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The signs are all there Since Him Indoors bought me a digital camera as a special present a
while back and wasting film was no longer an object I have been taking pictures of signs and notices, all sorts of signs and notices, forbidding, excrutiatingly meaningless, you name it if I had the camera with me I took it and if I didn't I made a mental note to return at a later date. Too many signs mean the messages they try to convey is often lost. There are even town planners, road designers and safety experts out there who think it can be safer to do away with road signs altogether. Hans Monderman is one of them and you can read more about his experiment here and here. Too many don'ts make even the most compliant want to do free their inner rebel (you don't believe me try the "don't thing of a blue elephant experiment", it's as it says on the tin, you tell somebody to think about various things like a white cat, a pink cow, a yellow monkey and then you tell them "don't think of a blue elephant" and the first picture which will crop up in their heads is a blue elephant). Bad wording is simply confusing - my current favourite (which unfortunately I could not take a picture of because of current rules about taking pictures in swimming pools) can be found at Falmouth swimming pool and states that unaccompanied children will not be admited unless accompanied by an adult - make your minds up people, is the child unaccompanied or not? Forbid something and all you have not forbiden is defacto authorised, leading to an increasing list. Too precise an interdiction and you will need to expand it at a later date, leading to a bigger sign a bit like this one. The stencil says it all.   |
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1.4.05 20:01 |
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Inside my head at the swimming pool Lunchtime this afternoon, too hot to carry on working in the
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3.4.05 20:53 |
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Ooops Maybe not the most clever idea to pick a recipe calling for vast amonst of chocolate, sugar, cocoa powder and 1 pint of strong black coffee
to serve as pudding yesterday evening when Philippa came to visit with her 4 young children. I hope she managed to get the children to go to sleep, if she didn't I'll grovel for forgiveness. |
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5.4.05 19:02 |
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At Princessfairytoes' request Expect more typos than usual as I am blogging under the influence of
some lovely red wine confumed "chez Christine" earlier toninght. The recipe for Magic Chocolate Pudding (the magic is that it separates so you have chocolate sponge at the top of the dish and chocolate/coffee sauce at the bottom when you take it out of the oven) with enough caffeine and sugar to send the kids wild. Fist find a nice big dish (lasagna type thinggy). Then put half a packet of butter (that's 150g) in the food processor with 150g of sugar (about 6 tablespoons), blitz for a bit (the butter goes a lovely pale yelow or as Razorhead would call it “Fresh Spring Sauce-Anglais Lucious Afternoon Farmland Fields with a Hint of Charming Kittens.”). In the meantime melt 100g of plain chocolate and a couple of mars bars requisitioned from Him Indoors' Eater Eggs for the occasion (or whatever you have in the cupboards to add to the sugar high - I expect caramel bars or rolos would work nicely or those even those new praline flakes - yummy. Or if you prefer melt the chocolate and eat the mars bar, it's your pudding after all). While the chocolate melts add a couple of eggs and 100g of self raising flour to the butter mix. If you have nothing better to do you can sift the flouer before you add it but frankly I wouldn't bother. Then add the melted chocolate. Lick the bowl you melted thechocolate in (if you can wresstle it off whoever happened to be in the kitchen at the same time under the pretence of helping with the dishes that is). Spread the mixture in the dish and ask your kitchen slave to make some coffee and to make it nice and strong and quick and a whole lot of it (ignore Him Indoors as he asks what my last slave died off in between liking his molten mars bar covered fingers). Put 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder, 4 tablespoons of sugar and a couple of handfulls of walnut pieces in a plastic box and shake it all about to your favourite tune, sprinkle/spread over the dough in the dish, pour the coffee over and bang in the oven (180o) for 45 minutes. Serve with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. |
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6.4.05 21:56 |
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Your anorak is showing my son As I waited for The Boy to put his coat and shoes on when I picked him
up from after school club I scanned the board where the results of the children's survey were stapled. Simple questions like what's your favourite food, favourite place, favourite famous person etc. The favourite famous person answers were pretty much as most would predict for a group of primary school children mainly footballers for the boys and boys band members of the girls. One name stood out, The Boy's choice... ? ? Not a b list celebrity in sight in my 7 year old's hall of fame ? ? Go on have a guess... ? ? Robert Stephenson |
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8.4.05 20:33 |
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Lost in translation I y a des
« entre la
« celui là,
« le roi dit
« on dirait
« long comme
« aimable
« c’est du
« il a eu
« je te
« tu me
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11.4.05 18:46 |
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Lost in translation #2 "il a un nom à coucher dehors"
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12.4.05 18:09 |
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