Last weekend Sally and I took Daisy to Disneyland Paris. We’d promised we’d take her after she changed schools at the beginning of the year. We couldn’t put it off any longer. It wasn’t my first brush with the Mouse’s Kingdom. Twenty years ago I nearly got thrown out of the one in California for  Read more »

My friend Marie is in Madagascar at the moment. She’s is the middle of a big around-the-world adventure. Along the way she likes to be set souvenir quests. So I dug out a pick I took when I visited Madagascar back in 2000 of two women selling Lemur lamps and asked her to buy me  Read more »

I took this shot at my local BP petrol station. It’s an advertisement in the shape of a giant beer can, right next to the bowser, alerting motorists that they can stock up on some ice cold tinnies when they go inside to pay. It seems wrong somehow. But I think that’s because I’ve been  Read more »

Due to popular demand – well, a throwaway remark from Mick in a previous entry – here’s a pic of the lovely Nikola. Nikola is the chocolate female equivalent of Niklas. And she does look like Jordan – just as Mick spookily mused! I suspect that he might already have the matching set!

I’m off to Lincoln for Christmas with the in-laws so I’ll just take this opportunity to quickly wish all the readers of this blog a Merry Christmas. And leave them with the abiding image of the 2006 festive season for me. Niklas, the chocolate Christmas himbo. I spotted him next to the equally scary Nikola  Read more »

I was wandering around the hidden corners of the Internet yesterday and came across this fabulous device from Japan – a portable shredder. The portable shredder is no bigger than a standard pair of scissors – mainly because it is a pair of scissors, albeit with a few more blades. It’s perfect for the backpacker  Read more »

About two years ago I started collecting souvenir pens. In particular, the ones that feature a local scene and something appropriate that floats by when you turn it up or down. Not every tourist attraction has them. I’m yet to find one featuring the mudbrick mosques of Djenne or the Buddhist temple at Borobudur. But  Read more »