Once upon a time this was about Me and The Boy. The it was Me, The Boy, The Cat and The Cat's Mother. And now, I'm not sure who it's about. How life changes when you least expect it!
Friday, 8 May 2009
You swine
No wonder the government has been in a panic about a swine flu pandemic. They've all been like pigs with their snouts in the trough with their expenses. Not that the next lot is likely to be any better.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Mission to Mars
There's a lovely story that does the rounds about the NASA satelite that was sent to Mars. Some of the work for this humanity-changing flight was done in the US, and some was done in Europe. The satelite crashed onto the red planet's surface, undoing several year's work, and wasting many millions of precious dollars. According to legend, the problem was that the Europeans worked in metric numbers and the Americans used good old imperial units, and no one spotted it. How stupid is that?
Of course, that is of no relevance whatsoever to my own endeavours to measure the kitchen over the Bank Holiday. I measured every wall bar one European style, and the last (the chimney breast) in good old inches. I have no idea why, and it was only spotted that 2+2 does not equal 5 when we got to the kitchen shop and the nice man who was designing our new kitchen couldn't get the walls to meet in the corner. We made some rash assumptions, and two and a half hours later we had a nice picture to take away with us. Fortunately, our assumptions were okish, so we have not crashed and burned, nor have we spent hard-earned money unwisely. Yet.
Of course, that is of no relevance whatsoever to my own endeavours to measure the kitchen over the Bank Holiday. I measured every wall bar one European style, and the last (the chimney breast) in good old inches. I have no idea why, and it was only spotted that 2+2 does not equal 5 when we got to the kitchen shop and the nice man who was designing our new kitchen couldn't get the walls to meet in the corner. We made some rash assumptions, and two and a half hours later we had a nice picture to take away with us. Fortunately, our assumptions were okish, so we have not crashed and burned, nor have we spent hard-earned money unwisely. Yet.
Monday, 4 May 2009
Birthday boy
Well after many, many pieces of advice (and they will all come in for anniversaries and Christmases to come), I found a present to suit the boy. A video camera that he can attach to his helmet, when cycling skiing or erm even swimming. An enormous sigh of relief to discover that I made the right choice....it was opened straight away and taken to school to film hoodlum things. I felt I was GOOD DAD for taking him breakfast in bed - it's just that he's not used to me standing in his door and bellowing his name to wake him up...so the poor lad fair hit the ceiling in shock/fright.
The evening was taken up with a trip to Brixton to see Doves (not THE Doves, evidently they don't like that). We were accompanied by Auntie Gwen who probably describes it far better than me. Even if I did enjoy torturing her by insisting we drove with the roof down, and could feed her paranoia that everyone was looking at us. The boy brought his best mate from school and a jolly time was had by all; even if the journey (in both directions) was a little more challenging than it should have been. Ag may have missed out some of the highlights - passing through 'Ackney Lay'on and Dawstun, cruising past my favourite strip club...not that I've ever been there, I just like the neon sign, and being waved at by a rather large man who felt the need to stop his BMW alongside ours (he was travelling in the opposite direction) and raise his middle finger in greeting.
The strangest thing about the gig...and it was a good one for sure...was the constant stream of people heading out to either the bar or the toilets...or perhaps it was both. Any ho, I managed to restrain myself from telling them all to sit down and just enjoy the music. Of course, I was only jealous because as driver I couldn't indulge.
So that's one birthday over for another year. Grandma in Cyprus is next...fortunately, no present buying challenges there. But I do hope that for the first time in living memory I'll remember to send her card in time. I won't but I can hope...I think she knows better and has come to realise that her offspring are an ungrateful bunch
The evening was taken up with a trip to Brixton to see Doves (not THE Doves, evidently they don't like that). We were accompanied by Auntie Gwen who probably describes it far better than me. Even if I did enjoy torturing her by insisting we drove with the roof down, and could feed her paranoia that everyone was looking at us. The boy brought his best mate from school and a jolly time was had by all; even if the journey (in both directions) was a little more challenging than it should have been. Ag may have missed out some of the highlights - passing through 'Ackney Lay'on and Dawstun, cruising past my favourite strip club...not that I've ever been there, I just like the neon sign, and being waved at by a rather large man who felt the need to stop his BMW alongside ours (he was travelling in the opposite direction) and raise his middle finger in greeting.
The strangest thing about the gig...and it was a good one for sure...was the constant stream of people heading out to either the bar or the toilets...or perhaps it was both. Any ho, I managed to restrain myself from telling them all to sit down and just enjoy the music. Of course, I was only jealous because as driver I couldn't indulge.
So that's one birthday over for another year. Grandma in Cyprus is next...fortunately, no present buying challenges there. But I do hope that for the first time in living memory I'll remember to send her card in time. I won't but I can hope...I think she knows better and has come to realise that her offspring are an ungrateful bunch