Friday, December 4, 2009

there will be a short intermission ...


as if it weren't cold enough ... i'm going to snowy spain for a few days with my daughter
once i'm safely back in the arms of the loved one, the blog will start again on thursday

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

sloane street ... has anyone mentioned christmas yet ?


Crazy Golf near Raynes Park



















http://www.jurassicencounter.com/

Animatronic dinosaurs ... green waterfalls ... perfect playing surface ... high fidelity music ... they were playing Shane McGowan and Kirsty McColl's Fairy Tale of New York loud enough to drown out six lanes of passing traffic ... the overhead nets deter the predatory pterodactyls which roost in nearby Richmond Park

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Saturday, November 28, 2009

tales of the unexpected

driving through a dark rainy street in south london at five in the morning ...


a woman who could well be as old as me is waiting at a poorly lit bus stop ...


... and is doing a little twirl whilst she jives with an imaginary partner

arthur and i heading down the wandsworth road for a check-up at the vet's























foxy's social life ... she'll talk to anyone


what i was reading whilst brewing our tea at six this morning


Wednesday, November 25, 2009

waiting for a bus in the Kings Road

i went to meet my sister V at an exhibition of weegee photos at michael hoppen's ...

http://www.timeout.com/london/around-town/event/165343/weegee-its-a-crime-to-take-photographs-this-good

.... then we went for coffee and cakes

i caught the bus home from Duke of York's Square on The King's Road

the Saatchi Gallery was all lit up but was just closing, although two stalls had been set up in the square selling coffee and cakes

i was too stuffed to buy any, and anyway, my sister had baked us a LARDIE CAKE the size of a small dog ... but i can't show you a picture because some of it has disappeared





Tuesday, November 24, 2009

a few of these fly over each day ...


... and then i wondered ezzackerly how big they are ?



















and as far as i can tell ...
the fuselage is about ten or fifteen metres longer than this tenement block
and the tail is about the same height, maybe a little more
and the wingtip will spread from there to cast a shadow over the car in front of us !

and here's a film about assembling the beast ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvKFYKsB7Jw&feature=related

Saturday, November 21, 2009

The Emotional Blackmailer’s Handbook. Chapter 99. Projecting your anxieties and insecurities.


















Dog-walking on the Common this morning, I found myself talking aloud to her.
“As a loyal friend, you sometimes seem less than adequate. When, for example, was the last time you ever stopped me from setting the whiskey-soaked bed on fire ? Warned me that bad men with guns were approaching on horseback under cover of darkness ? Or brought help from a distant farm in the nick of time as I sank deeper in to the quicksand ?”


The old dog didn't even shrug, just gave me a look that clearly suggested quiet contempt.

lost and found on clapham common, then handed in at battersea nick


Saturday, November 7, 2009

dull sublunary lovers


i like this clifford harper drawing in today's guardian


there but for fortune go you or i ...






returning from last night's concert and crossing the thames reminded me of a famous verse ...
The Embankment
( The fantasia of a Fallen Gentleman on a Cold, Bitter Night)



Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,


In a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.


Now see I


That warmth`s the very stuff of poesy.




Oh, God, make small


The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,


That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.


T. E. Hulme (1883 - 1917)
the picture is picture from ... http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091001.html

waiting for the girls to play us a bit of corelli in the norfolk room


competition time



































a double first question, indicative of the author's distasteful curiosity about the enigmatic gender:


about the lady who wore this dress ... might she have swayed ? or wriggled ?


and a question of taste for the aesthete:


which of these teapots from the same small room in the V&A might she have chosen for brewing the first cup of the day ?