the mattress incident
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August 2005 Archives
peregrine falcon
remember this ? i thought they were photographers, but they were/are actually bird watchers. i attempted to take some photos but failed miserably:
there's a couple of peregrine falcons living up the Tate Modern tower and they've got their telescopes trained on them.
if you are in the vicinity of the South Bank you must go and have a look. they are quite fantastic
here are the two bird-men looking completely in the wrong direction
best in show !
fantastically, i won best-in-show for my photo of a snail at the Swallowfield Show.
here i am proudly receiving the trophy
all of the other photos i entered have appeared on the blog at some point, but in case you are interested here is what else i entered (in each category):
a journey (1st):
portrait:
tranport:
texture (3rd):
skyscape (2nd):
my favourite place:
song title (1st):
4 seasons (3rd - best viewed bigger):
what the future looked like in the past
retro futurists in a bookstall at a village fair.
note the random disconnected space boot on the floor and the book on top called 'they died too young'.
very small sign
teeny weeny snail on my finger tip (must have been a sign)
two gloves
2 gloves
closeup here:
and here:
how the cool people travel
the spacehopper is enjoying a renaisance rather like scooting did a few years back. businessmen are taking advantage of the long dry british summer to commute to work on spacehoppers, sometimes travelling miles just to get to work.
what we see here is a lady's sports spacehopper. she's parked it up (rather badly i notice) and left her sunnies on the roof.
blue hair
quiz of the day - male or female. vote now.
disposable flash cameras
stranded camera man
rivals
it's the rival brands on opposite walls
merlin's speed bump sign
merlin sent me this sign of saying watch out for speed bumps. positioning is everything with signs !
olivia's dedication
yesterday was olivia's dedication.
As i described in the comments here, a dedication is a bit like a baptism - it's a chance to say thank you to God for the child and to welcome them in to the wider church family.
Prayer parents are like god-parents and it's their duty to pray for the child and generally support them as they grow up.
when they are old enough they can then make their own decision about the Christian faith, which they believe is true.
richard and julia (below), and jane and i are olivia's prayer parents.
The prayer we said included this phrase "May we be patient and understanding, ready to guide and to forgive, so that through our love she may come to know your love, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
(can you spot esther and kezia in the picture above ?)
men work up ladders to release people trapped in a giant TV screen
and all this because people weren't allowed to crowd surf.
it makes no sense.
revised song title
i went with others' advice on my previous attempt and re-approached the song title thing. so, here's my new song title picture. i think i cropped a bit too tight on the right though. oh well.
do you know what it is yet ?
me at the reading festival
here i am with my festival hat shortly before i left. i only really saw Dinosaur Juniorand the Charlatans today before i ran out of energy and went home ! We've got other things planned for today so that's probably it for me and Reading 2005.
but you can watch some of the bands here for the next 30 days.
weapons on mass dispersion
these things fired tiny bits of paper high in the air. good plan.
mixed messages
swallowfield show signage awaiting deployment. i'm looking forward to seeing where the 'fishing in the field' signs goes.
brother edd
here is brother edd. i saw him at the Reading Festival today. i went and sat down near the stage and at the end of the band looked round me and there he was sitting but a few metres away. neither of us had spotted each other, and neither had we agreed to meet in that location.
how very strange.
here he is holding one of my funkypancake 'business cards' which i give to people who ask why i'm taking pictures of boring things.
specialised bins
here are two slightly seperate strange things in the same bin complex.
see how specialised these bins have become. this bin is only for Beans on Toast. which makes me think that the Beans on Toast people haven't had a good day
and then this chap appears to be in a bin, but he wasn't.
hassock of the week
i thought this was a glove at first until i realised it had 7 fingers.
the bucket family
this family have brought buckets to sit on which is a good idea. perhaps they are using them as toilets to avoid the festival facilities ?
elbow
i wandered by the signing tent and noticed the queue was short so i joined it. only to meet elbow a few moments later.
how bizarre. their set was very good too. it included a big confetti explosion (as can be seen if you look carefully at the people sitting on the buckets photo)
more comfortable viewing
these people had an inflatable sofa. good plan.
i took pictures of lots of the bands i saw today but they're all a bit small so i'm not going to bother posting any of them.
bands i saw today included Goldie Looking Chain (offensive, but very funny), The Wedding Present, Graham Coxon, Elbow, The Coral, Audio Bulleys (briefly), Queens of the Stone Age (an accident), Cooper Temple Clause, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (their new stuff isn't much cop), Charlotte Hathersley (very excellent) and the Pixies (awesome!).
i think there were others as well.
guess the song
i'm not sure if this works or not. it's an attempt to capture a song title in a photo for a competition i'm entering on sunday (tomorrow).
any ideas what it is or am i going to have to go back to the drawing board ?
festival antics
between bands people sit around and chat, and drink, and set fire to things. but these people decided to do some acrobatics instead.
the chap on top is actually leap frogging 4 people who are standing up. it was quite impressive, and also very stupid.
i wouldn't recommend funkypancake readers try this between pictures.
dave grohl - the nicest man in pop, or ...
here is one of those things you can put your head through and pretend you are on the cover of the NME. good fun you think ? well think again.
what about those poor Foo Fighter band members who've had their heads cut out so music fans can pose with mr grohl here ?
i think mr grohl was playing drums for the queens of the stone age today (i can't be 100% sure as i don't recognise all his tattoos and the video screens kept cutting to other people). but anyway, he does play with them quite regularly which must be a pain for the emergency spare drummer.
and we don't hear much about kurt cobain any more do we ?
i'm beginning to detect a pattern with mr grohl.
brandon flowers
brandon flowers of the killers looking out from the signing tent
life in the fast lane
here is steve waiting by a petrol pump which ate his credit card. it turned out the petrol pump wasn't 'online' so a man came and pulled the power to reboot it. it still failed but steve got his credit card back.
our 20 minute midnight pit stop allowed me to take some trolley photos in the supermarket carpark though !
trolley in a supermarket carpark
click for the big version to fully appreciate this one i think
reading 2005
the day before the music starts this is all very quiet
as i mentioned before, i won weekend tickets for the Reading festival thanks to having one of my photos featured in the programme. i went down this evening to get my wrist band.
it was quite muddy:
and i liked how people were queuing up at a little window for chunks of wood to burn:
and there were tents as far as the eye could see (and i rejoiced in not having to stay in any of them):
even action man was beaten by the elements:
pure reason revolution
this evening Pure Reason Revolution played a local gig so i went along. totally fantastic !
here are two of the support bands
wire jesus
my luminaries
and here are dave and em, fellow gigsters, and celebrity drummer andrew:
it's all for effect
compare pure reason revolution's effects to julian cope's
the only two deckchairs in hyde park
abandoned deck chairs and bill bryson book randomly in the middle of hyde park on a wet windy morning.
british summertime
it's been raining a lot recently.
loose loose chipping sign
nice use of sticky tape to keep this sign on a stick.
things are looking up
these chaps had 'oculars rather than cameras but they still looked great in their high viewings.
the mighty boosh
somehow i've managed to miss the fact that Series 2 of the Mighty Boosh is on BBC3 at the moment. luckily (if you are in the UK) you can watch a streamed version via their