On Fire

+++ APOLOGIES +++ MINORITY INTEREST POST +++

So. Torchwood.

The Doctor Who spin-off returned for a third outing last week in a lavish new 5 part story that was broadcast every day, Monday through to Friday.

I was, I admit, dubious.

Series one and two of Torchwood were disappointing. Like a chocolate cake that just wasn’t quite chocolaty enough (the diet coke of sci-fi). Good ideas were there – but were spread to thin. The acting was good but the scripts were frequently weak. The stories built up nicely and then were abruptly deflated as Russell T Davies pulled yet another lame solution out of an all too convenient hat.

Deus ex machina done as cliché.

It was too lightweight. Which was a shame as Torchwood had promised much in the early days. Something meaty. Something more adult than the family oriented Doctor Who… but it seemed to fall at the second fence.

In various interviews writer Russell T has admitted he had neither the time nor the ideas to fully realize series two. It showed. The series was patchy and frustrating. So often nearly there… but never quite.

And here they were for series 3 – promoted to BBC1 no less. Somebody high up at the Beeb obviously had faith in them.

In my opinion that faith was at last validated.

Torchwood: Children Of Earth was as close to a sci-fi masterpiece as I’ve seen on terrestrial telly for a long time. Fantastic script, a plot that set the nerves jangling and disturbed the emotions and a proper gut wrenching finale that, while inevitable, left you gasping. It was harsh. Very harsh. But a good harsh.

I’m not going to spoil the plot for those of you who haven’t yet seen it yet (I’m aware that Torchwood makes it out to the US and NZ among other places) but the storyline dealt with some very difficult subject matter. Parenthood, our children and our desire (and our failure) to protect them. Self serving politicians. Child abuse. The rich / poor class divide. Bigotry… and for once Russell T didn’t pull his punches. He followed the dark path to it’s horrible conclusion rather than bottling out at the eleventh hour. It wasn’t pretty.

But it was truthful.

One particular scene where UK politicians decide the grisly fate of millions of children reminded me of the meeting the Nazi’s had to formulate their “final solution”. An entirely deliberate reference point, I’m sure, and of course it added a ring of truth to the entire premise: such a meeting taking place wouldn’t be that outlandish. It’s happened before. In living memory. Civilization is a very thin veneer plastered over a bubbling magma of waiting anarchy.

And as history shows it doesn’t take a lot to puncture the crust.

It made for uncomfortable viewing. Maybe having children myself over-sensitized me? But the idea of the state not just interfering with my children but claiming ownership of them for its own ends really upset me. Again Russell T was tapping into very real, very relevent fears – how much personal autonomy can anyone really have in a nanny state that is always looking over our shoulders for our own good? Who does the family unit really belong to? How far would you go to protect your kids? What if following the parental instinct to protect your kids at all costs became treasonous?

Dark, dark ideas. Which is exactly what I want from sci-fi. It should be far fetched, futuristic, in turns utopic and dystopic. But most of all it should be relevent to the here and now.

It is interesting to note that John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness) was not at all enamoured of the decision to reduce Torchwood to a single five-parter. He’s been very public in announcing his displeasure, feeling that the show has been punished in some way, deliberately constrained.

Well I can recall a tutor of mine telling me that true creativity comes out of constraint, out of limitation. It is a good thing. It should be embraced.

I think Torchwood series three is the proof of the pudding. Rather than a run-of-the-mill 12 part series that misses as much as it hits, we had An Event. We had something that has sadly disappeared with the advent of cable TV and iPlayers and “watch whenever you want to” telly. We had something that millions of people watched at the same time and talked about the next day in anticipation of the next part. It was a good move by the BBC. A clever move. It reminded me of the time in the mid eighties when ITV lost the rights to broadcast the Olympics and so instead bought a US mini series called “V”. It was a ratings success. Everybody sick of the wall-to-wall Olympic coverage on the BBC tuned in to it. Everybody tuned in together. It became an event.

I don’t know where Torchwood will go after this. My hope is that we will see more five parters like this. I’d rather see five lavish, top notch, intelligent, adult episodes per year than a 12 episode series that constantly flounders beneath its own padding.

Last week Torchwood finally delivered.

First class.

I’d like to place another order please.

Battleships

So it’s now officially a pandemic. Though not many people in the media are as yet using that terminology. All to spare us the degrading activity of panicking en masse I suppose.

Swine flu arrived on these shores with a great furore and hoo-hah and then almost immediately blended into the wallpaper as The Great Expenses Debate peppered the MPs in the Houses of Parliament with their own richly scented excrement.

We didn’t exactly forget about it. We just didn’t want to deal with it. Not really. We’ll deal with it later, we thought. When we actually get it or when someone we know gets it.

And like a game of battleships the shells have landed ever closer and closer and now we’re all starting to get a little bit soaked by the resultant spray.

Apparently the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recently decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 5 to phase 6. Not sure how many phases there are to go but it sounds very worrying. The number of flu related deaths has also increased. 14 so far in the UK according to one report.

People reactions to it have been bi-polar to say the least. On the one hand you’ve got people who have recovered from it shrugging their shoulders and saying it was no worse than normal flu and on the other you have people like the receptionists at my doctor’s surgery who, during a visit my wife made there last week, barred entry to a man who was panicking because he’d merely been on an airplane with someone who had swine flu. They actually kept him standing on the doorstep rather than allow him to come inside.

Despite all the information flying around the situation remains confusing. And confusion breeds fear far more effectively than keeping people well informed.

For my part – currently struggling with a sore throat, headache and a gummy ear – I’m not too bothered. I have no idea whether I’m coming down with a normal cold or the big SF and don’t care. A couple of days in bed sounds effing great. I’m otherwise fit, healthy and well nourished and am confident I will fight it off should it get me.

But my kids I do worry about. Ben especially is at risk due to his asthma. And Tom is barely 21 months old and has been hammered by every cold going since starting at nursery a year ago.

And still the water plumes rise ever closer...

It’s tricky. Do you wish to get it over with quickly or try to keep yourself disease free for as long as possible? Do you pray to get it now while the vaccine is still available and the doctor’s workload isn’t too great... or do you leave it until the whole country has come to a standstill and there are looters carrying off the latest iPods from Currys?

I guess it’s elementary. There is no choice. It’s fate. The will of God. Luck. Whatever.

You certainly don’t invite all your friends’ kids round for a “flu party” as some parents have been doing according to newspaper reports earlier in the week.

It’s one thing to have your battleship holed by a stray shell. Another to sink it yourself with your own guns.

Not Getting Any

A report on BBC News24 had me choking on my freshly dunked bourbon biscuit this morning. It seems that scientists in Newcastle have successfully bio-engineered their own sperm.

And by their own sperm I don’t mean, like, you know, their own sperm – cos, let’s face it, every bloke I know (with the possible exception of Michael Jackson) bio-engineers their own sperm on a regular day to day basis. It kind of comes naturally. Sorry. No pun intended.

No, these guys have bio-mechanically engineered a whole bunch (gaggle? shoal? flock?) of spermatazoa in a laboratory – possibly in a petri dish, possibly in a test-tube, certainly not in a tissue – from human stem cells.

Now, I know I’m being glib and flippant in my approach to this and I know that the impetus for this research is to help men with low sperm counts bestow the bounteous joy of children upon their female partners but my first thought was: are these scientists utterly mad? They are making men’s role in the procreation of the species totally totally redundant.

Yeah. I know. Some females among you will (quite rightly perhaps) say that we men have been a negligible ingredient in this endeavour for years. Let’s face it a dirty mag, a willing donor and a turkey baster is all a woman really needs to get a bun in her oven.

But where’s the fun in that – for anybody?

You see, my fear is that any kind of scientific research – no matter the honourable motivations that lie behind it – can ultimately be abused and used to the detriment of our species. And in fact probably will be.

I’m amazed this didn’t occur to the research scientists. I mean they have literally rendered the existence of men (except maybe for plumbers) completely unnecessary. Why would they willingly do this?

My theory is that the scientists involved are highly geeky and have never had and never will have girlfriends. They are being motivated by disenchantment and “rejection anger”. Because they are not getting any they’re going to see to it that the whole concept of any is totally removed from the equation of ongoing human life on this planet.

Now some of you women might shrug and say so what, who cares? But the heterosexual woman among you need to bear one thing in mind. If us straight men aren’t getting any. You’re not getting any either.

It’s time to resurrect the Luddites! It’s time to smash the machinery! Before our own machinery de-evolves into redundant protuberances of skin and tissue matter (like the appendix) through lack of use...

Ring My Ding-a-ling-a-ling

Today has been a strange day.

I was off sick Thursday and Friday and returned to work today, brave soldier that I am, only partially recovered but prepared to stand and face the bullets of the French or the Germans or whoever it is we don’t like as a nation anymore.

And instead found something worse than bullets.

My desk was full of notes and messages – hastily scrawled missives from colleagues and work-mates who in my absence did their best to stem the inevitable flow of entropy and dissolution which is my daily bread and butter.

(Should any of you find yourself in Hell in the afterlife I guarantee you’ll find the entire place plastered with post-it notes...)

Among the lists of malfunctioning equipment and diabolical break-downery that hurt my brain this morning was a plea to recover a ring from one of our sinks. It seems some poor woman – let’s call her Joanna Public – managed to dislodge a bit of bling while scrubbing her dannies yesterday and was most eager to have it recovered if at all possible.

Well, I am always eager to perform acts of possibility and so set to work with a screwdriver and little else (though possibly a modicum of goodwill) and managed to remove the trap from beneath the sink that catches all solid matter – or indeed any matter that just happens to be heavier than the water that has washed it down there in the first place.

It wasn’t a pleasant job. The water was black and thick. Mucoid, if there is such a word (my spellchecker is questioning it with an angry red underline). It looked like Sigourney Weaver’s stomach lining after she’d been impregnated with one of them Alien thingies.

And yes I made the age old mistake of pouring the contents down the very sink I’d just removed the trap from so that the water splashed straight down to the floor. Doh!

But I did recover the ring.

Which upon closer inspection was disappointing. I was expecting gold. I was expecting silver. I was expecting a sparkly stone the size of Jeremy Clarkson’s chin.

Instead I got a rather dowdy looking blackened band of indeterminate metal with a dull, very opaque green stone set into the middle of it.

My first thought was: Christ, I hope it wasn’t the water in the trap that did that. But, upon further examination, I suspect it may have been the ring that did that to the water. However, there is no accounting for taste and I am sure the sentimental value of the ring completely outweighs any snobbery I may harbour towards its true monetary value.

Well, it had better. I’d hate to think I’d swilled my fingers through watery vomit for something that fell out of a Christmas cracker alongside a plastic comb and a tiny plastic spinning top that refuses to spin.

Oh what do I care, really? The job was done and I was just glad to be able to ring (ha ha) Joanna Public up and say that I had saved her ring from a fate worse than missing. It isn’t something I get to say very often, after all, and I made sure I relished the opportunity.

A happy ending.

Unlike the hours I then spent reviewing our CCTV footage to catch two middle aged women setting fire to a bin bag dumped outside the building last night for no other reason that it appeared to amuse them.

The resultant fire wasn’t huge and thankfully a staff member happened to spot the blaze and douse it with a good old fashioned bucket of H2O.

I have then spent the rest of the day wading through conversations with police, staff and alarm engineers who have all given me the distinct impression that I am pouring black, vomity water down a sink without a trap onto my own feet once more...

With no ring this time – dud or precious – to make the activity seem at all worthwhile...

*sigh*

Where’s Frodo Baggins when you need him, eh?

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.

Gordon, Will You Stop Calling Me At Home?

You’d think Gordon Brown, our glorious PM, would have better things to do than to keep calling me all the time, especially when all he’s selling (by the sounds of it) is dodgy debt management facilities. But no, morning noon and night I’m plagued by his unwanted and unasked for telephone calls. I can guarantee that as soon as we get Tom down for a sleep or a midday nap the sodding phone will ring and the recorded message will kick in once more.

Recorded message? Yes...

See, Gordon isn’t actually calling live.

And, if I’m honest, it isn’t actually Gordon.

But the posh voice on the other end of the line is very keen to let me know that he’s calling from a “Government backed” debt management company, so Gordon Brown is definitely in the loop somewhere.

(Government backed? Makes me think of coups in other countries for some reason... hey ho...)

The annoying thing is if you hang up they just call back the next day. If you dial 9 as requested to be removed from their call-list you just know your telephone number has now been confirmed as “live” and other cold callers will start snaking their way through your communications defences. And dialing 1471 (caller ID) only presents you with the galling announcement that the originating number has been withheld.

So they get hold of my number to harass me but withhold their own number so I can’t trace them to complain?! Gits!

In the end I’ve had no choice but to bite the bullet and dial 9. So far so good. Nobody else has rung but it’s another black mark in Gordon’s copy book to my thinking.

All I need now is to find out that I’ve been charged for the bloody calls. I imagine it’s a great way to generate revenue.

Or maybe Gordon is paying for them himself on his expense account?

Now that, folks, is real debt management.

Highs And Lows And Somewhere Stuck In-Between

Apologies for the ragbag nature of this post but (to well and truly mix my metaphors) that’s the way the cookie is crumbling today.

First up on the blog podium is the news that I have at last been awarded my degree. I finally got my results yesterday and have come through over 10 years of part time study to be granted a good 2:1 honours class English degree from Warwick University. And many, many thanks to French Fancy who was kind enough to ask after my results yesterday when the rest of you had clearly forgotten all about them *sniff sniff* I mean it’s not like you have lives or anything...

Second up – and just because you’d have to be dead or in a coma to have missed the news this morning – it seems that reports of Michael Jackson’s death have not been exaggerated... though part of me, the cynical part, is wondering if it’s all a scam and he’s faked his own death.

Isn’t that awful?

I must admit, although it’s sad to hear of his death – he was after all hugely talented (though even a hugely talentless person’s death is sad news) – the news reportage and media accolades are cheesing me off something rotten. This is the same media that only weeks ago was joyously slagging him off for his financial problems and his dodgy history of alleged misconduct with children whose parents were keen to have their kiddie-winks associated with the self proclaimed mega-rich King of Pop.

I mean at one point you couldn’t move on the telly without every celeb going taking a pot-shot at MJ’s rumoured paedophilia. The air waves were full of jokes along the lines of: does Michael like The Backstreet Boys or does he prefer Boyz To Men? And comedians even now still wheel out an obligatory Michael Jackson joke during their many and varied routines. Because let’s face it, it’s easy enough to do.

Suddenly though, today, the media world is full of po-faced accolades and high-falutin’ laurels from all and sundry announcing with fine gravitas that The King Of Pop – the Legend – is dead. Sob. Sob.

Spare me.

*sigh*

Oh I don’t know. If I’ve nothing good to say, maybe I ought to just play it safe and not say anything at all?

Lastly, it’s been a weird old week. I managed to get myself stuck in a lift at work yesterday. First time in my life it’s ever happened. There I am at Council HQ (which thankfully is only 4 storey’s high) and the lift cuts out between floors 3 and 4. From out of a tinny wall speaker I could hear Stephen Hawking announcing that the lift was “out of service”. It was good to have that pointed out.

I followed the instruction printed on the wall. I pressed the button for the operator. I didn’t panic. I kept calm. I spoke clearly. And most important of all I didn’t speak while the operator spoke. The instructions were very clear about that. It seems that in an emergency – although I am the one trapped – what she has to say takes precedence. Well fine. I know my place.

Stuck in a metal box no wider than 6ft and suspended tens of metres above bone shattering concrete.

It wasn’t the best 5 minutes of my life, I must admit, but my work colleagues had me out in a jiffy before I could entertain too many thoughts of making Hollywood style elevator escapes. I was thinking Speed. I was thinking The Matrix. Both of which oddly star Keanu Reeves.

So.

How to wrap this post up?

It’s obvious really.

The only way is up!

P.S. There is no spoon. ;-)

The Happy Moon Days

So. The moon landings. Did they really happen or are they one of the biggest hoaxes of the 20th Century?

This isn’t a random thought that has just popped into my head (honestly, my random thoughts would make scary reading most days) but has been shoehorned there by watching “James May On The Moon” on the BBC last night.

Alas Mr May was neither flying to the moon nor exposing his shabbily trousered butt-cheeks to the good people of NASA but was instead delivering a documentary about the moon landings. And a rather good one at that.

I have no memory of the original moon landing given that it happened 2 months before I was born but I do take great pleasure in the fact that I was born into an age where men had finally set foot onto another planet. The very idea of it – people walking around on the surface of a world other than Earth – even today astounds me.

And yet, in other respects, we are so blasé about the idea of interplanetary space travel these days (with the sheer volume of sci-fi entertainment available to us) that for most teens and twenty somethings the idea of visiting planet Zog to buy a lightsaber elicits nothing more than a shrug. The idea of it has become somehow just an inevitable progression of modern technology. It’s accepted that it might not happen in this day and age but one day it most certainly will.

It’s just going to happen, OK? It’s no big deal. It’s just a matter of when not if.

But it is a big deal.

May was fortunate to be taken up 13 miles – to the very edge of space – by the United States Air Force in one of their impressively humungous U2 spy planes. A plane that resembles a pencil with the wings of an albatross.

May was visibly moved. It wasn’t difficult to see why. Looking down on a jumbo jet that is as far below you as it normally is above you when you’re standing on the planet must have been a jaw dropping experience. And then to realize that the only people higher than you are the people in the International Space Station... well, let’s hope the toilet pump in the space suit May was wearing was working properly.

It must be incredibly humbling. To be that far up and see the curvature of the earth... Imagine then to be 384403 kilometres away on the surface of the moon and to be able to blot out the entire Earth with the palm of your hand – as indeed one of the astronauts actually did.

How fragile we all are. How small.

Which brings me back to my original question. Was it all just a hoax?

I don’t think it was.

I know the conspiracy theorists out there will always argue that the whole thing was faked but yah-boo-sucks-phooey to them.

It was real. You could see it in the faces of the astronauts that May spoke to – the wonder, the mind altering awe of having actually stood on another planet. It was as real as this ergonomically unsound chair beneath my iron-hard buttocks. I’d stake my very virtue on it.

Why then have we never been back? the conspiracists argue. The fact that we haven’t must prove it. We can’t go back because to get there in the first place is impossible.

Rubbish.

What is there to go back to? Until technology has advanced far enough that we can export a whole construction site up there and build Moon World there is very little point spending billions of dollars and risking lives just to send men up there to leap about and collect another handful of moon rocks to prove a point that the conspiracy theorists still won’t believe anyway.

Sod them.

Let them mope about in their miserable “we’re stuck on this planet forever and can’t get off it” headspace.

My imagination is bigger, brighter, richer and infinitely further reaching for a having a suitcase packed ready for my imminent trip to planet Zog...

From up here the Earth looks wonderful. And the rest of the universe looks... well, excitingly inviting.

Houston. I’m ready when you are.

Umbrella For A Sunny Day

“Umbrella” because the two components of this post are completely disparate but I’m going to lump them together ‘cos today is the day for writing about them both. The first part is a family oriented kiddie post, the second touches on the reading aloud of poetry. Take your pick, dear reader, or read ‘em both.

The eldest boy is celebrating his 8th birthday today. He came downstairs this morning to find the sofa stacked with presents – presents that his dad hastily wrapped last night while his mum suffered beneath the vicious malaise of a horrible cold. Every birthday / Christmas Karen and I always say “this time we’ll be more organized and get the presents wrapped early” and every time we play present wrapping chicken and wrap them at the very last minute.

Not that Ben minded. He’s had a good haul – loads of Lego (naturally), a Nintendo game, the ubiquitous Pokémon cards and a digital camera amongst the new treasures.

Tom’s reaction was very interesting. Last Christmas he still didn’t fully understand this “present opening malarkey” at all though had good fun shredding the discarded paper and cardboard.

Today however was very much a different kettle of fish. He seemed as excited by the presents as Ben was – lots of cooing and ooh-ing and a few attempts to eat the presents whilst still in their wrapping paper...

But once the gifts were unwrapped they were far more intriguing than the paper.

I sense a shift in consciousness here. Gone are the days when we could have palmed him off with an empty box or a bit of glittery paper... now he wants product! He’s joined the consumer race at last.

To help avoid any displays of jealousy or feelings of neglect we bought Tom a little present too. His current love is bus spotting whenever we are out and about in the car. He just loves them. Every time we point a bus out to him we elicit a shout of joy and the phrase: “Dus! Dus!” which is Tom’s pronunciation of the word “bus”.

Hence Tom’s present just had to be a big bright yellow Lego Duplo bus complete with passengers and luggage compartment which, if it has been opened and closed once, it has been opened and closed a hundred times already. He loves anything with a hinge does our Tom.

He has refused to let the damn thing go and has taken it into nursery with him. Woe betide the staff if they ever try and separate them...

Anyway the upshot is, I think Tom has decided he quite likes birthdays. Doesn’t matter if it’s his or not. Any birthday will do. Just as long as he acquires a bus.

Let’s hope I’m not having to negotiate with Midland Red when he turns 18...

And now for the poetry...

Janete over at Writer’s Blog has embedded a small movie into her latest post featuring photos she has taken during her travels. The soundtrack is Janete herself reading one of her amazing poems. It’s worth a click and a few minutes of your time savouring the experience.

What struck a chord with me was Janete’s comment about not liking her own voice. I expect most people feel the same way – possibly because we imagine our voices to sound somehow different to how they really are... sort of the same but different. The same but improved. Polished. Authoritative. Silkier. Movie star like.

It’s always depressing when you hear your voice played back to you and you realize you sound like a bin man from Walsall.

Not that Janete does, I hasten to add. I actually think she has a fabulous voice – really lovely – and it suits her poetry perfectly. Go and listen to it if you don’t believe me.

Mine, however, does. Or at least I think it does. About 15 years ago I had the opportunity to read out some of my poetry on a local radio programme broadcast by Coventry & Warwickshire BBC. It was to be pre-recorded and would be broadcast a week later... so, lucky me, I’d be able to listen to myself in the comfort of my own home.

For some reason, even though I’m Midlands born and bred, I had a fancy to sound like Ted Hughes. I loved his poetry and I loved to hear him reciting it. Such a rich, dark voice. And the Yorkshire accent lent his words an expressiveness and earthiness that added yet more depth and richness to a grasp of language that was already immeasurably deep and rich.

Oh to sound like that! I would have turned heads.

Now, don’t think for a minute that, when presented with the microphone, I launched into an awful cod-Yorkshire “ee bah gum it’s cold oop North int it” accent. I wasn’t that stupid. I’m not good at mimicking accents though can manage a passable Scots if I put my mind to it (but as my dad is part Scottish this is only right and proper).

I merely tried to speak clearly and authoritatively. With feeling and passion. With an ear for the words and the music of my poetry.

I swear to God I sounded like a Birmingham fish monger reading William Blake. Not a great mix.

It affected me so badly I didn’t write anything for nearly 12 months and, bar reading a 3rd prize winning poem at Warwick’s 2006 Warwick Words competition, have never read my work aloud again.

Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder but the ear has its part to play also.

Playing Hide And Seek With The Neighbours

Our neighbours are many things but they are not nudists or naturists or given over to holding Druidic ceremonies in their back garden.

Which is fortunate as the fence that divides their good green earth from ours is (a) dilapidated and (b) only about 3ft tall even when it is upright.

We can see absolutely everything.

Every barbecue. Every attempt at sunbathing. Every sweaty session with the lawnmower.

And they of course can see us doing the same. With the exception of the barbecue as that’s an activity that Karen and I haven’t yet embraced (we’re quite capable of burning our sausages in the oven, thank you very much).

Now, our garden lives are quite innocent. Neither of us are growing marijuana or opium. Neither of us are burying hated relatives under the patio of even stuffing their decomposing body parts into green wheelie bins for the local council to take away.

We ain’t got nuffink to hide, guv’nor.

But a little privacy would be nice. A little privacy would be welcome.

We get along fine but I’ve noticed that whenever they are in their garden, sat around their Ikea table, we have only got to appear around ours for them to immediately disappear inside. Or if we’re in our garden playing with the kids and they suddenly appear we feel strangely inhibited. That entire side of the garden is somehow off limits for us to approach or even look at. Especially when Mr and Mrs Neighbour are stalking around in their very highly cut European shorts (they’re Polish) ‘cos let’s face it, a camel toe on a man is not a great look.

Instead we nod hello politely and one of us relinquishes their claim on the outside world and disappears back inside, no doubt grumbling a little.

It’s a ridiculous situation.

And one Karen and I intend to remedy as soon as possible once the money from my aunt’s will is divvied out.

The plan is to erect a good 6ft fence along that side of the garden. Previous quotes gave us a ball park figure of £1000 – which is why we are currently unable to ring-fence our little compound to our mutual satisfaction.

This will have the benefit of not only allowing nude sunbathing and gratuitous camel toeing without risk of causing offense or traumatizing the children but also prevent a certain rogue rottweiler* from invading both our gardens like a canine blitzkrieg.

We’ll effectively be erecting a Cuprinol enhanced Maginot line only without the watchtowers or the gun emplacements (though I’m hoping that these can be added at a later date).

Happiness, it seems, is a warm high fence and good border control.

Which sounds scarily like some kind of BNP manifesto. Gulp. But honestly, folks, it’s not meant to be. I just don’t want any more glimpses of my Polish neighbour’s man bush...

I just want to be able to enjoy my garden without being reminded of 1970’s editions of Health & Efficiency magazine.

Is that too much to ask?




*Re: the dog. We’re no further forward. The dog warden makes regular visits and the owners pretend to be absent. However, although we’ve heard the dog barking on several occasions we haven’t see it marauding or pillaging for a number of weeks now. But until the fence is commissioned neither us nor the Poles can fully relax our guards.

Out Of Africa

A short while ago – in zestful arrogance – I wrote a sarcastic email to some poor enterprising con man in Burkina Faso. I took the mickey out of his risible attempts to get me involved in a multi-million dollar scam and scoffed at the very idea that my Great Aunt Matilda could have enjoyed sexual congress with a tribesman of that region a century ago producing an off-shoot of the family tree that would, in 2009, name me as a the sole heir to his dubiously misbegotten fortune.

Of course I was aware of the scientific theory that we all ultimately descended from a single tribe in central Africa many thousands of years ago but ignored it in favour of cutting edge satire and a cheap joke about Kunte Kinte being my long lost cousin.

I now bow my head in shame.

Dr Alice Roberts (if my doctor looked liked her I’d become a hypochondriac) has investigated and, to my mind, proven the theory as fact beyond all shadow of a doubt. Her programme, The Human Journey, has been essential Sunday night viewing for the last 4 weeks.

And what a terrific gig for Dr R.

She got to sashay her pert little tush across every continent on the planet and got her hands wrapped around some amazing looking bones. Lucky girl.

But it wasn’t all sun screen and sultry pouts to camera for Dr R, Oh no. She worked bloody hard too. She risked a night alone in the African bush, fingered lots of ancient skulls in dusty museum store rooms and correlated and produced a work of such superlative televisual research that it stopped me mourning the absence of Lark Rise To Candleford.

It seems that we did indeed – all of us – descend from one single tribe that emerged out of Africa about 50,000 years ago. A tribe that gradually worked its way up into Europe, jogged across into Asia and Australasia and finally made the big leap into the Americas about 14,500 years ago – spreading its bounteous seed like wild oats as it went. Genetically the theory has also been proven. Undeniably. Irrefutably. The men in white coats say so. Their scientific barcode thingies prove it.

We are all of us related.

You are all of you – including the con man in Burkina Faso, including Dr Alice Roberts – my brothers and sisters.

Technically we’ve been inbreeding for years.

No wonder the planet is in such a God-awful mess.

Virility And Decrepitude

My visits to the dentist are becoming quite depressing.

While my dentist has become younger (and female), I’ve got older. And stayed male. Though the latter isn’t yet cause for bi-polar disorder.

My previous dentist, the wonderfully named Mr Twiss, retired about 2 years ago. He was an odd man. Physically he resembled John McCririck only without the be-chained spectacles and the penchant for bookie sign language – that would have been most off-putting while he was rummaging around in my mouth – we have a compacted wisdom tooth coming in at 5-1...

Towards the end he’d become rather portly and had trouble bending himself over his opulent belly. This may explain why my appointments with him were so brief and so pleasingly work-free. Of course his imminent retirement might have had a lot to do with the lack of commissioned dental work as well. He was just coasting along, doing as little as possible, trying to avoid topping someone with an overdose of Novocain or whatever it is they use these days. He was just happy to chat and scrape off the odd bit of plaque while I stared up at the impressive ginger topiary that sprouted forth from his nostrils.

My new dentist, Dr Hassan, is the complete opposite. Female, Arabic, nothing at all like the dreaded McCririck and her nose – from what I’ve seen of it (and I’ve seen quite a bit) – is mercifully hair free. As clean as the torpedo tubes on a Russian nuclear sub in fact. Thankfully she’s not launched any salvoes my way while I’ve been reclining beneath her.

Now there’s a line for a bodice ripper if ever I heard one.

The biggest difference though is that Dr Hassan is conscientious to the point of costing me vast sums of money every time I visit her. Mr Twiss would sting me for an average of £15 per visit. Dr Hassan finds enough work to do to cost me £50. Usually it’s a “scrape and polish”. Something that never bothered me much as a child but is now extremely painful due to the sensitive nature of my aged gums.

Yesterday she announced somberly that I’m beginning to lose bone.

I nearly replied that having my jaw clamped open while having my molars slashed with a mini chainsaw was hardly going to get me in the mood... but quickly comprehended that she was referring to my teeth...

Apparently I’m losing bone at the front bottom portion of my jaw. I’m still not entirely sure what this means. I’ve always had a weak chin... does this mean it’s getting weaker?

Anyway, the upshot is I have to be more brutal with my brushing regime. This will supposedly encourage my gums to “firm up” and hold on more tightly to my incisors.

It seems they are in danger of falling out next time I snap them down onto a Yorkie.

This apparently is just a normal sign of old age and general wear and tear. Nothing much to worry about.

But I do worry.

I miss Mr Twiss. For all Dr Hassan’s nose is far more pleasant to look up, Mr Twiss always made me feel young and robust.

Dr Hassan makes me feel like I’m crumbling away beneath her impressively blue aproned breasts.

It’s not a nice feeling. Especially when I’m being charged £50 for it.

The Shame

America elects its first black president...

For the last 7 days Europe and America has been commemorating the anniversary of the D-Day landings, a time when nations pulled together to stand against bigotry and racism. ..

And yesterday Great Britain awarded the BNP two seats in the European Parliamentary elections.

The entire nation should hang its head in shame.

I mean, who in their right mind voted for these BNP idiots? Anybody care to own up?

No. I didn’t think so. Which makes their election all the more puzzling.

How has it happened?

Is an economic downturn all it takes for people to lose their thin veneer of humanity and jump on the bandwagon of bigotry?

Can people not see the appalling danger in any ethos that has at its heart the xenophobic desire to “save [insert the name of any country here] only for me and mine and people who look like me and mine”?

Plainly not.

History is evidently an ineffectual teacher.

Worse.

History is an appallingly ineffectual supply teacher. It means well. It wants to teach us really important stuff but its authority is completely lost on us. We just want to muck about at the back of the class, go out to break early, bunk the day off and then moan and blame other people when everything eventually goes tits up.

My wife’s reaction to the news was to wonder aloud if maybe it was time we got out of this country.

Mine was to opine that if the BNP got any more toe-holds people like us – proud liberals – might not have any choice in the matter.

From now on I’m going to be keeping one eye on the political landscape and one on the cheap suitcase shop at the top of town.

The reputation of the UK is currently staggering beneath the weight of a long knife in the back. I’d hate to be there if it ever topples over.

Squirrel Nutkin Must Die!

(Adopts 1940’s terribly proper BBC voice...)

People of Great Britain!

Your country is in peril!

Your country needs you to rally round, gird your loins and perform exemplary duties on behalf of your noble Prince, God save him.

Yes, the call has gone out by the glorious Prince of Wales to rid the land of the grey menace. Forget swine flu. Forget improper use of the expenses system by our doughty MPs. The grey squirrel is threatening the livelihoods of our most respectable landowners.

“The greys are doing immense and increasing damage to hardwoods all over the country and threaten to compromise all our efforts to restore native woodlands...” said the Prince in a beautifully crafted letter to the CLA (that’s Country Land and Business Association to lower class people of unprivileged education).

The Prince – ever mindful of ecological issues – also raised the point that “wiping them out” might be the only way to preserve the red squirrel – the native denizen of these shores who, if it could choose its own colour, would surely be true blue. God save the Queen!

A short advertisement for Izal toilet paper will now follow this broadcast...

*****

So there you have it. A call to arms by Prince Charles no less.

Now, having bought my own house which comes replete with its own humungous garden I am technically a landowner. I might be stretching the point slightly but I bet I could get it to stand up in a court of law.

So I’m taking it as read that by Royal Decree I have been granted license to kill. Admittedly license to kill only grey squirrels but there’s enough of them around that I could make it a full time job. I mean, let’s be clear. The Prince is not suggesting we merely pop one or two of them off. He’s suggesting we wipe out the lot of them. Genocide. Total eradication.

It’s rather a shocking clarion call from our fuddy-duddy Goon loving Prince.

But what I want to know it: is he going to put his money where his murderous mouth is?

Is he going to supply me with the arms to carry out this mission? Hand me an antique musket emblazoned with the Windsor family crest and a bag full of lead balls? Buy me an AK-47 from Ebay replete with newly minted Russian ammo? Or just park a lorry load of cyanide outside my front door where the kids can gain easy access to it?

‘Cos I’m really not fussy.

Hell, I’d even give it a go with a bow and arrow.

I mean this is Prince Charles asking after all. Future King of England and all that...

But I do have one small concern. Where does it all end?

I mean, we murder the grey squirrel today... fine. Do we butcher the mink tomorrow? Do we move onto flora after that – start napalming great swathes of Japanese knotweed and floating pennywort? Because they shouldn’t really be here in the UK either.

Where does it all end? Or, perhaps more pertinently, how far could it be taken?

Hmm.

Puritanism of any kind is never a good thing. It inevitably leads to bloodshed. Or am I just reading far too much into it?

I Am The God Of Hell Fire And I Bring You...

Fire took us by surprise about a week ago.

It was invited into the house by some frozen sausages which we were mercilessly grilling (not Gene Hunt style) for our tea.

We’re not sure how it happened. We were being pretty careful and vigilant. Doors locked. Windows bolted. No cold callers signs all over the place.

But maybe that was our mistake?

This was a hot caller.

In the time it took us to take our eye off the ball great big yellow flames were licking their way out of the grill. It seems that the sausages went from being frozen to jetting gouts of hot fat onto the grill bars like a small time crim singing under the blows of police brutality.

The jets ignited immediately and fulsomely.

Weirdly my Corporate Fire Training (fanfare please) both kicked in and didn’t kick in.

I opened the grill door. Big mistake. The sudden in-rush of oxygen fed the flames and they got meatier. I’m not sure even now if this boded at all well for the sausages.

I shut the door again rather quickly but it was too late. The flames had taken the grill by storm and were now cooking the cooker.

I reached for a tea towel and performed the old “soak a tea towel and drape it over the flames” trick. Tick please. It worked. It took a few seconds - seconds in which Karen and I began to wonder aloud whether we should get the kids and the DVD collection out of the house for safe keeping – but it worked nonetheless.

The flames gave a last gasping flicker and went out. Possibly to someone else’s house. Possibly on the razz. I’m not sure. Given the mess they left behind I won’t be inviting them back again anytime soon.

And that was as close as we’ve ever come – and as close as we ever want to come – to having a house fire and burning down everything that we’ve worked so damned hard for.

It was a short lived but rather intense experience.

The cooker even now still looks petulant and sooty.

And the sausages, when we finally ate them, were undercooked.

It seems they’d kept cool under duress and refused to spill the beans...

Exam Fever

Just a quickie I'm afraid as I am off work today with my youngest boy who is poorly - a high temperature all weekend culminating in nearly 40 degrees last night and a huge hot rash on his hip and leg which didn't blanch beneath a glass. This was far too alarming for Karen and I to even dream of sleeping comfortably last night and we rang the NHS Helpline number and spoke to a very nice nurse who asked us lots of pertinent questions which - much to our relief - ruled out meningitis.

It seems a ridiculous conclusion to have jumped to now but parenthood and panic seem to go hand-in-hand surprisingly often.

Good old Calpol did the trick and brought his temperature down to a more acceptable 38.5 - but still too high. The nurse advised us to get him to the doctor today so I have stayed home to see that all can be done.

He at last seems better now and is asleep in bed having finally eaten properly for the first time in over 24 hours. His temperature has at last dropped back to normal. The medical conclusion is that he'd picked up some sort of virus.

Well, isn't this always the case?

I'm just glad it wasn't the M word nor swine flu which apparently (according the NHS Helpline recorded message) has now hit the East Midlands with a vengeance.

So. This post was originally going to be about the exam I sat on Saturday - the final one for my degree course - and was going to be full of erudite wit and breath-taking insight. Alas, I am not up for such games at the moment. I feel drained.

Suffice it to say I survived and answered the questions to the best of my ability. Hopefully the waffle versus fact ratio was canted in favour of me getting a pass at the very least. I should get the results end of June - and then, all being well, I will finally graduate on July 17th.

Hard to believe that after 10 years+ my part-time degree is finally over.

It's a huge relief but pales into insignificance compared to the relief I feel to see my son sleeping peacefully and contentedly in his cot...

Robotic Bin Men

According to a News24 news item this morning boffins in Italy have developed a robotic rubbish collector.

Customers can send a text message to the robot when they leave out their bin bags and then he/she/it will happily trundle along, scoop up their bin bags and take them to the appropriate trash sorting centre. It sounds great. Bin men on demand. No more rubbish lying around rotting for days on end while we wait for the bin men to finally get round to performing their weekly pick up. One text and you get instant service.

Presumably as many times a day as you need it.

Of course for it to work in the UK there are certain modifications that would have to be made and certain social problems that would have to be overcome.

You just know that the poor little robot would end up mercilessly tagged with graffiti as it went about its business or, worst case scenario, hoofed into the nearest river or dropped off a railway bridge to be neatly (trash) compacted by the 9.25 to Birmingham Moor Street.

So security for the Brit version would have to be beefed up. Armour of some kind. Anti tamper mechanisms. Anti graffiti paint. Smoke canisters and rubber bullets fired out of its electronic anus. A direct line to the ASBO department of the local constabulary. Possibly a random selection of Gene Hunt quotes broadcast through an on-board amplifier to deter potential attackers.

“You’re making as much progress as a spastic in a magnet factory...”

"You look as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot...”

"You so much as belch out of line and I'll have your scrotum on a barbed wire plate..."

That sort of thing.

As for modifying its behaviour to fit in with British bin man culture, this should be easy enough to do.

It would need to be reprogrammed to be as untidy as possible – to spill litter everywhere and not bother to return your bin properly. Instead it could dump your bin in another street entirely so you can play “hunt the bin” for a couple of hours to get it back.

It would have to sing as loudly as possible in a voice so atonal it makes Piers Morgan sound like Frank Sinatra. Something by Brittany Spears. Only with alternative lyrics – rhymes that would make a rugby player blush. And all songs must be sung between 8.30 and 9.00 in the morning so every school kid in the land can receive a true education in uncouthness and vulgarity.

Finally of course the bin bot must be programmed to sift through your rubbish in search of old porno mags and rogue copies of The Sunday Sport that it can wave about in the street and call to its robotic colleagues about.

“Blimey, look at the trash compactor on ‘er...”

“Cor, I wouldn’t mind land-filling that one...”

Etc. Etc.

Yeah. Then it would fit right in. Perfect integration. Nobody would even notice any difference.

See, I should have been a scientist, me.

The Lynx Effect

I’d like to invite you all into my shower with me, if I may?

Picture the scene. I’m there half blinded by hot water. I reach for the bottle of shower gel. Although it’s my usual brand – Lynx – it’s not my usual flavour. Not one I would have normally bought.

Because Karen and I do our weekly shop online we occasionally get what is known as “substitutions”. When the products we have selected are unavailable in the store our personal packer will substitute it for a close (living) relative or a slightly different product of a similar type.

Such was the case with my shower gel. Tesco had run out of Africa (now there’s a great newspaper headline) and had supplied me instead with Fever.

OK. I’m soaking wet by now (steady ladies) and basically fully committed to the full-on shower experience.

I open up Fever and begin to apply it liberally.

I halt mid application.

It’s got bits in it. Bits of grit.

This is not enjoyable. My shower experience is compromised.

Now I know some kind of abrasive effect is scientifically proven to get a body cleaner. I know that sugar water is supposed to be great at removing tough ground-in stains from human skin. I know there are products you can buy with the equivalent of broken bits of glass in them to help you remove stubborn oil stains from the palms of your hands.

This is great for mechanics, miners and oil rig workers. They need a hard man ablution experience. I wouldn’t argue with that at all.

But I’m just a regular guy taking a regular shower.

And like most regular guys taking a regular shower the shower experience for me is purely functional. Privates and underarm areas are a priority and then I cover as much of the rest of me as I can with soap and rinse it off. Straight in straight out. No messing.

I really don’t want or need a shower gel that exfoliates as it washes. I don’t want or need to remove dead skin from my legs to make them look silky smooth (especially when I have the Forest of Dean growing on them). I don’t want or need to have the skin on my chest glowing with that freshly scraped and grazed feeling.

What metrosexual idiot came up with shower gel for men with bits in it?

What man on this planet enjoys having his pubes and pits infested with bits of soapy grit?

Answer anyone?

Er... reading back over this post... did I supply way too much information?

Au Naturale

Whilst looking for some nice pics of Jasmine Harman for my previous post (a very pleasant way to spend ten minutes) I came across this on-line "news" item – forgive the inverted commas but it is the News Of The World Magazine after all.

It seems Jasmine was given the opportunity to have a Photoshop makeover.

She gave a body beautiful wish-list to some computer graphics geek and - hey presto - he airbrushed and pixel-tweaked a picture of Jasmine to her own vision of perfection. The result can be seen above.

What is interesting about this "experiment" (‘cos it’s not just an excuse to publish a picture of a pretty woman in a bikini, no sirree, absolutely not) is that Jasmine didn’t like the results. She didn't like the perfect version of herself at all but preferred herself as she really is.

How refreshing, because I have to say that so do I. And for the same reasons that Jasmine cites. The perfect version looks unreal. Unnatural.

Now maybe this is just because the graphic artist was piss-poor at his job and his eye for (so called) perfection was as canted as most teenagers who only get to see a woman’s naked body when it has a couple of staples running through the navel or when it’s badly pixellated on porntube.

Or maybe some of us more enlightened folk just prefer the real deal?

There is after all something adolescent and immature about what constitutes (in men’s eyes at least) the “perfect” female body. Pneumatic breasts with nipples that forever point upwards no matter where gravity is pulling them. Washboard stomach as taut as a drum-skin. Thighs as smooth as fleshly applied plaster (by a professional obviously).

Women with those attributes only exist in top shelf magazines and the fashion glossies.

Literally. We all know they’ve been as airbrushed as Jasmine’s picture above (just more insidiously).

They don’t actually exist in the real world.

Such injudicious tweaking gives people – men and women – false expectations of themselves and each other. Well, this is hardly news.

But sadly we now live in a world where even the most outlandish expectation can be met if you have enough wonga to pay for it.

Which got me thinking. How many people who have plastic surgery to marry themselves up to some flawed idea of perfection end up secretly hating the result once the surgery and the healing process is over? Or wishing they could revert back to how they were before?

It’s a very expensive mistake to make. I bet Jasmine is pleased she merely went under a virtual knife than a real one.

As am I. I moved away from the airbrushed woman (homo-airbrushus) in my late teens early twenties. A real woman is always far more attractive and far sexier in my opinion – and yes that includes cellulite and boob-droop and a wobbly belly.

I just hope that all the women that sigh over chesty pin-ups like Daniel Craig and George Clooney secretly feel the same way about us men. Because believe you me, none of us are physically perfect either.

The airbrush doesn’t give a damn about gender… it just wants to sell a little more copy.

The Mormon Invasion

So we'd made it to Friday evening. The kids were in bed. The washing up had been done. All the chores were out of the way.

It was Quality Time at last. Curled up on the sofa. Big bar of choc. Jasmine Harman on TV shaking her impressive decolletage over various locations in the South of France.

And naturally the doorbell rings.

Cold callers.

Pains in the effing A.

I did the net curtain twitch and took a quick deco.

Two young guys. White shirts. One in a blazer. Both with neat little back-packs hung from their broad shoulders like turtle shells. Even before I'd heard the American accent I knew they were Mormons.

Here to spread to Word of God and save me from myself.

Well sorry. I was too tired to be saved so I ignored the doorbell.

It went again. A second time.

OK. OK. They were being persisent. But in my house that doesn't always pay. I was more determined than ever to ignore them.

Doorbell chimed for a third time.

Jesus!

(Though I kept my voice down when I said that.)

When are these guys going to get the message? Tom was asleep in bed and I really didn't want him woken up by two well-meaning God-botherers. I resolved that if they tried a fourth time I was going to march out there and give them a piece of my mind.

Then we heard a strange jangling sound. The sound of keys being pushed through our letterbox. The Mormons then headed over to next-door's house.

I went into the hall to investigate.

Sure enough, there was a bunch of keys lying on the mat. Not the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven I might add but our own house keys. Seems Karen had accidentally left them in the front door keyhole when she'd arrived home an hour or two earlier.

Boy did I feel guilty.

I'd been mentally slagging off these pure-hearts in my head and then they go and save me and my family from burglary and God knows what else.

Shame on me.

Thank God I hadn't answered the door though. I'd have felt even worse if, mid slag-off, they'd handed me the keys personally with a cheery, "There you go, sir." Their halos would have blinded me. I would have had to listen to them then. My guilt would have had me honour-bound to repay their kindness by listening to a sermon or two and maybe even admitting to the fact that I do own at least one Osmond record (admittedly it's "Crazy Horses", the one they released when they were desperately trying to raunch themselves up to increase falling record sales). I know how guilt makes me behave. I may even have invited them inside and offered them a cup of tea and a biscuit whilst chastely switching Jasmine off in favour of the The Chelsea Flower Show.

But thinking about it some more... maybe the way it happened was the right way?

I mean, I suffer a little post-irritation guilt and learn a lesson or two about the kindness of strangers... and they continue on their rounds taking pride in the fact that they've perfomed a Godly act of kindness in the face of total heathen ignorance.

Everybody's happy.

Isn't that how religion is supposed to work...?

Dr Evil

Yes folks, it has been confirmed.

I am Dr Evil.

I am the one who dispenses negative vibes and foul atmospheres upon the ones who are incautious enough to cross me.

How do I know this?

My eldest boy has just told me (at approximately 09.00 hours) that I have given him a bad day as he stomped into school with a face like a stone mason’s elbow.

Why?

On a day when he was already weighed down with coat, sports kit, lunch bag and school bag he also wanted to take in to school the biggest A4 folder of Yu-Gi-Oh cards that the world has ever seen. He could barely get himself out the front door let alone all the way to school.

So I vetoed the cards. They were staying home.

Cue a 10 minute tantrum in front of a work colleague who is giving us all a lift to school this week (Karen is in Birmingham every day taking an accountancy revision course) which made us all late.

And when I say tantrum, I mean TANTRUM.

The kind of tantrum that Godzilla used to throw over Tokyo in the seventies that saw buildings levelled and bridges bounced into the ocean.

However I didn’t back down and Godzilla had to settle for stomping his way across a playground full of oblivious school kids who were all intent on making the most of their pre-school playtime by having a good time. I told Ben the power to have a good day or a bad day was still in his hands and his choice to make.

That’s when I got the “you’ve already given me a bad day” line.

All my fault, you see.

*Sigh*

I haven’t talked about this before as I wasn’t too sure how I felt about it but the school thinks Ben might be borderline – and they are stressing words like “borderline” and “mildly” – aspergers.

I guess this would explain some of his behaviour – his ability to become totally fixated on something that interests him to the point where he cannot stop talking about it and his total inability to cope emotionally with any kind of change to his daily routine.

And Karen and I are grateful to the school for being relatively quick on the ball and so openly proactive about it. They’re going to organize some tests to try and confirm their suspicions.

But to be honest I feel ambivalent about any kind of potential diagnosis.

If it is aspergers then I suppose it means we can use well honed coping strategies to (a) cope with it ourselves and (b) teach Ben to cope with it so that he can go on to have a successful life (as indeed do many people with full blown aspergers). But it also means he’s picked up a label that we’d rather he didn’t have. An inevitably weighty label that could wear him down if he’s not strong enough to carry it.

Or if it’s confirmed that it isn’t aspergers then – whoop-de-doo – he’s, to all intents and purposes, “normal” but has a genuinely frightening temper and a large streak of unreasonableness that could hold him back from any kind of future success if he doesn’t learn to control it.

*Sigh* yet again.

I’m trying not to dwell on the negatives but after an exhausting morning like this one it’s damned difficult because now I’ve been given a thoroughly bad day too.

Which makes me think that Ben’s behaviour isn’t that abnormal after all and maybe we’re all on the aspergers spectrum to some degree without always being aware of it...

Disaster Management

Following on from my Pushchair Paranoia post back in March you might like to know that my anxieties have moved up a notch, Condition orange has over night become condition red (and yes, Red Dwarf fans, this has meant changing the bulb).

Suddenly I’m finding myself imagining the wildest of disaster scenarios and speculating on what would be the best way of dealing with them in order to ensure (first and foremost) the survival of my kids and (ideally) myself as well if I can manage it.

Take a recent bus journey to school that I undertook with my boys. What if a stricken Boeing 747 (engine failure perhaps or terrorist attack or even a dipsomaniac pilot at the wheel) suddenly dropped out of the sky, wings aflame, and smashed to earth just a few blocks away from where the bus was waiting at a red light? What would I do?

I decided I’d have to yell to the eldest, Ben, to kneel face down on the floor, close his eyes and cover his ears thus protecting his eyes from the shattering glass and his ears from the noise as I leap across Tom in his pushchair and put my own hands over his ears to facilitate the same. I’d just have to hope that my own eardrums could take the noise of the impact.

Yeah. That would work. Job done.

On a recent jaunt around town with my family I found myself wondering what would we’d do if an insane sniper had holed himself up in the Parish Church clock tower and was taking pot-shots at the good people of Leamington Spa as they went about their daily bread. How would we get home safely? I found myself triangulating the sniper’s field of vision and plotting alternative routes to get us out of the danger zone and home safely whilst allowing for the fact that Tom was in a pushchair and Ben is mildly asthmatic.

I was pretty inventive too. My safe route involved utilizing the backdoor of a couple of shops and using the local topography to afford us effective cover and continually keep us out of the sniper’s vengeful sights for the duration of the journey home.

I ought to be employed by the MoD.

But this isn’t really normal, is it?

Do I have a problem, do you think? Why is my mind pushing such outlandish disaster fantasies to the forefront of my brain when I could just as easily be ruminating on Keeley Hawes’ cup size? I mean it’s not like I don’t have other more salient issues to worry about at the moment.

Do I need help?

Or am I just following the Boy Scout’s admirable code of always being prepared?

The Black Stuff

I nearly didn’t write this post. Three times I opened up Word only to close it down again immediately. You see, I don’t want this blog to become a teeth-gnashing mire of whinges about not having enough money or moans about having fallen onto the rib smashing rocks of hard times.

It gets boring.

Boring to write about. Boring, I’m sure, to read about plus...

I feel uneasy that all I’m doing is cynically provoking the sympathy of people who are also going through their own hard times right now.

Plus, unusually for me, I was feeling uncharacteristically reticent about committing any of what I felt to electronic “paper” this morning. The inspiration was nowhere to be found. It hadn’t so much stuck its head in the sand as flushed its head down the toilet.

But hey-ho. Here we are. It’s resurfaced again and the Word document stayed open this time. It must like life in the sewer.

What can I say? Times are getting desperate.

I continue to look for a second job but the pickings are slim. My web business likewise has hit lean times so I’m thinking of putting some of the kind suggestions people made last time I moaned about all this into action.

I'm applying for a new full-time job with the local authority I already work for - Building Surveyor - but I don't think I stand much of a chance. I'd need to be trained and sent on an appropriate degree course to become properly qualified but stranger things have happened...

Karen and I are going to see what we can do about debt consolidation to try and give ourselves some more breathing space.

I’m considering asking my granddad for a loan until the money from my aunt’s estate finally gets paid out (it’s all still tied up at the solicitors who, no doubt, are going to The Ritz every week on the interest). He’d be absolutely delighted to help out but morally I’d feel a real heel for asking.

So there are rescue packages of various sizes around if we need them. Rubber rings to cling onto. The sounds of oars in the water as a lifeboat somewhere is rowed towards to us... I can blow the whistle to alert rescuers to my presence anytime I want to.

But it’s hateful having to rely on it.

I’d much rather be piloting my ship off the rocks under my own steam...

Trouser Arouser?

I must admit to being a little nonplussed by the new Subway advert that has hit UK television recently.

It features a young man walking down the High Street, minding his own business when, passing by a Subway “restaurant”, something rather bulbous and bulging erupts upwards out of his trousers and drags him closer to the Subway establishment like a magnet attracting a poker.

I confess I had to do a double take.

Turns out this animated trouser monster wasn’t his Geronimo at all but in fact his trouser pocket turned inside out and exposed to the air in its eagerness to drag the trouser wearer into the Subway premises.

See, such is the excellent value of their wares your own pockets will apparently beg, push and cajole you into spending some of your hard earnt moolah on one of their Meatball Marinara Subs.

Yeah right.

Surely the ad producers must have clocked that the poor guy merely looks like he is getting a great stonking erection at the thought of wrapping his tongue around a Subway Chicken & Bacon batch?

Well of course they did. Sex sells after all.

But I can’t think of anything less sexy than a Subway “restaurant”. It just doesn’t appeal. And mixing their corporate image with bulging erections just turns me off even more.

Urgh!

Hold the mayo?

You’re damned right.

I think I’ll just stick with my usual fish supper...

(Sorry...!)

;-)

Dogging

Apologies for those of you expecting an exposé on spontaneous group-based car parking activities but this post is about dogging of the canine variety.

The house two doors up from us has a rottweiler. It’s a beautiful animal. Sadly it’s not being well looked after and hasn’t to my knowledge been properly trained. It’s left outside most days and most nights, is fed irregularly and is dangerously neglected. It frequently escapes over the fence and then rampages through as many gardens as it can gain access to... which given its size and brute strength is most of them along our street.

Wednesday evening and again yesterday morning the animal ended up in our garden.

Now I’m not afraid of dogs. I’d even go as far as to say they are my favoured pet of choice. I’d happily approach most dogs and feel confident about doing so.

Not this dog. It roamed around our garden spoiling for a confrontation. Tail between its legs, it was agitated and clearly highly strung. I was glad to be inside with the kids safely in bed. After a few minutes of pacing up and down it forced its way through the hedge at the top of our garden and disappeared into someone else’s garden.

Obviously Karen and I are terrified for our children. Tom especially loves playing in the garden and at 18 months old loves nothing better than toddling about and investigating the world around him. Our immediate neighbours have two older boys and a 9 month old baby who they like to sit with in their garden. They too are just as scared.

Because this is not the first time this has happened. It’s happened numerous times before.

The dog has caused damage to fences in its passion to escape and has trashed the garden toys belonging to our neighbours. It is only a matter of time before it encounters a child playing in a garden.

I’m determined not to let that happen.

I rang the dog warden and as soon as I gave the address of the dog owner they admitted this address was already known to them. People have complained in the past. This is both comforting and worrying. Comforting because we are plainly not alone in our concern but worrying that this has been going on for some time and yet nothing concrete has been done to prevent it reoccurring.

The dog warden paid the household in question a visit yesterday and was fobbed off – the owner’s had split up; the husband was “somewhere unknown” and the wife was in Coventry for the week and would be returning Friday. In the meantime the dog was being cared for by a family friend.

This is utter rubbish. The wife has been seen in the house every day this week.

The dog warden spoke to me and though he said he’d do all he could to help he gave the impression that he wasn’t very hopeful. The owners have received warning letters in the past but have ignored them. And the local authority (for which we both work) was, in his opinion, reluctant to take stronger action.

Until something major happens.

He didn’t actually say this but the inference was simple to make.

Again I’m determined not to let that happen. It’s a beautiful dog but I have a beautiful 18 month old son and I’d prefer to keep him that way.

Karen and I are planning to have a new fence put around our garden – it’s something we’ve been planning to do for months now, mostly for privacy but now the onus is on security – but right now we just can’t afford to do it. The money isn’t there. It’s galling to think our children’s safety is dependent on our financial elasticity but that’s the reality.

The warden was sympathetic. It’s not up to us to keep the dog out. It’s up to the dog owner to keep the dog in.

Legally that’s fine and dandy but it’s painfully obvious to me that the dog’s owners just don’t give a mad Chihuahua’s arse for the law and my beloved local authority is content to lie like a sleeping dog...

So. No real resolution. The warden is returning to the house today and is going to let me know the outcome. I expect it’ll be nothing more than a slapped wrist but he may yet prove me wrong. In the meantime Karen and I have to either deny our kids the right to play in their own garden or watch them like a hawk ready to intervene should an unpredictable animal more than twice their size come rampaging through the garden fence...

First Hurt

Tom burnt his hand on Saturday. Thankfully not badly but enough to raise some nasty blisters on his fingertips.

I suppose like a lot of toddlers he has an innate fascination with the kitchen – that strange, mostly adult place where food magically appears and noisy white machines go about their daily business.

We’ve tried to instill some safety awareness in him by showing him things and telling him “Ow! Hot!” and by and large this has worked a treat. He gives cups of tea wide berths and no longer attempts to conceal toys in the washing machine.

The oven however has long been a sticking point and Tom is now at that age (18 months) when being steered / chased away from certain objects seems a fun game of defiance. So it was only a matter of time before, adult eyes turned away literally for a split second, he’d sneak up on the damned thing and press his palms to the hot grill door.

The poor thing didn’t half cry and I had to remove his hand from the oven for him. Not because it was stuck – thankfully the oven wasn’t that hot – but because I don’t think he’d quite connected the pain with where he’d placed his hand. It didn’t occur to him to pull it away.

Of course Karen and I feel awful. Me especially as he’d snuck under my radar while my attention was elsewhere. But as parents you feel worst most of all because all the hugs and kisses in the world can’t make that kind of pain go away.

He howled for a good hour. He was obviously deeply shocked. Certainly by the degree of pain but also, I suspect, by the realization that the world can hurt him. Something that I don’t think had occurred to him before. It’s like a loss of innocence I suppose. The world isn’t just full of fun and wonder. It also harbours bad things.

Within a short space of time the blisters came up. A large one on his thumb and a couple of his fingertips. He doesn’t seem to be too bothered by them. I guess they’re doing their job and helping to protect / heal his skin. There won’t be any permanent scarring.

But Sunday, rather than try and play a game of tig with the oven he went of his own volition and sat in his chair in the living room and waited for his dinner to be served well out of harm’s way...

Another one of life’s lessons, I guess: all injuries come with steep learning curves.

Hawk!

No, I didn't spend Friday battling the evil forces of Voltan (aka The Dark One) alongside an elf and a giant bearing an uncanny resemblance to Bernard Bresslaw (on account of it really being Bernard Bresslaw) but instead spent it at Batsford, a little village just outside Moreton-in-the-Marsh, which features an arboretum and a falconry centre.

I've long had a passing interest in birds (cut the jokes please, I can see them coming a mile off), particularly raptors and after a visit there with the family last July my interest was duly noted by my wonderful wife, Karen. And later, while my back was turned (buying chocolate no doubt from the falconry shop), she secretly enrolled me on an "introduction to falconry" course for my birthday.

That glorious birthday occurred in August and it's taken us this long to finally confirm a date and actually get to grips with the raptors. We endured a couple of aborted attempts in the intervening months when we had to pull out at the eleventh hour due to the kids being ill (How do they know? How is their timing so spot on?) but it was a case of third time lucky.

The weather dawned dry and fair and the kids weren't at all consumptive... so off to school and nursery they went and Karen and I scooted off to Batsford to finally cash in my falconry voucher.

It was marvellous. As you will see from the photos below I got up close and personal with a number of birds - a kestrel, a falcon, a hawk, an owl and an eagle of foreign extraction who's exact geographical name I can't remember because I was so blown away by the whole experience.

There's something very calming about being so close to a bird - especially such large ones. I think on some level you calm yourself so as not to agitate the bird and then benefit yourself from the resultant avian zen-like state. I'm almost considering starting a new religion. The Birdies or something. Or possibly The Great Tits. Leave it with me. I need to mull this one over. Choose the wrong name and I'll be a laughing stock in spiritual circles...

But back to the falconry: after having numerous birds on my glove I ended up flying a beautiful falcon named Ben - oddly the same name as my eldest boy but a darn sight more obedient and easier to please: given a raw chicken foot to eat he was as happy as Larry...

If only all of life was this simple...