Escalate this
Ok – so did anybody watch or record the new Danny Wallace programme last night “How to start your own country”? I completely forgot to watch it – or indeed record it on my Tivo, this – despite having seen him on BBC Breakfast in the morning plugging it, and then about five minutes later standing in the lift with him as I went to get my coffee and he was on his way out of the building! (I sometimes forget that I work in the same building where TV comes from…)
Now obviously I had to observe the aforementioned “BBC Staff shalt not gawp at ‘celebs’ “ rule, so instead I got out my mobile phone and proceeded to pretend to send a text message instead.
Danny must have obviously thought “Hey that’s that Geoff Marshall over there that is”, as he then proceeded to get out his Blackberry, and started playing with that, until the lift ‘binged’ and he got out first. Slightly scary though was the fact that I didn’t realise how tall he was – I’d say he was 6 foot, 4 inches which makes him slightly taller than me. And I’m always scared by people that are taller than me because I so rarely meet people that are.
If you haven’t seen this doing the rounds, then you’ll probably want to – I’ve never really been a fan of Weebl and Bob, but it was only a matter of time before they did an iPod one, and here it is … www.weebls-stuff.com/wab/piepod/
A quick thing that I need to mention/ask too is something I found myself doing today which I’ve done before and I’ll do again, but I want to know if I’m the only person in the world that does it. I suspect I’m not, but it’d be nice to know. It’s this:
If you send a quite intense email to someone, and they take a little while to reply – when you get their reply, do you ever re-read through what you wrote first to put yourself in the ‘mood’ for reading what they’ve come to you with?
I’m sure I can’t be along in doing this. I only ever go one level ‘back’ in a multiple-thread conversation though, the downside being that you then realise you could have phrased something better, or that you made a terrible spelling mistake or grammatical error too – but by then it’s too late. Just wondered.
And finally onto ‘quirky moment of the week’, which started on Wednesday night of last week when flying back from Newcastle, and I was amused when walking up to the departure lounge when I saw what I thought must be the shortest escalator in the world [left], and so took a photo of it.
Fair play when you think about it – it’s an airport, so there are people with luggage and other heavy bags, etc..
But I was then a little surprised when a couple of days later and I was in Leicester that I saw an equally short escalator! [right]
This time it was in the entrance area to Leicester’s Marks & Spencers, where there are steps up immediately as you enter the store, and obviously enough people had complained to ask if they’d put in a tiny escalators as well … and here it is. How cute is that?
Now I can count nine ‘active’ steps in both. Anyone know of any others escalators in the world that are shorter?
After living in London for the first 33 years of my life and working for the 
So for ten weeks in June, July and August 2009, I drove 20,000 miles around the the lower 48 contiguous states of the USA visiting towns and places that shared the same name as places on The London
Obviously the temptation to google was too much… So I bring you.
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/1170a3/
When I work at the RAF Museum I had to catalogue what appeared to be nothing more than a two foot length of rope with a knot at both ends. After looking up it’s Vocab Number (a type of military code for identifying things) I found it was a “Single Step Rope Ladder”. Bizarre.
I wonder what joy trolls get out of trolling? Can’t be much surely….? Calls for an experiment!
I definitely feel different…….a little sadder maybe?
You have to watch those silly short escalators. It was either at Luton or Stansted where I saw one of these very lazily moving downward. I was at the bottom. The temptation was too great, so I began to walk up the down-escalator… followed closely by a friend. As I got to the top, I must have triggered a light-beam and the escalator began to speed up to full-speed. I slightly stumbled, but survived. Very embarrasingly for him, my friend behind fell right over!
Beware escalators with ‘power save’ mode!!!
I used to go to Uni in Leicester, so when I was going to M&S to blow some more student loan on their tasty food, it also used to strike me how small those escualtors were… well spotted!
a student that shops in M&S…this is an anomily in itself!
One of my flatmates did this for a lot of the 1st semester last year..was only when I asked why that she admitted she didn’t know where the other supermarkets where :d had been wondering why she was libing on cheese and baked potatoes (and the occasional pot of salsa)
for libing read living
“Simon Says”
That made me chuckle.
What is it with you tall people? My ex-husband is about 6ft 2″ and like you he was always slightly suspicious/scared by people taller than him.
Height implies power.
That’s why bouncers are all tall, fat bastards – just to make sure you know who’s boss. It’s got nothing to do with them being big and strong enough to eject troublemakers as that’s why you have more than one bouncer.
It’s all in the ego. That’s why short people feel inferior.
Get over it, Melman
Hey, that could be a good new nickname for you …
http://www.madagascar-themovie.com/
For those of you who are asking “Who the f**k is Melman?”
Are you likening to me to a cartoon character out of a movie, Neil?
The thing with the ‘tall’ Annie, is that i spend my entire life quite literally looking down at people. So on the very rare occasion that i meet someone taller than me, the muscles in the back of my neck think “that’s unusual” as don’t normally ever have to tip my head back to talk to someone. It’s an odd sensation. Seriously!
I second that.
Except I have to look down at Geoff, meaning it’s an even rarer occurance for me to look up.
Chris & Geoff: Did you know that merely being tall–with all other qualifications being equal– can add literally hundreds of thousands of dollars (sorry, ££) to your earnings over a lifetime? See here.
Danny Wallace isn’t a celebrity per se. I remember him when he was contributing content to a BBC web site, and somehow got invited to a party with him … he’s brilliant, funny, and a great writer but that doesn’t make him a celebrity per se…
must be some truth in that what your field of vision is used to thing I tend to feel sligtly odd when meeting grown ups who are shorter than me.
And now i think of it Melman is sort of accurate (go to the characters bit of the site and listen to the recording of the monologue about neck bones).
Chris, unfortunatley it doesn’t quite work like the childs party game… on the other hand the simple Simon… hmmm well no comment!
and btw I still go to M&S the nearest one is now in Brixton, I know it is quite juxtaposed, but it happens… and I’m still paying off the student loan for visiting the one in Leicester!
I do that re-reading e-mail thing! Judging from the replies I often get, I have usually read my original e-mail far more thoroughly than the recipients ever do.
Thank you Michael! so not just me then ..
Hey Geoff, I’ve seen an even more ironic spot for escalators – outside a gym see – Why Americans are So Fat
As for your comment about tall folk, I’m taller than most people and also feel ‘odd’ when coming up against people taller than myself. Like you say it feels so weird to look up at someone when you’re always used to talking to someone at the same height or ‘down’.
Thought I was the only one that felt this way
hey where did the link go? pic of the escatlator – > http://www.jumbojoke.com/000367.html
another really short esculator is in Debenhams on Oxford Street from the mens stuff to the food/cafes.