Monthly Archives: June 2011

The nutter on the bus

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Several years ago I travelled by coach to see Rosie sing with her school (and hundreds of other schools) at the Royal Festival Hall in London.  We were dropped off a couple of hours before the concert started so I went for a walk round Covent Garden. Bizarrely, I bumped into someone who I’d gone on a random truck trip with across Africa ten years before (long story, inspired by watching Tracy Chapman, on the TV, singing at the Nelson Mandela birthday concert). Continue reading →

Paddington to St Ives and the gap yah war

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I love travelling by train. It would be my preferred choice of travelling anywhere.  The line from London down to Cornwall is especially nice, following the coast.  Unfortunately last time I travelled on that route two gap yah boys recognised each other (through their type rather than personally) and bonded, loudly, across the table I was sitting at.  They started with country top trumps; “Whoa Guatamala. Far out.” “Yah, right, but Peru, man”. “Yah, Peru, superb.”

Continue reading →

The cone of shame

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Another photo-blog. This time, open day at the Dog’s Trust.  Quite interesting, as with the Museum of Weddingkind, when you start to think about what is going on here.  Anyway, it seemed the whole of the middle of England converged on the open day.  Ferret racing, dog competitions, burgers, ice creams, tombola’s, dog food and a tour of the available dogs was on offer.  I was struck by how many dogs were wearing cones. I wondered if it was a ploy to crank up the ‘ahh factor’. It was certainly working judging by the chorus of ‘ahhh’s’ at each new cage.  Funny how Brits go crazy for a wounded animal but treat so many people like shite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The un-happy meal and the big apple

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Oh boy. Another travel-tastic tale.  For once, I am not responsible for this. It was those bastards at Air Canada.  I was flying to Ottawa. So, so excited to be on an all expenses paid, invited trip.  Anyway, since boarding, I’d had a tasty lunch; a lentil curry and rice jobby. I watched some tv, had a doze and a few hours later got woken up by the air steward putting a box on my tray. It was a funny box, like a happy meal box. No one around me had a box.  “Wow”, I thought, “I must have won a prize. This is a truly great day”.  (New readers should take a shufty at this earlier post. Seasoned readers will probably be wondering when I’m going to stop thinking this). Continue reading →

The accidental comedy genius

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Laughing boy has been called LB for many years now because he is very funny, without any sniff of trying to be funny.  It’s a mystery, but very, very entertaining. Continue reading →

Shepherd’s Bush

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This is a bit of a saucy one, so be warned…. Richy Rich and I were coming back from London on a very busy bus, one Sunday morning. We were both listening to music on headphones and chilling out, when the bus stopped at Shepherd’s Bush. Richy leant across to me and said in a very, very loud voice; “Have you ever had a shepherd in your bush, dear?” Continue reading →

The Eddie Stobart Story

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These posts aren’t in a chronological order, so this probably won’t have the resonance it should. But random is good (sometimes). Laughing Boy came into the kitchen tonight and said “Thank you mum for phewddryfhddndfhrrhsssvvbnrtt”.

Whoa!!! Wha?? LB initiating a conversation? Unprompted? That isn’t about a need (toilet, internet access, maintenance of routine…) This is amazing. A “thank you” opening??? What are you saying LB???? Continue reading →

Chicken bone man and extreme porn

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Public places, shops, cafes and transport are endless sources of fascination, full of half heard conversations, snippets of drama, humour, puzzles and mysteries.  The underlying question for me is always; how do we all manage to rub together so effectively? Old Garfinkel helps out with that question, especially with his rule breaching exercises where he got students to go and deliberately break social rules in order to make visible the intricate layers of shared understandings people have about what is acceptable or otherwise. Continue reading →

The Museum of Weddingkind

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I’ve illustrated most blog posts with a photo or drawing (he he he), but this post is just photos.  Wedding photos taken at the Museum of Civilisation, Ottawa.  It got a bit difficult to work out who was exhibiting what…

The kiss

 

 

 

Reflections from the First Peoples Hall

 

 

Moroccan weekend away: Part 3

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I’ve had a lot of nagging to do the next bit of this saga, so here it is.  Just to summarise the story so far, we are at Heathrow on our way to Marrakech for a weekend away, Richy has retrieved the tickets, wallet and passports he left on the roof of the car in the long stay car park at Terminal 2, and we’re at Terminal 4 where we’ve just found out our plane leaves in 50 minutes from Gatwick. (see Part 1 and Part 2) Continue reading →