go to the new emotional blackmailer's handbook via this link ...

http://thenewemotionalblackmailershandbook.blogspot.com/

more of the same ... this blog has nearly filled the available space so i'm starting it over at ...

http://thenewemotionalblackmailershandbook.blogspot.com/

one careful owner ( i )

i nearly walked past this ... then realized i was looking at a grime-free working antique ... a bit like me but probably twenty years older ... the owner is clearly someone who doesn't need to make a fashion statement with a new bike ... this expertly maintained old bike, its patina and blemishes invisibly varnished, tells you such a lot about his discreet good taste and skill

one careful owner ( ii )

one careful owner ( iii )

one careful owner ( iv )

reminds me of a place i went to eat once or twice ... almost a million miles from ulan bator

http://www.ycs-mongoliangrill.com/locations.html

anthropological notes: a spaniard does his duty

chimbleys by pugin at albury in surrey ... you wouldn't get planning permission nowadays

i can't adequately express my gratitude to andre michelle who designed this light relief for unmusical hands ... click away

http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

me and my big mouth

on the crest of an astonishingly pompous impulse, i mistook a pub in Wandsworth Road for this one in Charlton as recently featured by Tom Sutpen in his ever-stimulating blog "if charlie parker was a gunslinger ..."

i'm still blushing

http://tsutpen.blogspot.com/2009/03/abandoned-places-12.html

up in the clouds ... tremedal

derelict railway at guadalupe ... allegedly built by prisoner slaves after the civil war

tempus fugit ... a decaying church with a fully atrophied sundial at deleitosa

threshing circle at the summit of the pass between navezuelas and canamero

the flight to madrid awaits, backsun

undeniable symptoms of incipient blue-skies thinking

blooming marvellous

a hollow tower at bruton

a three sided tower at stourton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Alfred%27s_Tower

it was six in the morning. "Are we ready to rock'n'roll ?"

... asked the efficient looking man with the clipboard at goods-in.

"Well, yes ! In a manner of speaking ...", I replied somewhat hesitantly, pointing down to my regulation industrial footwear

goin' rattin', luv ?

banish the agony of mothers' day indecision ... buy some daffodils that match her marigolds now ... while stocks last !

turned out nice again !

balcombe viaduct ... brought in by ship !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balcombe_Viaduct

on putney heath ... spring is sprung

cowdray park ... all you need now is a polo pony ... one would rather hope to see the players in shining armour

upstairs next door to the bread shop

hammersmith bridge, nice and early

my dear aunt mavis forward/ferguson/butler near blorenge ... and in 1943, with her mother violet, my grandmother

when mavis was very small, perhaps around the time that the great first world war was ending, mothers would dress their girls all in white at whitsun

some miners, bringing a wagon full of coal down from their hillside pit, discovered her dressed just so when she had wandered off too far from home that afternoon, and they brought her back sitting on top of their coal

she recalls that her mother "was not best pleased"

gratuitous chocolate pudding imagery ... with kitchen genius sheila evans searching the ceiling for a lost word

built to last ... with identical twin lady doctors ?

in case of emergency: when emotional blackmail fails ...

Chapter Ninety Nine: In which our hero discovers the limitations of pathos ...

There is a full moon and the bright air is filled with frost.

In the nearby wood, owls cry and foxes yelp.

Imagine a darkened bedroom in which an exhausted trucker lays down in the hope that sleep will come quickly, but there is a chill in the air and he reluctantly shifts himself in search of some socks because his feet won’t warm up.

The loved one brings in her own little heart-shaped hot-water bottle and she settles down for the night in comfort, on her side of the bed, whereupon, if you had been listening, you might have heard him telling her that,

“In an ideal world, you would curl yourself around my feet !”

And after her contemptuous snort, you might just have caught her monosyllabic rejection, projected as if towards a badly behaved dog.

i've fixed us a noticeboard, six feet high by two feet six ... in the loo ... how many postcards will it take ?

what's the welsh for "gone coracle-ing" ?

and you can always use microsoft word spell checker to find out if your style is fashionably opaque

must i run barefoot all the way down to the king's road to get some new trainers right now ?

superheroes go bonkers in lone pine

we went to lone pine in california once and i often check it out on the internet webby thing to see what might be happening because i'd love to go back

the sierra nevada is big but these undaunted hyperactive nutters from san diego ( Scott Nelson, Nathan Ricklin and Charles Ince ) made me laugh and gasp with envy and admiration when they conquered it with self-imposed handicaps

you can click on to their short film and read all about it via this link

http://pullharder.org/2009/02/20/winter-ascent-of-the-complete-north-ridge-of-lone-pine-peak/

uk government health warning ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolpidem

i am too weak-willed to resist sharing with you this gratuitous juxtaposition ( i )

real grass at liberty in sloane street