funkypancake

knowing right from wrong xcan be tricky, but knowing which is your right and which is your left even trickier.

esther came up with this great trick for remembering and we decided to share it with you here in case you need to teach anyone else (particularly school children) how to remember which side is left and which side is right.

esther made this up (at least she claims she did). you start by putting your hands in front of you with your thumbs pointing towards the middle and your first finger pointing in the air, like so.

you then look at your own hands and the one which forms an 'L' shape is the left hand one. brilliant !

here's a sign stating the obvious (although you probably already noticed that didn't you).

now don't get me wrong, but do you ever wonder what life would be like if you'd taken another path ? occasionally i consider how worse off i'd be if i hadn't met my lovely wife jane. i had a glimpse of what a poor predicament i'd be in earlier this week.

we've had the decorators and so have been sleeping on our inflatable mattress on the floor in our living room this week. since we have no telly in our bedroom it was quite a novelty watching telly in bed (especially from this funny angle - although i think Michael Stipe's head always looks like that).

jane's guitar at the foot of the bed made it appear like a pretty good batchelor pad. however, on reflection, life is most excellent as it is.

and we've now moved back upstairs. together.

just look at this scene. it's a proper building site.

it's got everything you could wish for - men in flourescent jackets, hard hats, ladders, things high up on scaffolding, holes, dirt, shovels, tractors, wheelbarrows.

brilliant.

jane bought a new vacuum cleaner yesterday. after years of good labour, our old one converted itself in to a loud dust blowing device.

here is jane with her dyson. she was very pleased. and shocked/excited by the amount of cack it picked up off our carpet.

i waited three hours for someone to turn up for a meeting today, but they didn't show, so by 6pm i gave up and went home. but as i came out the office i saw them in the pub across the road !

so i went in and he admitted he'd forgotten and was very emmbarrased. By the time we'd chatted i was over 2 hours late going home. so the two events which happened on the way home were really someone else's events which i hyjacked. possibly.

anywoo, the first thing was hearing this phone box ring. in these days of mobile phones it's rare to hear such thing so i jumped in to answer.

"hello", "hello", "who's this?", "it's dave, who this?", "mandy", "hello", "hello", "where are you?", "in a phone box", "where", "i don't know, oh yes, there's a street sign, Paddington Street", "oh", "why?","because someone just phoned me from there", "oh, sorry, wasn't me", "oh, it was probably my sister", "yes, probably", "is she there", "no, there's no one in here but me", "what about outside. she's got very short hair. and she's called Karen", "just a minute, i'll have a look", "thanks", "THERE'S A PHONE CALLED FOR A SHORT HAIRED LADY CALLED KAREN ? no, sorry, just shouted down the street, no one's about", "ok, well, thanks anyway", "that's ok", "have a good evening", "yes, and you", "bye", "bye".

and then a little later on my journey i found this very smart (and expensive) 4 Megapixel camera. i've reported it to the relevant authorities and now need to wait until the owner claims it.

i'm going to take a photo of me, the finder, with it so when it gets reunited with its owner they'll have a nice momento. perhaps i'll give them a link to the site too. there weren't any photos on the camera already. I'll let you know how i get on:

i walk past the gates of the Wallace Collection every day but it's never normally this exciting.

i suspect they've either had a fancy corporate event or a fancy private event. Or maybe they had an opening preview for their new collection which starts tomorrow (according to their website).

but i wish it was just completely for no reason. how fantastic it would be if everyone just decorated their front gates for no reason.

so that's my challenge to you today. find and put up a fancy decoration on your house/flat/caravan front or on your desk at work.

when someone asks you what you are celebrating, just say "life itself" and do a little twirl.

this little match box is looking at this pillar in awe.

"Wow ! to be so tall !" they are thinking and they've even taken the roof off their box so they can all see properly.

but don't despair little matches. each of you have the power of fire. something this yellow pretender will never have.

one day on our holiday we found this wheely bin blocking our exit. jane's dad tried to move it but it was filled with concrete and mud.

how like life.

today was a nice day to pass stonehenge. i know people like to see them so here's some pictures through the car window as we zoomed by.

the one on the right shows esther hiding under kezia's blanket with stonehenge in the distance.

i'm not going to talk about politics. but this was an interesting coincidence in the street.

the middle of the paper had blown away leaving a mixture of headlines from the front and back of the paper.

i thought this was poignant (pungent) for the beginning of a new week. a flower about to spring in to life.

instructions for viewing are in the comments here thanks to Jimmy.

let me know how you get on ! i wasn't particularly successful.

disclaimer: i can't be held responsible for any blindness or insanity which may result from this experiment.

classic british birthday BBQ this evening for jane's friend lynn. Untypically the food was excellent. here is the birthday girl and her cake (and husband and mother-in-law).

I took a few other photos with the flash which turned out better technically, but this one captured the mood more accurately.

our telly died again so i got the old PC out and set it up in the living room. i think the scruffy office look works well in this room.

jane is less keen.

it's bagpuss on the telly in case you can't see it clearly

i'm ill today. achy, massive headache, hurty neck, voice like barry white. so i'm taking a rare sick day and spending it in bed. it's been brewing for a week so hopefully this is the climax of the movement. apologies for the lack of updates today.

UPDATE: thanks to my old friend coproxamol i'm feeling a little better and can at least think again. back to work tomorrow ...

here is henley viewed from the middle of the Henley Royal Regatta race course.

despite visiting henley hundreds of times, we've never been on a river cruise. today we did and it was a really nice relaxing way to spend an hour and a quarter !

for the 24 hour thing i thought i'd take a picture of me putting the bins out. i got a bit sidetracked photo-ing a hedgehog (a sweet little chap).

i sat down in front of the bins and took this photo. unfortunately i missed my face and you can't see the bins. but other than that i'm pleased with it.

hoorah. they swallowfield show website has been updated and the schedule has been published.

if you live in berkshire and its environs then you should consider entering one of the many craft exhibits (or at the least going along). The Sunday clashes with the Reading Festival, but you'll be free on Monday right ?

i was fortunate enough to win the photography prize last year.

their website is just superb. you really catch the carnival atmosphere (especially if you have your sound switched on).

it can't be great being homeless. but you can choose a nice view to wake up to in the morning.

you suddenly feel a bit old when you become a parent. you suddenly realise you ARE old when you start going to school parents events. where did our lives go ? good job the blog has an archive so i can keep track and answer that question at least for the last year.

meanwhile jane and i went to an auction at esther's school this evening. there were many delights and many expensive items were bought (but not by us).

and how strange to look around and see other parents who we don't know, yet our children may know each other really well.

it's all just too bizarre. luckily there was beer, chocolate and a flappy number to help the auction go smoothly:

the weather is like my head at the moment. full of a thousand different bits of a thousand different things all dropping down at the same time. oh well.

cheese and potato pie (mashed potato with cheese on), ketchup, top of the pops and subtitles. lovely.

yeah. i get my pillow back tonight.

is it a coincidence that this appeared here today ?

so what did i learn ? not sure.

certainly that i need chocolate more than my pillow (the longest i managed giving up chocolate was 5 days).

i also learnt that if i'm tired enough i'll sleep with a degree of discomfort.

it's Good Friday today so we spent the day out in the funkypancake estate.

jane did all the work as i am totally rubbish at anything gardeny. here are some grass clippings in a bag.

more history from my old computer - ancient webcam pictures from when i had hair and didn't wear glasses all the time.

i don't often get angry about things or people, but this woman does cause me much mirth / annoyment (depending on my mood).

i have a standard response to her rudeness which generally works well in most situations of potential confrontation. i say "thank you, have a really lovely evening". today she went too far and i didn't say anything.

i approached, paid her my 40 pence, went to extract my paper from her claw-like grip and she looked me in the eyes and said "never do that again".

"pardon ?" i said

"NEVER give me copper coins. i don't want them. never do that again"

my mistake had been to include two 2 pence coins and one 1 pence coin in my money.

so, i shall save up all my 1 pence pieces and make a special purchase of my 40 pence paper next week. i may even be ready with my camera:

and here she is close up:

she is the complete opposite of this man

jane's parents have been cleaning out their loft and have obviously reached the corner marked '70s cutting edge mass market technology'.

here is jane's old portable tape player. it's massive by today's standards:

they also brought round jane's old soda stream with some original gas canistors. I never had one as a child and am quite frightened of the thing. there's too much opportunity for things to explode in my opinion.

here's the logo to keep you going for now. what a logo:

i'll tell you more if we survive the recommisioning tests

you can tell easter is on the way. i spotted my first easter card growing wild in a flower bed this morning.

the back lash against no smoking restaurants has begun.

cheryl asked if she could see my charles and diana glass tankard full of drink.

here is it full of old speckled hen. hmm. old speckled hen. another sponsorship opportunity ?

i spotted this newspaper sign yesterday which related to the government's budget statement. you can see what kind of coutry modern britain is by the which things the papers think will concern us most. there were few mentions of the new VAT free status for church repairs ...

update: i may reach Paris by the end of the week.

is it ever appropriate to have beer for breakfast ? i occasionally think i might fancy a pint when i'm walking to work. but by then i have been up a few hours. what's the cut off point before which drinking is unacceptable and you have to admit you have a problem ?

Here is a van advertising Honey Dew, my favourite honey based ale.

i went to the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall for a meeting this afternoon.

The Royal Automobile Club club is one of those historic gentlemen's club things which were very popular with the upper classes in years gone by. The people who were running the presentation i was attending had hired a room on the 1st floor.

I arrived at the same time as about 10 of my colleagues. As i walked in a very nice waiter/bouncer chap approached me and in front of everyone asked if i had a jacket. i replied i didn't (preferring shirt/tie/suit trousers with jumper rather than jacket). he then said "sorry, you have to wear a jacket to get in".

ooops. luckily he had one in his jumble sale box which i borrowed. i felt like the kid at school who forgot his sports kit. he said i could take it off as soon as i got to the room. i got a few remarks about the jacket, which matched one of the other attendees normal jacket !

here is me wearing the borrowed jacket in the men's toilets and below it and the communal comb and hair brushes provided for club members to brush their receeding hairlines (i decided not to try them out):

why did i call this item RAC IQ ? because i wasn't smart enough.

jane took this photo out the car window. it's the gubbins in traffic lights (before they stuck the head on them)

there's definately too much red tape these days. and yellow.

i'm pleased to see that rope and knots are still in use in modern britain. i thought ropes were only used at the seaside nowadays, with urban man preferring a more secure padlock.

this knot is quite elaborate and one i never learnt when i was in the cubs.

there's a period in life when you don't have to worry about marbles on the floor. for me this was the period between leaving my family home and having children. like all things you forget what the reality of a thing was like until it returns.

marbles are great at just being there when you put your foot down. usually directly underneath your foot.

when i was a kid i used to think that marbles were miniture spy cameras which were put in our house by aliens / the police to spy on me and my family. i was utterly convinced about this and i can remember vividly staring at a marble which had rolled under the sofa in my old old house when i could have been no older than 6 ! i was really spooked back then.

here is my favourity drinking glass. it's probably a highly valuable collectors item, but i use it every day and the dishwasher has slowly faded its beautiful design.

in particular, dear dead diana has become transparent in the body. When filled with Ribena she goes all red.

update: a picture in its full configuration is here

i ate something which was not quite a quiche last night. it was in fact made of goats cheese i think. but to me, it looked like an egg pie.

here is a cottage pie. we don't eat much processed food nowadays. it never ceases to amaze me how space age we've become. each pie individually processed and precooked and wrapped in plastic ready to be reheated.

i think i could live with that idea, but somehow the printed writing on the plastic film makes me think the manufacturers consider this a 'pie unit' and not someone's diner.

It says 'uk Cottage Pie 900G' and is printed in a nice old courier font. 900G is probably the pressure they put the pie under or something.

it's a lucky bonus leap year day today. i find the whole thing a little puzzling.

one thing that dissappoints me (other than spelling words correctly) is that they chose February as the month to have the extra day.

why didn't they put it in june/july/august ? that would make the summer last longer and may even coincide with prebooked holidays thus giving an extra day.

at the very least it should be a public 'bonus day' holiday.

all it does stuck on the end of february is postpone the summer for an extra day (and lengthens the winter).

who makes up these rules anyway ?

there's an excellent page on leap days and wonky calendars here

thanks to my pedometer i can now reveal that i am over halfway to Paris from London. here is the graph to prove it. Total so far is 240km and average weekly distance is 60km.

click for detail

i like how these cups blend in with london below:

they look good out of context too:

three seperate bulbs have blown in our house in the last 24 hours. very mysterious. one even blew a fuse and i had to do some mending in the fuse box. what does it all mean ?

i'm reminded of The Fall song which repeats "there's no bulbs in the house, the lights have gone out". that was a fantastic song.

it's quite popular when you die to have a bench named after you. i like this idea. it's people can rest on you when you're enjoying your own eternal rest.

this bench in Hyde Park was one of a few which seemed to be dedicated to living people and said things like "to my wife in celebration of our 50th wedding aniversary". i thought this was a great idea.

when you go to some churches it seems that every piece of brass work is 'in memory of' someone or other. it's a kind of eclesiastical individual sponsorship scheme.

it's pancake day today. my trains are broke and i'm in a conference all day so next update tonight.

send me your pancake throwing pictures

two phrases from my youth have just sprung to mine.

my dad, a lovely gentle chap would occasionally threaten to "skin us alive" or "have our guts for garters".

before the child protection people move in and have me sent to a children's home he never said these things in anger, just as comedy phrases in play arguments (he's not the arguing type).

As far as i know, he never went through with either of these threats.

here is my dad with kezia:

our telly broke. we bought it from ASDA (Walmart) so it's got a three year guarantee on it and a man is coming to look at it tomorrow morning. i'm feeling quite positive about the whole situation.

as a stop gap measure i enjoyed resurrecting an old PC and installing a TV card in it. Once i'd got it up and running and all tuned in we realised there was nothing decent on anyway. oh well.

i like having a PC in our front room. it somehow speaks of a future world of interactive enjoyment. even if the machine is 5 years old, massively noisey and only boots one in three times.

i suspect it may be sent back to its rightful corner as soon as our telly gets mended.

UPDATE: the telly man came and took it away to be mended and left a loan one for us to watch whilst they are doing the work. So far this has been great post-sale support from Asda !

i have one of those annoying bits of flappy skin between my knuckle and finger nail on my middle finger on my right hand. all my other fingers are without blemish.

these little things are annoying as any contact with anything causes a little short stabby pain.

however, it has revealed to me how much daily activity involves very close contact with the back of my fingers. my life must be so finely tuned that even a small blemish less than a milimetre high can break the flow of normal activities.

shoe lace tieing, getting stuff out of my pockets, putting my coat on etc all involve close contact with fingers. usually this goes un-noticed, so i welcome the opportunity to think about them again, and in particular take note of the involvement of the top of the backs of my fingers

it took me ages to get jane to pose for this photo.

click for big version

here are the fantastic cards i got from my ladies:

but what did you expect for £10.95 ?

how often do you see something in a shop window and go inside to buy it only to end up leaving the shop with a watch nearly twice the price of the one in the window (but with more features).

this happened to me today. the watch in the window was £5.99. Admitedly it wasn't all i wanted. once in the shop an extremely nice chap showed me a variety of watches and in the end i bought one for £10.95.

no compass - but i can always use an upturned plate if i want to draw a circle.

this shop is just off petticoat lane and is excellent. go there and buy a cheap modern digital watch.

cashback is a brilliant idea and much safer and more convenient than standing in the street taking money out of a cashpoint.

you buy something from a supermarket on your bank card and before you know it you've got your shopping a big wad of notes.

unless you go to the supermarket near my office. in there they haggle.

i asked for £40 cash back today. and they said "how about £20" ?

so i said "no, i'd like £40 please"

and she said "well, i've only got £20"

so i accepted her original offer and received £20 in £2 coins. i thanked her on behalf of my wallet manufacturer.

i'm looking to buy a watch, but no where seems to sell them these days. i went to Nowhere and even they had ceased selling them.

i went from door to door down tottenham court road saying "do you sell watches" with no success. next time i'll actually go in to the shops.

i want a thermometer and compass on my watch and i only want to spend £20. i suspect my search may take some years.

meanwhile i can take my old watch to the clothes repairers where i saw this sign. they can apparently alter a 24 hour clock and turn it in to a more decimal 10 hour version. possibly.

it was dark when i left home this morning (as usual) but it was light by the time i arrived at paddington which is great. summer is on its way.

i was struck this morning by the gradual introduction of colour to the day. it started off black, then came the introduction of dark blue, then some reds were added and before you knew it, colour had stretched down from the sky and lighted up the world.

oh yes, i forgot to say. this photo is of the moon through the windows (some paneless) at my local train station

pound shops were so 1980s. inflation has taken it's toll and nearly a quarter of a century later, we're got £5 shops in the high street.

Mr Gilbert, the great wig man, has died. and so it goes.

and all his belonging have been thrown in to the street by a company which does that kind of thing.

he was one of the first people i (tried to) blog and it's the end of an era. i liked walking past his shop door and looking in to see if i could see his bearded head.

i nearly went in last week to ask for a picture. i wish i had now. my last blog of him was in october

i'm blogging this from paddington station, so these photos are but 2 minutes old.

top tip: if you go up to the top floor in paddington station, there is a free wifi hotspot !

here's a really exciting story for you. when we moved in to our house just over 2 years ago we were told we would have to pay £55 a month for our water.

quite a jump from the £16/month in our old house. so we said we wanted to go on a meter and we would jolly well show them how little water we used.

after waiting a couple of months for them to install the meter our bill dropped to £21/month ! And now, a year later, they've dropped the bill even lower to £13/month. hoorah.

so, the lesson to learn is: get a water meter and ban your family from using water. i suggest turning it off at the main as the ultimate deterent.

i get some great comments from people on the blog and i thank you all (except the spammers).

i occasionally get comments which should read "i've been given some homework by my teacher. can you do it for me please".

one such appeared today here. Poor Nishan obviously just googled for "car show rooms" (i'm the second and third choice!).

So, if you are willing, could you all draw me a picture of a car, together with some random sports car facts and i'll compile a dossier for him.

let's harvest the power of the Internet together.

send them to the following email address homeworkhelp@funkypancake.com

update: results here

i have a new device to bore you with. not a drill (that would bore you in a more literal sense). no. i have a pedometer to so i can see how far i walk.

and so we learn that from my home door to my office door is 4.976 km (3 miles) and i walked at 5.34 km/hr (3.3 mph).

52 minutes of my journey this morning was spent walking and i took 6144 steps. (this obviously excludes the 50 minute train journey and time waiting for the train to turn up). Oh, and i may have burnt 232 Kcal, but i don't know what that means (i need a measure in Mars Bars)

This is a walk i do twice a day. my new boots are still giving me blisters

but what about the science of walking speed ? try here.

i'm working from home, starting at 6am this morning so i can get stuff done before i go to something at 11am. It occured to me, sitting in a cold room, repeatedly trying to boot my poorly laptop that mornings are a difficult concept for most people.

i'm a morning person, but i don't like getting up. So maybe there is a market for a Home Start option for people at home. You could phone someone up and they'd come round with a pre-warmed dressing gown, a warm beverage and some soothing words.

They could perhaps even offer breakdown cover in case you were heading for a breakdown by massages and (once again) soothing words.

The car breakdown people, AA, would be ideal people to offer this kind of service. I may email them to suggest it.

the wimpy burger is something very british. wimpy restaurants were the forerunners to McDonalds/Burger King in the UK and no town was without one.

their beauty was that they didn't put gerkhins in their burgers and they had proper chips (not fries). Best of all though was that you got given a knife and fork to eat your burger.

wimpy's still exist (looking at the wimp website there are still quite a few about) - mostly in motorway service stations, which is where we found one today.

service was dreadfully slow and totally lacking in interest. but i did manage to find a knife and fork and happily ate my not-too-pleasantly tasting burger in a peculiarly british way.

i left feeling strangely satisfied that the US influence has even now failed to reach some of our darkest corners.

not for the first time in my life i was following my own path

my local council are brilliant at mending street lights.

And not only that, but they send people round randomly to check lights even when they are working fine !

here is a man doing that very thing:

spring has sprung very early this year. here are some actual daffodils. they'll probably all die next week as we are promised sub zero temperatures (more normal for this time of year)

here is my stan boardman cup. i got it from a charity shop, but that still doesn't make it right. i found it in the cupboard because we used all our normal mugs at the party last night

stan boardman belongs to a time and era (1970s?) when political correctness didn't exist and mild racism was acceptable if you dressed it up as humour.

i bought this cup as it was ironic, but now i wonder if it's just sad.

perhaps i should put it on ebay. perhaps i should just chuck it out.

stand boardman is currently available for 'nearly any event'. he, and numerous other top british stars (and lookalikes) can be hired from entertainers

due to a combination of things i've had to start work early this morning so i can finish early. i was aiming for a 4am start, but this didn't fit well with going to bed at midnight following my jaunts of last night.

my alarm clock woke me up at 4am and 5am. my brain was mostly awake but seemed to have lost the ability to control my body which was definately still asleep. instead i listened to the gales outside and watched the curtains suck in as if trying to escape from the window.

i've been up for half an hour working now and it's 6am. it's just me, my laptop, Radiohead (Amnesiac) and the magic soap cat ...

you can make a job out of anything nowadays. what are you good at ? play to your strengths.

i've just spotted (and heard) this man outside my window at home. he's unloading massive concrete blocks in front of a bungalow.

so far, his skills have included driving up and down our dead end street with his articulated lorry twice - once with an extra trailer, once without it (perhaps it fell off)

he then climbed up on to his little stool and using a mechanical grabber picked up and moved the concrete blocks.

it appears to me this man may have had his training in a fun fair.

driving skills courtesy of the dodgems and the lifting skills finely honed by playing those machines with little grabbers which never quite managed to lift the teddy bear/watch/£10 note/packet of cigs.

this cucumber is on the street outside my office and represents a slip hazard. but is it as bad as a vol-eu-vent ? Popular classical songsmith Charlotte Churchslipped on a vol-eu-vent the other day whilst walking past an ex-boyfriend.

She probably could have complained in a french accent that she had been briefly stolen-by-the-wind. But it did make me think how slippy are vol-eu-vents.

my thoughts are that if it were upsway down, then standing on it would expel slippery sauce on to the floor, whilst the pastry mixed with a smaller amount of sauce would stick it to the shoe, thus creating ideal slippage conditions.

i may attach a couple to my shoes for everyday use when i need a little extra speed. we could have a few races.

on the subject of racing, i am proposing a different kind of race with my work colleagues for this lunchtime as the weather is perfect for paper boat on puddle racing. we have wind, big puddles and at the moment it's not raining. we'll haev to see how we are doing by lunchtime ...

here is a dead dove which has been at my train station for the last week. the disturbing thing is the position of the wings. i hope you don't mind me sharing this with you. (it was very dark when i took the photo and i didn't want to flash in public before 7am)

how do you like your custard ? i'm definately thick. very thick.

jane made some custard which was very thick indeed. the test is whether you can take a spoonfull, turn it upside down and see if it can be defeated by gravity.

this custard put up a healthy fight and i loved it. you could even stand the spoon up in the jug. lovely. you can tell by my face i'm loving it.

just recently i've become extremely unphotogenic. for this i apologise.

and here is a boat we saw in henley today, coincidently called 'The Flying Custard':

when i used to live in sheffield i used to help our at a breakfast project at the cathedral for the homeless and needy. it involved getting up at 6.30am i think which was quite early for a student who had been dancing at the discoteques until the early morning.

anyway, there was a chap who used to come along who lived in the local mental hospital. every morning he would 'escape' and end up at the cathedral for his breakfast.