tptb dragoon

New words

New words get introduced to our vocabulary all the time. I'd like to suggest "webshite" as my offering for this week as I have had the misfortune to have to trawl through huge bucketloads of crummy web sites today and I have had enough of it. There, I feel better now.

Star struck

Apparently Astronomers are Moon Starers anagrammatically.

Toilet trouble

Luckily for us all these day people put clear signs on things. In the toilet in the local Greek restaurant, The Lantern an establishment which is otherwise pretty low on merit, they have these nice drawings on everything. Notice The Finger is there again to help you identify the part of the photo to look at. Unfortunately there was no sign on the door so I had to wait for the next bloke before being let out.

SoftWatch

Walking back from Selfridges today a bloke in a Mini called me over and sold me this watch. He claimed to work for BMW Park Lane and said that they give these watches away to new car buyers. I don't want a watch and told him so. The price tag was £285 and he was asking £100. I said I really didn't want a watch but he them he got my "low" price out of me - £20. He beat me up to £30 and didn't have change so got £40. What a mug. Anyway its a nice watch if you like that sort of thing - and what's more you can win it if you enter the design an ID card competition! Or you can give me £40 and stuff the competition.

There's one's born every minute - whatever that means.

Tidy parking

The car park and Toteridge and Whetstone has expereinced gypsies, re-tarmaccing and, of course, appalling parking which I like to feel I have contributed to. However, all of this has now been surpassed by the jelly baby and orange peel parking that started followed by the obligatory paper park. I'll keep an eye out for the technicolour yawn that will no dooubt be parked their soon.

Identity Parade

Do you recognise these young funky people? ID cards are funny things. We need to design ones for our company so I thought I'd run a competition. The winning design will win a watch...more of which later.

Nice finger pointing don't you think?

Keyboard fun

Press Any Key to continue. Where's the Any key? Compaq have the answer. In fact Homer Simpson posed this very question. I recall having to tell people to press any key, oh but not the shift key of course.

Fly away hair

Use harmony hair spray to stop getting a question mark over your hair style. To tkae this phot I had to get two mates to stand in front of me and shoot between them to make it look like I was taking a picture of them. I'll never be a brazen paparazzist.

Yummy

I bought £30 worth of vegetables today which is something to do with a diet so my wife, Karen. tells me. This involves no carbohydrates (potatoes, pasta etc.) after 5pm. What a braindead idea that is! Anyway, these were the pick of the bunch. Bugs Bunny would be proud to have these I reckon. However he can get his own.

Broken links

Dontcha just hate them? Pedicator's blog now comes up with "Fatal error: Call to undefined function: query() in /opt/www/pedicator.net/data/main.php on line 41" which is perhaps divine intervention as it's crap anyway or just typical given his day job which I won't tell you to spare his blushes. Sod it, why not? Amongst other things he programs php.

Advertising

Adverts can really get on your nerves and the web is exceptionally good at this. And I'm not talking SPAM here. Annoying pop up boxes that obscure the text and those with fake "close" buttons. And don't start me on those multiply generated new web browser windows you get when you, ahem, accidentally come across a porn site and you close the window and 15 sons of satan spawn themselves across your monitor and you can't close them and the kids are banging on the door and you have to throw a brick through the screen. No, don't start me.

Having said that, here is an advert for blogstop which is the sort of tedious word jiggery that keeps me amused and you might like it too. Oh and I like anagrams, my favourite xurrent one being "do rush my email" as an angaram for Summer Holiday as it seems an increasing amount of people read their email on their summer holiday (and I don't - other holidays I do though. I know - I'm a hypocritical, self-righteous git).

Strength

Its a such a strong word as it only has one of the puny vowel type things and seven consonants. Well done. Of course there is that six letter word that has no proper vowels but does have two syllables - rhythm.

TGIF

We thank goodness/god/Godley and Creme that it's Friday mainly because the weekend follows. I have just received a nice email from a Danish guy who closed with "You may have a splendid weekend." which is an acute observation! I shall introduce this into my langauge: "You may have a merry christmas" "you may enjoy my blog" etc.

No bikes

The sign is one of those miserable stickers saying any bike left there will be removed. The sign is about 12 foot off the ground and you would have to lean across the wall to commit the offence and then suffer the pain of watching your bike crash to the basement below.

Protection

I assume the ear protection is against lightning or other electric shocks. The lower sign is a pair of trousers and definitely not a jacket.

Nuts

As usual we went for the Tuesday night drink but it was a quieter affair. Unfortunately our usual al freso bar area had been dug up.

I had a couple of extra drinks with the radio star (hello Dave) in the Strawberry Moon and Cheers then headed for McDonalds and home. Passign the local wine bar type place in Whetstone I spotted this creature, J-J-Jim, who was storing nuts in his mouth and lipstick on his collar. This sort of activity is to be avoided. However, he was gloriously drunk and very funny.

We want your soul

The theory is that your soul has a cash value depending on an indepth analysis of your psyche e.g. do you eat McDonalds or go to BlockBuster Video and so on. My soul is worth £11,920 and 71% of people have a purer sould than me. Go and try it for yourself and post your results here.

Soul extraction is painless so don't worry!

Rob's Hat

Rob is a trendy guy who cuts a dash wherever he goes. He has his own website at www.ossifrage.net which is something to do with a dodgy bird I think. He goes on about "squeamish ossifrage" and amazingly that isn't even a Google Whack. Rob couldn't be with us for our regular drink last night but his hat could and we got it an orange juice.

The Hat is quite interesting actually. (read on!)

Not more interesting than Rob of course but maybe as talkative. It's a Tilley hat which apparently is the best outdoor hat in the world. Who wears a hat indoors anyway?

I particular like the stretching over the knee you have to do with it which must be particularly entertaining whilst walking down Oxford Street. The Hat doesn't necessarily suit all wearers though:

The Hat did turn to smoking late on in the evening though and was at rather a jaunty angle don't you think?

More stories of Rob's Hat soon I hope.

Odd job titles

This is Jules and he works for me. I didn't realise that he had a job title of Lateral IP Engineering which could explain the state of our network.

Sean the pub landlord

This is Sean who is the landlord of the local near the office. He's a nice enough bloke but thinks he is funny when he isn't - but don't we all ha ha! He was wearing this deckchair for a bet. Well that's what we assumed anyway. Odd thing is, when I was playing golf today an Irish guy called Sean in the group behind me asked me if I worked for Easynet. He used to serve in the Finnegan's Wake pub on the corner of Whitfield and Goodge Streets. This Sean is a nice guy too. They can't all be working in pubs though.

Glove syndrome

Dave collects (?) pictures of gloves lying around. I have higher aspirations hence this set I found on a washing line.

The Sky's the limit

Sky should know better.

Standing Room Only

So what does a man stand to do, a woman sit to do and a dog lift one leg to do? Shake hands. Standing is a funny English expression. If you want to get a parliamentary seat you have to stand for election. If you stand someone up you don't actually touch them at all. I can't stand all this confusion but I am sure I won't take it lying down. Maybe someone could stand in [something] for me? I'll stand you a drink if you do. Adam Ant was sure, adamant even, that he wanted us to to stand and deliver. Which one? Contradictions abound. Now then, and there's a contradiction to start with, I think I'm going to go down the estate agents and ask to buy a house with just a standing room.

Lord Grosvenor

He's been found alive and well and obviously has the measure of Lee although he wants to know where Rupert Murdoch is.

Traffic problem

These island cone things are easily detached from their fixings which is handy as you can move them around and reroute the traffic as you see fit.

Caption competition

The drunk, that's her on the left mostly, thinks Nothing's gonna change her world but she hadn't met Jules for very long at the time.

Then Chris decides to ask her, in a caring friendly way of course, if she is completely mad.

I must get round to editing my sound clips although there'd be little left of them if I did.

Be Secure

You can't be too careful these days and this antique shop, where the owner plays with the goods in the street, has gone to a lot of trouble to protect themselves by sticking this note in the corner of the window. I am reliably informed that the police aren't alarmed and they don't give a monkeys.

Sign trouble

They have been re-building this bulding for a year now and you can see a little place at the bottom left with a balcony over it.

The hand written sign in the window is here:

and it advises you that they consider that the balcony above is not safe so they have decamped. Trouble is you have to get quite close to the window to read the sign...then don't look up.

Idea courtesy of Martyn.

Collections

Dave has a collection of photos mainly discarded or lost from photo booths. I have decided to start collecting pictures of people that are discarded or lost in my inbox. Here's the first and its from Lee. Apparently its a girl he chatted up on ICQ. Her name is Maria and she is Bulgarian I think and trying to learn English.

He's arranging a date with her so I'll let you know how he gets on (i.e. if he says she turned out to be a lesbian then we'll all know the real truth).

I am enraged or angered

Its all the same as one is an anagram of the other.

Anti products

I have noticed this anti stuff going on before and I was pleased to find this new version. This time you have to guess the product. It could be loose guttering or shark infested cement. Or paint. Such an anti-climb-axe.

The Golden Eagle

The Golden Eagle is a pub in Marylebone Lane that has a sing-song on a Thursday evening. This is the Joanna being played by someone else. Naturally I recorded the event for posterity which bears the almost unique features of being audible and pleasant apart from me joining in on a bit of Strangers in the Night.

Road Enquiries

You can't have missed, assuming you are in the UK and reading this around the time I am posting it and of course that you can read, or possibly hear things. That's a lot of assumptions so I'll rephrase it. In fact by now you don't even know what I am talking about. Which (may) make two (or many more) of us. Take two:

You have probably (cunning eh?) seen the adverts for the new directory enquiries numbers. Dave has. So that's one person at least. Anyway, these guys had been shipped over in van and were putting on their uniforms. It's a tough life learning your lines when you're an actor. As I walked past one of them was rehearsing: "Double-one, double-eight, double-eight". It's beyond my capabilities. It's a crowded market place so this company has obviously decided to sort out the direction enquiries of people who get confused by new road systems. Cunning!