Yesterday, I was in the supermarket looking for some fresh bread to have for lunch. There were lots of different kinds of bread, and I couldn’t decide which to buy.
I like soft, fresh bread, so I finally chose a bag of four croissants. I was holding the bag up, looking at the date they were baked, when I heard someone talking to me.
I didn’t hear anyone coming up behind me, so I was a bit surprised. I turned around and saw a supermarket employee holding up another bag of the same croissants. They were fresh out of the oven, and she said to me, “Would you like some fresh ones?”
Of course I said yes, and thanked her. I said to her, “You’ve made my day!”. She liked that. She smiled at me and said I was welcome.
On the way home, I was thinking about that woman. She didn’t need to do that, but she decided to do something nice for a stranger. I must try to follow her example.
This is an eye-catching advertisement at a bus stop. Ads want to attract your attention and make you look at them. When you look at the ad above, what’s the first thing that grabs you? I don’t know about you, and I can only speak for myself, but the first thing that caught my eye was the colourful birds near the bottom … the white cock, the brown hen and the little yellow chicks.
Another thing that drew my attention was the 2Ologo in the bottom right-hand corner. There are many different internet providers in New Zealand, and that company is one of them. This ad is trying to get you to give them your business.
But maybe you’re asking yourself this question right now: “What have farmyard birds got to do with a telecommunications provider? What’s the link? How are they connected?”. Well, the answer is in the white words in ALL CAPS at the top of the ad.
There’s a saying in English that goes like this: Birds of a feather flock together. Everybody knows that proverb. It means that people who believe a certain thing, or people who like a certain thing, for example football fans or music fans, usually stay together.
In this ad, the company changes the word flock to save. The company is saying that it saves money for many people, and you should join them. You should flock to them and save money by getting good rates.
Is it a good ad? Maybe yes, maybe no, but when you stop to look at it, or when you question what it’s about, the ad has done its work. It has successfully attracted your attention.
There’s a famous song by Simon and Garfunkle with the same name as today’s post. If you don’t know it, you can listen to it here.
But why am I telling you that? Well, after my swim this morning, I was sitting in the sauna with my eyes closed, enjoying the heat and the silence.
Then I heard the door opening as someone came in, but I didn’t open my eyes. When this person sat down next to me, I could tell by the way the bench moved that he was a big guy, but I still kept my eyes shut.
He didn’t speak, but now and again, I could hear a very small noise. It wasn’t all the time, just on and off. It was like a small fly was trapped behind the wall and was beating its wings trying to escape.
The noise wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough to annoy me, and it was annoying me because I couldn’t figure out what it was. So I decided to open my eyes.
I looked at the big guy next to me, and he was wearing waterproof headphones like the ones below in the sauna. I don’t know what he was listening to, though. It wasn’t music, so maybe it was a podcast.
Life today is very noisy: traffic, people having conversations face to face or on the phone, TV, radio, advertisements, muzak in supermarkets and lifts, the list goes on. Nowadays, it’s very hard to find silence unless you actually go looking for it.
Personally speaking, I like the silence in the sauna, but that’s just me. It calms me and helps me clear my mind. But if other people want to be different, that’s OK. The noise wasn’t a big deal, so live and let live is what I say.
Early last Saturday morning, I walked into the centre of Auckland to go to the weekly Farmers’ Market. The city was very quiet.
I was walking down High Street near to my favourite book shop, Unity Books. As I said, it was early and all the shops were still shut, but as I was passing the book store, I saw a woman inside through the glass door, and she had something in her arms.
She opened the door and she set it down on the step outside. It was a small box of books, and the notice said FREE! She went back inside and locked the door behind her.
I looked at the books, picked one up and flicked through it. I liked what I read, so I put it in my backpack. This is it.
Before I walked away, I tapped the door, and the woman looked my way. I smiled at her, held up my free book, and gave her the thumbs up sign to say thanks. She smiled back at me. It was a good start to the day.
As I was walking past a cafe, I saw this in the window. There are three wooden boxes with some cutlery in them. You can’t see what kind of cutlery because they’re pointing down, but looking at the handles, I think there are two knives in the box on the left, the middle box probably has forks, and there are spoons in the other box.
There are some paper napkins in the middle box. You use a napkin to wipe your mouth or your fingers when you’re eating, or you can use it to mop up any liquid that you might spill. There are words on the napkin that say the same thing.
But there’s another word on the napkin that is cut off. You can only see the top half of the capital letters. The bottom half is hidden by the cutlery box. Can you guess what the word is?
Here’s the first clue: the café wants you to have a good time and be happy when you visit them, so it wants you to do this. If you need a second clue, look at the title of this post … it’s what people say before they take a photo. And if you’re still not sure, follow this link.
This billboard caught my eye today. It was the pink that did it.
The big pink thing is a flip-flop or a jandal. People wear them in hot weather or at the beach. Some people wear them all year round. There are some words on the sole of the shoe. The last word is interesting. It sounds like vay-kay, and it’s spoken English for vacation.
Now look at the wider picture.
Look at the bigger billboard in front of the Sky Tower. Can you see a word that means the same as vacation? (CLUE: the last letter of the word is cut off.)
Now just to check if you have been paying attention … What does the bold it at the end of paragraph one refer to? (CLUE: the phrase has three words.)
The three things in the picture above are connected, but how? There’s a phone, a pack of pocket tissues, and a Gold Card. One thing that connects them is that they’re all mine, but there’s another connection, and here it is.
I was going home on the bus, and I tagged off outside the car lot in the picture below. As I was getting off, I put my Gold Card into my trouser pocket. I was listening to music on my phone at the time, and the phone was in that pocket. Also in the pocket was a pack of tissues. When I put the card in my pocket, it must have gone between the phone and the tissues, like a sandwich.
I wanted to change the song that was playing, so I took my phone out. However, this wasn’t easy because the pocket was tight. I had to fiddle about a bit, but I finally got it out.
Now let’s pause here for a moment for some background.
When I was getting off the bus, a man was coming out of the car lot, just where the arrow is in the picture. As I was trying to get my phone out, I didn’t want to bump into him, so I moved out of his way and walked on. I still had my ear buds in, but I thought I heard someone saying something behind me. I thought it was that man, but when I turned around, I couldn’t see him.
I kept looking, and I saw him on the ground. He was bending down and picking something up. It was my Gold Card! It fell out of my pocket when I was fiddling with my phone, but I didn’t realise. I didn’t see it and I didn’t hear it.
I was lucky because the man saw what happened. He could have said nothing, but instead he did the right thing by telling me. Actually, the man didn’t say anything, because we both understood what happened. There was no need for words.
I like to think that I would do the same thing. It’s a simple thing to help people. If that man hadn’t acted, I would have gone home none the wiser, and when I went to pull out my Gold Card again, I’d be scratching my head wondering where it was.
Street signs need to be big and colourful to make you notice them. These ones are near where I live, and I see them every day when I’m walking home from the supermarket. But just like every story, street signs have two sides, too.
One day, I looked behind me at the back of the small blue sign that says Begins, and this is what I saw.
At first, I thought it was an advertisement for Burger King, but I didn’t know what SQWEK meant. It’s a word, and you can say it easily, but you won’t find it in the dictionary.
I was sure I had seen it somewhere before, but I couldn’t remember where. Then it came to me, so I went there and took this photo.
It’s on a roller door in Cross Street behind K Road. I like it, and I think it looks pretty cool, but maybe the building owners have a different opinion.
I was happy that I’d remembered where I’d seen it, but I still didn’t know what it meant, so I jumped online and asked Mrs Google for help. The first thing that I found was this image about Palestine, but you’ll notice that it’s spelt slightly differently.
If anyone has any info, I’d be glad to hear.
PS: A few hours after I posted this, I went for a walk through my local park before dinner. I usually walk here every day. I do a loop, walking from the bottom to the top and then back down again. I’ve walked here for years and years, so I think I know it pretty well.
At the bottom of the park, there are public tennis courts where anyone can play. You just turn up, and if a court is free, you‘re good to go. Both courts are usually busy, especially during summer when the weather if nice, but in the picture below, the courts were unoccupied.
Yesterday, when I was nearly home, I looked at the fence at the back of the tennis courts and saw the picture below. This banner is not new, but I never noticed it before, so maybe I don’t know the park as well as I thought! It’s our old friend SQWEK.
That was yesterday, but today I was walking past a building site in the city and I saw this. The picture above is old, but the one below is new because if you look closely, you’ll see 2025 at the foot of the leg of the letter K. This guy SQWEK gets around!
I was walking home from the supermarket, and he was walking towards me on the same side of the street. He was alone. He was wearing a backpack, and he was holding it by the straps. It was early in the day, so he was going to work. He was talking, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was on a call.
As he came closer to me, I heard a snatch of what he was saying. This is what he said: “The people paint their houses beautiful colours and stuff like that.”
Because I’m a language teacher, I started to think about his words. I only heard a little bit of his conversation, but I knew he was talking about a holiday overseas.
He said the people. If he was talking about this country, I think he would just say people. And when he said the, I think he meant everybody, not just some people, so there are many colourful houses.
You can find pictures of lots of colourful houses in other countries on the internet, but I haven’t seen anything like that in Auckland. Yet.
But back to the language. I found the man’s last few words interesting: “… and stuff like that”.
Stuff is a general word that can mean many things. In this case, the man knew the person he was talking to. He knew that the other person understood him, so he didn’t have to give any more details.
And stuff like that is a useful phrase that is similar to you know what I mean or etc. or I don’t need to give you any more details.
Now Hear this. 
