Place: Curracloe, Co. Wexford, Ireland.
Date: Saturday April 21, 2007.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.
Take five Irish brothers and one Canadian, dare them to go swimming in the Irish Sea one April afternoon and what do you get?
Hypothermia.
Place: My kitchen.
Date: April 3, 2007.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.
Even vegetables are cashing in on the world's obsession with celebrity. Apparently this packet of tenderstem broccoli has been "seen on TV".
Who are Marks & Spencer kidding? Does it think consumers buy their vegetables on this basis? Honestly. What next? A reality TV show set in a refrigerator vegetable drawer?
Place: The bathing pool at Hampstead Heath, London.
Date: August 20, 2005.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.
They're having a laugh, right? I would not even dangle a toe in this water let alone go swimming in it!
These signs popped up all across London a couple of years ago when more bus lanes were created and single-coin fares introduced.
All well and good, but they annoyed me, because the slogan seems to be incomplete.
Bus journeys are now quicker...
... than what?
(Answers in the comment box will be gratefully received!)
Place: Hampstead Heath, London.
Date: August 20, 2005.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.
The inscription reads:
Ben W (1912- )
Whilst he can still sit on it.
Now in years bestride my eighties, this elysian seat I have vacated.
But gentle neighbour sigh not yet, I've only moved to Somerset.
I normally find the inscriptions on seats in public places a little on the sad side: a tangible sign of someone's death. But the one above elicited a loud laugh!
I don't know if Ben W is still alive -- after all he'll be 95 this year, if he hasn't turned so already -- but I hope he knows how much I appreciated his gentle, tongue-in-cheek poem when I passed by it one summer's day a couple of years ago.
Place: one of the ATMs at my local supermarket in Hammersmith, London.
Date: March 3, 2005.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.
Brits -- and Londoners in particular -- have queueing down to a fine art. It's one of the first things that struck me when I arrived here: what were all those lines snaking everywhere, at tube stations, in shops, outside banks? And why did no one ever cut in or cause a ruckus?
I'm not sure how true it is, but I was told that the polite and orderly nature in which British people line-up to make purchases of one form or another stems from the war when people queued for rations.
Mind you, Brits aren't very good at the personal space thing. I think this comes from the fact there are so many people crammed on this tiny island that being squashed together comes naturally! Perhaps this explains the little feet painted on the footpath in the above photograph: it's a way of saying "the queue starts here" or "don't stand so close to me!" Whatever the case, I still get a little chuckle whenever I see this piece of artwork.
Place: Somewhere in Thames Ditton, Surrey, UK.
Date: April 4, 2006.
Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC-W1.
Pissed off with the number of menus shoved through your letter box? Then why not take the lead from this person who obviously got so distressed about the whole thing they had a warning sign printed especially!
Personally, I think the sign is too polite. I would have been inclined to put something in about "shoving it up your you-know-what", but then I never was one to mince my words!
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