Tom Browne Ponders The Price Of Posterity

So anyhoo: I was meandering past Sir Thomas Browne (the Headache Man) yesterday lunchtime when I spotted a pigeon nestled in his outstretched hand.
As I reached for my camera, however, the idiot bird flew off, but I managed to just catch the thing as it launched.

Click on the photo and blow it up and you'll probably be as startled as I was to discover that pigeons take off backwards!
This bird is definitely taking off and not landing. It's rather helicopter-like, with a bit of vertical take off and reversing before sticking its wings in forward gear.
So what was going to be a photo of Sir Tom pondering a handful of pigeon droppings and the ignominy of becoming an avian toilet, instead demonstrated to me that I can indeed learn something new every day (yesterday I also learned about beet and chocolate muffins - yay).

Henri's Back

You gotta love that last "merde" during the fade-out.

What To Do With Those Old Christmas Sweaters

WTF Monday - Reject Ticket

Don't forget that all-important reject ticket,

otherwise you're gonna to get your reject explosive product shoved right back at ya.

Stained Glass Sunday

Check out our spears, laydees.

Wednesday Window - This Horse Totally Rocks

Treble, Middle and Bass

This one's from my temporary job as Cathedral Tour Guide during last Friday's team building day.

What's the interweb for if not for posting photos of … er … mighty organs?

The bass pipes up on the balcony sound awesome; they reach right into your intestines and rearrange your breakfast.

WTF Monday - Chickenpig

Sunday Sacrifice

When I got back from taking my tour group of London and Cambridge staff around the Cathedral during Friday's Team Building Day we found Dale and Stuart on the office terrace sacrificing animals in front of the Temple.

Meet my boss. Being … er … bossy.

And yes, the animal sacrifice worked. After months of non-stop rain (including torrential downpours that very morning while we toured Phil's Magical Kingdom), the weather gods accepted the offering of burnt meat and veggies (falafel and spinach quarter-pounders according to the box in the photo) and parted the clouds for us.
Yay!

More from the Team Building Day later.

Happy Sunday, y'all.

PS:

Read this. It's beautiful.

Bacon Belle

Is it just me, or is everyone else also a little bit in love with their favourite barista?

I've got a couple of long term favourites, both of whom I'm a little in love with, but of course in different ways as one of them is a guy … ahem. I'm talking about Chris and Louisa from Saturday Breakfast Club.
Chris, because he's a hairily handsome bastard and impossibly cheerful in the face of bickering families with screaming kids, but mostly because he proudly sports the most extensive and expensive collection of traditional and beautifully coloured yakuza-style koi tattoos ever seen on a white guy.
You can't beat the classics, and Chris makes all of those token tat guys with 'trendy' Maori, tribal or Celtic tattoos look a little bit pathetic. Yay him for doing it properly.

And Louisa, because … well … because she's Louisa. Tall, willowy, ponytailed and perky and always ready to chat and laugh with a creepy old guy like me while she serves the rest of the queue. And yes, she's pretty and yes, she has a butt I could cup in one hand and yadda, yadda, yadda … So yeah, you can chalk this one up with all of my 500 Words stories that come under the tag: "My Apparent Waitress Fixation."

Anyhoo: on to the real point of this excruciating ramble: this morning at breakfast whilst chatting away to Louisa I learned of the existence of THE MOST WONDERFUL THING IN THE WORLD™ and I WAAAAANT one!

We were discussing the difference between an Italian latte and the version Louisa serves with her Norwich accent: 'the larrrr 'ee', when the implausibly slender and lissome Polish girl, Anita, poked her head round the kitchen door and yelled across to Lou, "I've rung the bell for bacon!"

And the world stopped spinning and we all fell off …

"I have GOT to get myself one of those!" I said.
"One of what?" asked Louisa.
"A bell you can ring for bacon."
At which her eyes opened wide and she started moaning with unfulfilled desire.
"Baaaaay-con. Oooooh, a bell that brings baaaay-con. Yes, Yes, YES!"
"That's going to torment me all weekend." I said, and we both moaned some more, and there may have been some drooling going on there, too, for a bit.

Admittedly, my own moan of desperate longing was not just for the bell that brings bacon - wonderful though that is - but inevitably involved the impossible dream of practicing another pork-related activity with the pony-tailed princess of the foamy milk jug. But for a minute there we enjoyed a Meg Ryan gasping and moaning episode together, which will indeed torment me for the rest of the weekend but I've learned to be happy with what I can get.

So if anybody ever wonders what to get me for birthdays or Christmas, start searching now for THE MOST WONDERFUL THING IN THE WORLD™: A bell I can ring for bacon! I want one of those so much!
Or if you can't get that, I'll settle for Louisa, nicely packaged in a little waitress outfit and delivered to my door. And don't forget to poke air holes in the box; we don't want a repeat of the time Knudsen shipped me that Japanese girl and forgot the air holes (see posts passim). Sheesh, that was not nice.

So fess up: who's your favourite barista?