I purposely stayed indoors so I would not get ill during the EastEnders 25th Anniversary week but no I had to get the ruddy flu.

Another week ruined.

I love The Co-op as you may well know. However I have not photographed one since last October and most of my Co-op photographs date from October 2008 when I had an urge to photograph as many as I could. This did not last long and Milk Floats then became my main obsession. I have now placed all my Co-op photographs on Flickr so you can view them all, if you would like to. Or you can look at the selection above if you wish to do so. Enjoy them!

Not So Snow White Milk Float!

Since I have not ventured out to find Milk Floats I have only taken photographs of the same old Wales & Edwards Rangemaster that delivers my two daily pintas. Today however a new Milk Float came and with it a new Milkman. I never liked the old one who used to keep waking me up by banging on my door when he came but at least he never conned any money off me.

The new Milkman, whose name I do not know, claimed that today was payday. In case you do not know I pay Dairy Crest fortnightly and if you have read my last post on this blog you will know I payed them last week. Therefore today is not payday. I told him this and after a short argument he went off to do the rest of his round without the £10 he was expecting! However it gave me a chance to grab a photograph of his ‘new’ Milk Float, a Smiths Elizabethan and a rather old and tatty one at that.

Hopefully first impressions will not count this time ’round’.

The Snow-Curlew!

Day 3 of the 2010 Snow disaster. Considering it snowed just before last Christmas I bet you all thought it wouldn’t snow again for another year! The local authorities were catched out with the lack of grit for the roads.

Because of the snow I have not been out photographing objects but today I ventured out and because of the light traffic I was able to stop almost anywhere I wanted.

Unfortunately the roads were too slippery to stay out too long but I managed to get a photograph of The Curlew public house which is on a main road in a town centre but looks in the photograph to be in the middle of nowhere!

Stagecoach South Transbus Pointer Dart Sailing the way through the Snow.

There is some good news, the buses are running again! Round my way the Buses are running on main roads only but at least the poor people of whom cannot afford a Hackney Carriage can get home. Well to their nearest bus stop which for many is a long way from their houses so they may break their necks on the way there. Well people who use Buses are Face Aches anyway so they may not notice their own cuts and bruises!

Look some new green stripes behind Ben!

Well that was last year, this year more things have changed. The studio now has some additional robe lights at the sides to improve on the plain black background with a giant green ‘Krypton K’.

Self Explanatory!

First of all was the Mental Agility round as the morphed ‘Krypton K’ has said. This is the same as last year although Ben says that they have taken the best tests from last year and added some new ones as well. Why not add some tests that nonsensical people can have a go to.

Observe the Observation Sting!

Oh it is a round those nonsensical can do, the Observation round. This time the clip to ‘observe’ is a 1980s clip of Coronation Street. I myself only watch EastEnders so I didn’t bother trying to attempt at this round. All the contestants seem to have done well. Though it was a bit obviously ITV are losing money since most of the answers were brand names!

Next was the Intelligence round… oh no they have dropped the intelligence round from this series! The producers were not very intelligent for concluding that was a good idea are they?

A Commercial Break already?

Oh we are back after just showing promotional films for other ITV programmes, what is the point of an advert break without adverts?

Lets get Physical!

Now it is the bot that made The Krypton Factor famous, the Physical Ability round. The obstacle course thankfully has not returned. Instead a brand new one has been built somewhere in Britain and yes it has been built to allow four people to go at once.

The all new Colour Coded Obstacle Course.

Unfortunately it is not as good as the original series obstacle course and is much shorter with horrible tacky colour coded sections. With cable boats, telegraph pole climbs, zip lines, ‘freezing’ water Ben decided that a small hillock was the toughest part of the course and thus never stopped talking about it. Short and easy, so easy a Woman can do it. Back in the studio we now know the Intelligence round was replaced by ‘Contestant Interviews’. The course was so hard that my back just started hurting, what tosh. Oh well, what is next.

Final round already? Where did the time go?

It is the final round already! The General Knowledge round. Nothing has changed except for an extended time limit and some new camera angles.

How boring what a waste of twenty two minutes of my life, yes it only that long without ‘adverts’. Hopefully if there is a next series they will return it to it’s former glory. Yes of course that would happen!

At last I got it! A Dairy Crest Smiths Elizabethan Milk Float with Milk & More branding.

At last I have managed to get decent photographs of Milk Floats today after a week of trying. I got three Dairy Crest Smiths Elizabethans including the Milk & More branded one which I have been trying to get for ages, it is the only photograph of a Milk & More Milk Float on Flickr, other than my rear views of it.

I am going to have a break from Milk Float hunting for a while to give Dairy Crest a chance to change the allocations. Hopefully I have got the hang of my new camera now because if I have not this is not going to be a very good photography year!

I am still trying to get the hang of my new FujiFilm camera. Today I tried out the Panoramic feature on the recently built Tesco Extra nearby me. I think it turned out quite well.

This is my award winning photograph that was featured in The News newspaper on the 12th January 2010!

I have been out trying to figure out how to use my Fujifilm camera. First on the list of photographs to take in 2010 is of The Bridge Tavern which has just been refurbished by Fuller’s brewery. It is now painted in a light blue which looks much nicer

than the green used before it. Unfortunately Fuller’s have stuck

their logo o

n the front and it is very large, also the 3d ‘The Bridge Tavern’ text has been replaced with a smaller text logo in a diffe

rent font and it has been painted onto the building rat

her than sticking out in 3d. Overall though it is an improvement since the refurbishment makes the building look older which always improves a pubs character.

Also Another Milk Float! This time it is the front of a Dairy Crest Smiths Elizabethan.

As with every year, Dairy Crest are rearranging and refurbishing the fleet. The Milk & More Milk Float used to be painted in the Southern Co-operatives Yellow and White with Green Stripe livery. While it is a shame that it has lost this livery, the fleet needs to be kept in top condition. Some of the older Milk Floats have become too run down to continue their use. A replacement for one is another Smiths Cabac, although that looks in worse wear than the one it replaced! Another new feature is the fact that all the Milk Floats now have fleetnumbers on a small yellow square on the back, in that sence I have got numbers 2 and 5 today. To see all my photographs from today please view my Flickr website.

This really is my last post of the year, my next post will be in 2010!

Happy New Year!