funkypancake

here's an idea for an advent photography project you could try.

take a photo of whatever appears behind the door in your advent calendar each day. this will work especially well with completely random cheap advent calendars.

for example, if the picture is of some holly, go and find a holly tree and get an interesting spikey photo.

if it's something totally unfindable like a reindeer (if you don't live in Sweden) then you could take a photo inspired by a picture of a reindeer (like a nice meat pie for example, or someone with a bright red nose).

let me know how you get on. i may have a go at this myself !

allow me a Sunday moment ...

The run up to Christmas is called Advent. Most people are too busy shopping to bother about the true Christian significance of Christmas.

What if you knew your life would end in a few days time ? Are you prepared ? What do you believe ? We need to think about this stuff, it's not the kind of thing we can just wing at the last minute !

Christianity, like Christmas, is all about life and freedom. It explains the problem of mankind, but also provides a solution. Don't miss it because you're too busy shopping !

here's a little sign i did for you. an advent advert if you like:

liz asked esther if she could remember the first time she rode her bike without stabilisers.

esther said "yes, because i am very memorable".

here is esther eating her dessert of ice cream, clotted cream and custard:

summary of the day:

i don't watch TV or movies much. but occassionally i will. i'm probably way behind the times on this, but Little Britain on BBC3 is extremely excellent. it's also about to be shown on BBC2 on Monday nights for those in the UK.

(photo from BBC website)

last night jane and i hired Being John Malkovich. it only took us 4 years to get round to watching it, but it is completely fantastic, particularly the first quarter when it's completely random.

as for music, esther discovered she likes the Beta Band today and i rediscovered the Brian Eno's Nervenet album.

we watched a documentary on Robert Wyatt last night and that was fantastic too.

yeah for music, tv and films.

i'm making good headway on my alphabet. esther spotted this one in a school playing ground when we were out with her friend catherine. they were happy to pose with the letter.

catherine was cool. she looked at it and said "i suspect there won't be any treasure under it". it took me a while to work out what she was on about, but when i did i agreed with her.

i started the day with a trip to the emergency doctors to get some more antibiotics and eardrops for my canal infection. i prefer infections in my ear to where i used to get them, but there can hardly have been a clear two months in the last three or four years when i haven't been on antibiotics. i'm nuclear kid.

i collected my prescription then popped in to Waitrose to get a paper. whilst i was in there i thought i'd check out their offers on beer as i'd drunk all my honey dew the night before to wash down my pain killers.

i got talking with a chap at the beer counter who only drank Newcastle Brown Ale. this bloke was definately a biker type so i talked to him for a while then made my excuses.

i said "good bye, hope you have a good day" but he said nothing. as i turned the corner i heard him shout after me "be careful mate". did he mean this along the same lines as "take care" or did know something i didn't ? needless to say i took the utmost caution for the rest of the day

(paul daniels lives by and the lovely debbie magee (his wife) is often spotted in this same waitrose. she wasn't there today though)

oh dear. all new top of the pops is as bad i expected it to be. new does definately not equal good in this case. i am gutted. the website is a bit better though

and i've got another ear infection. boo !

update: so what was so wrong with it in my opinion ? well, there was too much messing about, chatting with the stars and general pointless smiling. and all the bands on the program were of the manufactured variety. the only nod towards good music was a short clip of The Darkness on tour in America.

it used to be the case that TOTP would bring you a variety of bands playing back to back with a mix of pop/rap/indie/rock/whatever else so you never knew what was going to pop up next and it made it exciting. for me at least it seemed to have sold out.

i guess the fantastic Later has taken on the role of the muso's music show in the UK so they can afford to aim the main TOTP show at the teeny market. seems a shame though.

Interesting the second half of the new TOTP on BBC3 (digital) was much better but i think this was because it had better bands on.

i'll give it a few more weeks and see what happens.

we all know about street cameras, but here are some street screens. big brother is watching you, but sometimes he might want to communicate back. this is how it's done.

here is more wisdom from Brother Edd:

"i would download the whole world if i could".

makes you think.

the dti have an anti-scam site which is quite nice.

click cup for link

public service blogging at its best

someone has parked their ladder in the street. to draw attention to it someone else has drawn a massive white arrow. ladder drivers don't need to park in car parking spaces. they could simply lean their vehicles up against a wall.

how do ladder learn to drive you ask ? obvious. you strap them on to the top of a car (usually an estate car) and drive round for a bit. they soon pick it up.

i said they'd be no more pictures of me, but here i am yet again. this time i've managed to secure a blue wig from the same charity shop as everything else i've bought this week.

i've provided you with a desk shot (with the now ubiquitous cemetry jacket) and a head shot. i need to develop a proper smile for photos. perhaps i need media training.

the wig is not some novelty item - it's an actual proper wig with a an actual proper inside bit so you can get it to fit properly. Madonna used to take her stuff round to these local charity shops, so maybe it's one of hers.

also note the tidyness of my desk in preparation for an office move in two weeks. more about this another day ...

walking through london has its hazzards. traffic is the main one of course. people trying to sell you stuff comes a close second. have you joined CUP yet ? you should.

this chap tried to sell me a wet Big Issue. he offered a joke a drier alternative. i said i would give him £1 if i could take his photo to put on the website. so i did.

i had just bumped in to an old colleague so he gave him some cash for the joke. i won't repeat the joke because

1) it's not very good
2) you might want to buy the joke from him yourself despite point 1.
3) i didn't buy the joke, my ex-colleauge did, so it's not right that i pass it on

he hoped that the photo would bring us all luck. so good luck to you all !

here is another transportation device exempt from the congetion charge

one chap was cleaning the outside, another the inside, and behind them was a giant poster of a lady. the outside bloke's phone rang and the inside bloke checked his watch. all seemed very bizaare (like my spelling). two people so close and could even see each other, but totally oblivious to each other's behaviour !

bet you can't guess what this is ? it's a load of fridge doors covered in baby lotion. as seen in arty selfridges arty window display.

what's this you say ?

it's the window on my train this morning. the windows are double glazed and about 2 metres wide. this morning my window had water in between the two panes of glass to the depth of about 2 cm. Whenever the train accelerated or slowed down a lovely slow wave of water would ripple along the window and the angle of the water would change. it was really soothing and i watched it for the entire 40 minute journey.

they should fit them as standard.

happy thanksgiving to any american readers who may stray this way over their holiday period. i found this lovely music whilst researching what Thanksgiving was actually about. the music says it all.

i found an R earlier in the week. this evening i found loads of letters on pieces of paper blowing down the Edgware Road. They were spread over about 200 metres and took a while to track down and photograph.

This letter W was the trickiest to capture as every time i turned it over it blew back face down. there was an old man watching me so i told him what i was up to. he then walked off.

generally, when people stare at me, i often find that telling them what i'm doing is the best way of moving them on.

i bought another wig today for £3. the shop assistant was a smartly dressed lady in a wig. she was a he if you know what i mean. shopping in london is such fun. this is the same shop which sold me my cemetry jacket ...

here is esther demonstrating the wig. she wanted to keep it in her room overnight so she can put it on in the morning when she wakes up.

and he's an even crazier thing. look at the sparkle in esther's eye from the original version of the photo above:

the wig has powers we know not of. probably

there's a small difference between a sign and a sigh. the difference is the length of stick on the letter n/h.

therefore, this week, i recommend you swap the two words wherever possible

Bobbins is another word for rubbish. Spool is another word for bobbin. you spool through an audio or video tape to skip the rubbish bits. a skip is also something you put rubbish in. bobbins is another word for rubbish. and so it goes on.

you remember i told you about a hotel which was riddling (wriggling?) with cops and spooks last week cuz George was in town ?

well, it's also the place where the psychelic slick was. and this morning, a load of multicoloured broken glass looking all twinkerly in the pouring rain:

interestingly they had a load of matresses in a skip outside the side entrance. perhaps George's people asked them to be disposed of ? or maybe they were going to get some new ones anyway and waited until they had gone to get some new ones in. or maybe this was the only way of getting rid of the secret agents' bed-bugs ?

following comments on my original Pop Idol post, i sent an email to the production coordinator of Pop Idol saying "can you tell me if there is going to be a kids pop idol at any time in the future on British TV ?".

here is the response:

stuck for a Christmas gift ? here's my first suggestion ...

royal family paper dolls

transparent glove. perhaps it's a ghost glove.

this blog is brought to you by the letter R. really.

big excitement !!! found another photo for the davescollections site this evening on the way back home. it had obviously been in a puddle for quite a while as the colour has all washed away.

i was very pleased with this find as it was on the opposite side of the road from where i usually walk and the street lights weren't very bright.

as always, i'll add to the main site once i find time to do the Frontpage thing.

i went to Pizza Hut with 'Big Eye' this evening. was very good. as a non dairy and wheat eater it was good to stuff cheesey pizza down my gullet. it tasted mighty fine.

we didn't dessert, so instead took a photo of the ice-cream machine. it's actually an ice-cream dispenser and not a machine as such. you're not meant to take these things literally of course, so i let it pass.

please note: this is second picture of me on the blog in one day, both sporting my new cemetry fleece. i can only apologise and will cut back on the me-photos.

(i've noticed no one has commented on the blog since i included a picture of myself) !

refocused your vision and mission statements.

whilst you are at it, how about creating a portmanteau to describe your activities ? (i prefer the first definition)

another quality funkyblogcake idea.

bargain of the week - a grey zip up fleece with three pockets for £5.99. here i am modelling it in my catalogue pose:

but what's that logo on the pocket you ask ?

it says Friends Of Kensal Green Cemetery.

we'll all be a friend of a cemetery eventually. i wish i was in their marketing department ...

UK law and the lawmaking process is quite complicated. however, there are some excellent government websites to help you find out what's going on.

it's stopped raining which is good news. i've decided to stop work on my Ark for a while. other people have taken equally affirmative anti-rain actions.

here is a brolly someone has simply cast aside in to the gutter. i bet they'll regret that once the rains comes back. or maybe they've got another one. who knows. who cares.

1 pence and my boots

sofa (blue)

here is a cool thing, and best of all it's got an Auto button, so you don't need to waste time making your own art. i love auto buttons as much as i love turbo buttons

click picture to go there !

another very wet day. church this morning was excellent. the rest of the day was spent eating bacon, sleeping, crafting and playing dominos (traditional style and toppling).

esther and jane went for a very cold very wet walk and i stayed home with kezia who decided to put on a little puppet show for me

her story was a little confused. it only had three characters - a Wise Man and Mary from the nativity set, and (special guest star) teddy bear from the Three Bears playing the part of Jesus. Or was it Wise Man and Mary playing the part of the other two bears ? All very interesting (and extremely amusing to watch)

we went to marwell zoo today. it's our favourite local(ish) zoo.

it was chucking it down with rain and very cold, but we decided to do the British thing and go anyway.

here is kez in the car on the way there:

one advantage of going on such a horrible day was that there was hardly anyone else there. this meant all the animals were really excited to see us ! The penguins were in an especially showy-offy mood:

All the giraffes were shelting in their house, so i was able to get some close ups

we all got very wet:

kids love umbrellas:

Here are some more animals:

and here are some wallabies. also known as 'wobbalies' (esther) and 'big mouses' (kezia):

Marwell Zoo is usually excellent for getting great animal shots, but the low light level and the fact most of them were hiding behind glass in their warm beds reduced the quality considerably !

here is a pile of ice cubes in the gutter. i saw a man emptying them and he let me take the picture which was nice.

i think there may be something wrong with the server this evening.

apologies for any temporary lack of viewing

the british museum is a great dry shortcut when it's raining. it was drizzling today so i walked through. i always try and take a slightly different route through to see what i can see. Best of all it's free and they don't mind you taking photos.

today I saw the Rosetta Stone and some weird head thing.

there was also a map of London from the 1750s. Where i'm sitting now was just fields back then:

(click for big version)

The cool thing is that the George Bush Memorial walk was (mostly) possible back then too. perhaps some blogger from the 1750s proposed a similar walk for visiting dignatories making a state visit to the centre of the empire.

more congestion charge avoidance schemes. this time, a dentist chair on castors

where there's gloves there'll always be hats (and plenty of apostrophes)

did you know there is a secret petition thing going on ?

check out this previous entry.

It was this that lead me to disable the display of email addresses on comments as i didn't think it a great idea for me to be publishing young girls' email addresses.

i'm going to write to the TV company and see what i can find out what they plan to do for the under 16s ...

here is beauty in pollution. the colours were amazing

update: here's one i found a few months later in the same spot.

here is a device on the wall in the men's toilets near the business lounge at Tegel Airport. it's obviously measuring something, but what ?

(click for big version)

Travelling is an education. whilst waiting for the plane i learnt how to grow very long parsnips (use a drain pipe) and whilst flying I learnt how to transport pets to australia (use a specialist company - allow for around £1000 per pet including flights (via Bangkok) and quaranteen).

remember this dog from Tegel airport ? The picture i took last time was quite simply rubbish as i'd taken it from the reverse side of the door and the lighting was all wrong. my bastest photoshopping still wasn't good enough.

this evening i refound the cafe where the sign was last time and it was still there. i climbed across a customer and caputered this photo in all it's glory.

i was very pleased to get this photo and can only apologise for the poor quality of my previous attempt

berlin is famous (on this blog) for having fantastic transportation items chained up in the street. you may remember the flourescent bike from my last trip.

i wasn't extremely happy to see this tricycle chained up to a lamp post. this would certainly be exempt from the London Congestion Charge

the hotel i stayed in (and where the conference was) was called the Hotel Espanade. it was very nice indeed. here is a picture of a hallway and my room.

rumour has it that this is the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby out the window ! i've not been able to confirm this (jacko's lawyers aren't answering their phones at the moment for some reason)

there was some celebrity thing going on as there was a camera crew out the front of the hotel. I suspect it was some German celeb and i wouldn't have recognised them anway. so i took a photo of the camera man instead.

i was invited along by two colleagues for a meal and some drinks in the evening which was very good. it was weird going back to Berlin after only being there is September and i was quite impressed with myself for remembering how the different bits fitted together.

here are some sites (including a little bit of Christmas)

(this is the outside of the inside). i did pop in to the church and there was an organist doing his thing which was very nice.

so, what have i been doing for the last day and a half ?

well, i went to a leaving do at oftel as some of my old colleagues from when i worked there are leaving Oftel.

here are my good friends/colleagues Phil and Keith. They mentored me when i first joined Oftel and i owe them tons for all the info and background on technical stuff they provided.

not pictured are roy and roberto who were also leaving.

i caught up with a few other people i hadn't seen for ages including this chap called Ally who i used to work with. it's brilliant when you bump in to people you haven't seen for ages.

unfortunately i only stayed there for an hour as i had to rush off to get my flight to berlin. i had a real bad case of Beer Bladder on the way to the airport as there weren't any toilets on the Heathrow Express. i managed, but only just !

last night whilst walking back to the train station i was listening to an FM radio. However, i experienced electro-magnetic fluctuations which caused the channel to become unlistenable. what else could this have been other than Bush's secret agents secretly communicating ?

i've had enough of all this excitement, so i've decided to go to Berlin for 25 hours. It's a business trip of the worst kind - fly to berlin, taxi to hotel, sleep, get up early for conference, taxi to airport, fly home. no site-seeing for me this time.

i'm not even taking my computer so there may be no blog updates until tomorrow (thursday) pm !

this man cleans belisha beacons

it's quite easy to spot which hotel Bush's people are staying in. It's the dozens of police in flourescent jackets at the front of the hotels, the multitude of black cars with black windows, the odd stretched limo (!) and piles of very big blokes in very big suits standing around trying to look natural ! Usually there is nothing but a doorman and the odd taxi.

here is some rubbish i found in the street. i'm sure there's a story behind it. maybe there's an urban legend that if you mix beer and toothpaste you get high or something ? i'm sure 14 years olds would believe that !

i went to buy a train ticket this morning but the machine had crashed. IP address conflict apparently. ho hum.

here's another broken joke for you

a broken joke is a joke so well know from childhood that you can 'break it' and it still makes some sort of sense - but only if you know the original, so apologies if this is a culturally non inclusive

so eyes down, here we go:

--------------------------------

a man goes in a chip shop and says "can i have two portions of fish and chips please"

the shop owner replies "i heard you the first time".

--------------------------------

left at a bus stop

here is a walk around London which might take a couple of hours (or longer if you want). Let's assume George Bush arrives at Heathrow airport. He'll wheel his bags through customs and head straight for the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station. It's famous for being the most expensive train journey you can make for the distance in the UK.

Pedestrian Casualty Reduction Signal Timings Experiment

a floating street cleaning device

i've decided to take pictures of people in london who look interesting (with their permission).

here is my first person who has eyes like flies.

George Bush and myself have at least one thing in common - today we have meetings in and around Westminster. He's even staying over at the Queen's place. I live in commuting distance so don't need to worry about that myself.

My meeting was attended by people with fancy names like 'Lord so and so' and Baroness this and that'. and me. and was in a very fancy building.

My walk to the meeting from Paddington Station took 40 minutes and my walk back to the office took about 30 minutes. Comparible times to travelling by tube and much less stressful.

On the train this morning it occured to me that George W might be doing exactly the same journey, so i photoed lots of tourist things to do on the way.

I shall call this the George W commemorative walk and i'll do a seperate entry on it.

here are two of the ITV news team. The bloke on the right is John Stapleton and does the breakfast news when i wake up. i had seen him 2 hours earlier on the telly and happened to walk past where he was standing 2 hours later (and he was still there). he was wearing glasses which he removed when i asked if i could take his photo.

the photo on the left is of a newsreader bloke and a random lady hiding behind a van. i don't know who he is, but i'm sure Andrew, a regular reader of the blog will tell us.

I also saw Michael 'parky' Parkinson outside the Iv:

as is my way with celebrity spotting, he moved to quickly and went behind a taxi. i want a camera with a quicker start up time !

esther is now officially sponsored by BT Wholesale. she seems very pleased about it.

you are not allowed to stop under the runway at Gatwick airport which seems fair enough. trains are ok though

i'm on the edge of another mad week. i've a day trip to gatwick today for a meeting but i'll be back later to update the blog !

update: journey time to gatwick 2.30 hours. journey time back 3.20 hours. British trains are a bit rubbish.

when i got to reading people were very annoyed as we had been sitting outside the station for 30 minutes waiting for a platform to be free.

to cheer us up, all the computer screens showing the train times were broken, but had been replaced with pretty rainbows.

and to finish it off, i've just sat down at my computer and a ceramic table lamp has fallen on my head. all in all an average day (but i finally see the light)

lamby has recently turned in to a bit of a dandy. here she is wearing her bandana.

we were invited out for a meal today after church and the kids band practice. we had a really good time and the food was fantastic ! a nice sunday lunch (chicken variety) followed by a fantastic chocolate pudding. yummerama.

If you are around 2 years old, there is nothing better than scoffing loads of chocolate, smearing the remains over your face and then running around the room as quickly as you can (accompanied by Casiotone cheese)

here is a very exciting thing. it's a posh shoe on a stone pillar. it was on a main road near a crossroads and a train station. we have friends who live nearby but they've temporarily moved because their house is falling down.

i spotted this find as we whizzed by in the car (i was driving). 5 minutes later we had to drive back down the same road so i got jane to drive and she let me run out and take the photo (much like she did for the army barracks dog a week or so back)

the shoe looked very new. perhaps someone threw it out because they realised it was beige ?

the poor old weather pixie has been feeling under the weather. So i've moved her to her own entry and people can go searching for her if they want.

If you can't see anything exciting above then she's simply too busy to appear.

oh well. it's always raining in england anyway.

jane made £4 at the toy sale today by selling our things. unfortunately I simultaneously and independtly blew it on a video of The Flumps. There's something about repacked TV from childhood years which taps in to people's brains. The fact it was for sale in a charity shop made it even more appealing.

i was esther's age when this program appeared on British TV and I remember watching the World Premier of it. I think they did a feature on it on the live magazine program before it (Pebble Mill i think).

The amazing thing was that when i watched it through with esther later in the day it was as good as i remembered it !

here is a sign of a dog which looks more like a cow. notice the skinny tail and ear. esther spotted another sign next to this one. she said "why is there a picture of a camera with a line through it ?". ooops

kezia used to have something she called her 'baby'. It was in fact a little police car. since then she's found a proper dolly to love which is her new baby.

i sold my soul and took the easy option of a lunch in McDonalds in Maidenhead today. kezia had her baby with her and made sure it got some chips:

she also gave it a drink:

esther and a one penny piece

esther with one glove, then a few moments later with the other glove

i looked after the kids this morning as jane was doing commerce at the preschool toy sale. esther decided she wanted to go to Maidenhead and Kezia was happy to go along with the plan.

here are a couple of photos of the day. kezia with her finnish hat on (left) and both the girls spontaneously saluting the camera for no reason (right)

we saw a steam train whizzing through maidenhead station when we were there. it came and went too fast to a photo unfortunately. but it was good (imagine it)

i love 6music. i listen to it lots. i am on their announcement mailing list. so are hundreds or thousands of others.

they must have changed their email address settings because this afternoon i've received about 20 out of office replies from other people on the list and they are still coming in fast and furious.

i'm very tempted to send an email to the mailing list (which is now an exploding mailing list) and spam them all about the blog ! Or maybe I could sell the list name to a notorious spammer for a pile of modern money.

(After announcing the URL at my presentation yesterday I did spot a jump in viewing figures to the site - and 6 people downloaded the presentation [but one of those could have been me]).

it's fascinating the different types of out of office messages people have

here are a few extracts:

the 2nd presentation at the OIF went fine again this morning. yesterday's topic was quite exciting and was in some ways a 30 minutes blog-type thought thing.

Today's was about how Internet providers business models work in the UK for both dial up and broadband access. Highly boring.

Interestingly, the projector blew up once i'd finished presenting which lead to an impromptu 20 minutes coffee break ! This is becoming a habit ... perhaps i need insurance.