Archive for July, 2010
My Year in Photos – July 22nd – “A hot day in the big smoke”
I spent this afternoon trudging round the middle of London, on my way to a speaking engagement at the IAB’s Holborn HQ – just down the road from where this picture was taken.
It was a real mixed-bag in London today – torrential rain one minute, baking-hot sunshine the next. I was certainly glad to be wearing my suit for most of the day, though the tube journey home was like sitting inside a central heating system.
My Year in Photos – July 21st – “Ooh, that’s a whopper!”
Today’s photo was taken this evening in our garden, and is of one of the now-massive courgettes we have managed to grow as part of our vegetable selection. For some odd reason our tomatoes have refused to grow, and the peppers we have are great – but a bit of a cheat, since they had tiny peppers on when we bought them.
But the courgettes we have grown from scratch, and thus have the most reason to be proud of them :) This isn’t even the biggest one either – the other one was so big that when I took a picture, it came out blurry…! :D
My Year in Photos – July 20th – “The story of Colin”
I had a very interesting (potential) client meeting in Theale today, though past experience tells me it would be smart not to mention their name in my blog. So rather than show you the fun photos I took in their lobby (!), I took a photo of this DVD I saw in Sainsburys earlier in the day. It is a film, and it is called Colin.
I quite want to see it now, just to see if the film can live up to the name! Though having seen how Skoda fans reacted on Flickr to my post saying that the “Skoda Superb” was a good name, I expect I’ll now suffer at the wrath of a bunch of Colin fans, saying I’m mocking their favourite movie…!
My Year in Photos – July 19th – “And….. ACTION!”
Today’s photo is one of two showbiz encounters I had while wandering the streets of Chiswick this lunch time. I got quite excited when I saw what was quite obviously a film crew and their vehicles parked in the road next to the office – though the excitement soon drifted away when I rounded the corner. They appear to be filming a new ‘Carphone Warehouse’ advert in our local branch. Well, either that or they’ve commissioned a spin-off series from Ricky Gervais’s ‘Extras’ which follows the exploits of Barry from Eastenders and his job in said phone shop. I suspect it is the former…
The second showbiz encounter was just down the road, where I walked past grumpy-faced, BBC-snubbing presenter Adrian Chiles, who was having lunch with a mystery blonde lady. I considered trying to take a photo using my patented “Pretend to be on the phone while sneakily pressing the button” move (as seen in my first Sarah Beeny photo, before I plucked up the courage to talk to her) but decided I didn’t actually like Chiles enough to bother! Sorry Adrian…
Juvenilia – An end to the odyssey before it even began?
Whilst driving home the other night, I (mentally) stumbled upon an idea for some fun content for this blog, other than the occassional rant or my ‘Year in Photos’ pictures - based mainly on proving what a twat I was when I was a teenager. Somewhere in my piles of nostalgia, I have two A5 diaries full of angsty teenage poems, notes to and from friends, doodles and musings by my teenage self.
Both Adam & Joe and Collins & Herring have aired some BRILLIANT examples of teenage Juvenilia on their 6music shows, so I decided I should have a go at digging out some of my own – from what I can remember I had a go at a few Haikus (though more likely rubbish limericks) during my Sixth Form days, and seeing as I spent most of my senior school days pining over a number of different female classmates, I’m bound to have a few ‘romantic’ epics in there too. So it seemed like a winning formula!
Only trouble is, I’ve dug through my ‘memory box’, through several other storage boxes and all our book shelves, and I can’t find the bloody things ANYWHERE. I’ve come to the depressing conclusion that I may actually have thrown the bloody things away a few years back, possibly in a fit of embarrassment after reading the contents in the harsh light of my mid-twenties. What a total disaster!
I’ve got LOADS of other teenage memorabilia, but I don’t think any of it would really count as Juvenilia, since most of it was either created by or sent to me by other people. Old letters, cinema tickets, flyers, concert passes – all of these I have in spades. But none of them make for a very embarassing blog post subject.
I think I’m going to have to search for those books one more time before I call it a day…!
My Year in Photos – July 18th – “Rapunzel! Rapunzel!”
In order to break the cycle of Mario Kart Wii / Cleaning / Napping, which seemed to fill most of our weekend, we took Robert to the park this afternoon. Visiting the same park I had been to the previous weekend, Robert once again decided to demonstrate how he is indeed the child who knows no fear, climbing up the highest tower in the park and taking it’s massive slide with relative ease. I dread to think what scrapes this devil-may-care attitude will get him into in the future…
My Year in Photos – July 17th – “The Climb”
We took Robert along to a garden centre this afternoon – but this was no ordinary garden centre. This (Wyevale) has two MASSIVE kids play areas, one inside and one out. So it’s a great place to take kids when you’re after a bit of peace and quiet – and the best part is, it’s free! I’ve been to kids play areas where you’d probably pay at least £5 for facilities like that, so even though it might sound pretty lame, it pleases me! :D
10 Life Lessons I’ve Learnt From Mario Kart
Having played Mario Kart on the Nintendo Wii for a few years now, it struck me that there are lots of lessons one can learn from the game – not just for gaming, but for life itself. Here are mine:
- It’s not always best to be first too early. Some times it’s better to trundle along behind the leader for a bit, then wait until they throw themselves off the track and steal your lead…
- You should never trust men with pointy chins, twirly moustaches and a penchant for purple dungarees.
- Monkeys don’t make good drivers, neither do skeletons, turtles or midget mushroom men.
- If you find a reliable car, don’t chop and change just because you think you might find a better deal. Unless of course Citroen or Ford bring out a ‘Blue Falcon’ model, in which case you should buy one.
- In the road of life, watching out for banana skins and bombs. Oh, and cows don’t help much either.
- Fat Italian plumbers can seem friendly, but they won’t hesitate to shaft you when the going gets tough.
- Mushrooms are evil. As somebody who has never liked mushrooms, this came as no real surprise to me.
- If you find yourself driving along on a space track in space, try not to drive off the sides. Nothing good comes of this.
- Driving on the beach can seem like great fun, but it can be a real pisser when the tide comes in quickly. Oh, and if giant bobbly monsters start attacking you, that never turns out well either.
- And finally… Unlike in Mario Kart, in real life it’s not a good thing to have got 12 points for driving fast!
My Year in Photos – July 16th – “Eat my dust, Funky Kong”
Due to a complete lack of televisual stimulus this evening, Sara and I opted to partake in a bit of Wii action – something we’ve been very lax about for the past year or so. We opted for our old favourite, Mario Kart – it’s amazing how quickly you remember all the moves. I suspect now that we’ve reminded ourselves how good it is, we won’t be leaving it quite so long next time…
My Year in Photos – July 15th – “I love the rain”
After the impressively angry storm clouds in yesterday’s entry, today was unsurprisingly very rainy – just like I love it! Thankfully I clocked the clouds as I was parking the car and grabbed my umbrella – so I was able to walk down the street to work rather smugly, as everyone else ran past me with their tops pulled up over their heads.
I bloody love the rain, I do…