

i've entered 7 different categories, but had only 5 photos at the beginning of the week. so i had to take and print the last two this evening (they have to go to be displayed tomorrow).

Here is one of my last minute photos. i hope the judges are surrealists ...

judging happens Sunday, but we aren't going until Monday so I'll find out what happened then. gulperama.

one benefit of working from home is instant access to the day's post.
i was sent this piece of headjoy from some friends in the north. they said it's all the rage in Italy. i put it on to demonstrate. i had to take the photos myself as there is no one else in the house at the moment !

once i had got the thing on:

what if you can't find this site ? well, here is a google links to bring you back to the blog.

"macaroon macaroon macaroon"

It's one thing being the top of a Google list. it's quite another to be the ONLY link !

i use windows terminal client to access a server at work. i always forget the shortcut keys. particularly the ones to change the screen size (leaving me unable to get to my 'real machine' without disconnecting from the server).

here is a handy reminder for me:
186624 - Terminal Server Client Shortcut Key Combinations