our friends lived here, the one who jumped has serious burns and broke her back

attempted murder

last night someone set fire to a bag of refuse in the doorway of a shop in lower richmond road

say a little prayer for our friends who were trapped on the top floor of the blazing building

i love french films ...

 

i don't suppose that modern state schools are built to last as long

when real money was invested in education

 

burt & gina

 

trapeze

camera work by robert krasker, directed by carol reed, worked together on the third man

starring burt lancaster, gina lollobrigida, tony curtis, and a beautiful circus

pure red-in-the-tooth melodrama, but i gaped at the magnificent camera work

exemplary story-telling and the dialogue is 110% distilled emotional blackmail

if you love beauty, and circuses, and beginners-level mind-games, it really is great fun !

improvisation

at four a.m. it was warm and dry but by seven, when i arrived at my first drop, a village pub in sussex, the rain was looking like prison bars

the pub was still dark and there was no one around, so what was i to do with a sack of flour and three cardboard boxes ?

i found three empty beer crates and inverted them

then i went into the pub garden and pinched two giant umbrellas from the tables to make a tent ... and it worked !

apropos of nuffink ...

 

mad jack fuller's sugarloaf

 

i love this book

 

hero worship

i had to screech to a halt today after glimpsing one of mad jack fuller's follies

http://johnmadjackfuller.homestead.com/index.html

i'd been introduced to him by the late great edith sitwell in her lovely book "english eccentrics" which celebrates the energy and passion and humanity of those who are extremely disinhibited for one reason or another

she probably wrote it for money, and in a hurry, but it is well worth persevering with her

hands that have never played the piano

 

phew !

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