Time of the Signs

Things have been rather eventful since my last post. We've been going through a sad time since Christmas, but seem to be coming out of the woods gradually now. Work is still as busy as ever, and a bank holiday weekend is a welcome break, but I can't complain as I find my job so engrossing and satisfying, and I guess I would have to say I've never been happier in my career. I think that, despite all sorts of reasons not to be, I'm an incurable optimist: things always seem to be better now than they were before, and most mistakes aren't worth too much regretting. At least, I hope my optimism is incurable...

Instead of presenting any sort of coherent story about a particular place or event, I thought I'd offer a smorgasbord, charivari, or Royal Variety Performance of pictures this evening. The theme is that each one contains text. They're not just pictures - they mean something! (Discuss. No, let's not - it's my blog and I don't have to answer philosophical essay questions when I make grandiose and sweeping statements.)

Ever since I was a child I've been obsessed by words. At breakfast I would read the list of vitamins and minerals on the side of the cereal box again and again. (I don't remember exactly, but I think books weren't encouraged at the breakfast table - though perhaps I was just too bleary to think of bringing one into the kitchen at some ungodly hour starting with a 7. 'What's that book by your trough, dear?' was a much-used Dylan Thomas quote in our household. 'Lives of the Great Poisoners, dear.') At the hairdresser I would read the Elnett hairspray instructions backwards in the mirror while waiting for the haircutting ordeal to end, and generally for the rest of the time I would pester my parents to explain words I encountered on television, in books and on signs.

So here is a photographic hymn of praise to words, in all their lettered linguistic loveliness...

Beware of the dog in Totnes...

... and in Old Portsmouth.

I would like bath taps like these ones at Polesden Lacey.

And if I had Grecian urns on pedestals overlooking the ha-ha in my garden, I would decorate them with poetry, too.

(Editors feel a gleeful but at the same time fearful pleasure when they see spelling mistakes on signs.)

Wouldn't you like to live on Ticklemore Street?

 Just gloating: pictures of a few new acquisitions during our holiday in Devon. Totnes poetry, Greenway murder, and a very strange graphic novel.

 In the car park at Lydford in Devon, where we stopped to visit Lydford Castle. I've never seen a specific ban on dormobiles before.

 The English equivalent of 'Owner Lunatique' in a pet shop in Dartmouth.

 Dartmouth has the coolest car ferries ever. But nuclear families are advised to be cautious on the slipway, which can be a bit, you know, slipwy, especially when it's been raining...

 A key part of Otto Overbeck's patented Rejuvenator, at Overbeck's, near Salcombe. It didn't do him much good, but it looks pretty convincing. Stand clear, now charge up the batteries... bzzzt, bzzzzt. Are you feeling younger yet?

 More schadenfreude (there but for the grace of God, etc.): it's blurry, but the BBC News 24 ticker does indeed use the word EXISITING. I realise that pointing this out - and taking a picture, and bothering to upload it to my blog - makes me seem exceedingly petty. I'm not arguing.  I am exceedingly petty.

 Finally, a happysad, sadhappy note to end on. It's sad to be missed, but happy to be remembered. Sad no longer to be Mr Southsea Show, but happy to be commemorated on a bench overlooking the beautiful Solent with not just your name and dates, but your nickname, too. What would my bench say? 'Ms Fusspot', probably.

I'll end my words and pictures show here, but I'll keep clicking away at the peculiar things that intrigue and inspire me, and I hope to be blogging again soon to share them with you.