Marry Xmas

Oh My Gawd

Ooh Dear, Xmas is coming early for one bewildered dad. After about a year of research, I've just gone and ordered a bloody great big telly. £400 off normal price, and my research tells me that it's not going to get any cheaper despite credit crunches and January sales. Probably. Anyway, it is apparently the dogs bollocks and you can't really get a better screen anywhere. Can't wait to see Dot Cotton on a fifty inch plasma. Not looking forward to explaining the credit card balance to the missus though...

Get yer own here...

A Classic Masterpiece

God I love the InterWeb. And tabloid bad taste... Check THIS out ! Genius...

Bondage

Is it too early to start blogging about xmas ? Probably. But what the hell, here is my first festive entry....

Blurb

If you've ever fancied publishing your own book, here's your chance. Just go here and download the free software (mac and peecee), then get cracking. When you have finished, you can order copies which are printed, bound and delivered... bloody brilliant. If you are really clever, you could produced a set of spectacularly self-centered and exquisitely dull books to hand out to your mates for Xmas.

Bargains !

As you can see, there are some fantastic bargains to be had on this web site. These pies are going for just over a quid each providing you collect them from Torquay Police Station within the next 14 days...

Halloween

This credit crunch thing is getting a bit ridiculous. We went out last night knocking on doors and spooking people, and only managed to get about 2 dozen sweets ... (quality street on special offer at sainsburys). Oh well, at least we had fun dressing up.

Fun

Here's one of Oscar enjoying one of his favourite games whilst on holiday... "Stamping on Pidgeons"

Writings

There are times when writing a letter is the only way to get your message across. This is an absolute classic that we found lying around the other day... a short and slightly confused note from Luella to her brother.

Tea

At the tender age of just five and three quarters, Luella has just enjoyed her very first cup of tea. It was a standard PG Tips, white, with one sugar. I thought it was worth a quick photo given that she will probably consume a minimum of 50,000 cups in her lifetime or an average of 2.3KG per year.(apparently)

Breathless

Whilst on holiday, Ellie learnt to swim (un-assisted) a full length of the pool, which is bloody marvellous. She then started experimenting with under-water swimming, and breath holding. Today, in the bath, she smashed her previous record by holding her breath for 29.3 seconds , which is a lot longer than I can do. The real bonus behind all of this though, is that for those entire 29.3 seconds, she was unable to speak, which really is bloody brilliant.

R&R

Bewildered Dad is abroad, running up a huge bar bill...

A Few Numbers

These are some of the numbers that have been bothering me recently. Also, this message was posted at 08.08.08am on 08.08.08

Adventures

We've just got back from a couple of days camping at a rather lovely campsite in Sussex. The great thing about this place is that the farmer is happy for you to light proper fires, and even provides firewood. In fact he is a jolly nice chap, happy to sit for a few minutes by the fire with a beer and tell a few stories, offer local advice etc. The kids ran amok, with very little parental supervision and got covered in filth, cow shit, soot and sausage fat. They swam in a lake, climbed trees, chased pea-hens, toasted marshmallows, poked sticks in fires, got stung and prickled and ran through wheat fields. About 9 of them got to sit in the front and drive my taxi around the campsite... - all in all they had a brilliant time. Before leaving, we visited Pooh Corner, which is a bit of wilderness popularised by a chap called A. A. Milne.

Oh one other thing, there's a cider shop next door.

Wallpaper

Remember that advert for IKEA a few years ago? The one with a bunch of housewives singing "Chuck out your Chintz" whilst throwing floral duvet covers out of their two bedroom semi's? Well we are doing the exact opposite, and buying the stuff in as fast as we can. Hooray for Chintz. Long live Chintz. Viva la Chintziness. Well, for the time being anyway.

School Photos

The other day I put an old school photo up on this blog, and strangely, just a few days later, I heard that they were doing school photos at Ellies school. I was expecting a class photo as per usual, but for some reason they don't do those anymore. The school photographer just does individual portraits, no class photos whatsoever. Well of course I complained, I mean, who wants a portrait of their own kids... most of us have plenty anyway. No, what you want is a proper class photo, so that in years to come you can look at all your classmates and take the piss out of their haircuts. Anyway, the longshot of all this is that I was 'volunteered' into taking a photo of the class myself. Actually, quite a terrifying business. Especially if you are not a photographer, just a bloke with a camera. What came out was a bit out of focus, with strange lighting and a funny colour cast, but otherwise ok.

Its arrived...

And they knocked £400 off in the sale... Hurrah!

Dodgy Haircuts

I found this photo on my old schools website yesterday...and was quite horrified by the state of everyone's hair. Mine was definitely the worst of the lot, a shocking example of the 'pudding bowl' cut. Front row is all I'm going to say.

PicLens

Do yourself a favour and get your self over to PicLens here and download their plugin for your browser. Then go to google image search or deviantart or whatever and click the little arrow that now appears over the images in your search results. Bleedin Brilliant it is. Now supports YouTube !

Rewards

So today, after a lot of swearing, smashed knuckles, and a certain amount of banging about, I managed to sort the drains out. Now when I empty the kitchen sink, a get a little whirlpool in the middle, just like you are supposed to.

As a reward for myself, I hung up these rather nifty mirrors, which was quite an achievement considering they are a whopping 7 feet by 5 feet each, and weigh a bloody ton.

As a further reward for hanging up the mirrors, I am going to download the last 2 episodes of Lost season 4, and watch them back to back with a lager or two.

Dankness

The last 24 hours have not been good. it all started to go wrong when the drain blocked somewhere between the washing machine and the sewer. This happened whilst both the dishwasher and the washing machine were emptying themselves, resulting in an enormous flood of foul smelling water behind all the kitchen units. I poked one of those spring steel snake things down the pipe to try and unblock it, and lost the snake when it snapped in half somewhere in the pipework. So I cut the pipe in half and discovered that the snake had gone the other way and still couldn't be retrieved. Went to B&Q to buy replacement pipe and fittings, and discovered that I had bought the wrong size when I got home. 40mm instead of 43mm. The house is a shocking mess, dirty plates, wet laundry, emptied kitchen units, an unpleasant smell, and a faint sound of dripping water. Not good. Went to bed and slept for about 2 hours. Got up at 4.30 in the morning because I was getting bored of lying in bed wide awake. The house stinks. Couldn't find a clean coffee cup, and couldn't wash one up. Today I have to sort this all out, and I am not looking forward to crawling around under wet kitchen units.

At least the kids are back to school today, and I actually heard the dawn chorus this morning which was kind of nice.

Bank Holidays

It's ridiculous, really. I mean, what's the point ? Always the same. Absolutely pissing down.

Lights

Over the last few weeks, I have been tinkering with the lights here in the Mews. I replaced some of the bricklights with transformers and fitted a bunch of outdoor spotlights. And a timer thingy for the pond water spout wotsit, and a dusk till dawn sensor for the lights. It all looks bloody good after about 10.30 at night, except that by then, most people are crashed out in front of the telly and will never get to see it. Except me that is... I lean on my balcony with a fag and a glass of wine, overlooking my creation, and I am full of agogness.

Asimo

My favourite robot has been showing off again, this time conducting an orchestra... and apparently he did a very good job. Bloody clever if you ask me.

Flowers

This week we went to a very posh house near Maidstone for a photo shoot. The house was magnificent, and had it's very own deer park, amongst all the usual things like croquet lawns, lakes, secret gardens etc. Anyway, at some point in the day, Ellie decided to nick my camera and run around taking photos of things. Here's a couple of her pictures.

Grass Carp

My pond is being overwhelmed by "blanket weed" - thin hair like algae that clumps around the plants and eventually turns the pond into a swamp. The most common treatments involve the use of chemicals or barley straw, but there is one other method that I discovered after lots of googling.

I have bought 2 Grass Carps, which are a species of vegetarian fish. They can consume up to 3 times their own weight of vegetation in a single day, and can grow up to 45 lbs if given enough space and food. They have already made a start on my blanket weed, and when they have gobbled it all up, I'm going to catch them with a net and cook them up with some fresh herbs and few new potatoes. Maybe.

Extreme Naughtiness

A Master Class by Oscar - aged 3

Step 1 - Wait till your Dad isn't looking and grab a flatbit (pictured) from his toolkit.

Step 2 - Go outside and find your nieghbours car, preferably with blue metallic paint.

Step 3 - Grasp the flatbit firmly in your hand and push the point against the drivers door.

Step 5 - Drag down using enough pressure to scratch through to the metal. If you are doing it correctly, you will hear an interesting sound.

Step 6 - Repeat approximately 10 times, before moving on to the rear panel.

Step 7 - Make sure the scratches in the rear panel match those in the drivers door.

Step 8 - Stand back and admire your artwork.

Tooth Fairy

Luella has had a wobbly tooth for a fortnight now, and yesterday morning it finally fell out. She is absolutely delighted. The Tooth Fairy popped by last night some time and sprinkled magic dust all over her room, and swopped the tooth for a One Pound Coin.

SBSC's

This month, I have been concentrating on Small But Significant Changes (SBSC's). Mostly, this involves picking up a paint brush and painting a wall or piece of furniture that has started to look a bit tired. But it has also involved, re-potting plants, moving pictures around, making wall hangings, building plant boxes, fixing shelves, building a table and clearing out the pond. The only rule for SBSC's, is that they must cost very little money, make a long term improvement to my environment and be quick and easy to do.

Next month I am going to start doing some LBUM's and some URHU's.

Freebies !

A friend of mine who occasionally gets involved in marketing/packaging/copywriting stuff, popped round one morning ( in her new Fiat 500 ) with a boot full of ice cream. She had been asked to some some research into ice cream packaging, and had just returned from Sainsburies where she had bought 125 quids worth of the stuff. Trouble is that she only wanted the packaging, and didn't have enough room in her freezer for all the ice creams. The upshot of this is that i now have a freezer which is absolutely stuffed full of Cornettos and Magnums and countless lollies and stuff that I have never heard of.

I am bullying the kids into eating the ice lollies, and eating all the ice cream myself. Last night I had 5 in a row, whilst watching "House" on the telly. My top recommendations so far, are:

Mars Bar Ice Cream - just like a mars bar but with ice cream instead - Bloody Brilliant !
Cornetto Classic - creamy vanilla with a satisfying lunk of solid chocolate at the bottom... good.
Nestle After Eight - very minty.
Nestle Smarties - boring.
Magnum White - like eating 6 milky bars in one go - makes you want to puke up afterwards.

One to avoid is the Skinny Cow Triple Chocolate With Less Than 3 Per Cent Fat - consistently drab throughout- the low fat content makes it particularly depressing.

Bonkers

We are thinking of buying this ludicrous sofa that we saw at ILVA yesterday. Please will someone persuade us not to waste a huge amount of money on something as stupid as a silver leather sofa. (£1200)

Birthday

Regrettably, and with great sadness, I must inform you all that on the 8th of April, I will be enduring my 49th birthday. And, to be honest, I think it's pretty bloody dreadful. I am feeling like a very old git today.

Earth Hour

On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, Tel Aviv and Peckham will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation.

Dressing Up

Girls eh? They just can't stop dressing up... Ellie has got her first school disco this week, and we've already had 3 dress rehearsals. "Should I wear pink or purple ?" she keeps asking me. "Do these green shoes look funny with this dress ? Should I wear socks or tights, or leggings?" I expect she will end up wearing everything.

Fishiness

Today, Ellie and I have been mucking about with a program called iStopMotion which you can download for mac from here. It's basically a very easy to use stop frame animation package, all you need is a firewire webcam or camcorder and a bit of patience. The possibilities are endless, and it's damn good fun. See you all at Cannes next year...

Oscar's Birthday

I have been horribly busy recently, and just haven't had the time to post anything at all to my blog. At least I managed to stop everything for a day to celebrate Oscars Third Birthday, which was a very nice day indeed.

Warning !

Do not, under any circumstances, put one of those EcoDisc DVD's (the sort you get free with the Sunday newspapers) into your Apple laptop... They only work in tray loading drives, NOT in slot loaders like the ones in G4 iBooks macBooks etc. If you look carefully at the label on the dvd it does actually tell you this, but in very small writing. I've just spent an hour dismantling an iBook to get one of the buggers out of the drive... However,if you want to pull your laptop to bits just for fun, then look here first...

Help Needed

In our house we have a whole load of south facing windows which is very nice indeed. Except when it comes to cleaning the bloody things. Upstairs there are 4 like the one in the picture above which have 30 panes of glass each, and then 2 double doors each of which have 24 panes of glass. Thats 168 separate panes of glass, each of which has 4 corners , and then of course you have both inside and outside of the window. The total is 1344 corners that you have to somehow clean with a sponge and then polish with some bloody stuff that isn't supposed to smear but which does and leaves streaky bits. And even if I managed to do it well enough for them to look clean when the morning sun shines through them, I still have one more problem... There are another 768 corners downstairs.

Doh !

It wasn't my fault, I was set up... honest.

February

Thank god January is over with. Illness, hangovers, massive debt and the taxman all contribute towards making it my least favourite month in the year. In future, I am going to consider February as the first month of the year, because it is impossible to make any kind of "fresh start" in January for the above mentioned reasons. So, my new years resolutions, as of this month are :

Only get drunk once a week.
Earn more money.
Spend less money.
Save money for tax bill.
Shave more often.

The Downfall of HD-DVD

Well thats it then. Game over as they say.

Payback time

This evening, whilst watching a Steven Seagal movie on Channel Five, I bit down on a toffee and one of my molars exploded. Weird eh ?

Aah, January !

Just when I thought I had got away with it, the dreaded Christmas Flu that has been ruining everyones holidays has finally found it's way into my hopelessly vulnerable body. The last few days have seen me sloping around the house being generally pathetic and cantankerous. Hopefully, it will not turn into this, which would be too much for my addled physique to bear. I am supposed to be getting all the accounts ready, and have a whole pile of other work to do, but simply cannot face doing anything that requires any sort of intellectual ability. The telly beckons. I am a useless git today.

Xmas, New Year etc

Well thank god that lot's over with. My innards are moaning and my brain has just about shut down. One of the last things I can remember drinking is this mulled beer, made by a friend of ours using a combination of Newcastle Brown Ale and Sherry. I am absolutely not going to drink alcohol again until February. Probably.