Sunday, January 31, 2021

Totoro and Mexican Wrestling


Kudos to blog reader Mary (with a nudge from Mr. Pudding) for solving the mystery of the Chapel of Pilates yesterday. It turns out that building was once the Sunday School for an adjacent church, All Saints. The church itself is long gone, but the Sunday School remains, and I suppose you could even say it's still a place of instruction.

For today, how about another look at recent pictures from my trusty iPhone?

First, someone's Totoro doll lying on the dashboard of a car in Hampstead. Totoro is supposed to be a forest spirit, so I'm not sure how he feels about being trapped in an auto.


A beauty salon on Finchley Road. I'm not sure about the plural use of "hairs." I'm guessing whoever produced this sign is not a native English speaker.


Perhaps this discarded whiteboard is an artifact of someone's home-schooling in the era of Covid. I'm not sure why they threw it out, unless they accidentally wrote on it in permanent marker. Which happens. Nice elephant, though!


A little snow sculpture I found after our recent snowfall. At first, looking at it from this side, I thought it was a ghost with his ghostly arms outstretched. But then I realized that viewed from the other side it is obviously a dove holding an olive branch.


Sidewalk boobies.


Italian expressions of love in Cricklewood. (Along with a couple of severely pollarded trees.)


Some stenciled graffiti not far from our flat. I think it's a Mexican wrestling mask? Anyway, it's a nice clean stencil, compared to the messier coronavirus-related ones I found several days ago.


And finally -- lots of planters, left out on the sidewalk (mysteriously with a bicycle). Are they being given away? Believe it or not, I didn't take any. At our house, we're into simple terra cotta flowerpots.

40 comments:

  1. Could that " S" possibly be an ampersand? The other sign reads " Hair & Beauty" !
    You do manage to photograph some weird things...great fun.

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    1. I think that probably was the intent, and whoever made the sign read it incorrectly as an S. In which case, they should cut the S off!

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  2. Predictably, the dove snow sculpture makes my heart sing.

    The Christmas tree on the side walk makes me sad. It's the same every year. A lovingly chosen (rather large and plump) Norwegian pine becomes a comforting part of the furniture. Come January I can't bring myself to defrock it. It's a wrench. The Angel draws a line at between mid to end January. At least ours never lie around, outside, in the cold, forlorn and discarded. We get them recycled properly - and I remember them fondly. This year the thought entered my mind how many more times I will have the privilege to go through this ritual before I myself will be composted. The final countdown, Steve. In Christmas trees. Only you, Mama, only you, says the Angel. Cue eye roll.

    U

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    1. Well, we all get there eventually, don't we? Old Christmas trees do seem sad, but I must say, today I walked on a path on Hampstead Heath that had been paved with Christmas tree mulch. It smelled wonderful!

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  3. Hairs, like a friend used to argue you have two groins, one each side. One groin has always been enough for me.
    That tree in Cricklewood has received a serious haircut.

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  4. Those planters on the right have got to be the ugliest planters the world has ever seen! As for the salon sign, the smaller sign reads "Hair & Beauty" so what I think may have happened here is that the makers of the larger sign got confused with their commission and came up with "Only Love Hairs and Beauty" instead of what it should have been - "Only Love Hair & Beauty". They had probably not heard about ampersands.

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    1. Oh, I see that Frances got there before me on this.

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    2. I think you (and Frances) are right about the ampersand. I think the planters might be cool if they were stripped and repainted a bright color, like orange or yellow. But I'm not doing it.

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  5. I'm guessing Totoro feels the same way I did when I used to be trapped in the car on my daily commute. Furious. Fortunately, now retired. I used to commute 20-25k miles a year. My car has somewhat retired, too. Only registered 4,300 miles this past year and most of that was my DH using it for his commute every couple of weeks.

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    1. Ugh. Long commutes are the worst. I used to commute 45 minutes each way when I lived in Florida and I thought THAT was too far, and it was nothing compared to what some people do.

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  6. Most excellent finds! That really is a nicely drawn elephant. I can only imagine the artist's chagrin when s/he discovered it was permanent. Whenever I see "severely pollarded" trees, I imagine the trees feel tortured. As you no doubt remember, that's how many Floridians prune crape myrtles.

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    1. Supposedly they trim the trees that way to keep the roots from growing and overtaking underground utilities. But yeah, it looks like torture to me, too!

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  7. Again, art is everywhere. You only need to look for it.

    I love the Ti amo.

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  8. I do believe I would have tried to bring those planters home along with the wire pot-holder baskets. It would be quite a project to scrub and perhaps paint the planters although I imagine they are quite heavy.
    Ti Amo! And your iPhone pictures!

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    1. Yeah, the two planters on the end are iron and looked pretty heavy. And they had dirt and rocks still in them!

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  9. I have to tell you the very first thing I thought when I saw the Love Hairs sign is "Who gets THOSE hairs styled?" I would have knocked on the door to be sure, and I would have taken those planters immediately. Permanent marker can be removed from a white board very easily. Simply scribble over it with a dry erase marker, and then erase. You might have to do this several times, but it removes the marker pretty quickly. My grandson taught me that.

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    1. Ha! I thought the same thing about the hairs! I did manage to remove permanent marker from one of our whiteboards at school with some cleaning fluid. But I guess this person couldn't be bothered.

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  10. I would have grabbed those wire baskets under the bike (maybe knocking first to ask permission). Great photos! As Bob said, "art is everywhere"! Good eye, Steve! Thanks!

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    1. I'm always intrigued by the objects I find on the street.

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  11. I wouldn't think the planters were put out there for the taking since they are right up next to the house. one of my neighbors has done that pollarding to all four of the ash trees in his yard. not all at once but over the years. I'm alway appalled when I see it. other people around here have done it to pecan trees and crepe myrtles too. it's so stressful for the trees. Totoro looks like he's floating down a river.

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    1. Oh, they're actually not next to the house. They're on the sidewalk in front of the house, next to the garden wall (which basically surrounds the front yard). It's common for people to put things on their garden wall that they want to give away.

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  12. Only Love Has (hairs) beauty, maybe trying to be clever with word play?
    Your phone photo are wonderfully entertaining, inspiring. Your walks are just the ticket - feeling imprisoned here. Thank you for taking us out and about- refreshing to say the least.

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    1. I don't really walk that much during lockdown, but I see weird things even just going to and from work! It pays to have the phone handy!

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  13. Another interesting assortment of London photos. I love the things you find on your walks. They are so much more interesting than what I find here. That snow carving is well done. There might be a budding sculptor in that house. And that elephant is very well done. The Hairs Beauty sign does look like a mistake given the other sign that says Hair & Beauty. Either way, it's a rather difficult name.

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    1. I think whoever made that dove DOES have some artistic training! I think you're right about the "hairs" sign.

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  14. Your photo released Totoro into the sky. Major groan about that hair salon son. Although, maybe it's a salon for the likes of me. I don't have HAIR; I have HAIRS. Excellent elephant. From this angle I thought the dove, which I love, was pierced through the heart.

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    1. Totoro DOES look like he's flying! (Or as Ellen said, floating down a river.) Having hairs means, by definition, you don't need a salon. I'm in the same boat! :)

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  15. That stencil is a luchadoro, which is 0f the Mexican wrestling culture. The masks always looked really hot to me. The Democratic party in AZ used the phrase "Lucha Blue Vote" with a picture of the mask on the voter pamphlets which I thought was kind of cool.

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    1. I did not know the word! Thanks for that. It is cool to use it for campaigning, and apparently it worked!

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  16. Many fascinating things on your walk. The poor dove looks like it's been speared.

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    1. Surely it's meant to be carrying that branch, but yeah, it does look a bit...internal.

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  17. You do see some interesting things there. Love the snowy dove. Well done.

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    1. Isn't it a nice dove? I wish I'd realized that's what it was at the time -- I'd have photographed it from the front!

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  18. You find such fascinating items on your strolls through the city. And, yes, I think the s was meant to be a &, given the name on the sign. So it goes.

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