Had a nice day at the office dear?

The infamous "they" say that there's more than one way to skin a cat, which says a lot about "they" or "them" or whatever they like to be called.

There are also many different ways to view the same issue. For instance, some (I think they may be a sub-group of they) would say that after a hard day at the office, the chance to sit down with a drink in one hand, and some food in the other, contemplating the world around them would be a pleasant way to unwind.

However, I choose to disagree!

Due to a localised power failure the Jubilee line, the only underground in and out of Canary Wharf was suspended at about 5.30pm. No problem if it had only lasted for 5 or 10 minutes.

It didn't! - Four and a half hours later it was still suspended.

I had decided to stay at work a few (OK four) hours longer, to let the 50,000+ Canary Wharf employees gradually find an alternative route home, and so I reached the DLR station at about 9.30.

They hadn't!

It appeared as though about 20 or 30 (not thousand, just 20 or 30!) had walked, or ran, or swam home. The rest of use were waiting fora train on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) which was in the news the other week as it was increasing the length of its trains to accommodate more passengers ahead of the 2010 Olympics.

It hasn't!

Well not the one I tried (and failed) to get on. These trains - plural, but in reality running 15 minutes apart - would look more at home in an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine. Especially if they've ever had an episode entitled "Danny the DLR train and 50,000 angry passengers playing sardines".

I eventually got on a train and headed towards the City. In fact we headed towards the City quite quickly! As the DLR is a "Light" railway, when you cram four times as many passengers on it than it was designed to carry, when it goes downhill it does a fantastic impersonation of a runaway train! (...and she blew!)

Anyway I eventually got to London Bridge station where I planned to catch the 22.11 train towards Brighton.

I didn't!

I got to the platform at 22.11 and 30 seconds, just as the train was pulling away.

The next train was not until 22.41, and hence I the reference at the start of this blog to me sitting down with a drink in one hand, and some food in the other, contemplating the world around me. Happy? Me? Hah!

However, this luck could change as I apparently drew out the favourite in the Grand National Sweepstake at work.

Isn't Dobbin a strange name for a racehorse?

April - but not everything is foolish!

One of the great difficulties with being “a bit of a joker” is that when 1 April comes around each year, people assume (do these people not know about the saying?) that everything I say and everything I do, will actually be a practical joke, when in fact everything I said and did was serious.

So when I announced that there was to be a fly past of the Red Arrows over London - which from 35 floors up in Canary Wharf was quite a spectacular sight - many of my team missed it, fearing that it was a “wind up”.

The English press also had similar difficulties in relation to this issue, when highlighting the following stories which were published today: -

1. A new pay-per-view funeral service scheme is being launched today. The Daily Mail says the scheme at Southampton Crematorium allows mourners to grieve from home by watching proceedings online.
2. A turtle is addicted to nicotine. He became addicted after picking up the smouldering butts in his owner's garden, in Kouqian, China, and sulks if he doesn't get his fix.
3. The menopause is caused by the age-old battle between wives and mothers-in-law, reports the Times. As long as 50,000 to 300,000 years ago, competition for food in a family unit was a battle won by the younger women who fed their offspring, which led to the older women losing their ability to breed. With food hard to find, mothers-in-law tended to help rear the grandchildren rather than have more children themselves.
4. School desks and chairs are to be enlarged to meet the needs of the UK's ever-heavier schoolchildren, reports the Express. On average British children are a centimetre taller than they were 10 years ago, and there are more obese youngsters, so desks supplied to UK schools will reflect this.
5. You will soon be able to have a tattoo on your teeth, reports the Sun. Steve Heward, the dentist who started the craze in the US plans to set up in Britain.
   

All of the above were – like me – actually serious, clearly showing that today was not a good day to publish the whimsical, but true, if you wanted people to believe the story.

All of this goes to prove that it is not as easy to identify the truth (or the real) from the lies (or the illusion).

The pictures below are amazing examples of such "illusions", which in truth are real works of art! You really have to "hand it" to the artist!!