Bwah Ha Ha

Have a spooky night...


































Coventry 1 - 3 Reading
Wow!

Warthogs Express?

Old style rail signals and control box.










The local schools are on half term break this week, so today took Little Lad here to look at the steam trains and a ride up the line. Of course despite the time of year I hadn't realised the whole place would be teeming with ghosts and mini witches and wizards. And Owls LOL. Anyway we had a good time, except him getting trapped in a toilet cubicle but that's another story for perhaps another day...



A lovely old train built in Scotland, used in South Africa and now back in the UK.

Take Courage

Out drinking in a pub on a Monday night? Naughty me LOL.

Mind you, it's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of drinking Directors bitter and draught at that. Although the bottled stuff is pretty good too dontchaknow. Mmmmm.





Both Courage Best and Courage Directors bitter used to be brewed in my home town but the "brand" has now been sold to another brewer. Still tastes fine though.













Kind of makes up for some truly appalling recent football results:

20 Oct QPR 4 - 1 Reading
26 Oct Reading 0 - 1 Leicester

Dare I even go look at where the Royals are in the table now?

Something Special

There's really something special about rainy afternoons and a first ever trip to the cinema...

Ponder-ance

In a variation of a popular joke...

Why did the office chair cross the road?

Trafalgar Day!

Proud to be British.

Not Good At All

Recent footie results:

3 Oct Reading 0 - 2 Middlesbrough

17 Oct West Brom 3 - 1 Reading

A Kick Up The Arts!

Last night our potter's guild hosted Neil Brownsword who grew up in Staffordshire. He trained at some of the house-hold name ceramic factories (such as Wedgewood), most of which have sadly now disappeared. In the late 1940's there were around 70,000 people directly employed in the pottery industry in that area, now the figure is closer to 5000 and the factories have been bulldozed.

Neil gave an overview of his work and motivations as well as a small demonstration of how to print onto clay using coloured slips. This is very quick work but as you can see from the images below, it can be messy work. Excellent!

Neil paints a plaster bat with a base colour of slip. He then scratches out his desired design in reverse, which he paints over with different colours.



















A piece of clay is rolled out to the desired size and shape. It is then painted with a base colour slip.


















The clay is then pressed against the plaster bat for a short time. Hopefully the image in the coloured slip will transfer to the clay...















The image is reveled! Not perfect but for the purposes of a demo, you get the idea. Once glazed, the image will show much more clearly.

















Maybe I can take some inspiration from this and use in my own work...

She's Back

The wonderful Elizabeth Sladen returns to our screens later this week in The Sarah Jane Adventures and the BBC have thoughtfully released a trailer for the third series. Readers outside the UK may not be able to view this, sorry.




Can we expect more farting aliens? LOL

By The Light Of The Moon

Please don't ask me why but I always feel there is something special about seeing the moon during the daytime.



If you squint you can just about make it out, but it is there, I promise.







Hasn't it been chilly recently? A sure sign winter is on it's way, with bracing walks and hearty meals something to look forward to.

Update: Strange that after posting the above I found the Daily Telegraph chose to run this story today, ahead of NASA's attempt to crash two spacecraft into the moon's southern pole. Let's just hope it doesn't somehow spell the end for us all! LOL

Drink NCIS

Regular visitors to this blog may recall I am rather partial to NCIS. So much so in fact, I'm currently managing between 5 and 6 repeat episodes per week thanks in the UK to CBS and Five. Repeats of this excellent series are usually far better than anything else on TV and that got me to thinking why exactly that is.

As far as I can see it's success is perhaps closely related to the fact that it sticks to a very strict formula, more so than many other series. You always know what to expect. Not that it isn't inventive or at times shocking just that there are certain signposts that get checked most episodes. So I thought how about turning this into an interesting challenge..?

So without further delay, ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the NCIS Drinking Game.

1 Grab yourself a bottle of your favourite and a shot glass.
2 Pour yourself a measure and consume every time one of the following occurs:

• Someone is referred to as "Probie"
• Jimmy Palmer gets lost on the way to the crime scene
• DiNozzo mentions a scene from a well known movie
  
• Abby throws her arms around a co-worker or gets to show off her latest body art
• Someone spills Gibbs' coffee
• Ducky starts to reminisce on his past glories. Pour a double if he finishes the tale
• Gibbs spends a moody but pivotal moment with his boat
  
• Tony gets head slapped
• Abby's farting Hippo makes it's presence heard
  
• Someone makes an ill-timed reference to Jethro's private life
• It is mentioned that the female agent used to guard the President or work for Mossad
• McGeek is used as a substitute for the Timothy's surname

Hic. LOL