Spanish navvies required?

Boxing Day in the local job shop window. I wonder if they tried calling Fawlty Towers first?

What is aisle 7 in Welsh?

On a visit to a supermarket in Cardiff this week the redundancy of bilingual signs became obvious. Here at Morrison's, lost Welsh mono-lingual souls can buy pysgod, but they will never find the eggs, will they?

They'll miss the special offers and undoubtedly have to pay more. This is surely discrimination?

But it was good to see that there can be no confusion over fizzy drinks: Cola translates on the board below as Cola. And the hippies can buy Miwsli, but will never really know if it's naturally healthy, because they won't find a Welsh speaker on the tills.

Then, drive out of the Car Park (Parc Bang-bang) to try to make sense of the typographic, illegibility and road safety nightmare that is caused by the road signs.

What to choose to visit Gavin & Stacey (or should that be Gafin a Staci?) - are they in Barry or Y Bari? I'll try both just in case.

Take down the English signs and make the customers learn to speak proper...

Reminds me of the old joke that has the punchline:
Wrexham? Bloody ruins 'em.

Good King Wenceslas

When the snow lay all around, deep pan, crisp and even...

Wibble wobble wibble wobble - jelly on a plate

Jamie Oliver rounds off the week with a very nicely cooked piece of wrapping paper. Not only is he a good cook, but he's a dab hand with Photoshop too.

I read today that he's made £83m this decade from his books. Not bad for someone who says he's never read a book.

Now for the next decade... what to do?

Graffikeristmas

A Christmas tree with letters for lights! How graphic can it get?

I couldn't get the lights to spell anything as I draped them around the tree, but if I had, it would have wished you anything you wish yourself.

Looking at the stars

The image I chose for my Christmas card this year is one from several I took (from the gutter) at the base of the chimney at Salt's Mill in Saltaire. (I don't care if they have abandoned the apostrophe on the building and in the shops and cafés. Titus Salt was his name, so his mill is Salt's Mill. Don't get me started Betty).

I'd wondered why I'd missed these starry railings in the past, but have come to the conclusion that every time I have passed in the past I've either been looking up at that chimney or the rain and wind has been so bad that I was walking with my head down.

I'm glad the sunny day allowed me to see the shadows of the stars from the gutter.

Perhaps that's where Oscar Wilde was the day he said that? I hope he had a nice pot of tea in Salt[']s Diner.

A Desmond

Not bad paper for someone who got the degree that everyone dreads: a 2.2! Desmond's doing very well in his new role as designer.

Be worried, be very worried. Runcie's just bought some magic markers.

The H factor

What are 'hsolicitors' and 'estatehagents'?

Reminds me of Prince Buster's 1964 Ska classic that begins 'Al Capone guns, don't hargue'. And hey, Jeremy [Mr Hopkinson], where's the hapostrophe?

Signsofthetimes?

All wrapped up

So, Lily Allen is designing wrapping paper, and we've also had Helen Mirren and Nicole Kidman's gift wraps, to be followed by Desmond Tutu!

So when I saw recently that Peter Saville had done some wrapping paper for Manchester, I'm wondering if I didn't misread it. Perhaps it was Jimmy Saville?

Peter Saville's a singer with Factory Records isn't he?