Kim at Work

Walking up the road to the Hospital front gate.
The Front Gate/Entrance - security keeps the riff raff out!
The Grounds - pretty eh.
More of the grounds....
And more .....
The cafe where we all eat very ordinary food at very cheap prices.
Jane - my collegue and friend - hard at it!
My desk and all my bits (work bits that is).

Portobello Road Market 1

About a kilometre long, this has all sorts of stuff. Famous for antiques but there's more to it than that. There's junk, food and junk food. There are clothes, furniture, pictures and cheap jewelery. And crowds. Big crowds.

By sections, then...

Woke up this morning to this. So we called the police.

Antiques:

Feeling horny? I can't believe that is the best caption I can come up with for this pic!
I remember getting these from my granny. Every time she openned a new packet of fags I got a picture card. Nothing like getting kids interest early. All you get these days are useless warnings. Bah!
You can get intravenous tea in this shop.
Lead soldiers. These are great for getting you started on heavy metal poisoning at an early age.
Pewter. You can put beer in that.

Food:

Noice melons.
Snack time.
Where breakfast comes from.
Who ate all the pies? Me actually.
Dead plants, too.

Music - Well, this is a REALLY musical area. We got the West Indians in abundance so there's Calypso to Heavy Dub. 'Feed the World' was recorded at the studio across the road. The Notting Hill carnival is LOUD and, well, there is great sound everywhere. If I ever figure out how to put audio on this blog, you can share:


Great stall, this. Old Time Music Hall loud enough to make your ears bleed. Curiously interspersed with R&B!
A lot of image to little effect, this guy. Great sounds from the boom box but accompanied by bongo drums - instrument of choice of the talent-challenged busker. Locks and beany - a little tired, methinks. But, hey, at least he's having a go, I suppose.
This guy's REALLY good. Classical and Spanish guitar.

Misc - so called 'cos it misced the other sections (yeah, I know; groan).

We were going to buy this just to annoy the morbidly obese one but we could only put a deposit on its first-born. Something to do with the 6th June coming up.
Portobello Tescos, the single most crappy supermarket on the entire planet. Populated by slovenly, minimum wage, rude, indifferent bums, they could probably do better by dragging a few Nigerian beggars off the street. It's difficult to see how this could be any worse.
Not sure why this bloke has his mug all over this clothes shop wall. It you buy our stuff, you, too, could look like this? Anyhoo, he doesn't look very happy.
What are these, I hear you ask. African stuff, I answer. (shrug)

Right, dunno about you, but I'm a little peckish. See you after lunch...

The Orifice

Not my first choice location (third, actually) but I lucked out with client, project, team and environment. This post is just about the environment and how to get there.

Where is there? Reading, that's where.

Reading is not the arsehole of England, oh no. That's Maidenhead. Were Maidenhead to go out for a massive curry featuring Chicken Vindaloo, Lime Pickle and 25 pints of lager, and then, in the morning, really needed a poo - a big poo -, and left a really annoying stain that just wouldn't go away, that would be Reading. With traffic lights. Lots of traffic lights.

So, you want to go to Reading? Here's how...

First up, hie thee to Ladbrooke Grove tube station...
...to get one of these...
...to Paddington main-line station and then get a 125 (that's 125 miles per hour - or something close to the speed of light if you're Australian) which...
...goes right past the tech-park where my office is (As I couldn't get a nice shot of my building, I got this one of one of Oracle's offices. We also share the site with The Evil Empire - aka Microsoft.) and then on to...
...Reading station (yeah, what a dump) and then...
...on the free bus to the tech-park.

Time to work:
- Home - Ladbrooke Grove: 5 min
- Ladbrooke Grove - Paddington: 5 min
- Paddington - Reading Station: 25 min
- Reading Station to the Tech-Park: 30 bloody minutes around Reading's bloody traffic lights.

I wouldn't mind, but I get to the office 30 min after the train has gone screaming past its back door. Distance travelled in 30 min? About 2 km!

And then it goes all lovely. We got a pond.
We got green stuff.
But, most of all, we got ducks.

Copenhagen 6 - Snakeheads

Thought we'd do a bit of people / fish-like creature smuggling while we were over. Put her to work in the kitchen (whatever that is). She's a bit of a dab-hand at keeping the U-bend clean apparently.

How did I get pregnant? Really. I don't have any of them 'getting pregnant' bits and I smell of fish.

Copenhagen 5 - Roskilde Cathedral

Where you go to be buried when you are better than everyone else.

This isn't it. But it's a nice building and it's right next door.
There it is.
Looks pretty good from the outside.
You pray, I'm taking a nap.
Looks like one of the inmates has had enough laying around and is off for a beer.
In case there was any doubt as to what's inside.
The big picture thingy behind the alter.
A big organ.
Pretty spectacular, eh. And they let you take piccies - unlike Westminister Cathedral, Notre Dame, etc.
Pity the poor bugger who had to paint this lot.

Copenhagen 4 - Roskilde

Base of operations for many a raid into Europe and the UK for those happy-go-lucky Danish tourists, the Vikings. Scary folk, this lot. Sea power, scant disregard for human life and a religion dominated by Thor - god of bashing people over the head with heavy things - drove them on until christianity turned them into the wimps we see today. I mean, when was the last time you saw Prince Frederik striding up the beach with a war hammer, bit of a stiffy and no condoms? Thought so.

Five - count em - Viking boats reconstructed from their deliberately sunk remains. Good movie showing how they were fished out of the fjord, too.
Not in bad shape for something that's been under water for a thousand years or so.
Though some of them didn't come out of it so well.
The Gay Galleon. Those pink shields and the rainbow sail are a bit of a give away. To the sounds of 'Hello, sailor' and 'Who left that stain on my bunk', they would rape all the men and kill all the women. They also established England's first nudist beach and gay rave; The Horny Viking (pointy helmets must be left at the door).
Touch my galleon one more time and it's a blue handbag in the head for you, matey.
Like me tackle?
This bloke...
...made all these...
...and these.