THREE MORE BEAUTIFUL THINGS

Driving through the woods in the early fog which is rhythmically striped and punctuated by veering sunbeams as the road winds around the hills, and is frequently perfumed with different kinds of wood smoke from domestic stoves and from invisible bonfires smouldering in gardens and coppices.

As night falls, the loved one is filling the building with the sweet aroma of baking cookies whilst the Beach Boys Greatest Hits are playing.

Another twenty page letter to a wonderful friend is finally sealed up and addressed, ready to be posted after a whole week of hesitantly laboured paragraphs and too many lip-biting crossings out, and some unbelievably childish spelling corrections.

seven in the morning, chez micawber ... even now in a laboratory near you, teams of dedicated scientists are working on a twenty-first century cure for feminine snoring

has any one mentioned christmas yet ?

dear diary, went to work in the dark ... and came home in the dark ...

.... although you can never really call London dark

dashboard photographers club

pat and her highly trained guard dog at a cheese smokery somewhere in the south of england

i am too weak-willed to resist the temptation of offering you this gratuitous juxtaposition

... having just collected the book from battersea library and chuckled more than once on the journey home

drafting my own obituary ... "among the poet's earliest influences ... hearing these verses created a life-long allergy to work, even though he was only eight years old at the time"

Take out the papers and the trash
Or you don't get no spendin' cash
If you don't scrub that kitchen floor
You ain't gonna rock and roll no more
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

Just finish cleanin' up your room
Let's see that dust fly with that broom
Get all that garbage out of sight
Or you don't go out Friday night
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

You just put on your coat and hat
And walk yourself to the laundromat
And when you finish doin' that
Bring in the dog and put out the cat
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

Don't you give me no dirty looks
Your father's hip; he knows what cooks
Just tell your hoodlum friend outside
You ain't got time to take a ride
Yakety yak (don't talk back)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR0hQ7SwL-I&feature=related

I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler 
About a workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar 
Every time I call my baby, and try to get a date 
My boss says, "No dice son, you gotta work late" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues 

Well my mom and pop told me, "Son you gotta make some money, 
If you want to use the car to go ridin' next Sunday" 
Well I didn't go to work, told the boss I was sick 
"Well you can't use the car 'cause you didn't work a lick" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues 

I'm gonna take two weeks, gonna have a fine vacation 
I'm gonna take my problem to the United Nations 
Well I called my congressman and he said Quote: 
"I'd like to help you son but you're too young to vote" 
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do 
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeWC59FJqGc

l'apres midi des cherubins chez micawber

a simple amusement ...

before it started raining, very early this morning while it was still dark, i filled a cardboard box with dry leaves and took it on my round, offering it to gullible, troublesome, and abusive customers, as a free sample

the way people respond to the offer of a free sample tells you a lot about human nature

the first shook his head and said rarther grimly there was nothing about free samples on the print-out for the day

the second was straight in to the box with the enthusiasm of a child on christmas morning

only one asked what kind of weirdo would bother to stuff dry leaves in a box

ticehurst on the eleventh hour in the eleventh day of the eleventh month

now where did i put MY hula hoop ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aIV_X4GlY0

lovely "dance" video via metafilter

... and the loved one rescued this little gem and brought it home

you don't have to be mad ...

... but it may just possibly be helpful ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwWLnaME0CI

has any one mentioned christmas yet ?

rain rain rain !

the world is windswept and awash in ashdown park

i step down with a splash from the shiny red lorry in to a puddle on which floats a green and yellow armada of gingko leaves

and as i raise my eyes, so a rain-soaked family group of eight grey dripping does tiptoe by

what goes up usually comes down, civilizations rise and fall ... will our's be the first to have been dismantled by qualified accountants maintaining their professional standards?

3BT plus 2

on putney heath, one owl hoots and another screeches as i walk past the black wood to the bus stop at a quarter to four in the morning ... and then they do it again, twice

i pass a shop in haywards heath outside which is an umbrella stand containing about a dozen feather dusters and i try to visualize an allegorical painting involving twelve virgins and michelangelo's david ... if only beryl cook was still alive

near turner's hill, twelve cock pheasants gleam on a grassy knoll

the wide window in peter jones' rooftop restaurant is hung with thousands of tiny white lights, reflected and double-reflected in the double glazing as if it were snowing stars ... beyond them, the sun has set and across the grey rooftops beneath a strip of pink and purple sky is the outline of harrods' illuminated dome traced in vibrant smudges of incongruous golden light

a violinist and a pianist enter the gilded norfolk room wearing deep purple and position themselves so that i often see the pianist's face through the crook of the violinist's left arm during their brilliant recital ... the violinist plays with her eyes shut, the pianist laughs with her eyes at every musical joke

richard learoyd in ticehurst

you wouldn't necessarily have heard of ticehurst, its not famous

but i'm lucky enough to pass through sometimes on my way to or from a collection at traditional sussex cheeses

there's a posh second hand bookshop with a cafe but it isn't often possible to stop on these tiny streets in a big red truck

today i needed to post a letter so i stopped short of the village centre and walked up,

drank my coffee and wrote some extra pages in the bookshop then walked twenty yards to the village post office,

then thought, "why not stroll over to the corner and look up and down the street for signs of life ?

i didn't immediately notice this shop, can't think why

there are two huge framed magnificent photographs on display by a man called richard learoyd

one is of a dead heron, the other is of a dead hare

don't ask ... i don't know

never mind the name of cary grant's tailor, bring me the name of his shoe maker

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/2006/08/cary-grant-north-by-northwest.html