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A personal weblog with photographs and comments. Quiet ramblings, quite rambling...

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The above poster is starting to go up in Oxted, advertising a Summer Concert of Jazz and Classical music.  Scarlett is organising the concert to fund her trip to Brazil to help a local community in Salvador. She will be working under the aegis of Cross Cultural Solutions. 

The concert is being held at St Mary’s Church in Oxted on Sunday 13 August 2006 at 5.30 pm. The poster advertises:

• Young classical and jazz musicians from county and national orchestras;
• Brazilian flavour;
• Tickets: £8- / £5- concessions (on door);
• Includes Brazilian-style nibbles and drinks afterwards in the church hall;
• Raffle to win dinner for 2 at Pizza Express, Oxted;
• Tel: 07731 500 721

The concert should be good, but there’s a lot for Scarlett to organise before then!

This is one of the entrances to the accident and emergency unit at the East Surrey Hospital.  I spent a couple of hours here this morning after awaking with a severe pain in my neck, back and arm which I couldn’t relieve. I left the hospital happier (having been given a morphine-based painkiller) but frustrated. Thinking about my frustration I think it stems from the fact that I have been an avid fan of the TV series House, but the doctor in the hospital was no Dr Gregory House. An X-Ray showed that nothing was broken (I would have been surprised if I had broken my back in my sleep!). He then told me that I didn’t have frozen shoulder, on the basis that I have too much movement in my shoulder. Yeah, but he should have seen me before the morphine! Basically I have been put on a course of pain killers and told that 95 out of 100 people with my condition cure themselves in a week or two. Can’t wait.  He said if I am still in pain in a week’s time I should embark on a course of physiotherapy: “it can help in these cases”.  Right! I phoned the physiotheraphist this afternoon…

This morning I dropped Pinkie at the railway station in Redhill then wandered off to have my hair cut.  On the way I passed the above window (a shop called something like the “Stationery Store"). I noticed that they are selling playboy stationery in black and pink: files, folders and pencil cases. These are displayed between the Ministry of Sound, and Little Brittain materials.  Little Brittain is a show I found funny (mostly, when it wasn’t repeating the same joke over and over), but to be fair it does mock gays, transvestites, women, old people, and the poor. When I saw the stationary I thought of Fink’s observation on the bus from Redhill.

This is a portrait of Pinkie, submitted to today’s Photo Friday challenge: Portrait. Today she returned home from her orchestra tour of Brittany.

And Carles sent me an article about The top 100 global brands. But where’s the BBC?

This evening I picked up bluemeanie at 9pm from her music rehersals on Bluehouse Lane. The sign pictured above is just outside the venue - I took the photograph because I have an interest in graffitti. The stickers are for Imbue biz. According to the website, the stickers are given out free (just provide your address).

The graffiti itself seems to be from the same artistic studio as the War graffiti I posted about previously.  Or should that be anti-war?  The graffiti is about 20 metres apart.

I copied the photo of the hotair balloon from Monday and Hockneyized it using fd’s Flickr Toys.

I have now configured this weblog so I can post a photo and text to this weblog from my mobile phone. I may not actually use it, but perhaps I will witness something exciting. For example driving home this evening I noticed a naked man demonstrating from a pedestrian bridge over the M25 (between junctions 8 and 9, or perhaps 9 and 10). If I hadn’t been driving, and if the car hadn’t been going 70 miles per hour, and if the flasher hadn’t been flashing at the opposite carriageway, etc. etc. 

I was amazed to see on BBC 10 o’clock news tonight that two people were killed as the artwork Dreamspace took off. This artwork is the creation of the artist Stephen Montague who also created the sister work Colourscapes (which I blogged about last week). They appear to be two versions of the same concept.  Dreamspace was recently
destroyed by vandals in Liverpool, so it must have been repaired.

According to eyewitness reports one man inside the sculpture assumed that the take-off was part of the experience. It was the landing that gave it away.  There are some pictures of the accident scene at the BBC site.  There are happier photos dating back to 24 September 2004, over at Flickr.

I took this photo during the dying days of England’s world cup campaign. It seems to be the location of Pro Stage Europe, in Sunbury.

This is a menu board we spotted when we came out of Colourscapes at the Croydon Mela. I wonder if any children baulked at eating one of Heidi’s little goat-friends. I did. Normally when I select “goat” from a menu, it is a soft pungent cheese.

When I started work at my current client I was told by the other consultants that there was a vending machine for condoms in the toilets on the executive floor of the building. I suppose I took it with a pinch of salt, because I was surprised when I discovered for myself that this was true. Perhaps the story does require a grain of salt, as the machine also sells tissues, analgesics, a toileteries travel pack, etc. I do wonder which of the items have the highest turnover, what the turnover of these producs is, and if the same products are available in the women’s toilet.

And of course who exactly came up with the idea of this vending machine. Presumably it wasn’t the previous consultants.

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I found this neat tool which now sits on my desktop at work so that I can check the traffic conditions just before leaving work. It has proved quite useful (today and yesterday), mainly in managing my expectations. Today the traffic conditions had cleared by the time I reached the predicted accident zone, and it only took me one hour to get home. I counted 8 stationary vehicles on the hard shoulder of the M25. This is not unusual.

The above warning reads:

M25 Surrey - Anticlockwise - Heavy traffic
On the M25 anticlockwise between junctions J13 and J10, there are currently delays of 20 mins due to heavy traffic. Normal traffic conditions expected from 5.30 pm.

This message is somewhat ambiguous: normal traffic conditions on this stretch at that time are normally worse than that.

Tomorrow is predicted to be the hottest day of the year.  According to the photograph above, the florist in Uxbridge will be closed. Meanwhile, Fink reports that the underground tube in London is dangerous for transporting cattle. I wonder who tried to take the cow down there.

In one of his better moments, at the end of the concert, the compère at yesterday’s event was giving thanks to everyone who had contributed to the success of the event. He said

... to the people who flew the balloon overhead, ... to all of you who bought a raffle ticket with a 2 on it ...

The first part of that excerpt of thanks refers to the glorious hotair balloon pictured above. The second part refers to the fact that they drew a ticket with the number 2 on it in the raffle, and three or four people came forward with the matching ticket. Apparently the tickets weren’t all the same colour. Dark pink, light pink, orange, etc. The compère had wanted to deal with the embarrassment by offering additional prizes, but I think there was a shortage at that point. He resorted to microphone begging the organisers of the upcoming Farnborough Air Show to donate additional prizes (free entry for a family). Without apparent success, it should be added.

This afternoon and evening we went to an open air concert, entitled Moonlight Serenade in which Pinkie was performing with the Surrey County Youth Wind Orchestra (Scywo).  The other main acts were the Epworth Choir, the GHosTs Choir, and In Accord, while the compère was one Richard Stilgoe, OBE. I had no idea who he was until afterwards, but recognised him as the card he is.  I think he would have done better to sticking to commentating during the gaps between the different performers, rather than introducing almost every song.  He was less in our face after the interval, possibly because of the slippage in the programme (for which I am sure he was partially responsible).

The highlight of the Richard Stilgoe show was when he introduced the Surrey County Youth Wind Orchestra by saying that we should support them because it kept the youth performers out of crime and young offenders institutions. I spluttered more in laughter than outrage, but noticed that his comment invoked serious applause among the large contingent of the Surrey blue-rinse brigade (who were out in force). Perhaps Dave’s hug a hoodie campaign has arrived in the Shires.

Today bluemeanie and I went to the Croydon Mela with Tessa and Jim and Alex and Holly. The most amazing thing was this labyrinth of colour, see pictures above (click to embiggen). One dons robes (provided) the colour of which is a primary colour. Then you enter the labyrinth - made up of pods which are also all of different colours - mostly primary - and filter through the sunlight in that bright colour. Somewhere in the middle was a “white/grey” zone where there were some musicians playing chilled new-age music. A great experience. The Mela website describes it thus:

This large inflatable structure is a walk-in labyrinth of intense colour and light. The Colourscape experience has been compared to being “wrapped in a rainbow” - long views of the most intense colours open up in every direction.

Musicians will perform throughout the day with Mongolian Overtone Singing, Tibetan Singing Bowls, panpipes, Chinese percussion, with a performance by Croydon school children.