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Follow the Brown Signs Blog - November, 2011
Check out these bad boys…
November 18, 2011
Exciting no? This is a unique brown sign symbol, and I love them (who's surprised?). These symbols are on the tourist signs that want to stand out from the crowd or don't fit into any of the other regular 93 categories. These I find intriguing and make me want to visit even more when they have quirky images like this one. There are more to see later, but let me just tell you how I came to acquire them...
OK so this week I have had a hectic one, with less time to...Read more >>
Whatever happened to our imagination…?
November 10, 2011
In the last few months I've been out and about a lot less visiting brown signed attractions, mainly because I'm working 54 hour weeks at the restaurant but also because I'm trying to pull together a book about the diverse and rich world of the humble brown tourist sign. What always fascinates me is reading up on how all these places actually became attractions in the first place, the more you read the more you uncover all their unique and interesting histories, it's a real eye opener and shows just...Read more >>
Oh my immature sense of humour…
October 26, 2011
I love it when people send me pictures of brown signs, it shows they're thinking of my project and know how much I'll appreciate them taking a photo and bothering to show me (you really don't know how happy it makes me, very happy). So when Simon came back from The Grand Canyon he was immediately on the email to share this little gem. Unfortunate really that he knew how much I'd appreciate this one in particular, not just for it's colour but also for it's content. I am such...Read more >>
Can everyone just be a bit quiet?
October 24, 2011
On my way back from Plymouth (once again with my foot to floor just about hitting 60 trying to make it back for my evening shift) I saw this brown sign for Buckfast Abbey on the edge of Dartmoor off the A38. Chris had told me I'd pass the abbey on the way home and when he mentioned it was real life functioning monastery I was extremely excited. I don't think I've ever visited a monastery with actual monks in it outside Asia and I've always been interested in the...Read more >>
2 days off! Devon beckoned…
October 14, 2011
This week I had two days off work... Woooooooooohhhhhhhhh! Handily I got them next to each other so I could actually do something with my time off (washing my clothes and writing a book don't count as "doing something" with my time off you understand). I'll take any excuse to go down and visit my good pal Chris in Plymouth and as my parents were also holidaying in Teignmouth I made Devon my destination. So, as with all my post evening shift jaunts, I found myself setting off on a...Read more >>
My week of marriages and death
September 19, 2011
This week has been full of weddings and funerals for me, quite literally FULL. I've attended 3 weddings and 1 funeral in 3 different countries in the space of 7 days. I feel (but hopefully don't look very much like) Hugh Grant. These life and death celebrations have taken me far and wide and (you know me) of course I've been screeching to dangerous halts in the road to take pictures of the brown signs I see.
So last Saturday it all started in Herefordshire in the intriguingly named little village...Read more >>
I am BBC 6 Music’s Geek of the Week
September 18, 2011
Sitting in a coffee shop in Cambridge waiting to help my sister shoot a wedding on Saturday I was casually flicking through Twitter (yes people, I have purchased myself an iPhone, eventhough it is totally lost on me and I've only downloaded one app, Historypin) and noticed a retweet calling for geeks to nominate themselves for BBC 6 Music's Geek of the Week. I am such a massive geek that I nominated myself and got interviewed on the show.
I think I worked out the audioboo, here it is (I think...
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A very British “keep calm and carry on” brown sign….
September 6, 2011
This photo was sent to me by mini-golfer and brown sign spotter extraordinare Richard Gottfried.
What I love most about this scene is that clearly the sign has come down with an almightly crash and more than likely didn't land standing upright in the position we see it in now. I can just imagine some well meaning individual going over and propping it up the best they could so it's still doing it's job despite the damage inflicted upon it.
Or maybe it's just good fortune that it's still half standing, either...Read more >>
On glamping, heartache and doing the hard bits
September 4, 2011
After quite a lot of research around camping and caravanning sites recently as part of my brown sign discovery of Britain I started reading more and more about "glamping" (or "glamourous camping" where "glampers" get things like hot running water and solid structures to sleep in but still have a holiday in a field), so I decided to write a blog on the subject. But it was a blog I was not going to finish; for 2 reasons: 1) I hadn't completed it by the time I had to leave...Read more >>
Putting hell! What a dude…
September 1, 2011
I've been having virtual chats via Facebook/Twitter/Email recently with a chap about brown signs and mini-golf (what a combination - I know, can you just imagine our conversations?!). This man is Richard Gottfried and he's a pretty cool guy... why? Because he spends his time travelling around the UK playing mini and adventure golf tournaments that's why, and frankly that's something you and I can only but wish we were doing with our lives (you love a bit of mini golf and you're as jealous as I am, admit it)....Read more >>