funkypancake

despite being 30 miles away i am able to tell what is happening on the streets of london thanks to my network of spies. here is an interesting picture sent by telco-john. he spotted some pavement eruption.

maybe it's caused by some prisoners who are digging an escape tunnel ? perhaps the villains are hiding in the bins ?

or maybe it's something to do with Goodge Street station and the trouble on the Northern Line. They'll be a lot of pressure building up underground at the moment, it's only natural it should have to release itself.

the best bit about this picture is that it shows that a couple of bins have wandered over to the eruption to investigate. bins care about the street - that's why they are happy to accept all our rubbish.

as we approach the weekend, i advise you to be generous.

yesterday i overheard a man on the train say to his friend "i'm not shy about spending a bob or two". hoorah for the nouveau rich i thought to myself.

what if you can't afford to be generous financially ? well, why not start by filling everything up to the brim ?

(this was the 1000th funkypancake blog entry by the way !)

i'm working from home today. i heard a lot of clonking in the room next to my office so i popped my head round the door and saw this scene of chaos.

esther had been sent under the bed and was extracting everything she could find. jane was happily receiving it, whilst kezia was spreading it around the room. i think they are sorting stuff out for the playgroup toy sale.

i have retreated back to the safety, quiet and (relative) tidyness of my office

a load of techies met up in our conference room yesterday. they brought a couple of switches and a load of yellow patch cables as techies love nothing more than wires, ethernet and IP.

they probably all sat there communicating with each other in total silence (except for the clickety-clickety of techy fingers) using protocols and applications we can only dream of. i suspect they didn't even have computers - perhaps they've all got techy combover hair which when parted reveals a nice RJ45 socket.

i used to be a techy. but now i'm just regulatory. (i still secretly loves wires)

... is more than just being kind to spiders. don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

here is some food found by my colleague rob.

i like how the turmoil of the apple situation of offset against the serenity of the wrapped cheeses. it screams the questions "how did it get there" and "why did rob take the photo".

perhaps it was catapulted using the blue and black strands to the left of the picture ? i'm sure they are significant.

click for big version

my trains were rubbish today and i got to work nearly an hour late. i'm not a bitter blogger, so won't go on at length. but perhaps it was an intergalactic event which triggered all the points failures. i left home at 6.40am when it was all going on ...

2 gloves on oxford street

don't throw babies

poke this to make that happen

profound chalk graffiti off Brick Lane

there is always building work going on round london. i spotted this near liverpool street. it's a build it by numbers kit. probably colour coded too. possibly sponsored by sesame street

wet look glove

cranberries have just moved in to the UK. i'd never heard of them when i was a kid, but now they seem to be everywhere. i had ostrich and cranberry burger last week, and now here is a can of cranberry spray. it's for spraying surface or space. worth remembering if you ever join nasa and want to iradicate intergalactic odours.

wondering about christmas presents or simply want to know where to buy a like wooden tie ? well here are two places on t'internet i found.

i can't vouch for the authenticity/safety of buying from these two places over the Internet as i've never used them myself. however, you may enjoy just looking at the websites !

noveltie for neckties

or how about:

a wooden bowtie ?

i particularly like the idea of a limerick section on a wooden bow tie site.

i've noticed that a lot of the push along street cleaners now have seat attachments. here was one seemingly abandoned in the street. i looked at the dials to see if it had a maximum speed, but none of the dials showed velocity (only fuel and time !).

Maybe there is a distance measurer somewhere and the driver has to do his own velocity = distance/time calculations. Those guys who clean the street - they are all secret rocket scientists. perhaps.

you know trolley man ? well, there are some mattresses in the place where he usually parks up his trolleys. The mattresses are balanced on a bed base.

on closer inspection it appeared there was in fact someone sleeping on the bed ! I suspect it was trolley man, but i didn't think it was a good idea to disturb him to check.

things are getting big round here, especially the cateogry areas. i may install this and see what happens. but not tonight ...

MT Extensions: MTPaginate 1.2.2

it's official. no more wispas.

i phoned Cadbury's today to find out where the Wispas have gone. It turns out THEY HAVE STOPPED MAKING THEM ! the last ones were produced at the end of August 2003.

I was informed that they had been replaced by Dairy Milk Bubbly, which is nearly the same thing. Dairy Milk is Cadbury's flag ship product and they have decided that the Wispa should be rolled in to that family.

So no more 'velvety textured milk chocolate'. instead it's now just 'bubbly'.

I went in search of the last remaining Wispas which are working their way through the newsagent shelves. i was prepared for a long search through the backstreets of london, but found my favourite local newsagents on charlotte street had a few in stock:

The bubbly dairy milk hasn't the same crunch as the old wispa. this is mostly due to its lack of girth (bubbly left, velvety right):

i remember queuing up to get my wispas as a teenager from my old school tuckshop which intriguingly operated out of the science block windows

and so another part of history dies ...

here is a glove i saw on the way home last night. the hour changed on sunday so it's dark going home at 5pm, hence my use of flash. However, the flash does bring out that medical yellowy-brown colour you often see on medical things, which is nice.

it's goth week on 6music this week. hoorah !

i warned you about blooming over the summer. it's not just a summer effect though. here is a winter blooming kitkat:

click for big version (yuck)

britain's newest blogstopper, telco-john, was eating an apple whilst reading the funkypancake blog. his concentration lapsed resulting in his consumption of half a fruity label.

found by Ash at the Angel tube station, about 4.30pm on Saturday.

londoners love their little parks - a small amount of greenery amongst the otherwise grey streets.

however, this feeling is obviously not shared by everyone. in particular the plant activists. they are sick and tired of plants being treated like caged animals and want their plants liberated to roam free in the countryside.

of course these liberators don't want to ruin the environment so have chosen to state their views on a piece of paper cellotaped to a sign at the entrance to the park.

(the views expressed here are not necessarily my own. i am prepared to believe that a plant, properly fed and watered, and sheltered from frost can have a perfectly happy life in an artificial environment)

esther found a glove. here it is:

here is kezia 'smiling' i think she's not quite worked out what the words means yet. it was a good expression so i took the photo anyway !

you'll be glad to know i've kept up my tradition of disrupting church services today ...

today a group of us from our church and greyfriars (our old church) went to a music conference organised by the mwf in Sutton Coldfield.

it's a couple of hours drive to get there, so we set off early and saw an excellent frosty sunrise. there was an excellent red haze in the air (as well as lots of Red Kites)

The conference was really good. lots of ideas, including introducing grunge and reggae in to our little church. i think we are on the way to doing that anyway, so at least we have an excuse now !

Christian conferences always have a bookstore. this was no exception. this might be my best book photo cover ever (modelled by Tony, the Greyfriars webmaster):

click for big version to fully appreciate it.

As for surreal things (which happen quite often in Christian circles), at one point in the proceedings they put a photo of a giant funnel on the screen for us all to admire and be inspired by. I wanted to shout "FUNNEL" at the top of my voice but decided that wouldn't have suited the reflective mood.

I'm embrassed to say my mobile rang loudly during the final talk and i caused general disruption as a result. Other surreal thing was lots of flag waving which is very popular in modern churches. personally i think it's dangerous and it won't be long before somone has someone's eye out and the whole thing gets banned. Here is a multicoloured flag waver:

because it saw the lolly pop

today i plan to log my consumption. i'll update this entry throughout the day.

breakfast 6.15am:

* multifruit juice
* gerbil museuli (peanuts, sunflower seeds and some other nuts i don't know the name of)
* Calcium and Chromium supplements
* Mug hot water

sugar rush 8.30am:

* bottle Ribena
* Big Mars Bar

Drink

* another hot water

Leaving do lunch (13:30):



4oz(actually) Ostrich and Cranberry burger, fat chips ('fries' to the international audience), 2 off 1664 beers, cookie and ice cream cake and a mug of hot water (too hot to drink)

Conference Call Mint (15:30):

Commuter Beer (17:30):

Both of these half pints were free as a result of the Government's 'Beer for Commutters' scheme. (actually it was a London Pride beer promotion which had something to do with Rugby).

Arrive home (19:15) snack

mmmm - crisps ('chips' to the international audience)

Evening Meal at Heather and Clive's



Tomato soup, fizzy lemon drink, chicken, sausage, stuffing, runners (fresh from the supermarket, not the garden), carrots, crumble and custard, hot water, mini mars bar and fancy 'big eye' truffle. All cooked by Heather and tasted mighty fine.

Final supplements

Multifruit juice, garlic, copper, eradicin forte, fish oil and bedside water

I really didn't expect today to go like it foodwise. i don't usually eat at a restaurant during the day and we don't usually get invited out to be fed so fantastically. I also don't usually drink much alcohol - the leaving do during the day and free commutter beer were special events today.

but then everyday is different, so perhaps i don't have a typical dietous day. how interesting (or not)

here is Tony and his BIG EYE

i love excel. it's official. here are some sites that i love because they too love excel. i'd write my blog in excel if i could. actually, i could. i could write it in excel, save as csv then upload in to the mysql database. mmm.

MrExcel
ExcelTip.com

Buy the MrExcel on Excel book. i'd recommend it even if you never do any excel. share the shortcuts. love the application !

ah. just seen concorde fly over my house. last day tomorrow. probably won't see it as will be at work, so was nice to say goodbye. i was too slow to get my camera - it moves quite fast you know (concorde, not my camera)

here was an earlier spotting of it.

Remember my blind photography idea ? Well someone has (independently) taken it forward, which is excellent. i'm really intrigued to see what they come up with !

Thanks to Chris Yuen for pointing this out

i saw a repeat of a fantastic documentary on the BBC Radiophonics workshop last night (i think it was on terrestial TV when i was in stockholm). Most excellent.

Watch the clip called Ziwzih Ziwzih OO-OO-OO

BBC - BBC Four Music - Alchemists of Sound

another non event happening day working from home. my home office is loads less interesting than the streets of london. the lack of people and gloves make sure of that.

i did hear one comedy thing this morning. Esther proclaimed loudly "it's eaten one of my chap's Bible's" (her 'chaps' being her favourit beany toys).

"what has ?" I asked

"the house" she answered.

scared ? i should be.

... but imagine how quiet it's going to be when they ban sound.

here is another congestion charge avoidance scheme. disguise your car as a garden.

this urinal had been ripped off the wall in heathrow. 'welcome to england' it should have said. but it didn't. instead it said "do not use". in case you were thinking of, say, using it.

plane toilets are interesting. the plane on the way back was a 767 (i think) so had toilets all over the place. my intial trip to the loos was a little unsuccessful when i opened a cupboard instead of the toilet door. they all look the same these days.

Anyways, no smoking in the toilets right. if you do they throw you off the plane. if you mess with the smoke alarms they fine you lots of $$$ (probably means American's are more likely to mess with the smoke alarms than £££ UK people).

however, if you do smoke in the toilets (!) then don't throw your fag ends in to the paper waste

and just to really confuse you, here is a nice ashtray !

You can also get some larger than life sanitary items:

And another mysterious sign about not taking stuff out of toilets or something:

or how about this (which i assume means don't throw all your belongings down the toilet:

so many signs in such a small place

here is a row of signage from the side of the Arlanda Express in Stockholm. I saw the sign of the dog described in the train safety instruction book so walked up and down the train looking for it on windows etc.

I didn't find it, so reread the booklet to find that it said the sign was on the outside of the train. As we approached the airport I asked the ticket collector which end of the train dogs were allowed. She said "at both ends, but if you are disabled then you can have them in the middle".

So i ran down to the front of the train to get the sign, but when i got there the sign wasn't there. in fact it was at the back of the train which went whizzing a few seconds later before i could take a photo.

so i made the chap i was travelling with wait 15 minutes for the next train. i postitioned myself at the back of the platform so i could get the photo. the train arrived and ... the dog sign on this train was at the front. so i ran down the platform just in time to get this photo:

definately worth the wait i'd say. look at the variety of signs, and the very angular dog

hoorah. back home. but now to bed. more stockholm remnants to be posted tomorrow ....

this was in the vasser museum:

it reads:
Melker Pavelsson was mongering fish at the market - large and exquisite herring. At the bottom of his firkin, however, the herring was >>small and no good <<

makes you think

the museum also had a comprehensive glove collection showing gloves are not just a modern day stockholm phenominum:

put out fires by firing skum at it

it turns out the hotel i'm staying in has recently recruited a complaints manager as they are having so many people complain about the state of the hotel at the moment ! hehe. my letter has been emailed ...

they've even started wripping plaster off outside my room !

found this on the way to the conference

Arab Strap were most excellent. A bit like the Tindersticks meets to the Pogues. The venue, Debaser, was excellent too. Wish i'd been there instead of the 'stuck-in-the-80s-michael-jackson' place i went to saturday night. oh well

set list:

this chap was the support for Arab Strap. he was rather good. just a bloke and his guitar

he had a song about how timing is important if you are a prophet. he also had a rather good song which went on about not knowing whether "to serve you or save you". which i thought was interesting.

not sure if this is a repeat, but i liked the angled cobbles which we haven't seen before

the lift in this hotel is it's main redeeming feature. it has a sign which says "hit" next to the button and it also says "Hiss for Hogst". I've hissed like a punctured snake everytime i've gone in that lift but never once managed to summon a wild pig.

a lovely idea. if some kids is thinking of doing some meddling then give them a bat.

here is a sign from a baby changing shelf in the blokes toilets in skansen. the kid looks like a bird which is a shame.

it's also interesting to note that like the german's the swedes mark their male toilets "Herr". this is confusing for those who speak english who are used to her being the female possessive and him being the male version. if you are a german or swede reading this then it's probably worth you changing that if you get a chance please.

stick to 'blokes' and 'birds'. everyone knows what that means. and we are full circle back to the picture of the bird on the baby changing signage

there is a fantastic outside museum thing in stockholm. i wasn't convinced it would be any good, but thought i should go there this afternoon (so i did).

it has lots of authentic old swedish dwellings, and is one of those fancy living museums where people demonstrate what they actually did.

it also has some animals in. here is some people being filmed watching the bears. i suspect the film crew were hired by the bears so the people could see how the bears felt being watched all day. it seemed to have back-fired as the people weren't bothered.

here is one of the bears (and a fox)

and here is me outside an authentic dwelling.

Go to skansen if you are in stockholm. it's excellent and really cheap !

here are some nice autumn scenes for you

here is a nice swedish phone box for your enjoyment

stockholm obviously realises its wealth of gloves and incorporates it in to its art:

here is someone hiding under a lampshade in the same art gallery:

and here is a postcard of passport photo shops in Chicago

here are today's found gloves:

carpet doesn't fit leaving little carpet nails sticking up:

smell of sewage in bathroom comes from here:

chipped sharp bit of tile in the bathroom:

hotel under wraps

a welcoming entrance

arab strap are playing in stockholm tomorrow night at a place called debaser which i think is about 15 mins walk from the hotel. hoorah. doors at 8pm if you are interested in joining me there.

i came to stockholm 5 or 6 years ago. at that time i was collecting pictures of doors. what a strange chap i was back then. here is a door:

stockholm has lots of great doors. they are very big on doors. big on big impressive portals.

stockholm is rich picking for gloves !

pretty street in stockholm old town. taken with a cold, but steady hand

i won't go in to details of my toilet experiences on the plane, but here is a sign i saw. not a clue what it means

study this man's head in detail. i did. for two whole hours as he reclined his chair in to my face on the flight.

the screens in heathrow have very small writing. so small you have to be standing right next to it to read it. i suspect it's a rooooos to make us buy binoculars. but we didn't so ha.

here is a cardboard box in heathrow airport marked "fire safety equipment". I guess they hope the cardboard will burn first and let the fire fighting equipment loose. it's a cunning plan ...

when i get better internet i'll tell you about:

¤ the flight - eating, a book review, strange noises and bald heads
¤ the total quality hotel i'm staying in ...
¤ the number of gloves i've already seen (3)

but you need pictures. it's what we all want !

stockholm is very cold. it was a bit drizzly earlier but it's now cleared up (that was for all you swedish weather watchers ¨ i know who you are !

swedish keyboards are good as they have extra letters like öäå

i shäll try ånd supplement wherev€r i cän.

cool hotel claimed the håve bröadbänd in the rööms. unfortunåtely i spent twö höurs when i årrived trying to måke it wörk. they even moved my rööm tö öne withöut åny windöws, but even the läck öf light didn't make it wörk.

sö here i åm sitting in the hötel bår using their public mächin€.

i'll try ägåin in a möment as nö rööm access, nö pictures and i've alreådy göt söme småshers

ooh, i just found a button whïch püts thöse fünny thïngs övër vöwëls. ï mïght gët öne öf th€s€ k€ÿböårds¨ät hömë.

and thêrês alsö thës€ chåräcters: ¤ ½§

off to sweden today. hopefully update later when i get there ...

after a meeting today i popped out for lunch with an ex-colleague. rather than fill our faces with unhealthy food (me) we decided to walk over to the Tate Modern and look at the new installation. It's most excellent.

here is me

here is someone on the balcony

and here are some other people

do you see what i did to get this picture ? when i take pictures around london people stare at me more if i'm wearing a shirt and tie (especially my wooden tie) than if i'm wearing my street-casual-down-wid-it clothes. i suspect they think i'm doing something official. which i am. i'm the funkypancake official blogger.

lots of gloves spotted this morning in different places. possibly the first two are a pair:

glove finger tip (for precision work?):

greet each other with sounds of an animal. chickens, cows, sheep and frogs are a favourite. it's an international language we can all speak.

and why not point to their shoes at the same time for added effect (optional)

well, here is a thing. the identity of one of my found photos was revealed. i met Boy 34 this evening. He was submitted by a work colleague last December and now appears to work for the same company as me.

Boy 34 this evening:

found photo, december 2003 2002:

a coincidence or made up non-truth ? dunno at this stage ...

this is worth having a go with. especially if you have a really important letter to write

Lost in Translation

my job is regulation (this story only get more boring ...)

how does God communicate with a world which is too busy to listen ? does he even bother ?

well, i think he communicates in lots of different ways. how often have we heard people say "if God is exists, i wish he'd give me a sign". i've taken lots of photos of signs - some with dogs in , some without

However, this morning, after posting the pictures of wigs here and here I did wonder if i was overdoing the artificial hair angle somewhat. So it was with delight that i saw this piece of paper blowing down Wigmore Street:

So, the word on the street is more wigs

as you know we lost the entire site a few days ago and i've been gradually rebuilding the various sites i run. on the way i found some real gems.

here is a pop video for a song i wrote. the video features me dressed as Edwin Tidyface and my friend Paul dressed as Rudolf Leider. It was recorded back in 1993ish. a good year for pop videos. Read more about Paul here

High Quality (11,497KB)
Low Quality (2,271KB)

(apologies for download size - the term 'quality' refers to the technical quality of the encoding and NOT the quality of the content !)