whoops ... i've accidentally sold my friends' land to a chinese oil prospector on e-bay ...

... not !

this is ultra-snappy fantastically detailed interactive online mapping of agricultural land usage and classification from the spanish guvinment

http://sigpac.mapa.es/fega/visor/

your starter for one million points is this mystery object

it was a prototype or pattern for a casting

i found it thrown on a tip outside a junk shop in melksham about thirty years ago

there was a mechanical engineering company with a foundry in the town named spencer's that had recently closed

any suggestions as to the form and function of the finished component ?

shaddupayourface ... while i'm pre-occupied with plundering the treasure trove that is flores y palabras

http://floresypalabras.blogspot.com/

unabashedly sentimental ... Paco Ibáñez ... via flores y palabras

http://floresypalabras.blogspot.com/2010/04/tus-ojos-me-recuerdan.html

a delicious dance treat via the metafilter

http://www.jordanmatter.com/photography/dance-photography/dancers-among-us/gallery.php#Jordan_Matter_Dance_20.jpg

saint malcolm maclaren

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt6Co7EMNCU&feature=related

three more beautiful things

The young foxes have grown.  One rolls on its back on the grass beneath the trees and street lights in the early hours, circled warily by another.  A third arrives suddenly and runs through their invisible circle in a straight line.

In Eric Rohmer’s film, Ma Nuit Chez Maude, two people quite suddenly ensnared by the idea of love, talk urgently on a hillside, oblivious to the fantastic view behind them of snow falling on the city of Clermont.

Walking along a dry path in the wood at night, one hears a soft slow crescendo of summer rain approaching through the trees.

the shoe wouldn't fit

http://www.capitalscenery.co.uk/#/client-list/4537001709

living proof that any amount of chocolate won't make your hair curl

only connect

a periodic table of swearing is a fine idea, though this one, from scurrilous publishers modern toss, can only be viewed as prototypical as there aren't nearly enough rows and columns to suit every purpose

for instance ... the old  dog wanders, lags, deviates, hesitates, strays, and generally retards my progress whenever i hobble across clapham common but ... if i should sit down to read the paper or jot something in a notebook, or just to ease my aching feet ... then she's right there in my face with her complaining and her whimpering

the new heavy duty attack element for doggie discipline i should wish to introduce to this revised post-quantumnal age table would be the conversational heavy element number 999 ... "STFU !"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=stfu

three beautiful things

RUNNERS. At weekends, one is always enchanted by fleeting glimpses through the trees of spring-heeled goddesses scampering around the common. Today come several hundred, half of them dressed in pink, on a fun run that seems too arduous for most in this sticky humidity.


http://www.raceforlife.org/choose-your-event/london--clapham-31-jul-10-1.aspx


A LITTLE BOY, maybe six or seven years old, gets on my bus and climbs on to a high seat. He is un-believably girlishly pretty, but undoubtedly boyish because he is absorbed in contemplation of his new boy’s toy, a Lego Clone Walkers Battle Pack, still in its unopened box. Throughout the fifteen minute journey he does not speak, but reads the box’s facets over and over whilst he hums the Star Wars theme, very loudly.


WOODPECKER. We awake to steady rain after a drought. Two squirrels dash hither and thither among the great dark boughs of a Cedar of Lebanon, fetching twigs vandalised from a neighbouring lime tree to fortify their dray. A woodpecker flies in at speed from one side and settles in classic profile, so to speak, before commencing her methodic ascent, regardles of squirrel chaos, tap-tapping as she goes.

i must remember to wash the windows this year

lucas ...it says here

austin of england

framfield church

the first three pages of a letter from the late sylvia forward ( my mum ) to sheila evans ( almost certainly the best friend anyone could wish for )

any historian with half a brain will remind you of the necessity, and the fun, of using primary sources

dappled

good job no one was listening ...

"darling, if i were rich, i'd have cardboard cut-outs of you in every room ... holding trays of drinks and chocolates"

apropos de nuffinque ( part 1001 ) ( votre chaumes en feu )

or should that be "votre toit" ?

noctilucent clouds photographed in sweden by p-m heden

leading on from an interesting little slide-show on the bbc weather pages

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10635796