October 30, 2003
Running on time
I went to Leicester yesterday and it took three different trains and nearly 3 hours to get there. Unexpectedly I had to return to St Pancras, back up to Barnet, put my DJ on and get back to Park Lane by 7pm. So I rushed out of the office at about 3:20 and walked to the station. Anxious to find the right train/platform I was presented with this informative display.
Yes, Bill Gates can even help mess up the UK railways. The message, which is a new one on me, says "It has been some time since you installed this product. There may be a newer version available. Would you like to upgrade now?". I am not sure what the best answer was - anything to get it off the screen but as it was 20 feet above me and I culdn't find the 6 foot mouse to operate it I just looked for the train details - and the time and platform for my train was nicely obscured.
As it happens I went to the wrong platform, saw the right platform, crossed over and 2 minutes later got on the next train which was going directly to St Pancras. My two other trains required only 10 minutes and 3 minutes' waiting time respectively and I got home, changed, did homey type things, got a cab and was in The Hilton by 7:10pm. Mark was 30 minutes late. Wanker.
Rail humour
Who says railway operators don't have a sense of humour? This is the Harry Potter inspired sign at King's Cross.
Glove
Funky Dave collects photos of gloves. Well it keeps him off the streets I suppose. Not. Here is a nice autumnal glove that I found in Leicester yesterday. It was the rough part of the main high street so it was giving me the finger.
Well you wouldn't would you?
If this really was your name?
October 27, 2003
Security Lights
If I am walking on the pavement - you know that communal bit of land that you don't own - then why does you security light come on? Why can't I just walk along, minding my own business without 200 watts of search light beaming at me? Security lights - Shut Up!
Duddly Dell
There is a Radio 4 program called Quote Unquote and I sometimes catch the last few minutes of it when driving to my piano lesson. The theme tune is excellent (go to the above link and pay the latest recording of the show to hear a bit of it at the start) so I emailed the prgram to find our about it. Here are the details:
"Entitled DUDDLY DELL, written and performed by Dudley Moore, it was the B-side of his single STRICTLY FOR THE BIRDS (Parlophone 45R 4772) in 1961.
For years, when people asked me what it was, I had to tell them the record was no longer available. But in April 2002 it was re-released on an album entitled AUTHENTIC DUD, VOL. 2 by Harkit Records (HRKCD 8019). Alas, jubilation was short-lived as this record has now been withdrawn for legal reasons."
I'd love to get a copy of all or any of the original single, the album and the sheet music. Can you help? please contact me if you can!
Mellow Yellow Cello
We went to a wedding a few weeks ago and they a had a string quartet in a gallery. It must be all the rage because we went to another one on Saturday with the same idea. The last one was at W S Gilbert's old house which was interesting. This one was at the Law Society and was fairly extravagent (the bride wore a $10,000 Suzie Wong dress and I wore a 1962 suit with patches on the elbows). I recorded some of the music.
Here is the string quartet dressed as a shubbery.
They had a some beautiful instruments
and some old swingers
She's out of focus due to the speed of her dancing.
And here is Regina (that's pronounced Regeena) using The Finger which is always nice.
Life of Grime
Where's that LLoyd Grosman bloke when you need him? Lets go through the keyhole and look at this house and find:
This is just one room. A friend of a friend is selling this house and every room was in this state or worse. Look at the kitchen and the cooker:
Click on the cooker image to see the full horror!
October 26, 2003
skcolc eth went back this morning
Lovely! Especially as we haf a late night at another wedding last night - more of which later when my head allows.
October 25, 2003
Graffiti artists rule
Due to the Northern line being bust again I am using an alternative route to work which happens to be faster if I am lucky. The pic shows the roof of Oakwood Park Main Line station. There is a little logo of a CCTV camera and there is the roof. Bang in the centre is a nice bit of graffiti. The Graffiti-ists will risk life and limb and get caught on camera in pursuit of their art - well done to them.
Which way now?
This sign is on an exit door and judging by the fact that the man in it is running it would be fair to assume that it is important. An emergency exit of some sort. Lets say the buidling is on fire and you look at this sign. What's the white rectangle all about then? Lets have a heated debate about it. Then there's that arrow - if this was a raod sign it would point upwards to go forwards. There is no way you can go down so it must be pointing you back into the building. Which is handy. It's more handy if you happen to have a yellow helmet and a fire hos of course.
Shut Up!
There are a lot of people who over extend their freedom of speech. I'm probably one of them but it's my blog so stop reading if you don't like it. As a starter for 10 in tis category, here are a few people who should Shut Up! each with their own wav file.
1. People on the tube in rush hour who say "I'm glad I don't have to do this every day". Well others have to so Shut Up!
2. Richard Branson. "Why should Concorde stop flying just because the bean counters at BA say so". Because it won't have a certificate of air-worthiness you idiot. Shut Up!
3. Paul Burrell, Princess Di's butler. Money grabbing double crossing pig - just do what the Princes (Wills and Harry) ask of you! Shut Up!
October 24, 2003
Frogs
My two boys (age 8 and 10) haven't learnt to sit on a chair yet which is a bit sad. At the breakfast table they squat like frogs. Fortunately they have short tongues so appear to eat normally. Does anyone else have children with weird sitting positions or I have just pro-created a pair of weirdos?
Symbiotic osmosis web experiment
How did you get on with over the past week? I haven't posted anything, as all you regular returners know, but I just sat cross-legged at the keyboard and let the feelings flow from me up the ADSL and on to the web page. Did you enjoy the picture of the guy sleeping on the settee? What about the story of Oz? Please let me know.
October 16, 2003
He's a real Nowhere Man
We've already established that "Now then" is a contradiction but we need to add "nowhere" which on the face of things seem to indicate something that is elsewhere. However it is made up of "now" and "here" which are very much immediate things that are present. Nice one.
CUP
There are a lot of irritating acronyms for various people's campaign. ASH for instance is the anti-smoking habit brigade. When I walk down South Molten Street or Tottenham Court Road I am often stopped by Amnesty International representatives or Shelter or Metal Dustbins for Old Ladies or something. I sometimes pretend to be on the phone rather than having to politely decline their request to interrupt my day - sometimes 4 times in a 150 metre walk. So I think I'll start The Campaign for Unaccosted Pedestrianism. I shall print leaflets that I will only silently hand to people who choose to engage me in their personal agendas. I also recommending trying to sell something, a pot, some dirt, anything at all, to the next door-to-door salesman who knocks on your door.
October 12, 2003
Dick and Dom
It's always been very fashionable, in TV terms, to have a dynamic due like Morecambe and Wise, Hale and Pace, Tom and Jerry etc. On Children's BBC on Saturdays they have Dick and Dom who are pictured here with a very happy Ryan. They, and us of course, were at the preview of Holes which is a pretty damn good new Disney film which was being shown at the Phoenix in East Finchley. The Phoenix is an old cinema that is struggling to keep going and is run by volunteers. It was a very pleasant afternoon, augmented nicely I thought by my loud questioning of the subjects in the photo along the lines of "Who's the Dick around here?". I should get a job with kids.
Chair RIP
The collapsed chair has gone to that resting place in the sky. I only hope it was placed there in memory of someone - like Arthur Negus for instance (sorry for the poor content on the link but its difficult finding a photo of wonderful Arthur)
Next to the space vacated by the chair, ably helped by The Shadow which must be a relative of The Finger, are some fine examples of English chair building:
October 09, 2003
More toilet trouble
Mens toilets are wonderful places giving no end of entertainment as can be seen earlier. This sign says Please Don't Use which, lets face it, is a pretty all encompassing statement. Don't use for what? Don't use it as a sign? People with pens should really sort their lives out. Actually so should people with penises which is almost the same. I understand there is video evidence of the desecration and forensics will be called in.
Die young, stay pretty
The Gov just don't get it. Here is one of our vital youths gloriously rebelling by proudly holding aloft his packet of death sticks emblazoned with "Smokers Die Younger". I predict that there will be T-Shirts with this on. In fact T-Shirts with all those crazy slogans on. If you want to stop people from smoking then a) put the tax up by 1000% and b) have pictures of Alan Partridge smoking on the cover.
The Hat Lives on
Judging by my bulging mailbox nobody reads this blog, however, a fan letter has flooded in (thanks Mum) asking for more of Rob's Hat and I understand that Viz magazine want to make a cartoon strip of it. So here is Martyn trying it on (for a change). Notice how they have improved crisp packet literature so you now know what to do with the tandoori and scraped off the kitchen floor flavour crisps.
The Hat is a bit of a lightweight though. It's downed its drink but, as you can see, it was only a nancy boy's Pimms.
Like all good pets, Rob's Hat has an owner. He is called Rob. This is gripping stuff isn't it? Here he is trying his first Black Russian. Well that is not strictly true but I will spare his blushes by not talking about Katyenka Ububgulu here.
Notice how he is really enjoying it and look at the after effects:
He had to hang The Hat up before he used it as a barfing receptacle.
Dangerous Talk Costs Lives
Well those goons at Microsoft have been at it again, as you know, by closing the chatroom service. Of course one to one webcams are inherelently safe and you can't chat to people using the messenger service can you. Idiots. It's nice to see them spending a lot of money advertising this on the Tube.
Competition winner
As you probably know, or couldn't give a monkey's expletive about, I run fabulous competitions on here and the winner of the most recent one is Martyn. Martyn's entry was his bus pass which matched irrelvance with hilarity and resulted in a tatty bit of plastic with a stupid photo and he won because a) nobody else entred b) in fact he didn't enter c) we have just given him the old heave-ho from work d) I charged the company face value for the watch so ripped the company off whilst making the rest of us happy.
I think Alex was doing his Julian Clary impersonation. Martyn was obviously suprised and...
....no doubt delighted to receive such a wonderful prize:
especially as the customer statements I had wrapped it in would have been so dear to his heart. He is obviously very proud but what the hell is going on with Alex? Can't he control that face?
Unfortunately for Martyn he was a bit surprised to learn he had been sold a dud:
but at least now he knows how I feel now about him. I'm only joking Martyn!!!
ID Cards
Despite the back-lash against photo ID cards there are a lot of people who carry them. Sadly the photos on the cards are about 20 years out of date as we see here. Nice of The Finger to join in again.
13 Nodes - a Guest Entry
Hi Grahame,
Just did a Neotrace to your blog site. You are 13 nodes away from me (Paris). Worse still, the intelligence of the internet is amazing. Node 8 is in Inglewood California. So node 7 = UK, Node 8 = California, node = 9 = UK. Now why don't you blog this?
Because I have got a life? Apparently not. Ed.
Mladen MATIJAS
October 06, 2003
Baby you can ride my bike
Nathan has been a bit slow and learning to ride mostly because we haven't spent enough time with him. Yesterday he really got the hang of it and looks rather pleased with himself.
Here comes the bride
I like a nice wedding but that Mandy is crazy marrying the Gay Hussar still it takes all sorts. The music was very pleasant (in the Music Room of W S Gilbert's house. I was going to ask them to play Alone Again Naturally and Claire but thought better of it. Especially that last one!)
Do read on:
It is a recent wedding reception custom to put hopeless knick-knacks on the table to amuse the guests when they have finished talking about the Bride and Groom behind their backs - you know, I bet that corset is tight, how many of his ex's are in the congregation (or up the duff) etc.. I am pleased to report that this reception went to new lows with wedding trivia boxes complete with endless spelling mistakes and shite questions. Great stuff!
The food was mountainous:
Unfortunately I only learnt later on that the heart shaped thing I stuck in the top was actually a sparkler as I would have been obliged to set light to it whilst stuck in the largest Yorkshire Pudding seen this side of Geoffrey Boycott's backside. It's also customary to leave disposable cameras around for your guests to take pictures of their private parts and the toilets etc.. The trouble is most people spend all evening snapping and not talking. Maybe they were camera shy and were hiding.
Pee Dating
What is it? Boy Meets Girls Pee Dating dot com. Sounds like fun.
Tie-dye
In an effort to produce something that matches the shirts seen in the pub, we have reverted to the cetnuries old tradition of tie-dye although my boys will spell it tie-die no doubt as they have a healthy obsession with death. I am such a fashion guru of course and predict that tie-dying will be making a come back Real Soon Now.
Rubbish
Walking along the Great North Road towards Whetstone you get to see a lot of rubbish chucked away. This particular item was on the pavement and it just goes to show what an up and coming area this is. None of your empty crisp packets here! It's a wedding invitation. The date has gone by (a few weeks ago) so maybe the owner of this was just "name dropping" by leaving a better class of rubbish on the pavement outside their house. These things matter.
Stags
There aren't so many weddings around these days although I'm going to my third one this year in a couple of week's time. However, the one over the weekend was for Neil who is pictured herre on his Stag Night. I don't know where that term comes from - something to do with the Triumph car I think. See? You learn something new every day. In between drinking venues Neil popped into this amusement arcade in "Fun Compton Street" ho bloody ho! I stayed outside and took this surreal picture by chance. Click on it to see a larger version. I think it must have been the absinthe that did it for me.
Neil is actually on a dance machine and, rather oddly, getting the high score.
More photos here...
This is the real Neil:
Dom is either coming or going and the girl on the right is giving The Finger which was kind of her.
October 01, 2003
Giving it large
Lee is holding court in the pub, Captions please. Oh and that's Matts on the right who is kindly hosting this blog.
Mmm, nice
The pub near work seems to attract these sort of bright colours. Note we haven't got The Finger intruding in this picture but Chris's face. Which is nice.
Feeling a bit run down
If you are feeling low then pull yourself together. There's always someone worse off than you they say which I think is a pretty uncharitable thought. Yeah, look at that poor bastard - that makes me feel better. Not. They say you can't rhyme words like orange, purple and silver. I don't believe them. John Hegley can. For instance he can rhyme "furniture" which he does as the punch line to one of his poems (John doesn't like furniture so if you buy him some he'll returnittoya). I bet he can't fix this though. Here's one of his poems:
My mum's dog
Yorkie won't go for a walkie
the only order he'll obey is stay
the only trick he does is sit
he's a rip off
I wonder if you can take things like this bench to Casualty Plus that new paid for Accident and Emergency unit. £29 for a consultation, a hammer and a bag of nails hopefully.
