Real Boys

I was never a real boy at school.

I think I realized this most plainly when I encountered metalwork and woodwork for the first time.

While other boys took to the tools and the glues and the heat and the physicality of the work with gusto I felt my heart sink in my chest. Horrible, loud, dirty, brutish work. Urgh.

Which makes me sound like I was a fop. But I wasn’t. I was just a wimp. And like all wimps I was not at all confident with activities that required physical input.

It didn’t help that the two teachers for these classes were stereotypical old school brigadiers. Both had bristling moustaches and the haunted eyes of those who’d seen action in WWII. They had no time for wimpy boys. What they were forging and carving were not shoehorns and mug-trees but boys into men.

My woodwork teacher rendered himself unapproachable during the very first lesson by announcing that his name was Mr Pritchard and woe betide any boy who thought it amusing to remove the “c” and replace the “t” with a “k”. He gave at least half of us in that room an unasked for complex that bordered on Tourettes whenever we had to speak to him. In the end we just called him sir. But Mr Prikhard stuck mentally.

I can’t remember the name of my metalwork teacher. I only recalling him holding up a big metal file in our first lesson and announcing in a voice that sounded like it had been blasted by superhot metal filings that it was a “flat bastard”. This did not augur well for future learning under his hands.

For two years I persevered – until it came time to choose my options and I could drop both subjects. In those two years I produced a shoehorn (which I still have), a towel holder, a wooden tea tray that would best serve a teddy bear’s picnic and various misshapen off-cuts of wood and metal.

If nothing else it taught me that the factories of industry were not meant for me. I couldn’t drill a hole straight to save my life and could only saw wavy lines. If I’d been in the A Team I would have been the one making tea while everyone else built a tank out of a dustcart and an old fridge freezer.

I didn’t, in truth, like getting my hands dirty. And I still don’t. Oil, grease, grime, grit. They do nothing for me. Lord help me I even turned my nose up at glue. I think I built a total of 3 Airfix kits as a child and they, all of them, resembled something that had been cocooned by a giant funnel-web.

I just didn’t have the finesse or the dexterity. Or, just maybe, the will.

I don’t even know if they offer woodwork and metalwork at school any more. When my eldest boy starts secondary school in September it will be interesting to find out. I suspect his opinion of such things will be the same as mine but these things are not set in stone. I do know that precious few chose woodwork or metalwork as a study subject when the time came. Only those that saw them as an easy option. The same lads did “gardening” too though I daresay such pursuits would be termed Agricultural Studies now.

Do we choose our social class or is it foisted upon us?

I do a white collar job now. Never done blue. I would never have survived in a factory. Not back then.

And yet, I get an inkling every once in a while... a desire and a wish to learn a craft. Crafts are good. Maybe I have enough confidence in my own abilities now to actually make a decent job of that tea tray?

And as for the shoehorn... well, what can I say? It still works. Maybe more than Mr Pritchard’s name stuck over the years?

Maybe that bastard did something good for me after all?

The Greatest Invention of The 20th Century Was The Washing Machine

And I have proof. Incontestable, empirical proof. You cannot argue with Spongebob Squarepants.

My youngest son has a Spongebob soft toy. Spongebob lives in my son’s bedroom on my son’s bed. Or at least he does during the times when he isn’t being used as a makeshift ballista projectile or an odd shaped rocket whose sole mission in life is to take out the lampshade that surrounds the ceiling light.

Most of the time Spongebob enjoys a quiet, dry, calm existence. Occasionally he is airborne against his will but most of the time he is stationary.

One day this week, however, Spongebob encountered a new experience. A wet experience – which is rather ironic considering Spongebob is supposed to live at the bottom of the sea.

During one of his impromptu boy-assisted flights Spongebob made touch-down in my son’s potty. The potty was full. Spongebob came down into an ocean unlike any ocean that Spongebob was ever made to inhabit.

Spongebob was not happy. My son was cautiously amused.

Spongebob’s label said nothing about him being machine washable. Clearly though we could not allow the status quo to remain as it was. Spongebob needed to wash or go.

We threw him into the washing machine and gave him the works.

Cue both sons – the youngest and the oldest – sitting in front of the washing machine, watching obsessively absorbed as Spongebob was sloshed round and round the drum for the entire duration of the wash cycle. Pure, unadulterated entertainment.

God knows how many hundreds of pounds spent on PlayStation games, God knows how much spent on widescreen TV and digibox, even more spent on DVD players and handheld games consoles...

All wasted.

Want to know what my kids are getting for Christmas?

Laundry.

They’ll love it.

Stepping Outside The Barricades

The first time we put Tom into his cot it dwarfed him. He looked like a peanut in an empty warehouse. We filled the space with soft toys and spare blankets but still he looked lost.

Somehow, over the last year or so, despite our watching him intently he’s managed to sneak the act of growing past our eagle eyes. He’s grown stronger, sturdier, more self willed and determined. And longer.

And the cot has slowly shrunk around him. First it reduced itself from warehouse to wrestling ring – allowing Tom to charge around its railed edges in an endless game of ring o’ roses. And then it shrank further still. It became a one child pay pen. At full stretch Tom was practically touching the far edges with his toes.

And then, inexplicably, it became a pleasant prison. One he never complained about being inside – thankfully Tom has always loved his bed – but one he suddenly began to try and escape from a couple of mornings ago. The early signs were there. Tom was gearing himself up to “go over the walls” (as opposed to smuggling himself out with the laundry).

Such activity sounded the death knell for the cot. The drop down to the floor was such that Tom would be likely to suffer a broken neck or at the very least broken limbs.

Such a likelihood was simply unacceptable.

So the cot was dismantled yesterday afternoon and reconfigured into a proper bed. Tom’s first.

I must admit I felt... sad, regretful. There was something comforting about bedding Tom down in his cot each night. He was safe and secure. Contained. He could come to no harm and no harm could come to him.

He was also still my little baby boy.

Now, suddenly, I have had to re-adjust my thinking. Accept that he is no longer a baby. He is a very active, singularly determined toddler. He’s a proper little boy.

After we’d rearranged the bedroom yesterday afternoon we allowed Tom a little playtime in it. This proved to be a good move. He was very excited by the changes and his frequent squeals of “ooh look” indicated he was pleased with the new arrangements.

The test was bedtime of course. Rather sagely we managed to wear him out so that he’d be less reluctant to get out of bed and it seemed to work. He was tucked in and snuggled down. All his usual furry toys were there.

I snuck up to see him after half an hour and found him sprawled on top of the bed – the blanket kicked off as usual – sound asleep. Mission accomplished.

This morning he was up at 6.10am, running around the bedroom, dipping his little fingers into all this amazing stuff that Ben leaves lying around in the room they share. He loved it. So much so he really didn’t want to go downstairs today and only did so under duress.

So. Another developmental stage has been encountered and passed. The baby has gone. And I shall miss him dearly. But the boy that has appeared in his place more than makes up for the loss. I daresay as his confidence grows his morning wanderings will take him to the stair-gate at the top of the stairs or to the bathroom and all its myriad opportunities for mischief... I suspect I shall not get much of a lie-in for the next week or two...

But despite and perhaps because of that I feel immensely proud.

Welcome to a little bit more of the world, son.

The Mystical Toilet

When you're a kid, toilets are magical, mythical, mystical contraptions.

Aside from the boyhood / manhood pleasure of blasting your urine around the rim like you're strafing an invisible enemy army, there is the magic of the disappearing water.

You pull / push the flusher and all that water shoots down and disappears... where?

As an adult, of course, the toilet is downgraded to merely a mechanical appliance that is (quite literally) always at your unthinking convenience but as a kid... they're akin to dragons and unicorns. Eerie, intriguing, frightening beasts of indeterminate morality.

My eldest boy, Ben, was always a little scared of the toilet and overcoming that fear was a major factor in getting him properly toilet trained... making that big step from carelessly filling his nappy to anticipating the demands of his bladder and making a pre-emptive strike at the portal of the big white telephone. He got a toy car every time he successfully made it to the toilet. Even now those cars are referred to as "poo cars". But his initial fear is understandable. That wide open mouth... The chasm down to deep waters... The porcelain abyss with it's strange smell even when the water is clean... It's a big thing to park your bum over it for the first time and relax enough to let nature take its course.

That fear is also greatly increased when the toilet has eaten one of your toys.

Ben once accidentally dropped a favourite toy down the loo when he flushed it. Of course it went the way of all small solid things trapped beneath the flush cycle.

And that only added to the mystique of the toilet. It transports things elsewhere... Elsewhere via dark underground water chutes. Through the sewers, through vast underground caves... out, out, far out to sea. Or so I used to think as a kid. It's a bit disappointing to learn as an adult that everything actually ends up in some huge sediment tank at a nearby water treatment plant where all the muck is literally sucked out of it. God knows where that toy is now but it's certainly not floating around the Atlantic as Finding Nemo would have you believe.

Anyway, my youngest, Tom, is displaying early signs of having an interest in the toilet. When he has a bath (or a "splish splash splosh" as it is known in my house) he likes to have a quick peak over the rim to see what's down there. I'm hoping this bodes well for future potty training and isn't an early indication of his entire Duplo brick collection making a bid for the Pacific sometime soon.

But regardless of erroneous submersibles and unlikely submarines, it's comforting to know that his toilet rites of passage will begin soon. That he too, in time, will embrace the mystique of the toilet.

Enemy in sight. Release safety catch. Open fire...! Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta...!

Magic.

Too Cute For Words (But I’m Gonna Try)

+++ WARNING +++ PARENTING POST +++ WARNING +++

Tom was sick the other morning. Not a sign of illness of bad food, thank God, just a cough that dug a little too deep. A cough with follow through, if you like.

This occasioned not only a change of bed sheets and jim-jams but also necessitated a ride in the washing machine for “Teddy” and “Snow Bear”, Tom’s utterly devoted sleeping companions.

Now, Tom already loves the washing machine and likes nothing better than to help me load it up ready for a wash. However, given that Tom’s bed mates were going to be subjected to the wash and spin cycle we decided it might be a little traumatic for Tom to condemn his friends to such an ordeal and so snuck the toys in while he was preoccupied with CBeebies.

There was no fooling Tom. As soon as the washing machine kicked into life Tom rushed over to it and stared into its portal window with a look of consternation. There, deep within its foamy innards, Teddy and Snow Bear could be seen sloshing about barely (sorry!) keeping their heads above the torrential suds.

Tom’s hand went to his mouth. His other hand pointed to the washing machine and a loud, sympathetic “aaah” could be heard.

Tom checked on their progress regularly throughout the morning. As soon as the washing machine reached its conclusion and became silent and still Tom was canny enough to wait for the door to unlock itself before he burst into action. Quick as a Flash (sorry again!) he opened up the door and fished his bedraggled friends out.

They were each given a big hug and a kiss and were then carried lovingly to the sofa where they were lain down side by side on the cushions. Tom put his fingers to his lips and told them “shhh”; a clear indication that he felt that a little sleep was all they needed to put their soapy ordeal well behind them.

Altogether now: aah!

I would now like to start a campaign to change the current Oxford Dictionary definition of “cute” to the post above. All Blogger support appreciated.

Bye Bye To Woolies

So Woolworth’s has finally gone into administration. Another Great British High Street institution bites the dust.

It’s been written about (far more expertly and feelingly) by other bloggers but I feel the need to add my twopenneth-worth to the debate (as opposed to adding it to the purchase fund).

I shall miss Woolies greatly even though I hardly ever shopped there (yes, blame me, Mr Woolworth, for your lack of sales). The Woolworth shop sign has been a pillar of the Leamington town centre for generations (Leamington is full of dodgy architecture) and was my gran’s favourite shop.

I shall miss its deep red Ariel-like typeface. It’s creaky hand-winched escalator (Leamington store only). The gaudy aisles. The Pick ‘n’ Mix. The unhelpfully spotty sales assistants. Especially the one with spiky hair (like Rod Stewart) who would effetely stand to one side and chew his fingernails rather than risk breaking them by ringing up a single sale on the antiquated cash register (blame him, Mr Woolworth, for your lack of sales).

I loved Woolworth’s far more as a kid. And it was never “Woolworth” – singular (as is correct) but always “Woolworth’s” which for some reason now strikes me a strange. The school holidays were always made complete by a trip to Woolworth – we’d inevitably have Christmas money or Easter money to spend and after Toytown, Woolworth was the store to spend it in. For me this usually entailed purchasing an A4 writing pad (narrow, ruled feint, margin) and some Woolworth felt tip pens with which I would construct bizarre stories inspired by my fevered pre-adolescent brain.

As I got older I fell out of love with Woolworth. I became a store snob and, may the gods of the High Street forgive me, Woolworth just seemed a little down-at-heel. A glorified pound shop almost. A white elephant store. It lost its identity. You were never quite sure what exactly Woolworth was trying to be. A little bit of everything it seemed but never anything definite.

In later years I merely used Woolworth as a short cut to get from the main shopping road (The Parade) to the road behind it that runs parallel. This seems an awful thing to admit to... like going into a pub merely to use the toilet without buying a single drink. But about 12 months ago they reorganized the store and sealed off the back exits (except for cases of fire) thus condemning this glorious cut-through to the stuff of myth and legend. Now I use the local branch of the HSBC instead but it’s not quite the same.

My most recent visit to Woolworth – a couple of weeks ago – was motivated by mercenary tendencies. On its last legs, blood oozing from its severed jugular, Woolworth were offering a 3 for 2 deal on all their toys. Christmas was (and is) getting nearer. They have a fine selection of Lego which I love. It seemed too good an offer to miss. So I made sure I didn’t. I pounced like a screaming hyena and got myself some bargains. I blew a lot of money that day – possibly gave Woolworth a temporary stay of execution (thank me later, Mr Woolworth, when I toss you my loose change) – but ultimately I came away in the knowledge that my selective purchases had saved me a good £60 and therefore cost Woolworth the same.

I did, I admit, feel a little cruel. Like I’d just snuck round the back and looted a burning building while the fire brigade were busy at the front. But hey, they invited me in. They were ripped and torn and desperate. They were selling the shirt off their back and throwing in the underpants for free.

It was sad to see.

*Sigh*

Sometimes a bullet through the crust is the kindest thing.

Ka-blam!

At ease, soldier. At ease.

The Bedtime Hour

CBeebies has suddenly established a toe-hold in our house.

Tom – just a month a way from his first birthday – has developed an attention span which now makes it worthwhile to allow him a little bit of kid’s telly each day. Hence 6pm to 7pm is now officially The Bedtime Hour.

At this time we all gather round the telly and whilst simultaneously feeding Tom his tea we watch Chris Jarvis and Pui Fan Lee talk joyously about big pink milkshakes, throbbing moon rockets and furry teddy bears without a single trace of irony or even the smallest of smirks. Kid’s telly is a very serious business indeed.

Of course it is a well known fact that grown-ups have children solely to be able to watch kid’s telly without feeling embarrassed about it. Kid’s telly is feel-good safe telly and it puts everyone in a good mood regardless of their age. If I was being charitable I’d say that this effect was achieved simply by the fact that the stories and jolly cartoons carry us back to an age of unsullied innocence where worries about rising mortgages, soaring food prices and the police finding that body under the patio were things totally inconceivable to our young unformed minds... but the reality is that we enjoy watching kid’s telly just so we can take the P out of the hapless presenters as they caper about pretending to ride invisible mopeds or have fairy cake tea parties with an assortment of plastic charity shop toys. Oh how their mates must rip the hell out of them in the pub later...

Of course the fact these people are on about 35K a year means that they have the last laugh but as they are endlessly chuckling and laughing anyway who’s ever going to tell the difference?

One of the best things about kid’s telly though is the occasional celeb they draft in to read the stories or narrate the animations. I’m currently marvelling at the theatrical gravitas that Derek Jacobi manages to bring to his voice-over work on In The Night Garden... phrases like “Here comes the nankynonk” and “Oh no, Iggle-piggle has spilt his nonky-juice” (I kid you not) are delivered with such earnest aplomb they could have been written by Shakespeare. Or “Shacker-nacker” as he would undoubtedly be called in the show.

Best of all though is that this week Keeley Hawes is reading the bedtime story.

Ah. Keeley. Keeley. Keeley.

I feel a shiver of excitement run up my... er... back every time she turns her liquid eyes to the camera and croons “And now it’s time to go to bed...”

My jim-jams positively jump with delight.

The Coolest

After the misery of the previous post (so sorry folks) it’s time for something a bit more lightweight and frivolous to restore the balance.

Some of you may know of my
fascinationobsession with Lego. Some of you no doubt may think it deeply sad and unfathomable.

But.

Isn’t this just the coolest model ever?

Details here: Lego Death Star.

Admit it, even if you’re not a Star Wars fan this is super cool. If you’re a kid (or as they are sometimes called, a grown man) this has to be the ultimate super must-have.

It’s got everything: the garbage compactor scene, Luke’s showdown with the emperor, Obi Wan turning off the power generators... and more.

Plastic doesn’t come anymore beautiful than this.

I’m composing a letter this very afternoon.

Dear Santa...

Hamble Is Evil

I got onto this subject by a rather weird route. Catching an episode of 10 Years Younger last night Karen and I commented on the weirdness of the weird presenter’s name – Nicky Hambleton-Jones. Not Hamilton as you’d expect but Hambleton. Odd. Well. Maybe not that odd when there’s a kid at my boy’s school called Denim (I kid you not) but I was sufficiently bored with the show to drift off in my head and from Hambleton I inexplicably ended up at Hamble and, by association, Playschool.

One of my earliest TV memories is of watching Playschool and being rather puzzled as to why a grown up presenter was playing with the soft toys and dolls. Even at that early age it struck me as incongruous and “not really quite right”.

But that is beside the point. The important thing to acknowledge is this: the Playschool toys were scary. Damn scary.

I never felt any warmth or friendliness toward or more importantly from them. They exuded mute evil and maliciousness in tones that reflected their outward appearances. They’d just sit there in the background while Brian Cant mimed eating a bowl of porridge and hurl the evil-eye at the TV screen. They never moved but you just knew their thoughts were full of death and the desire for human destruction.

The Teds looked like a furry version of the Krays – or worse, the Krankies. They’d rob you at knife point and stab you just to see the pretty strawberry pattern it made on your bib. Humpty looked like a fat, sweating pimp with horrible bacon rind lips and a lascivious smile that never ever disappeared. He personified unwholesome appetites and unnatural desires taken to bad extremes. Jemima... now Jemima you just knew was a snooty cow. A real little madam. On her own she had no real malice or ability to instil fear in anyone – not with those bandy legs. I mean she couldn’t even stand up on her own let alone run after you with a flick-knife. Somehow I suspect she was only allowed to join the Playschool toy gang because she was loaded. She had a mega rich daddy, sugar or otherwise. The rich bitch of the Playschool toys. But I bet she was viciously cruel. She’d be the one egging the others on with snide whispers.... “Go on, Big Ted, cut ‘im, cut his ear off... do it nice and slowly so’s I can see the blood... hey, do you know what they call a Big Mac in France?” A real nasty piece of work. A real bullet-maker.

But worst of all though was Hamble. The doll that looked like Elizabeth Taylor on crack cocaine. Just look at her face in the photo above. Evil. Pure unadulterated evil. Forget the polka dot print dress. She’s wearing a studded leather body-boot underneath with 9 inch heels. She’s got a bag of oranges in her satchel. She’s the ring leader. She’s the boss. And she hates children. Especially little boys. God, you can see it in her eyes. She wants to kill. She wants to maim. She wants to have endless children’s tea parties with imaginary Darjeeling and invisible cake, the sick torturing dirty bitch!

And this show was on 5 days a week for God’s sake!

Is it any wonder I was such a disturbed child?