Not exactly picturesque

Current mood: Photographic
Current music: Zilch

After the stupendous verbosity of my last entry, I have decided that words have become a bit too much for my loyal but stunned readership and so, as a little light relief, I shall focus on the visual rather than the textual element this time. The infuriating process of uploading all of the pictures below will probably drive me insane, but I suppose one has to sacrifice for the sake of art.

The underlying theme connecting these photos (all of which, I am proud to say, I took myself - no borrowing off someone else's site, for a change!) is 'Local Oddities'. Well, except for the last two pictures. Those photos feature cats, which are generally a little mysterious, but aren't unusual enough to be considered 'oddities'. I just happen to be particularly pleased with the results. Anyway, here goes!

********************

Candles don't get dribbly by themselves; they require several days' effort from skilled candle dribblers to achieve the desired effect. You'd know this already if you're an avid reader of Terry Pratchett; but here is solid proof...


A little-known botanical fact: CDs grow on the SongSong Tree.

This is truly bizarre. There is in this city a little public park, where old water bottles covered with flypaper have been attached to some half a dozen trees. Flypaper in an open green space? What? Once I actually came across a couple of park attendants in the act of putting up new flypaper. I couldn't resist asking them why. 'To protect the public,' came the reply, 'by trapping mosquitoes and other insects.' 'Ah!' I said, as if the answer explained all, and took my leave. I tactfully refrained from asking further, probing questions, such as: 'What makes you think that your actions will have any substantial effect, given that this is all outdoors? Mosquitoes tend to hang around animals rather than trees, don't they? Why are only these trees flypapered, and not all the rest of the trees in the park?' And so on.

One has to wonder who dreams up these ideas in the first place.


Not far from the little park with the flypapered trees, I solved the mystery of where road signs go when they die. They all come here... to the [significant pause] Signpost Graveyard.

A thing that says exactly what it is. Fair enough.

In a little spotlit niche set into the wall of a public lavatory, I found this shiny metallic piece of what can only be called 'Toilet Art'.


I like going to the theatre. It's a nice, cultural sort of way to spend an evening. But I always thought that dancers had homes to go to after the show. This is not, apparently, the case. I never realised, until I saw this, that they actually keep dancers in a box in the theatre.

I'm not even going to ask what they put in the box next to it...


Go and find your own park bench! These seats have all been taken. By two-dimensional people.


In an effort to prevent avian flu, we are starting to replace all real birds with two-dimensional bird models made out of wooden boards. These come with extra benefits: they don't eat, they don't damage trees and flowers by building nests in them, and they certainly don't drop 'messages' from the sky...


It's amazing what people would do for the sake of advertising, isn't it? They've put a giant crab on the top of this taxi. I wouldn't recommend taking this cab in case the crab cracks open the top of the vehicle like a tin can and snaps its pincers at you.


Don't worry, says the driver - I can parallel park, so be happy...


I am aware that not everyone in the world has read 'Good Omens' by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. This is a shame. However, I can recommend this book on the basis that it is bound to be one of the funniest books on the Armageddon you'll ever read. Just to give you the main idea: According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, the world will end next Saturday - just after tea, in fact. Aziraphale ('an Angel, and part-time rare-book dealer') and Crowley (a demon or, more precisely, 'an Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards') are going against the orders of Heaven and Hell, and are trying to stop this from happening. They have to find and kill the Antichrist - who happens to be a highly imaginative 11-year-old boy, who really cares about the environment... You'll have to read the book to find out what happens. Anyway, in the book, Crowley - a swish, sunglasses-wearing, gadget-loving type of demon - is said to own a sleek black 1926 Bentley. I figure that if he ever decided to get himself a Mercedes, he may well get himself something like the one in the photo. Note the triple-six number plate...


Wandering about on one of the islands one afternoon, I met an energetic black-and-white cat which managed to leap, in a few quick, successive bounds, all the way from embankment level to beach level, and then back up again. The embankment was a good few metres high, and it didn't look possible to jump, but the cat achieved it all the same. I managed to take this rather serendipitous shot just as the cat started making its first ascending leap. And just so you know - of course our heroic cat made it to the step!

Later that evening I came across a bunch of feral cats. A cat-loving chap was offering them a bite to eat - McWings, from the looks of it - and trying to lure them close enough to give them a pat on the head. Being a bit on the wild side, the cats declined to be stroked like a pampered puss, but were nevertheless not about to turn down a free snack, and swarmed towards the food. I took this beautifully eerie picture, not in the moonlight, but in the light of someone else's camera flash - a rather lucky snapshot, as an identical tableau using the flash from my own camera just didn't get the same feel...

********************

That's all for now, folks. Hope you liked them!