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

Better

Preston 1 - 2 Reading.

Still Not Very Good

Reading 1 - 1 Watford.

Apparently the idea behind football is that your team is meant to score more goals than their opponents. Obviously something the Royals have yet to grasp this season.

Cheap 'n' Nasty

Just to prove you only get what you pay for...

The other day I managed to foolishly drop my Mobi (Cell fone) onto a rather unforgiving surface. The back cover over the battery popped off (no biggie) as well as a small piece from the front cover. Of course the back was easy to find but despite spending perhaps half an hour crawling on the floor on my hands and knees (please don't laugh too loudly), I couldn't for the life of me find the little piece for the front.

Now my fone is a tad ancient and perhaps not the most glamorous but I'm kind of attached to it and don't want to replace it over a silly piece of white plastic. Sad aren't I?

You can therefore imagine my delight when I found on a well known auction site a third party replacement cover kit. Yes it was a different colour but I thought ringing the changes would look so cool. And at only £3.99 (US$5.99, AU$7.18) I thought I couldn't go wrong.

How wrong could I be? Yes when assembled it looked great. The problem being that a good number of the buttons wouldn't line up with the membrane on the fone. If I pressed the wrong key either I would get no response or the fone would lock up. Guess I should have known better.

So I'm now back to square one* so to speak...


And before you ask, that is Kate.


* Something to do with a well known board game perhaps? "Do not pass go, do not collect £100" LOL

Don't Panic- It's Just Another Day

Have now achieved the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything as Douglas Adams would have put it. Now all I need to know is, what was the question..? LOL
















Happy Birthday me.

Going Down..?

Recent football results haven't gone The Royal's way:

12/09 Reading 0 - 0 Doncaster
15/09 Reading 0 - 1 Cardiff
19/09 Peterborough 3 - 2 Reading

Name Of The Rose

Spent a very happy day at the historic dock at Portsmouth and also taking in the views from the Spinnaker Tower. Perhaps in a day or so, I'll post some pictures on Webshots. Until then...

Images from the Spinnaker Tower, the hull of the Mary Rose and HMS Victory.