funkypancake

got anything you want embellishing ? an ill-formed anecdote or a poor excuse for not meeting a deadline at work ? they'll sort it for you

i saw this giant foot floating around trafalgar square on the way to a reception at 11 Downing Street (nice name dropping hey?). Number 11 is where Tony Blair lives (because he did a house swap (and job swap) with Gordon Brown.

when the formal part of the event finished, i had to rush back out of downing street to a meeting at church and so i went without the free house of commons wine, and the free pint of beer given away with the london evening newspaper to celebrate saint george's day (they know us English too wel).

it turns out i missed this fantastic record attempt in trafalgar square which i'd have seen if i'd done more adventuring before. but i did get to go to downing street and the refreshments at the church meeting were mighty fine.

a funny old day, which could have been slightly funnier. but that's most days isn't it ?

love of film ? ladies and ?

these chaps were carry weed killer tanks on their backs and were studying a map - i assume working out where to go next.

the pipe across the back of the chap on the left obscurred the letter 'd' in weed, making it look like he was wearing some medical 'wee control' device.

i know what you are thinking. i was thinking it too.

why would anyone want a machine which you can go in to nice and clean, but come out dirty

these chaps are facing the wrong way down a one way street. this may have been their final mistake (but it wasn't)

there's a story here somewhere. a music player, a toothbrush and the yellowpages. what's it all about ?

what on earth is this about ?

these weighing things are all over vienna. you can have your weight measured in the street for all to see.

remember the chap who always brings his dog to the conference ? if not, see here or here.

well this year he didn't bring his dog. he brought his wife along instead !

here he is without his dog.

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here's a strange thing. it's a bird poo. but it looks like a man in a hat sitting down whilst waving.

if it had been mother terresa it'd have been a worth a bob-or-two.

it's death, as seen last september, getting ready to go back on the streets of brussels and give plenty of belgian cheer to passing tourists.

esther spotted this before i did. it's a balloon person. just legs and a load of balloons for a body:

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it's the totem pole in windsor great park

this bridge has been stranded at paddington station for ages. it's become a folly for our times (at least until they mend it)

this toilet may be automatic but it doesn't seem very private. it's just an open plan room with a curtain !

i suggest this is a direct result of Britain's involvement in the Europe. we're becoming more like mainland europe every day

click to inspect the loo

british people love queuing. here are a few standing in line by some bins.

that's the good thing about slightly damp cold winter mornings - flower beds are unlikely to burst in to flames.

i'm often accussed of seeing human traits in inanimate objects. i'm not really sure what that means but it probably comes frow watching johnny morris when i was a nipper.

anyway, no one can doubt this looks like a little ghosty:

i thought it might be a kids dressing up mask so i flipper it over. and it turned out to be:

this is like one of those magician tricks where they show you an empty box from the side then proceed to throw a cloth over the top then extract a live rabbit.

i suspect that modern haulage companies are concerned about transporting valuable cargo in their standard lorries and so have decided to use these magical ones instead.

remember the old joke about the chicken and the frog in a library ? the chicken kept saying "book, book, book" and the frog replied "read it, read it, read it".

i suspect i could have told that a bit better ... in fact, it's on this frog joke page if you are that interested)

anyway, here is a concept which could help that little froggy to store his books. it's underwater shelving. part of Ikea's new aqua range no doubt.

perspective is a fine thing.

in the kingdom of the flat the one eye'd man is king.

here is a coin slot on a charity box in a car park.

two short yellow hoses (viewed from each end)

this lady was carrying a wedding dress angrily down the street on her head. there was a story here somewhere.

i had to laugh when she went in to the wrong door, quickly came out as if nothing had happened and then went in to the next door which actually belonged to the wedding dress shop.

three boxes in a row. the one on the right looks the tallest. but only because it's standing on a plant pot.

what incredible cheek.

you never know when death will catch up with you. if you go to brussels you may find that you end up walking straight in to him like i did a few weeks back.

look at all these boxes chained together. i suspect there was an amateur escapologists meeting last night and they all got stuck.

and look at how they've stacked the boxes on the right. everyone knows when building a tower you should put the biggest boxes on the bottom. they're asking for trouble.

i'm sure this headline refers to something horrible, but let's just pretend it doesn't for a minute.

perhaps it's actually referring to an old lady who decided to have a go at her down decorating rather than paying one of those cowboys to do it for her. she paid the price when she tripped and spilt paint on herself.

my headline would have read "grannies - putting the pain back in to paint".

this giant carboard contraption was about a metre square and looked like it was under huge pressure. it could explode open at any moment.

i took a chance with getting the photo - my flash could have been the thing which set it free. but it wasn't. so we are ok.

but it was tempting to undo the tape and see if it popped up in to a giant carboard house.

it's modern street accomodation for the flat pack generation. ideal for street folk. free with every can of Super Strength Lager.

i thought this was a fancy egg cup. but it's got some stange compartment up the top, so i suspect it's not.

i was particularly impressed by the effect the camera flash had on the pavement on the picture on the right. it turned bland tarmacadam in to shimering jewels. a bit like God does really.

here's your friday quiz. what do you think this ? i think it's quite guessable.

i have a new person working for me. she's called Pilar and so far seems to be enjoying the world of telecommunication regulation.

i noticed today that she was wearing two watches. apparently the battery had run out on one of them so she was wearing an additional working one.

in a few years time she'll most likely have an arm full of watches - all (except one) with dead batteries.

here's a very strange thing sent from regular reader Sarah. i can't attempt to paraphrase her email, so here it is in full:

"I live in Minnesota and at our state fair there is a young woman who wins a contest and gets to be the princess of the dairy farmers. She's called Princess Kay of the Milky Way. And one of the many honors that are bestowed on this young woman is the privilege of having a large block of butter carved into her likeness.

I took a picture of last year's sculpture that sat in the cooler at the fair. Behind it sits this year's Princess Kay of the Milky Way as she sits for the artist who is carving her Butterhead.

I love the Butterhead. I want to bite her nose. And, yes, the butterhead is wearing a tiara."

this reminded me of this, but obviously not quite as good !

click big biggernisation

airplane interiors are quite small so like caravans everything is designed to be space efficient. this is most obvious in the toilets where everything has a function to assist you in your functions.

even i was shocked by the size of this teeny weeny metal baby changing table. it was only about 3 centimetres long and 1 centimetre wide. they tried to confuse us by putting an even smaller sign next to it, but i'm not stupid.

here's a strange thing. it's a double toilet coincidence.

firstly i took this picture of a toilet:

and then i took this picture:

someone has disgarded their blender. but best of all, they've chucked it away in its original box ! there's something slightly strange about throwing something away in the box it came in.

it sort of implies that it wasn't used enough as the box should wear out before the machine surely ? although the box does look pretty worn out.

perhaps they threw it away for precisely that reason "i think i best chuck this blender out dear, the cardboard box is falling apart".

this pile of dirt and stones has been dragging itself along the street. where is it going ? what is its motive ? why do we care so ?

once there were four. tonight there are three.

how about this for a musical "seven dials for seven features". it could be all about a special gadget that did special things depending on how you set the dials ? yes ? no ? oh well.

viewed from an angle in the Oak Tree Inn

i went to the supermarket with kezia this afternoon as a father/daughter bonding thing. we walked past the men's pants department and i saw these keyhole trunks.

trunks seems a modern word for pants (and i use this term in the most british of senses - non of your trousers here pls).

and what's the keyhole bit all about ? is it for those physiologically challenged ? or a modern day chastity belt ? it's all too much for me to comprehend.

next they'll be saying men need to wear single piece swimming costumes at public pools.

not everything in life is black and white. but some things are.

this man was standing on a first floor window tied on with a rope. i didn't think he looked very safe.

walking down a street i looked up and saw this barbed wire circle. viciously beautiful

these guys appeared to be making a film about how to be run over.

you don't get this kind of thing on the web. i might spell stuff wrong and have rubbish grammar but at least my words don't slide off the page like they did in last night's Evening Standard

this girl seems very pleased with herself. very mysterious.

here is a van delivering cryogenic gas to a theatre. i was struck by the sign on the side of the van which suggests you might like to use cryogenic gas for leisure.

i think that would be a great conversation starter at parties.

do you have any hobbies ?
yes. cryogencs.

the highlight of the country fair is the tug 'o' war. local kids get to take on the local cadets and prove once and for all who is the bestest. i suspect it's where the local gangs setlle their scores. it's a very passionate occasion.

of course the civilians won and against the military which was a nice post-iraq statement (in its own way):

this man is a complete star. he comperes the show all day by basically speaking for 7 hours solid and saying whatever comes in to his head. it's completely mad and really funny. probably drives his wife mad.

it wouldn't surprise me if he organises the entire show so he can do his compering turn. whatever, he's the highlight for me each year.

he was in charge of setting up the rope for the tug'o'war as well as judging the winners:

after the matches this man came and took the rope away (i suspect he was going to sell the old thing for cash):

but what of the local kids who'd been whooped up and wished to celebrate their winnings ? well, they had a massive playfight in the middle of the ring, watching by dozens of bemused s