more half-baked guesswork in industrial archaeology ...

cycling every day from putney bridge towards nine elms, i pass a couple of tall "chimneys" springing from the pavement

might they have provided ventilation for bazalgette's famous sewer ?

the pattern around the rim at the top is certainly in the right kind of style for the project

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/bazalgette_joseph.shtml

what do you think ?

YOUR STARTER FOR TEN POINTS …

FORK LIFT THESE PALLETS ON TO A TRUCK AND THEN MOVE THEM TWO MILES THROUGH FIFTEEN SETS OF TRAFFIC LIGHTS AND HALF A DOZEN SPEED HUMPS …

BEGINNERS’ NOTES AND HINTS:

AT THE POINT OF DELIVERY NOTHING IS SECURING THE FRAGILE LOAD TO THE BASE PALLET

IT TAKES TWO MEN ONE HOUR TO DISENTANGLE & THEN
RE-STACK THE LOAD FROM TWO SPILLED EURO-PALLETS ON TO THREE STANDARD PALLETS …

… & APPARENTLY THIS IS A COMMON OCCURRENCE AT MY WORKPLACE !

POINTS WILL BE AWARDED FOR COMMON-SENSE SOLUTIONS

brainiacs' challenge

 

weekend culture 

excuses, excuses !

in the early hours between sleeping and waking, when the body runs on automatic pilot and the mind scampers freely over the moonlit dreamscape ...

i found myself idly but affectionately tweaking the loved one's volume and tone controls, or

"just helping you breathe !" ...

and then, having disturbed her voluptuous reverie, an excuse presented itself, expediently:

... "i'm just trying to bring some sensation back to my worn out fingertips, darling!"

to which came the lightning, ( or is that thunderbolt ?) reply,

"it may become necessary to bring some sensation to the back of my hand in a minute, darling !"

when i'm feeling "musical" ...

i do so like to sing, but i never know the complete words and lyrics

this has led me to the important discovery that almost any tune can fit around the magic words, "rum-tee-tum!", and if they don't, you can always divert to "la-dee-dah!", "fol-de-rol!", "fiddle-de-dee!", or in the final resort, "tiddly-om-pom!"

thus equipped, i'm surprised frank sinatra ever bothered with lyrics

reading practise & games of skill

you have to do a bit of reading, if only to remember how to spell

i'd been avoiding susan sontag for years, thinking she'd be too clever, maybe too heavy for me

turns out she's full of warmth & enthusiasm and her texts slide down as easily as good wine

the hopscotch was freshly drawn, the artist's broken chalks lay on the path not far away

in england, children throw the pebble or whatever into the squares

i've seen spanish children place a pebble on the starting line, then stand on one leg with their toe just touching the pebble, then attempt to flick the stone with that same toe towards their chosen square

i've tried it, & it seemed impossible !

and have you seen a spanish egg& spoon race ?

they don't carry the spoon, they grip the spoon handle between their teeth !

ouch !

someone's been having fun in wandsworth park 

tea-time reading 

it ... 

... must be ... 

... autumn 

from houns-tout towards the beachy head light house 

from beachy head towards houns tout 

the white house-martin 

honestly ! 

the railway viaduct at borde hill 

marvels of nature and engineering

from bexhill to brighton, diverting via beachy head because the sky was so very bright

astonished to find the cliff edge between beachy head and houns-tout was teeming with hundreds of migrating house martins

even more astonished to see, for the first time and probably the only time, an all-white one; absolutely white as far as i could tell in the brief two or three seconds of focussed perception

hoping to catch him or her on camera, i just held it at arms length and scanned the cliff edge for a second glimpse, with my eyes wide open

i was lucky, but the image you see is just a much enlarged detail in the wider scene

i had a third glimpse but the wings were folded back and the image too non-descript

later, making good of some spare time, i took an unscheduled diversion to see the marvellous brick railway viaduct at borde hill near balcombe, on the london to brighton line

badly camouflaged cats 

jacques tati