Pew Pew

Some more images from the Sighthill underpass to finish off the month. I told you they had more than one colour of marker pen. The detective in me suspects these may have been stolen from some kind of school classroom with a whiteboard.




I know graffiti's a crime and everything, but I genuinely quite like this one. If it was available in postcard format I would buy it.









Feel a bit sorry for Jack though. I'm sure he's not really an ellyphint. Whatever that is...

(Whilst I appreciate the implication is that Jack is like an elephant, to me the picture is more of a cross between the michelin man and a mouse. Dyslexic bullies - must try harder.)

Effective Advertising

Young persons in Sighthill have been following council advice in a manner of speaking by abandoning the aerosol in favour of the much lazier marker pen. Well, I'm assuming they're young. They could be hoodlum pensioners for all I know.




Oddly specific text on a bus shelter - WE MUST PUT THE EXACT TIME we defaced this piece of property. 'Around 8' is just too general. People need to know this information.













Here on the underpass there are no sprayed tags to be found, yet marker pen appears in an array of colours. Here we see the classic willy graffiti, created for your viewing pleasure by a chap - or chapette - whose art may or may not be influenced by the movie Superbad.

Shouting At Wildlife

Do you remember indie? Do you remember pop? Try new indie pop, revived for your pleasure by the infectiously cheery Kid Canaveral.

In the last couple of weeks their debut LP, Shouting At Wildlife, has been described in the Record as the one album you should buy this year by a band you don't know, Vic Galloway has made it album of the month on his BBC Radio 1 show, The List have given it 4 stars, and lets not even mention the blogging world (although Peenko has a track by track chat with the band here and 17 Seconds speaks to them here, which is nice. Oh, and here's a review by Fire Escape Talking).

So is there really any need for me to throw in my two cents? Of course not. But I shall.

They've got synths! They've got la's! They've got catchy hooks! They've got amazing cover art for the CD courtesy of Glasgow-based graphic designer Eve McConnachie!

There are happy songs, then some more serious stuff as if to prove there are hidden depths beneath the pop perfection swirling on the surface. I'd probably have been quite happy with a whole album of 'Cursing Your Apples', but I was surprised and excited by tracks like 'Quiet Things Are Quiet Now', which is unlike anything I've heard from Kid C before, as well as the distinctly 80s tinted 'Talk and Talk'.

You can pre-order the CD here, which you ought to do because it will make you totally cool. And happy. Then you should come to the album launch at The Roxy Art House. The tickets are on playing cards, for crying out loud! That's reason enough, surely?

Nom Nom Nom

Look, shepherd's pie pacman!

Kind of.

Mealtimes are a proper laugh in our flat by the way.

Meadow Walk

Gummy facial hair.

This is truly gross.

But what else would you do when confronted by a big face, without a marker pen or tin of spray paint to call your own.

Something For The Weekend

Pavement on North Bridge.

Anyone know what this is in aid of?

Handy Items

This is an enigmatic sign if ever I saw one. Just imagine the TV ad.

Person A: I say, what are these handy items?

Person B: Who cares, they're only a pound! Let us make haste before they are sold out and we are left to make do with less handy items, for £1.99 or more!

Person A: OK.

Public Announcement

You have to be seriously anti-smoking to go around impaling tobacco packets on spikes.

Or maybe you don't.

But it's never been on my to-do list.

This is by the play park in the meadows, so maybe the perpetrator just wants to get the message across to children ASAP.

Fight!

Saw this on my way to a film screening for the Edinburgh Film Festival before work yesterday.

It's stenciled onto a piece of chip board on a Castle Street shop front, next to Duo.

These are the sorts of spottings that remind me how much I like being in Edinburgh.

Casual Racism

Bizarre racism on North Bridge.

I doubt the veracity of the statement though. Methinks the perpetrators are all marker pen and no trousers.

Behind The Veil

It would seem that the past three posts have all been photos of my ever increasing book collection. I will only ever be able to read through this mountain if I somehow become housebound for a prolonged period of time, or retire.

Anyhoo, today you can have a dragon in a bride's dress.

This is part of a window display in a Marie Curie shop in Newington. I think it's brilliant. Took a full length pic too but this portrays the expression of the dragon better.

If you donated your wedding dress to a charity shop, would you be pleased or peeved if this is what they did with it? I suppose if you're getting rid, chances are the marriage went a bit wrong and you mightn't give a toss. There again is it not suggesting the owner was responsible for the breakdown of the relationship because she was a bit of a dragon? Surely that's offensive.

I suspect someone in the shop probably just thought it'd look funny. Would love to know who donated the dragon though.

What Is A Pirate's Favourite Shop

Someone at my weekend branch has conducted a vicious cull of pirate related fiction in the past fortnight.

Why would anyone do such a thing? Fear, perhaps. Or a long standing love of the Empire. Or hatred of grog.

Whichever scenarios be true, it scarcely matters. They're mine now. Arr.

A Clash Of Good And Evil

A chap brought some books in to donate today, claiming they were in really good condition. This was demonstrably not the case. But this might be the best tagline I have ever seen.



Child 1: ALISON! WHAT'S THIS WORD? I-N-C-O-N-T-I-N-E-N-CE?
Child 2: CONSTIPATION!
Me: Incontinence.
Child 1: What's incontinence?
Me: Er...
Child 3: It's like constipation! Ewwww!

Robert Pattinson Collects Belfries

In lieu of an interesting photo today, here is an old one featuring a couple of books I inherited from a big library clear out. We had to remove 9 shelves to make room for a spectacularly underused information pod. Totally worth it.

Furthermore, the creator of surprisingly readable Doctor Who blog The Mind Probe has created another internet gem, The R-Patz Factz. This is a bit like the Chuck Norris facts, but more topical as they are about sparkly vampire hunk - or vunk - Robert Pattinson. Follow the blog! Join the Facebook group! It's going to be an internet phenomenon the like of which has never been seen.

Tale The Next

Once Upon A Meadow, sideways of the gaudy clover patch, a pair of gardening gloves lie abandoned and forgotten.

They used to protect the fingers of Franny the Magnificent, an Edinburgh gardener of style and repute. But Franny moved on to higher places and things, like TV cheffing.

So passed the gloves to a careless nephew (and enemy of syntax) named Jarvis. He rarely used them for their intended purpose, preferring instead to insert porridge and leave them in odd places to frighten people with a fear of hands. Several maiden uncles were killed in this manner, and so the gloves were removed from Jarvis' care by a thoughtful squirrel.

Sadly the gloves were a little too heavy for the nameless squirrel to carry very far, and the burden of them made her appear most ungainly. So she dropped them in a meadow, which is where you came in.

Who knows what other adventures lie in store for these finger sheaths extraordinaire? I refer you to someone other than I.

I Heart Crayon's

I <3 Crayon's what though?

And who punctuates their graffiti? Wrongly?!

Summertime

And the flowers are soggy.










A day in the life of me.

Go to get papers on my way to work. World weary proprietor tells man queuing in front of me "it's no time yet! It's only 9.30!" Man staggers blinking and confused into sunlight. He smells a bit boozy.

Arrive in library. Staff loos smell of raw sewage after some work on the drains. Mmmmm.

I scrub permanent marker graffiti off kids' craft table. My main problem with it is the illiteracy. Willys is plural! It requires an ie! And there's a c in suk. Fools.

Colleague from another branch who I have met on several occasions appears and introduces himself to me again, claiming we have never met.

Having organised a visit from an outside agency for them, none of my primary aged reading group turn up. And none of them bother to let me know till I've been sitting waiting on them in the school library for fifteen minutes. Myself and colleague eat their strawberries.

Get home to find Barrington Stoke have sent me a book and a load of info for me to review, a mere three days after I initially emailed them. Hooray!

I am the only member of my flat to witness a Shetland pony playing hockey on America's Got Talent. Shame.

"And on those lonely adolescent nights, I'd weep into a pair of stolen tights." - Alan Moore, Promethea

Health and Safety

Our landlord doesn't much care for fixing stuff. I don't even want to contemplate the fridge, which was on its last legs way before we moved in. But I have to say, the buzzer is a genuine cause for concern. The sign pretty much explains why.

In unrelated news, an entertaining article combining gaming and Who can be found here.

Meanwhile a vitriolic letter to someone who rejected me out of hand for a job advertised as something it wasn't is on my other blog, here.

I Can Haz... Stuff?

This appears to be turning into photo a day month.

Which is nice.




With that in mind, check out these mysterious leftovers that were on the table in my flat one day last week. What meal was this? We may never know. But it sure looks nutritious.

Beer Pong?

An invitation to drink.

A dazzling prize will go to the person who can tell me where in Edinburgh this is.

You Are Always On My Mind

This door is covered in a lot of very standard graffiti, which means that the main thing to jump out at you is the addition of 'Pet Shop Boys' in marker pen. I like to think this is the work of one properly anarchic mofo. They've even mixed up the cases. That is so punk.

Rodney In My Place

And I certainly didn't invite him.

But silly photos are not my only output today. There is an article on Bieber fever here, and one on graduate unemployment here. I'm on fire. Not literally.

News

I have a second blog. It's like Second Life, but more of a website dedicated to showcasing my proper articles than a game where I can escape the hassle of daily life by going online to the hassle of an imaginary one. So quite different, actually.

Have a look and tell me what you think of it, if you think anything.

Spot The Difference

Beconase, Baconnaise. One is a condiment, one is a nasal spray prescribed for my persistent cough. Both are made from the same naturally occurring element, bacon. Next stop, a cure for cancer. Hooray for pigs!