pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been ?

years of searching for driftwood and oddities amongst the pebbles on brighton beach have sharpened my eyes and so i nearly fell off my bike to avoid running over this little pussy cat ... she's about 35mm x 25mm ... she's lost a couple of stones but how she escaped being crushed on one of london's busy arterial roads is a mystery

 

my client will plead temporary insanity, m'lud

in the first hour of daylight, when the conscience and all aesthetic sensibilities are weakest, i murmured to the loved one, semi-dormant upon the adjacent pillow,

"if i bought you a carrier bag or two of new plasticene, you could make a life sized bust of me, brightly coloured !"

adding after insufficient consideration,

"... or marzipan !"

after a significant silence, somehow the conversation cum monologue turned to the absence of a chamberpot in our tiny residence, and whether we might have,

"wedgewood, or waterford crystal ?"

now i have two headaches

 

mud, glorious mud !

 

cognitive dissonance and incipient aphasia ?

I had a little trouble with the quick crossword in the Guardian this morning.

The clue was "Landlocked anchorage in the Orkney Islands (5,4)".

The words that stuck in my head for two whole minutes were Sullom Voe.

The correct answer was, lurking behind the wrong one, and on the wrong island, Scapa Flow.

Then, on my way home along the river bank, I stopped to admire some Thames mud and only half-remembered Flanders & Swann's song, "Mud, Glorious Mud!", unable to complete the tune in my head because it had temporarily fused itself together with the tune and words of "Food, Glorious Food!" by Lionel Bart.

As the old used to tell me in Wiltshire when I was a boy, "Old age doesn't come alone."

salvaging a sunken boat on the thames at putney

 

i think i'll renounce truck driving for religion ...

the loved one brought this picture from the wallace collection for me

it shows saint hilarion, the leader of a bunch of palestinian reclusives, resisting temptation

i've just been reading up on his life but can't find a clear description of this particular episode though many travelled to visit the recluse in his cave

am i to assume it is allegorical ?

can any one supply some dialogue ?


 

alarming !!!

walked in to the kitchen at beautiful old ockenden manor to be confronted by nurielle in her immaculate white pinafore brandishing the biggest pointy stainless kitchen knife in the world in her right hand, and warming it up with a full-on roaring blue-flamed blow torch in her left ... all part of her benign confectionary technology and not the premature vasectomy kit i was fearing ... but she's a proud artist and refuses to be photographed ... so far

lively farm sign near forest row

i've only just noticed this jolly sign, though i've probably driven past it a zillion times

perhaps it is newly revealed since the undergrowth was cut back

hugh thompson

can i commend to you this obituary of a real hero ?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5371551-103684,00.html

... safely grounded at battersea heliport

 

late arrivals dropping in at battersea heliport

 

i imagine the birds get pretty desperate at this time of the year

 

welding team repairing battersea bridge

 

battersea bridge under repair, the barge is servicing a gantry beneath the arch

 

nice detailing on battersea peace pagoda

 

lazin' on a sunny afternoon ...

 

itchycoo, er , i mean wandsworth, park !

 

the ideal gift ... for the gentleman whose arse is wider than his ego

 

thank god i don't have life insurance ...

 

the new pigeon net seems to add something to this allegorical group outside waterloo station

 

ellen rrose forward's halo tilting

 

tuned in to radio four digital

 

an unsung bridge, carrying the underground over the thames at putney

apropos of nuffink ...

 

the spectre of peace looming over brighton beach this morning

 

holiday classics quiz, your starter for ninety-nine points ...

suggest an appropriate title for this gem

what is going on ?

timely advice ...

the loved one is heading for the shops and is looking rarther posh in a glossy fake fur coat

so as she was leaving i suggested that she,

" Don't talk to any strange millionaires ! ".

arise, sir tom !

 

Map-o-philia !

When I was about nine years old & had just learned to ride a bicycle, my clever parents bought me a cleverly illustrated book about how to read the British Ordnance Survey maps, and then they stuck the local one-inch sheet on my wall. Ever since then, I have loved maps.

I told The Loved One about this quite recently, having been spotted cruising the highways of Utah and Arizona on the internet, and hoarding downloaded maps of places we've been in the My Pictures files.

As an unforeseen consequence, my Late Christmas Present has just arrived.

It is The Map Book, edited by Peter Barber, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2005. It is big, it is glossy, it is intelligent. I am in one kind of heaven.

Isn't she lovely ? Eat your hearts out, lesser mortals !

my very own copy of The Map Book !

 

carters fun fair comes to town

we finished work early and i cycled homeward, meandering through battersea park

everyone looked stressed from the cold, my own fingers and toes were painful

even in the middle of the day it seemed dark and there were specks of snow in the air

yet carters' funfair was up and running, the lights and music creating a little heaven on earth

it is the miracle of the age, everything restored to glossy perfection and hand-painted with enormous panache

it is a national treasure, as valuable as any art gallery or museum