I ain't saying yo' momma's fat, but....

....when she just bent down I thought I was in the Tate Modern.

Rolling news gathers no moss

There’s a famous episode of ‘The Likely Lads’ where the two chaps spend an afternoon attempting to avoid the result of an England football game so that they can watch it on TV that night. I was thinking about this recently while queuing in the local Sainsbury's. If it was hard to achieve the task then, it’d be practically bloody impossible now: the shop in question has recently installed a load of monitors above the queue. These are constantly – and noisily – displaying a mixture of weather updates and music videos along with a continual news ticker thing. Keeping up to date with events is all very well, but what about those of us who don’t actually want to know if Brad Pitt has pulled out of a movie, or the latest non-story from Praia de Luz?

A few days after grumbling to myself in the Sainsbury’s queue, I was on a train in Birmingham. The local train company have installed TV monitors in every carriage. Again, they display Sky News updates and announce the news – loudly – to everyone in the carriage, whether they want to hear it or not. Am I alone in not being totally happy with these developments? I’d like to watch the news when it suits me. I want to get a train or go shopping safe in the knowledge that I won’t be forced to listen to rubbish music or have to avert my eyes from news about celebrities.

There are two parallel processes going on, that to some extent conflict. While our surroundings become ever more loud and demanding of our attention, as individuals we are increasingly likely to try and drown out the noise and preserve our own environment. Instead of appreciating Sainsbury’s attempts to provide me with a relaxing and enjoyable shopping experience, I just turn my ipod up louder. I also need to do this on the bus to combat the antisocial idiots blasting out tunes from their mobile phones. Why is it always bloody Akon?? There was a feature on the local news recently about new technology that would allow moving video advertisements on the walls along tube platforms, gradually replacing the posters that are there at the moment (it’s already happening on the escalators). Advertisers must be rubbing their hands with glee, but for me it just signals yet another type of intrusive pollution to try and ignore on a daily basis.

Meandering further down this particular cul-de-sac, the insatiable demand to know EVERYTHING and know it NOW is removing the element of surprise from our lives. An example from last week: the BBC had plastered over its website that a past character was returning to the next series of Dr Who (if you don’t know who it is, I’m not going to be the one to spoil it, although there’s not a chance in hell you’ll make it as far as the broadcast date without finding out). Being a fan of Dr Who, I was initially quite excited by this development. Later in the day though, I realised that I was sad to have that surprise spoiled: it would have been far more exciting to have watched the show with no prior knowledge and then got a real shock as the story developed. I know TV companies etc. want to build interest and ensure high ratings, but I wish they would step back sometimes and think about keeping things under wraps a little more. Trailers are exactly the same: you can watch a trailer for a film or for the next episode of a TV show and completely ruin it for yourself.

I’m tired with the obsession with breaking news. Sky News proudly announce that they have won an award for ‘breaking news’. Well done them. My favourite type of breaking news right now would be when I put my foot through the TV.


A related PS
One Grand National day a couple of years ago, I was on the bus back home from watching the mighty Manchester City pulverise some unfortunate team [just looked it up: 2005, we beat Liverpool 1-0 with a great late goal from Kiki Musampa] and I wanted to get home and watch the National re-run without knowing the result. I had managed to avert my eyes when they put the result on the big screen at City and was hoping to get home and see if I had backed a winner. But the bus was packed and surely someone would spoil it for me, talking to mate or on the phone or something? The only device I had to block out the noise was my mobile phone and radio attachment kit. But it would have been very risky to put the radio on so I couldn’t do that either. A frantic search through my phone (all the while trying to block out all conversations around me) revealed that it had come with a sample piece of music to reveal its music-playing capabilities. Result! The song? “Strange Transmissions” by The Peter Malick Group featuring Norah Jones. Oh well, it would have to do. The bus took about 45 minutes to get home meaning that I must have listened to that song about 15-20 times along the way. On something approaching full volume. Nobody needs that. I doubt even Norah herself has done that. Every time it drew to a close, I would panic as the voices grew louder, hurriedly fumble for the restart button and relax once more into its aural duvet.

Another day in the hood

Back in July, I detailed an action-packed day in the Brixton 'hood. Scroll down to the first July entry. Last Sunday I had another eventful day which shared some of the homely niceness, but added a lot more gritty street realism. This time I:

1. Baked a cake. Apple and plum this time, following the same basic recipe as the blueberry and pear one from the summer. Tasty apples from the Bingley garden.



2. Witnessed a fight in Tesco. This was brilliant! I had only just entered and was choosing some bananas (must have a bit of green, no brown) when there were shouts from the entrance a few metres away. A big guy was shouting 'Don't slap me!' and was trying to hit a woman. She was screaming about something and trying to hit him back. Her son (I guess) was screaming 'HE HIT MY MUM! YOU F*CKER!' and trying to hit the first guy. The first guy then chinned him. Lots of shoppers were gathering to watch and the security guards piled in to try and stop it. They initially seemed to have done the trick and wrestled the three protagonists apart. Then the boy realised that he was surrounded by weaponry, grabbed a few pot plants from the aisle and started chucking them at the first guy. It all flared up again - lots of shouts, screams and swearing. In the chaos that followed someone actually threw a child's pushchair across the store. A child started crying (I don't think they were in the pushchair at the time). I stood gawping, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. The son was pushed outside and continued to yell about what he was going to do to the first guy. It all calmed down, 3 police cars, 1 police van and 1 ambulance rolled up, and shoppers eventually got back to their shopping. I went home and excitedly told CP all about it. Superb.

Sadly, a photo will not follow.

3. submitted a legal action against a shockingly incompetent / downright crooked* internet-based mobile phone company. I won't name them here, I'll wait until I have won my claim before I do that. I signed up for one of those too-good-to-be-true free phone contracts earlier in the year: send your bills in and if you adhere to our ludicrously strict small print we send your money back. Well the company in question haven't given me the money back, despite me adhering to their ludicrously strict small print, and have repeatedly bullshat me with excuses / lies* about problems with their computers, claim backlogs and bank complications. I realised that my polite, increasingly firm emails/phone calls were just being ignored and it was time to get legal on their ass. Smell my writ you mothers!

(* delete as applicable, but it's the latter)


Then I had a nice sit and a cup of tea.

"joke"

CP was very ill last week, totally wiped out by some evil virus. So poorly in fact, that our booked and paid for jaunt to Bruges had to be abandoned. She could barely move for much of the week, and felt nauseous when she did. I was genuinely quite worried at one point and called the GP to arrange a home visit. CP hadn't eaten or drunk anything for several days yet still felt sick for most of the time. I came home from work after the GP had visited and asked how things had gone. CP then began talking quite animatedly, but instead of answering my question she started muttering things like, "They're all the same you know...they control the world...always after money, looking out for themselves...weird customs...". I was baffled - what was going on? I picked up the bottle of pills by her side and it became clear - the pharmacist had given her a dose of anti-semitics by mistake. Well, you know what doctors' handwriting is like.


Thankfully, she's made a full recovery.

Hey, Blues Baby B!

Occasional Tombolablog cruiser Christophe turned 28 last Friday and I only realised today. Oops. If you're reading, here's a gift. And for everyone else, here's a gift that keeps on giving. It's probably worth fast forwarding through the first 30secs though.



This popped up on my ipod earlier and brought a big grin to my face. A timeless classic.

Cheap thrills...

This prompted a Beavis & Butthead style 'heheheheh' chortle when I spotted it on Brick Lane earlier today. You'll probably need to click on the picture to be able to make out all of the intelligent additions to the poster.

























[Tombolablog's lawyers would like to point out that Tombolablog in no way endorses the claims made in the above photograph. Legal ed.]

Hey, old St Pauls! ...when the grass is jewelled...

For several weeks I'd been searching for an opportunity to engineer an entry about a popular and memorable Primary School hymn. So imagine my delight upon reading this story on the BBC website last night, it also being the main story on the evening news.

If you're not sure what I'm getting at, here's the key quote:

"An MoD spokesman added: 'As a precautionary measure air-to-air refuelling has been suspended for all Nimrod aircraft, until the results of a full investigation have been considered.' "

Wonderful. I think it's accurate to say that the air was punched when I spotted that. All of those regular discussions about the song and its apparent glaring flaw can now be binned then. That third line is not there purely because nothing else rhymes with 'jewelled'. Jet planes DO meet in the air to be refuelled, and they DO do it in autumn. Well, they did until they started breaking.

So those lyrics in full. Get out your 'Come and Praise' and turn to hymn number 4 (Emily can probably correct me on that). All together now....

Autumn days, when the grass is jewelled,
And the silk in a chestnut shell,
Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled,
All these things I love so well.

So I mustn't forget
No, I mustn't forget
To say a great big thank you
No, I mustn't forget.

Clouds that look like familiar faces
And winter's moon with frosted rings
Smell of bacon as I fasten up my laces
And the milkman sings.

Whipped-up spray that is rainbow-scattered
And a swallow curving in the sky
Shoes so comfy though they're worn out and they're battered
And the taste of apple pie.

Scent of gardens when the rain's been falling
And a minnow darting down a stream
Picked-up engine that's been stuttering and stalling
And a win for my home team*.


*This is the version that you will have had in your hymn book, but 'a win for Man City' is the more popular line that can be heard in assemblies throughout the land.

I was going to stop there but now other school hymn memories have been stirred. Similar to the altered City line in 'Autumn Days', 'When a knight won his spurs' (Come & Praise, no. 82 [if '82' is correct then that's an impressive yet weird thing to have retained]) would be reworded thus:

'When City won Spurs,
and the score was ten-nil.
David White got six,
and Stevie Redmond got four'

[All I can remember of the original version is that the first line was 'When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old'].

The other one that I remember well is about how there is loads of stuff in this world, and it's all due to one thing:

'There are hundreds of sparrows, thousands, millions,
They're two a penny, far too many, there must be.
There are hundreds of sparrows, thousands, millions,
But God knows everyone and God knows me.'

The other verses followed this pattern, with other things substituted for sparrows. 'Planets' is the only other one that I can remember. If it was written now then perhaps 'TV channels', or 'types of Special K' would feature. I'm not sure where this blog is going anymore to be honest. I meant to go to bed ages ago.

My final school hymn memory is also probably a good illustration of an element of my personality. In particular, the tendency to be awkard purely for my own amusement. At St. Paul's we'd occasionally have classes where we'd do some singing practice (probably a teacher had to do something else so a few classes got lumped together in the Hall). We'd cover the usuals, and then Mr. Hubbold (who played the piano) would ask for requests from the hymn book. Up would go the hands and without fail this would mean an airing of 'Autumn Days' (we never tired of singing about those jet planes!) or maybe 'All things bright and beautiful'. At some point in these classes, however, I twigged that it would be more interesting to pick one from the book that we NEVER sang. Not because I was interested in hearing a new hymn, nor that I liked the words and wanted to sing them. No, I knew that if I picked an obscure one then nobody would know how it went and that would result in an awkward, stunted farce. Even better, if I was really lucky I might pick one that Mr Hubbold couldn't even play, which would be brilliant. I'm pretty sure that if I was asked to pick a hymn on one occasion, my eagerly outstretched hand was ignored every time after that. I have a vague recollection that I did try the trick a couple of times and Mr Hubbold just said no. So we sang Autumn Days again.

BEASTIE BOYS ANGER AT PARKING RESTRICTIONS

"We often pop over to Brixton to see our boy Tombola. But now that these draconian restrictions have been passed, where are we supposed to park?", asked Ad-Rock, yesterday. MCA added, "Lambeth Council have not heard the last of this. Sometimes (you gotta) fight DUR DUR for your right DUR DUR DUR DUR (to park!). Kick it!"

Local VW owners were not available for comment, although they are believed to be pleased with the new regulations.

Hey, Old Blues!

If Pleasant can't see the top of the BT Tower from his window, we get sent home right?

Night of the sunflowers

Summer's gone...days spent with the grass and sun....

Apart from the Velvet Queen which is still battling away despite constant attacks from the ravenous goldfinches, the sunflowers are all dead now. Biggy Smalls...dead. Tupac....dead....maybe I shouldn't have named them after deceased rappers. Junior & Senior and the Twins gone too and now all just feeding the birds.

Who won the competition then? Who knows? Or even cares? Despite our glorious early burst, it wasn't me. We didn't pass 2metres. Moon appears to be the winner based on published evidence, but I know with mine own eyes that Ak's was bigger than that until it perished in the winds last week.

Time we got a new comp underway. Any one? I'll also need something else to write about on here through those winter months!

We're caught in a trap. I can't walk out, because my leg is all mangled like

A few weeks ago I had an unpleasant experience with a mouse. Well, this morning I was awoken by distressed calls from CP. This time her leg had been caught in a trap and so I was faced with a difficult choice.

Ha, of course not. No, CP was distressed because she had gone downstairs to find another mouse caught in a snap trap, but again not dead. Rubbish! We must have the least humane mouse traps ever! But as a now hardened killer, I began the process of mentally preparing for the next stage (the concrete flags I used last time had gone, so it was shaping up to be a case of Willis, with the spade, in the back garden). On went the gardening gloves and I was ready to go.

Last time the unfortunate occupant was clearly on the way out, but this new one was still scrabbling about trying to escape. Maybe this one could just hobble free? I took it a couple of streets away, passing a few people on the way ("Morning!") and put the trap down next to a wheelie bin. Should I kill it? See what it does when I let it go and decide from there. No bits of masonry lying about this time so I would need to strangle it. I opened the trap and before I could even get it in a headlock, it did a runner behind the bin.

It's a pity 'That's Life' isn't on anymore

Because my passionfruit's got plums!




(And those are not my elegant fingernails).

Harvest Moon: It's a wonderful life

Moon might have been better off using that title, but as far as I'm aware she's not growing her own crops. So there.

When I first moved to London I got back into my Gamecube and came very close to buying the game Harvest Moon. I was deeply attracted to the idea of coming home from work, after battling past the rest of the rush hour drones, and then spending the evening tending a computer-generated farm. In the game you grow crops to then sell at market, manage a herd of cattle, grow an orchard... whatever farming desire takes your fancy really. You can even court a local village girl, in the hope that your offspring will grow up to continue your farming legacy. What better to drown out the usual Brixton evening chorus of sirens and gunfire than immersing myself in a pretty, make-believe rural community?

Well....I decided that maybe, just maybe, real life might be ok after all. I may not have room to keep a herd of cows (and after seeing one being sick in Scotland I don't think that I would want to) but runner beans, tomatoes, and blueberries seemed a decent starting point.

And now we're reaping the rewards. We've had loads of beans (pick them when young - they're not good when they get big) and now we're getting tomatoes. Hopefully the blueberry will actually flower or something next year.

The television will not be revolutionised

Way back at the start of the year, the I Knit London heroes took on the combined brain might of the Eggheads. Click here and move down to the 2nd item if you want to read the small piece from February


Now, you too can enjoy the titanic struggle that ensued. That's right, the televisual event of the year is happening on Friday August 31, 6pm, BBC 2. Be there, or be C J De Mooi.



Laugh! at Dermot's clumsy knitting-based puns!



Gasp! at my heavily made-up face!



Be awed! by the knitting/general knowledge prowess on display!


If you look closely you might even see me winking flirtatiously at Judith Keppel.

How we used to live

You know that room in the home or workplace where you get drinks or prepare food? Chances are it will have a kettle in there, a sink, cutlery...perhaps even a microwave.

Didn't we used to call this room a 'kitchen'?

No, where I work it's a 'Tea Station'. I expect it's the same at NASA.

Reminds me a bit of when I did some work on the lights at the Johnson & Johnson plant in Hull (happy times!). We were required in the 'Wound Management Laboratory' which sounds pretty exciting right? It was where they made sticking plasters.

I fear that I'm spending too much time listening to Terry Wogan in the morning and becoming a TOG.

Tombola's photo album: the nation gives its verdict

While it may not look like it, I do occasionally spend time outside of the garden. A couple of weeks ago I paid a visit to Lambeth Country Fair. It was an impressive event: live music, some of the biggest bouncy castles I've ever seen, a dog show, small children on motorbikes jumping over cars

and through flaming hoops:

We particularly liked the assistant on standby with the fire blanket. I spent the rest of day singing the Junior Kickstart theme.

and.....as if all of that was not enough, I bumped into a legend. He actually said 'Lovely jubbly' as the photo was being taken. Brilliant.

It was a very hot day and he must have been baking under all of that leather and gold. Responses to this picture can be placed into two categories:

1.

Something along the lines of "Who is he?", or, "He looks like an alcoholic Tommy Lee Jones".

2.

"That is the most awesome thing I have ever seen"

"I hate you. Where was that?"

"That is possibly the funniest pic I have ever seen! Brilliant."

"Amazing work"

"You lucky git! We have a signed photo of Wolfie, but it's not the same."

The Constant Gardener

Surprised that I haven't used that one before. Hello, hello, it's good to be back etc.

May as well pick up where I left off, and give a garden update. Especially as Gaz enjoys them so much. When I left for my hols a couple of weeks ago, my sunflowers appeared to have all peaked, some distance short of the 2m mark. "Russian Giants" my arse. It was a pleasant surprise, then, to return to find that the Velvet Queen donated by Moon was making a late bid for victory. It was 180cm at the last check and is now the King of our garden. Better still, it has about a dozen flowers on it.

The title appears to be between Ak and Munch now, but until either of them displays any evidence that they have 2m+ flowers, and are not just growing bamboo, I declare myself the winner.

It's a good job that Stoke Newington doesn't have much of a Haitian population

This blog was written a few weeks ago and lay dormant in 'Draft' format. By popular demand (Cosmo, this one's for you), here it is.

***

Remember that crazy hat I had when admiring my runner beans? No? Look here.
The hat was purchased a couple of weeks ago, with a fancy dress party in mind. Here it is, along with the other items that made up my outfit. Can you guess what I went as.....






Any ideas?


So that's a top hat & feather.... bamboo flute.... raggedy pants.... threadbare shirt...voodoo doll... and black face paint (sounds like a nightmarish version of the Generation Game).


That's right: Baron Samedi, the voodoo high priest made famous by Geoffrey Holder in 'Live and Let Die'.



An obvious choice for any fancy dresser, right? I'd first considered dressing as this guy prior to the ill-fated Womble debacle a few years ago. Long story, but basically myself and two others dressed as Wombles for a fancy dress 70s party. At Leeds station, a group of drunken thugs took exception to this and, after trying to steal Mme Cholet's head, smacked us upside the head a bit. Instead of arresting some of the b*stards for assault, the police found this all rather amusing. Nice one.


You'd think I might have learned my lesson after that. If not, surely the message should have hit home a couple of years later, narrowly avoiding a beating dressed as Scooby Doo in Sheffield? Nope, last Saturday I was in Stoke Newington looking like this:



Making a shirt and pair of trousers go all raggedy was a lot of fun. Thowing a garden fork through the shirt resulted in an effect that you could easily pay big money for down the fashionable boutiques.

I was fairly paranoid from the start about causing offence in this costume. I'd been assured the day before that lots of people would be wearing odd stuff, including a Spiderman. This convinced me to go for it. Not so: approximately four people were dressed up. 'Spiderman' = a man in jeans and T-shirt with a Spiderman eye mask that he wore for the first 10 minutes. Great. To be honest, I did know that the party theme was 'Masquerade' so I really ought to have taken that on board. But once the prospect of wearing a top hat and raggedy pants got into my head, there was no stopping it!


Fortunately, all went well. Most people knew who I was supposed to be and sympathised with my retarded-childlike playing of my bamboo flute (some people who couldn't see me actually thought that there was a pre-schooler learning the flute in the house next door). I was in the toilet queue (you who do voodoo use loo too) when the wind left my sails. "Minstrels!" came the call a guy joining the line. "No! I'm the guy from the Bond film!" I anxiously responded, quickly turning my face left and right to display the painted/non-painted sides. The toilet became available, and that was the end of that. I didn't see the guy again. I don't know if he genuinely thought I was making some kind of racist statement or was just messing with me. Either way, I began to feel a bit awkward and got changed not long after (I'm not completely stupid - I'd never intended to get on the night bus to Brixton dressed like that).

Here's my voodoo doll, Clarkson:

Another kill and I get my '00'

It's been a traumatic day. Readers keen on animal rights might not want to read any more of this. Ditto anyone about to eat a meal. This blog can't be all sunflowers and knitting. I need to report the bad stuff too.


Regular readers may recall that we've had a long-running battle with mice in our house. Initially I ignored them, but then the battle became gradually more extreme, through humane traps, various baits, snap traps and then poison. Recently though, there's been no problem and they seemed to have got the message that they weren't really welcome. Until this morning. I came downstairs to find a mouse in the snap trap. Only it wasn't dead. Its back leg was caught in there and although it was alive, it certainly wasn't very well. While I agonised over what to do, it would occasionally make small pathetic movements with its other paws.


Two options then. Let it go somewhere, where it would most likely die a pretty slow death. Or complete a murine act of euthansia. I took it outside and to the end of the street where there was a big pile of rubbish. There, I released it from the trap. I was hoping that it might maybe give me a little wink, shake the cramp out of its leg, and skip merrily away. No. It dragged itself a couple of cm, and then gave up. Still breathing, but looking incapable of moving any distance. The old internal debate kicked in: I must do the decent thing, finish the poor animal off. But maybe it just needs a rest after its stressful experience? When it's recuperated it might be ok? Come on, look at its leg - it's practically detached. By now it was after 7am and a few people were walking past on their way to work. I had to make a decision.


In amongst this pile of junk were some paving slabs. I don't need to spell out what happened here. It wasn't pretty, and I felt pretty sickened afterwards. But at least it was swift.



*


A while ago Ak was griping about how freak storms were smashing up his sunflowers. I scoffed. Yeah yeah, just because your sunflowers are puny weaklings. But now I have some sympathy. This evening our garden was pummelled by hailstones. Leaves were shredded, and flowers smashed.











The pics show a sunflower leaf, and a nasturtium, as any fule kno. Ripped to pip, I tell you!

A day in the hood

Domesticated blog time. Jonze will love this. Today I have:

1. Baked a cake. Blueberry and pear. It's very tasty. I just followed CP's instructions really, but I'm proud of it. Mmm!

2. Measured my sunflowers. Here is what is probably our first entrant in the competition. It is approx. 165cm tall and now that it has a flower I'm guessing that it won't grow much taller. We'll see.

3. Admired my fledgling runner beans. Anyone know any runner bean recipes? I'll hopefully be needing them in the next few weeks.

4. Submitted a paper to Work & Stress (rating: 2.156 Impact Factor fans!).

Readers, watch this space for more action-packed blogs!

Coming soon to a railway siding near you

My favourite is 'Mikz race kid'.

John Barry Bingo II

Quick post script about last night....

It was amazing. The only minor downer was that I'd convinced myself that Shirley Bassey would make a special guest appearance to sing Goldfinger and sadly that wasn't to be. That aside, it was class. I thought I might actually explode during the Bond medley at the end.

Here's a very ropey pic of John Barry getting a standing ovation:

And now for the bit that you really want to know. The winning Barry Bingo card:

This earned me a free trip to see Die Hard 4 (for getting the most crossed off) AND a free drink when we get there (for being the first to get a line). It was a very tight game - I claimed victory by a single point. I can heartily recommend concert bingo though - we're seeing Jarvis Cocker on Saturday and I'm threatening to create a 'Cocker Lottery' for that.

John Barry Bingo

Tonight I shall be attending this, and I am very excited indeed. I've been a big fan of John Barry's music since being introduced to Bond films as a kid and my interest has grown from there. Those lucky enough to be in attendance at the first (and likely only) Tombola DJ set will, I'm sure, have fond recollections of hearing the Moonraker theme (end title). Not too sure how much involvement Brer Barry had with the discofying of that version but it's on his Moonraker soundtrack so it's good enough for me. Also on that album is the track, 'Bond Smells A Rat', which is one of the best titles in my collection.

As if I couldn't be excited enough already, the adrenaline levels will only be increased further by the involvement of John Barry Bingo.

The draw was made last night. The 21 tracks included on the Themeology collection were put into a big pot and used to draw out two sets of 15.

To add to the atmosphere, Tombolablog pretended to be Graham Kelly for the occasion ("Hello and welcome to the John Barry Bingo draw. The ties will be played on Thursday 21st June, 2007"). CP dressed up as Sir Bert Millichip. I love it when she does that.

Here's what the beautifully crafted bingo cards look like:

CP picked a good collection. I wanted Vendetta and Wednesday's Child so I remain a bit jealous of that. There's recently been much frantic listening to some of the more obscure tracks such as 'The Knack' or 'Walk don't run' so that we can definitely recognise them if they are played.

And here's my gamecard. I was very pleased to get 'The Persuaders theme' as word is that it's very likely to feature tonight (the music is selected by Jarvis Cocker as this is part of his Meltdown curation. 'The Persuaders' is apparently his favourite Barry piece).

We'll need to be pretty discreet with this to avoid irritating those around us. I wonder if I would be thrown out for yelling "HOUSE!" mid-way through 'You only live twice?'

You realise that you're middle class when....

You find yourself having to add "basil" to your mobile phone's dictionary as it doesn't recognise it on predictive text.

I pity the fool that thinks I'm dead

A few months ago I was using a ruler to measure a massive poo on my street. It feels healthier and much more pleasing to be getting my measuring kicks by assessing the growth of my sunflowers. Today the front runner passed the 1m mark. A happy evening in the Tombolablog household, believe me.

But this blog is not about the tall specimens.

This is dedicated to the toughest plant I have ever seen. Even being snapped in two didn't stop it. I was very close to binning it as I didn't want it hindering the growth of the plant it was sharing a pot with, but it has clung to life by a thread and bounced back. It's the Kenny Dobbins (google him) of the horticulture world. It will never win any medals, but it certainly deserves one.

Spot the ball

Yesterday we were walking along the Strand when we noticed a police helicopter, then a police car, and then more and more police motorcyles. Ooh! Could this be the Queen driving past, I wondered excitedly? No. But surely the next best thing! We had the good fortune to have turned up at the exact moment a couple of thousand naked people cycled past. Those of a nervous disposition may wish to avert their eyes...

How does your garden grow?

Have I mentioned that I've been doing a spot of gardening recently?

The sunflowers are now heading towards the magical 1m mark:

Seen as none of my fellow growers have reported their progress recently, I can only assume that the Brixton sunflowers are zooming towards undisputed victory.

The runner beans have been just as successful:

They are now taller than me.

Savage garden

I'm off to Riga this weekend. Woo hoo! According to the Beeb website, this is what the weather will be like:

Alright! For those viewing in black and white, that says SUN and HOT. Better pack the Factor 24. Talking of sun, here's a quick update on the Brixton cottage garden.

A rogue slug broke through my pellet defences this week and chomped on a sunflower. Boo!

Senior's slender frame wasn't strong enough in the wind and he bent over. A big ugly kink in his stem. That's why he's now attached to a big plank splint thing. He remains very tall, but his situation is considered critical. Boo!

Runner beans continue their rapid and impressive growth, winding ever upwards up my canes and wires. Woo!

Back to the sunflower competition and the twins are leading the way for us. This bad boy is now about 48cm tall. Go on son!

It's always nice to be recognised for your efforts

Me and my blue plaque, yesterday.

Of course not. Last time I checked, stumbling through a PhD and finishing 6th in the final of 'The Machine' wasn't enough to be awarded with a blue plaque. This Thomas Willis was a pioneering

(and slightly sken-eyed going off the pic on that wikipedia page) neurologist and also published the earliest English work on medical psychology.

Despite Thomas Willis' sterling efforts though, my favourite Thomas Willis (me aside) is probably the exorcist priest Rev. Thomas Willis from North Yorkshire. He unfortunately doesn't appear to have a webpage of his own, but he does feature in this article, four paragraphs from the end.

More great historical figures (not called Thomas Willis) coming soon, fact fans!