a nice bit of street furniture

three beautiful things

i wave one hand at a portugese colleague across the yard and place the finger tips of the other hand behind my ear whilst rolling my eyes towards the nearby railway viaduct ... a faraway steam train can be heard labouring up the slope towards wandsworth road from the yards besides the grosvenor bridge near battersea power station ... and then the billowing white plume of steam appears on high like a volcano in motion, followed by a momentary glimpse of the locomotive and some pullman carriages which instantly vanish again behind high warehouses

curtains of windswept drizzle sweeping across a luscious clearing in a wood whilst the sycamore leaves are fringed with raindrops

a brief text from the loved one at dawn which lists the appetizing menu for this evening's meal

oh oh oh ... if you would only scratch a little lower ...

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=vtvL5_6BFd8

these kits take ages to assemble, even if you can read the instructions

only in joe's new york ...

http://www.joesnyc.streetnine.com/archives/coney_island-september_09_2008_54.html

hunting pink ... shall i wear it to this year's labour party conference ?

the best busker in town ...

at last, i can begin to work on the preliminary draft of my sensational autobiography ...

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/metalwork/metalwork_stories/castlereagh/index.html

cromwell ... the jury's back

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/history

a bit of blue

seasonally scarlet

there ain't arf been some clever bastards ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1058317/1m-timepiece-hands-numbers-eventually-unveiled-Stephen-Hawking--15-minutes-late.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4783450.ece

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/communications/1522.html

so you think you aren't colour blind ?

hah !

now try this test ( via metafilter )

http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77

as big as the ritz

... verse is worse

gary younge

this is the first time i've seen a moving picture of the guardian's current ( and most excellent ) correspondent in america

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2008/sep/18/uselections2008.barackobama

all the world's a shallow grave ... or why education can never be as expensive as ignorance

http://lamiradadelmendigo.blogspot.com/2008/09/frmista.html

slurp !!! .... any excuse to include a bit of art in pedants' corner

amateur pedants, genuine lovers of ecclesiastical buildings, and over-educated art historians may have already noted the outline of a familiar building in the background of william hogarth's action-packed vignette of eighteenth century social problems ... do feel free to click on the link ...

http://emotionalblackmailers.blogspot.com/2008/07/back-to-saint-johns-in-bloomsbury.html

these pictures are somewhat gratuitously displayed in celebration of the government's vaguely realistic and constructive attempt to further and to inform the national debate on alcoholism ... if you can stay in focus, do click on the link below before re-filling your glasses. cheers !

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/sep/17/drugsandalcohol.health

an english role model discreetly turns her back on some tawdry french stereotypes

drastic plastic ... christmas lights bypass surgery ... the procedure was successful but the patient had to be re-cycled

two for joy

chartres clocks

pilgrim

in chartres, we met a tough australian who had just walked a huge chunk of the pilgrim's way from the french border to santiago

it was the first time i'd seen all the stamps which the pilgrims collect at each hostel on the route

now she'd come to chartres to study the labyrinth ... and she explained the difference between a medieval church's labyrinth and a maze ... the medieval church labyrinths have a spiritual or symbolic purpose possibly connected to the pilgrimage to jerusalem and they don't have dead ends

unfortunately the origins of their meaning were forgotten by the clergy and many were destroyed

here's an uncredited image downloaded from wikipedia's article on the cathedral at chartres

chartres ... the old post office

any old irons

plusiers des any old irons

piss-ups and breweries, french style