Thoughts from the Bus Stop

Bear With

Images (c) Kristen Bailey 2012

I saw this poor lost bear propped up by a tree on Southgate Avenue today. I do hope he was reunited with his owner by bedtime :(  

* SONG OF THE DAY: Guillemots - Little Bear (Live at BBC Electric Prom) *

Score!!!

Thank you, Person Down The Street, for putting a huge wodge of magazines (some over 2 years old!) out for recycling. You have made a near neighbour and her scissors and scrapbook very happy indeed. :)

J'aime beaucoup les magazines trouvés!

Well, how's this for a score? Yes, while just popping out for some milk, glancing at each recycling box I passed, I picked up a 2006 copy of Elle Decoration in one street and the April 2009 issue of Marie Claire Maison in the next (bone dry too, unlike last week's haul)!!! You get a better class of recycling round here, I tell you. If I was still living in Crawley I'd be lucky to pick up a copy of Chat.

I've never seen a Marie Claire Maison before. It looks fab - so colourful and full of great photos. It's even fun using my very rusty (1993) A-level French to decipher the text! I notice that one of the articles is called 'Léger comme une bulle' - light as a bubble - where in English we describe something as 'light as a feather'. I used to get into trouble when writing my French essays for translating English phrases directly into French, where they didn't work.

It wasn't till years later, when I worked in a software/website testing lab, that I learnt the difference between translation and localisation - the latter done by someone who not only knows how to translate words but phrases, sayings, slang and other cultural, religious or political connotations. It's important - many big companies have landed in the brown stuff when trying to sell the same product all over the world with the same brand name without checking if that name is funny or offensive or nonsense in any given country.

The Elle Decoration turns out to be one I had bought when it was originally on sale - I recognise some of the pages I tore out and stuck in my scrapbook. I must fish out the scrapbook and see which bits of the magazine I liked enough to keep and which I wasn't that interested in - I bet my tastes have changed slightly since 2006. Are they more refined or more garish? NB: If you are related to me, that is a purely rhetorical question!

Recycling recycling

Am I a bad person because I fished six sopping wet magazines out of someone's recycling? I've brought them home and hung them up to dry!

I love getting magazines but I rarely buy them in a shop. I keep my eye on various magazine websites and wait until a title I'm interested in has a special offer. I love reading them, but my favourite thing is chopping them up when I've read them, and sticking the images I like best into my sketch/scrap book. I've got these books going back years now and they're great to flick through when I need inspiration.

Have you ever watched magazines dry? I'm gagging to get at them!

* SONG OF THE DAY: Five Star - Rain Or Shine *

Filthy Gorgeous

A few weeks ago I was woken up at about 8am (I need 12-14 hours sleep a day so 8am is very early for me!) by a huge amount of banging and clanking - my first guess was that scaffolding was being put up on the building. Eventually curiosity (OK, indignation...) got the better of me and I got out of bed to look out of the window. The basement flat was being emptied, and there was an enormous pile of junk on the pavement. And right on top of the pile, staring up at me, was this filthy dirty 'Cycle Lane' road sign.

Now, one of my dearest friends is a cycling obsessive - used to run a bike shop, has a shelf full of Tour de France videos - so I couldn't let it get away. I ran down there in my PJs and grabbed it. Once it had been introduced to some hot soapy water, and a bit of elbow grease, I had one perfect (free!) birthday present for my favourite boy on a bike:

* SONG OF THE DAY:  Mark Ronson & The Business International – The Bike Song *