get well soon
please send lovely thoughts to my darling pentax mx, who today goes back to the camera hospital for the second time to have his light leak fixed. pray that they find the fault this time, pray that they fix it and don't charge me any more money. pray that i manage to snipe the other mx body i'm watching on ebay....
7/30/2002 01:06:52 PM #
scary
via patti. this is cool. i am claustrophobic (which we knew), but also atychiphobic, scotomaphobic and lyssophobic. and i am more delighted than i can say to find that fear of beggars is hobophobia.
7/30/2002 12:41:48 PM #
wtf and other random letters
why would anyone search for zi? if it was you, what were you looking for?
7/29/2002 09:10:36 PM #
hot hot hot
very warm and humid, eh? surely you mean, welcome to the second half of the british summer? two months ago we had the sunny weekend (we'd all gone away for easter). now we're having the annual muggy week, sponsored by the understaffed and incompetent english air-con industry. and magnum ice cream. mmmm.
7/29/2002 08:47:13 PM #
stripping
photostrip art: some very nicely thought-out sequences. via glish.
7/29/2002 12:56:23 PM #
relaxed
mmm. a very nice weekend in dorset. we bunked off work friday, so drove down in leisurely fashion in the morning, stopping off at waterstones in chiswick to buy audio books. these are truly the answer to driving across britain with an untrustworthy radio; no more grovelling on the floor of the car for me looking like i'm doing a gillian taylforth while trying to keep track of the radio 4 signal. the colour of magic was never my favourite pterry book, though b. claims to love it; we got one choice each so that was his. and it's much better on tape than in the book (i know, blasphemy, but there you are).
arrived in seatown around 2pm, just in time for a couple of well-earned pints in the anchor. putting the tent up earned us another couple of pints, so we walked up to the village, to the clock, which has a new owner, down from essex just four months ago. seems like he's going to make this into a nice pub, so please pop in if you're in the area. then to the george, which is much better established; a real foodie pub with a staggeringly wide variety on its menu. still, we are faithful to the anchor so went back there for plates of sadie's excellent curry (b.) and spinach and feta pie (me). demonstrated our usual ability to pick up the train spotter (in this case, a tractor spotter) in the pub, so early to bed.
sunday, to pootle home via car boot sales and picnics, and the great dorset maize maze. if i didn't have to go to w*rk ever, just look how relaxed i'd be.
7/28/2002 05:48:55 PM #
mooning not flashing
i found this animated lunascape through stuart. if only it'd been done in flash instead of as an animated gif; think of the fun headline i could have written.
7/25/2002 06:05:21 PM #
happy birthday, barty!
it's my husband's birthday tomorrow. if i were a very bad person, i'd post up his email address so you could send him hugs... love you.
7/24/2002 05:56:37 PM #
the way we live now
what's sad is to come home and find the car window smashed, and some while later, to realise that the reason this happened was that your husband had left his mobile phone on the dashboard, and to feel relieved about this. to think that to have your car vandalised for the purpose of theft is better than for it to happen out of sheer mindlessness.
7/23/2002 10:05:55 PM #
cal is silly
7/23/2002 12:56:48 PM #
vision
london and cambridge were the same place, a vast collegiate gormenghast drawn by escher. one of the angels in the cemetery had been torn down and replaced with a huge dragon, a twisting worm that towered over everything. and a baby at its foot. i knew the baby was the living lord voldemort, but the guards (whose guards?) were chasing me for its murder. i hid at the top of a tall, gabled house, in a bed that smelt of rain. a shining thing, now man, now woman came to me there. my mother found us in bed together and cursed me, screaming like a harpy. i ran to my high school english teacher, now teaching needlework; we made a fishing bag onto which i embroidered strange sigils, the same that morgan put on the scabbard for excalibur, that would leave us invincible. i had to slay the baby, which had now turned into a black cat with yellow eyes. there was a vast crater where ygdrasil, the world tree, had been torn up by the roots. i could see down through the circles of hell to where judas begged with swollen tongue to be rescued. cursed myself, i could not save him and earth collapsed into the inferno.
what the elvis is going on in my subconscious?
7/23/2002 12:29:07 PM #
i am so uncool
i own everything i shouldn't.
7/22/2002 09:12:07 PM #
alphabet
explanation: gary is from the united kingdom. which begins with u. towards the end of the alphabet, and hence towards the bottom of an alphabetical drop-down list. around where the united states of america should be. except americans cheat and make themselves top nation.
comment (i posted this on dropdownusa but i think it is important enough to repeat): if gary's plan works, as it will if there is any justice in the world, the united states of america will just rename themselves america. the only countries which will supercede them alphabetically will be afghanistan and albania. we can see what they're doing to afghanistan. now we know why they're doing it. if i lived in albania, i would be very very worried...
7/22/2002 12:13:13 PM #
what i did on my weekend
twickenham is an absolutely archetypal twentieth century municpal cemetery, filled with mean little granite slabes and gaudy flowers. the chapel though was reasonably attractive dark red brick gothic, and it looks like some restoration work is being done on it.
south ealing is one i've driven past many times, and was delighted to find it's as lovely inside as i thought it would be. the twin chapels are right at the front, and a porte cochere leads to a long, yew-lined path with smaller tree-lined paths branching off it; the whole feeling is very rural and peaceful, though sadly the monuments again are not terribly interesting.
the correct way to begin sunday is with a cheese and fried egg roll from cuffley car boot sale. this week was one of those isn't the world small moments, because i was not the only blogger there. little purchasing done by us, but i did get a copy of marjorie bowen's dickon to feed my richard iii habit. i've been after this book for ages, though sadly a quick flick through gives the impression of something firmly set in the 1950s. we'll see.
and then i went to lily's third birthday party and watched my non-children-wanting husband be completely ruthless in a water-fight with a bunch of seven year olds. tee hee.
7/21/2002 05:56:49 PM #
tube strike
how do i love thee? let me count the ways.
- didn't get up until 8am
- added some new books to the books pages.
- received my new box of books from amazon
- played alter ego, acquired a lovely husband and stepson and became a naturist. died peacefully shopping.
- had a weightwatchers dinner for lunch like a good girl. did not have the large lump of cheese i wanted.
- went back to st. pancras and put a roll of black and white through. i don't really like b&w normally; it feels unnatural. we'll see. [memo to self and anyone else looking for the mond mausoleum: go to the st. pancras chapel, walk down centre avenue, it's right opposite you.]
- updated the links over there on the left. people who don't update now gone, i think.
- wondered what's for dinner.
- found out some other bugger got there first.
hmmm. hurry home b, i want to go to the pub.
7/18/2002 10:11:42 AM #
i am a terrorist
sadly the people who told me only did it in pdf format. via davezilla
7/17/2002 10:40:09 PM #
the 491st time
then came peter to him, and said, lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
jesus saith unto him, i say not unto thee, until seven times: but, until seventy times seven.
[matthew xviii 21-22]
so my question. if someone's hurt you and hurt you and hurt you again, how often do you have to keep coming back for more? how often do you bit your lip, or the bullet, and carry on, knowing it's only a matter of time until they knock you for a dozen again?
7/17/2002 08:31:22 PM #
brilliant,
just brilliant.
7/17/2002 12:49:09 PM #
obscure
my husband's primary school teacher's grandfather was the first man to tightrope walk over niagara falls.
my sister's primary school teacher once had the queen knock on her door and ask to use her bathroom.
my primary school teacher knew the girl on the bbc test card.
7/15/2002 09:38:06 PM #
a good day
i woke up to find i'd 'won' a 16mm fisheye lens on ebay.
nice b. drove me all the way to the east end to city of london cemetery, the second largest in london. it's beautiful. because it belongs to the corporation of london and not to a local council or a private company, it's always had money and therefore has been stunningly maintained throughout its 140 year history. odd to see the victorian vision intact and impeccable, without sycamores rampant all over it.
thence to manor park cemetery. mostly a modern lawn cemetery, but with a cemetorium and therefore also with the obligatory memorial rose garden, stinking of decay. ten minutes and half a film was more than sufficient.
then to woodgrange park. meller says that this "has seen better days". he is not wrong. new gravel and kerbstones to the roadways and a filled rubbish skip by the gate might hint that the planned refurbishment might be going ahead. new burials are certainly happening, but to a large extent these seem to be being achieved somehow without disturbing the undergrowth, so that the cemetery is being turned into an island of new lawn burials afloat on a sea of brambles. it is not pretty. but the self-righteous anger it affords my middle-class sensibilities is, of course, wonderful.
and then to the jewish cemetery at plashet park. i hope it is not anti-semitic to state that i do not like jewish cemeteries. all stone and cinder, not a plant in the place unless it's a weed, and even the weeds are usually dead. the only other living thing there was a fox, and he seemed as disgusted to see me as i normally am when funerals intrude on my photographic activities.
to home, via a train that i never managed to buy a ticket for (always pleasing) and a bus that arrived when i wanted it to. still some light left, so to st pancras and islington (which is the biggest) with the short lens to fill in some of the gaps there. got completely lost and spooked myself. marvellous.
sitting with a glass of wine wondering where b. is, thought i'd found a taphophile blog but she hasn't posted for months. did find last year's house of commons report on the future of uk cemeteries. i hate to say this, but it's interesting reading.
well isn't that how most people spend their sundays?
7/14/2002 04:43:28 PM #
death of a salesman
b. has just had a phone call from a salesman offering him a 'mains-fed water dispensing system'. asked if that wasn't called a tap, he got all offended...
7/12/2002 10:01:06 AM #
[adv] down among the dead men
there ought to be another word for it, because necrophiliac sure isn't it, but for any of my fellow cemetery-lovers in london, please note that kensal green cemetery is holding an open day from 10am to 5pm this saturday. b and i will be there, being spooky in the catacombs.
7/11/2002 12:37:23 PM #
what would jesus do?
the bike was bright fluorescent orange and dripping with rain. the man was rattling the lock of the bike. the man was testing to see how well the bike was fastened to the railings. the lock was locked. the man saw me watching, pulled out what was obviously his housekey and started to act unlocking the lock quite innocently. i looked away for a second to throw a coke can in the bin, and he was gone. the bike, i was pleased to see, was still there, glowing, it seemed, a little brighter.
and if he'd taken out a crowbar and smashed the lock, i'd have said enjoy your nice new bike, mister.
7/10/2002 12:58:18 PM #
i love to say i told you so
7/7/2002 02:01:53 PM #
frighteningly predictable
7/6/2002 09:06:12 PM #
frighteningly close
7/6/2002 08:59:07 PM #
safety pins
don't leave your childs musical taste to chance - indoctrinate now. punk rock baby is a collection of punk classics in a lullaby style. no more heroes is particularly inspired. via b3ta.
7/6/2002 01:41:56 PM #
happy 4th july from everyone in england
7/4/2002 12:18:46 PM #
a huge poll
mr gallup said the findings may also apply to women who engage in unprotected oral sex and people who engage in anal sex. but he said further research was needed in these areas.
7/3/2002 06:51:20 PM #
and congratulations...
to my work email box, which this morning achieved its long-term aim of having more spam and virus-generated crap than actual mail in it!
7/3/2002 01:02:35 PM #
in which i am one of the popular kids
look, i made the top thirty!
7/3/2002 08:24:44 AM #
