Lemon Drizzle

In bed with Mrs. Bricket

2009-11-08T15:36:00.008Z

Sunday morning. I am dozing fitfully in bed, numb with sleep. It is my day of the weekend for a lie-in, having been up early doing 'Daddy Duty' yesterday, and I am determined to wring every last precious second of rest out of the morning. Sadly, others in my household have decided that my allotted time is up.
The door crashes open. A diminutive figure, all curly hair and determined jawline, struts into the room as if she owns the place. It is the Youngest, and she has the 'There will be no nonsense from you' demeanour of a nineteenth century land baron dealing with a tenant who has fallen behind with the rent.
"Wake up Daddy,"she announces."It is time for you to go to school."
This seems unlikely: I have not been to school for well over twenty years. I turn my head to the bedside clock, which reveals that the time is exactly 9.30 a.m, almost to the second. This is significant, as it the time my wife and I have agreed is the earliest point we will let the children disturb the slumber of whichever parent has a lie-in. My wife often generously lets me sleep longer, and the fact that she has allowed Youngest to wake me at the first possible opportunity is not a good sign: it suggests that the children have already worn down her defences this morning and she can no longer cope without reinforcements. This suggests that what is about to follow is likely to be trying...
It is. Youngest drags open the curtains, and pale November daylight limps lazily into the room. I notice that the the air is full of soft drizzle and on the horizon are dark ominous clouds: it looks as if the sky is made of old bruises and fresh tears.
"Ugh" I say.
"Yes," says Youngest, as if agreeing, then adds: "Daddy, this is Mrs. Bricket."
I gaze blearily at 'Mrs. Bricket'. She looks familiar.
"That is your rag doll." I say. "I thought it was called 'Lollopy'."
"No," she says firmly. "It is Mrs. Bricket. She is your teacher."
"Oh. I see."
"It is time for school now."
"OK..."
She sits 'Mrs. Bricket' in the bed next to me. This seems somewhat inappropriate behaviour for most teaching staff. At this point I can't help but notice that 'Mrs. Bricket' appears to have come to school this morning dressed only in pair of knickers and a vest. Perhaps she is a P.E teacher.
"And this," Youngest continues, "is Peppa Pig. She is the school nurse."
I look at the object that has been thrust into my face. It is a plush toy pig doll, dressed in medical gear. It looks uncannily like something I once had a nightmare about. She squeezes it, and it makes two short muffled 'oinks', like a quick succession of partially-stifled farts.
"And what is she for?" I ask.
"She is for when you fall down," she explains, in a tone of voice that somehow intimates that me 'falling down' at some point is an iron-clad certainty. In fact, she make it sound like when I 'fall down' it will not be an accident. With its scantily-clad teachers, porcine medical staff and the ever-present threat of violence, it sounds like Mrs. Bricket's educational establishment would keep the Daily Mail in headlines for months.
"School is starting in a minute," she says, "but we need to check you first."
This sounds ominous. I instinctively flinch as she reaches up and rubs the pig doll on my head.
There is a short pause while I work out what to say next.
"What is she doing?" I ask.
"Checking for nits."
I look back at the clock. It is 9.31. It is clearly going to be a very long day.

Call for the Animal Jooper!

2009-10-21T20:18:00.007+01:00

Saturday morning. I am lying on the sofa, where I have told my wife I will be reading the International section of the Guardian in order to keep abreast of important current events (you know, just in case the UN call to get my perspective on GM crops or something), but where I am in fact furtively playing 'Retro Defence' on my new phone, behind the paper that so she can't see me, should she happen to wander past the open doorway.
This deception is necessary because she has outright accused me of being 'more in love' with my new phone than I am with her, which I would like to state for the record is complete nonsense (though I would also like it to be noted that it is both responsive to the touch and can be turned on with minimal effort on my part, so I wonder if there are a few things that she could..no, on mature reflection we won't go there...)
Anyway, I am just approaching Level 26 on the tricky 'Spider' level when a soft toy bear flies into the room at head height, travelling at great velocity. It lands in the centre of the room. My Eldest appears shortly afterwards, whereupon she runs over to the bear, stamps on it's head a few times, and then kicks it into the side of the sofa. Only then does she notice me.
"Hello, Daddy" she says brightly.
"What on Earth are you doing?" I ask.
"Animal Jooper" she says, as if this explains everything.
It does not, to my mind, explain anything.
"What?" I ask.
"We are playing 'Animal Jooper'," she says patiently, and then, in a much louder voice "Animal Jooper! Animal Jooper! There is an animal in danger!"
My youngest then enters the room. I can't help but notice she has taken her trousers off, and is wearing them on her head like an outsized pair of bunny ears. I look at her in mild shock.
"I am the Animal Jooper!" she announces.
"Thank goodness you are here, Animal Jooper!" says her sister. She points at the forlorn and violated teddy on the floor. "This bear is in danger. It has been kicked and stamped on!"
"I will rescue it!" says the little one, nodding frantically so that her trouser ears flap up and down. She stoops and picks it up, then cuddles it.
"All better now!" she says after a moment.
"Good work, Animal Jooper!" says her sister.
In my hands, my forgotten phone makes a sad little noise as my suddenly unattended bases are overrun by red aliens. I finally remember how to speak.
"What are you doing?" I demand, my complete incomprehension giving my voice extra volume.
My Eldest sighs, as if the whole situation should be self-evident.
"She is the Animal Jooper..." she says, pointing at her sister, who nods solemnly, "and she rescues animals in trouble."
"I save them..." adds Youngest. (I notice at this point that the Animal Jooper appears to have coloured a large part of her face in with felt-tipped pen, which I presume has been deemed an essential requirement for animal rescue).
"I see..." I say, not really seeing.
I turn back to Eldest. "And what do you do?"
"I put animals in danger" she says, cheerfully.
"You...put...what?" I ask.
"I put animals in danger" she repeats. "So that the Animal Jooper can rescue them."
"She hits teddy bears " clarifies her sister, pushing the waistband of her trousers out of her eyes.
There is a pause, while I try and think what to say. Nothing obvious comes to mind, even after the longest time.
"Oh..." I manage to finally say.
"Today I have also put a mouse in a box up a mountain," continues Eldest, "and pushed a camel into a river."
"Oh..." I say, again.
They continue to look at me expectantly.
"Carry on, then ..." I finally say. They scamper off.
I look down at the paper. It it clear from the headlines that the world is slowly going to Hell in a hand basket. I reflect on the comforting words of that great sage of our times, Whitney Houston: I believe the children are our future, lead them well and let them show the way.
Frankly, Whitney, I am now not so sure about that. On the evidence from my house, results will be mixed, to say the least.
There is soft thump from the hall, as a toy hippo is dropped from the landing and suffers a bruising fall. The Animal Jooper clearly has a long day ahead of her...

Nude sausage rolls and little needy bunny rabbits

2009-10-06T22:04:00.004+01:00

We are all sitting at a table in a small bakery on the high street, enjoying a lunch of freshly baked pastry goods.
I say 'enjoying', but in fact I have to eat while deliberately staring at the wall, because both of my children are eating sausage rolls, which always make me faintly nauseous. I find the process deeply unpleasant to watch: both of them are in the habit of 'peeling' the sausage roll in layers, eating all the flaky pastry and then leaving a hideous tumescent pink worm of sausage-meat on the plate, which they may eat, or may simply just wave around like a fleshy light-sabre. The sight always reminds me, unbidden and unwelcome, of my grandparents Golden Retriever, which often had to be discouraged from cleaning its intimate areas while sitting in full view of the dining table. I have a vivid memory of my Nan slapping it across the muzzle with a rolled up copy of the Daily Express, and telling it loudly to "Put your lipstick away while we're eating."
Looking through the window, I can see the cashpoint over the road. I decide that rather than watch them eat, I'll go and find out if I have been paid yet for the month.
"I'll be back in a minute," I say to my wife. "I just need to check my balance."
"What?" she asks.
"My balance. I need to check it."
"Why?" she asks "Are you thinking of doing a tightrope walk? Hahaha!"
I look at her uncomprehendingly.
"Balance!" she says. "Checking your balance. To see if you can balance...."
She does a little mime of a tightrope walker, arms flailing. Other customers in the shop look on with interest.
"Ah" I say, flatly.
"Ha ha ha!" laughs my wife, much too loudly. "Ha ha ha!"
I give a grim little nod to indicate that yes, I have understood, but to my mind the joke is now firmly over.
"Ha ha ha! Balance"
"I meant my bank balance" I say, trying to explain.
She clearly doesn't care. "Hahaha!" she says, louder still.
I start to sidle away. Every now and again, my wife will make a joke that she herself finds so funny that she will be insensible for minutes. This has all the hallmarks of one of those occasions, and when it happens all I can normally do is ride it out. This is the first time, however, there has been a public audience, and on the whole I think I'd rather the floorshow went on without me.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"she says, knuckling a tear of mirth away from her eye. "Balance!"
Our children are both watching her, mouths open wide with fascination, their clothes scattered with pastry flakes. The normal business of serving customers has completely ground to a halt in the shop now, while everyone stares. Clearly, the best thing I can do in such a situation is to hastily leave it, so I turn on my heel to head for the cashpoint.
"Don't fall over!" she calls as I walk away. "HA! HA! HA!"
I grit my teeth. It is five steps to the door. As I take each step, she makes 'whoa!' and 'eee!' noises, to suggest that I am, indeed, on a tightrope, and struggling with my balance.
It is highly embarrassing. I am genuinely worried other people in the shop may burst into a round of impromptu applause as I exit, simply because I have managed to walk out without falling over.
As I leave, a man sitting at a table outside gives me a sad conspiratorial smile, and nods faintly in my wife's direction, from which I can still hear her giggling. I shrug.
With a faint tilt of his head he indicates his own wife, who is reading the newspaper beside him. He rolls his eyes.
With these four tiny gestures - the smile, the nod, the head tilt and the eye roll - I understand that he is trying to say: My wife does shit like that to me as well, mate...
I roll my own eyes heavenward, and shake my head sadly, as if to agree: Tell me about it - the things we put up with, eh?

Later, that night, I make the grave tactical mistake of mentioning this silent exchange to my wife.
This information is not well-received, though that may be in large part due to the way I tell her, which involves an initial, lengthy diatribe explaining exactly why her joke wasn't funny, and then ends with:
"..and then he nodded at his own wife, as if to say 'I've got one of those, mate'..."
There is a pause.
I can feel the room get colder, as if all the human warmth has suddenly and mysteriously been sucked out of it.
"One of those?" asks my wife, in a voice suddenly as sharp and brittle as an icicle.
"...ye-es?" I confirm, sensing danger, but unsure why.
"Did you just describe me as 'One of those?' "
"No...well, yes, sort of, but I just meant 'a woman like that.." I amend.
This, surprisingly, does not mollify her in any way.
"One of those..." she repeats, her voice gently climbing in register. "As if women are things. Like old cars."
"No, I meant he had a wife who..."
"What a terrible thing to say: 'one of those'..."
Now, the more astute reader will know that the correct response here is, of course, to say 'You know what, my darling? I am clearly in error here. Why don't I leave immediately to buy you some jewelery and chocolate in order to make up, in some small way, for my boorishness?'
I steadfastly fail to say that, though.
"It was just a slip of the tongue..." I offer
"Tell me," she says, changing tack: "What other 'ones' are there, then? As you are such an expert?"
Oh, this is really not going well, I think.
"What kind of 'one' would you like?' she persists, warming to the subject.
"Um...?" I offer.
"Perhaps a little needy 'one'? A little needy bunny-rabbit 'one' who wouldn't stand up to you?"
"No..." I say, but a little too slowly, and actually thinking that might be nice, just once in a while...
"You," she says, with a note of finality, "Are lucky to have one at all."
I know when I'm beaten. "Yes," I agree, readily enough.
"Least of all one of these" she adds.

Pillow talk: Secret drawers

2009-09-23T14:28:00.003+01:00

Another bedtime conversation with the 'Mistress of the house', and another worrying trip into some of the less stable recesses of her imagination.
Recently, she heard some news about a married couple she once knew but whose marriage had since broken up - all the gory details of their separation were now beginning to trickle out into the public domain. Now, my wife is as interested in salacious gossip as the next fishwife, and lapped all this information up eagerly, but one little snippet caught her imagination more than anything else - apparently, when the house was being sorted out 'post breakup' it was discovered that the male party involved (who, as was very apparent in my wife's retelling, she deemed the villain of the piece) had a number of hiding places around the house where he had been concealing expensive consumer electronic goods from his wife. This was so that she could neither make use of them herself, or ever know how much they had cost: he had just bought them and squirreled them away for his own private use.
"Isn't that awful?" asks my wife, as soon as she finishes telling me.
"Mm-hmmm..." I say, feeling that I should at least indicate halfhearted agreement, because it's clear that even token dissent on my part would automatically mean I was siding with the enemy. In fact, what I am really thinking is that it seems pretty pathetic. In the scheme of things, when considering the whole great pantheon of marital felonies that a man can commit, 'hiding some stuff in a drawer' seems pretty lame. I am not familiar with the unhappy couple in question at all, and I have no idea if there were a number of other offences to consider, but still: this does seem like the marital equivalent of bringing down Al Capone on charges of tax evasion. I want to make it very clear at this point to the audience in general (and to one reader in particular) that I am not advocating shoddy behaviour in any way - but if my marriage lay in tatters all around me, I think I'd rather be described as "the bastard who ran off with a Latvian pole-dancer half his age" than as "the sad little man who hid an I-Pod Touch from his wife in the back of the wardrobe".
My wife, however, clearly does not share my sense of scale in this matter. She is consumed with second-hand fury about it.
"I think it is obscene behaviour," she announces, raising an eyebrow that dares me to disagree.
"It doesn't really seem that practical..." I murmur, thinking: When would he get to use this stuff? Did he have to wait for her to go out, or just lock himself in the bathroom? Surely there's very little point in buying a furtive PlayStation 3 if you can't actually hook it up to the television?
"It's got nothing to do with practicality. It's a betrayal of trust."
"Yes, yes...", I nod readily, thinking: Perhaps he also hid a television in the bathroom. Is that possible? Under those circumstances it would have made much more sense to buy a handheld, like a Nintendo DS...
There is a lengthy pause. About halfway through it, I realise I know what is going to come next.
"Here it comes..." I say.
"You had better not have any secret hiding places..." she warns.
"...annnnnnd there it is, right on the money."
"I'm just saying: you'd better not...."
Now, the very idea is laughable on many levels. Firstly, she complains to me on at least a daily basis that I am incapable of keeping my thoughts to myself, and in fact it would be better for her if, just for once, I could refrain from saying exactly what I was thinking at any given time. Apparently, when we got married and I agreed in front of a church full of witnesses that I would share everything with her, she hadn't envisaged that would extend to include a full report every time I visited the toilet ("Phew, the one I did at work today - that was really hard work. I needed to brace against the walls or I'd have been in there forever...why have you all stopped eating?")
Secondly: we have two small children. As a result, there is no privacy and there are no hiding places that would remain undiscovered. Only last week I came into my bedroom to get changed, and halfway through realised our three-year old had concealed herself in the linen bin and was watching me, giggling. In short, I am not a man who has secrets. She knows this. Nonetheless, I feel I should probably remind her.
"I am not man who has secrets" I state. "You know this."
She ponders this.
"That's true" she finally observes. "It's not like you really make more than a token effort to hide your character flaws from society at large. I can't imagine you'd have the willpower to then go ahead and actively conceal something you really cared about"
"Exactly. What you see is what you get with me," I say, proudly. "Open. Honest...."
"Tactless. Borderline rude..." she finishes.
There is another pause. It lasts so long that I think she has fallen asleep, but then she asks:
"If you did have a secret hiding place, what would you keep in it?"
"I dunno. Secrets?"
"Yes. But what?"
"No idea. I haven't got any secrets, we just discussed that."
"Yes, but that's dull. Think of something."
"I don't know. Guns? Porn? Drugs? Nazi gold?"
"Those are stupid suggestions. Those are criminal things, not dirty little secrets."
"Well, what do you think I would hide? What would be the worst thing?"
"Pictures of your other family. Your other, secret family."
(Now we've been here before. My wife has this peculiar affinity for daydreaming me as the lead villain in a series of charmless little vignettes, each riffing heavily on the themes of 'loss' and 'betrayal' and 'heartbreak'. These scenarios rarely seem to end well. I find it odd that she fantasises about me causing her misery - it's almost as is she wishes I actually was more secretive and mysterious, not less...)
"I see. My other family, eh?"
"Yes. Wife and two kids."
"Riiiight. Younger than you, is she?"
"Yes. She's from Thailand. You bought her over the Internet."
"Okaaaaay. So in my secret drawer, you think I would hide evidence that showed I was a bigamist who buys mail-order brides from the Far East?"
"Yes."
"Wow. I mean, just: 'wow'. The stuff that goes on in your head..."
"You've decorated her house as well, the way I want this house to look - shabby chic."
"Well, this place is halfway there - we just need to work on the 'chic' part..."
"And in her house, you have a secret drawer, and it's got pictures of me and the girls in it..."
"Oh. My. God. Have you been drinking? I really think you should stop talking now..."
She falls silent. After a while it occurs to me I should ask her the reciprocal question.
"What would you keep in your secret drawer?" I ask
"Pictures of Gary Barlow" she says, without hesitation.

Tablets, smut, molluscs and moles.

2009-09-03T20:06:00.009+01:00

It's been a while. I need to vent some spleen.
It's not the big things that will do for me - I've coped quite well with all the usual crises that we are told are dangerous for your stress levels: births, deaths, house moves, job changes, relationship breakups, car crashes, redundancy and the like - but the little things, the low-level daily unpleasantness and irritations, they are the events that are going to tip me over the edge. Instead of dealing with them calmly and rationally, I do nothing, and allow a corrosive bitterness to well up inside me, that finally vents in a moment of pure, blind rage over something innocuous. Be warned.
Recently, events that have contributed to my inner well of bile are:

The incorrect selling of hayfever tablets: In the UK, there is a limit on the amount of medicine you can buy at once, in an attempt to prevent people from killing themselves with fistfuls of pills. This is one of those well-meaning laws that are steeped in good intentions but in fact just cause irritation - as the legal limit only applies on a 'per transaction' basis, it essentially serves no practical purpose: would-be suicides can easily get all the paracetamol they need by simply queueing up again (which is a depressing enough process to have to do once, so I can't imagine that being forced to do it multiple times does anything other than underline their decision).
However, rules are rules, and I understand that. I also understand that, should I inadvertently have more then the legal limit of hayfever tablets in my shopping basket (let's say, ooh, three packets, instead of two) then the store is quite right to remind me of the law in this matter and refuse to sell me the extra packet. Perfectly reasonable. I can perhaps do without the patronising little lecture at the checkout, but OK.
However, if that same store is actually deliberately selling hayfever tablets on a 'three for the price of two' deal , thus encouraging members of the public to put three packets of tablets in their basket in the first place, that is not reasonable. That is both stupid and annoying, as I explained at some volume at the time. I am not suicidal, I am thrifty - and it's not my mental faculties you should be worrying about, you shambling pack of halfwits.
What annoys me most is the fact that I clearly let myself down a bit in the end. If I am honest, telling some poor misbegotten checkout girl on minimum wage that she should "fire your entire marketing department" is highly unlikely to affect any kind of change, and just makes me look like a pillock.

Discarded smut: I got a new car recently - yes, we are now a two-car family for the first time ever, allowing my wife some respite from spending up to 4 hours a day walking our children to the places they need to go, but also enabling us to destroy the environment more thoroughly and at twice the rate and efficiency. My new car is very nice, and as the girls never get to ride in it remains fairly clean - it is lovely to be driving around in a vehicle that doesn't have a thick mulch of hairclips, tissues and discarded raisins across the back seat - but it does sometimes confuse me in that the control stalks around the steering wheel are all in the opposite place than they are on the Focus.
This was brought home to me on my first trip to work. As I got out of the car it beeped at me, telling me the lights were on. I reached back in and flipped what I thought was the correct stalk to switch them off, and then slammed the door, 'blipped' the car locked and went on my way, whistling - unaware that what I had actually done was not turn off the lights, but switch on the rear windscreen wiper. When I returned to the car some eight hours later the battery was completely flat. I didn't have any jump leads, nobody would stop and help me, and in the end I had to call the RAC.
The breakdown van arrived very quickly. The car battery also charged very quickly. The bloke driving the van was very nice, we had a good chat about the reliability of my new car and the faults I should look out for with it. All was, in fact, going swimmingly, until he suggested I reverse out of the parking bay and just drive around the car park for a lap to see if all was well. As I backed slowly out, I became aware that he was staring down at the ground in front of my car quite intently. I poked my head out the window to see what was fascinating him, and there, just where my front wheel arch had been a second before (and looking for all the world like I had been reading it and had quickly discarded it when he arrived) was a porno mag. And not just any porno mag - no, this appeared to be a specialist porno mag, dedicated to the interests of the kind of gentleman who likes the (much, much) older and rounder woman.
He looked down at the mag. I looked down at the mag. We looked at each other.
"You've dropped your magazine" he said.
"That's not my magazine," I protested, but far too quickly. It sounded suspicious even to me.
There was an awkward pause. So awkward, in fact, that I felt myself blushing out of sheer embarrassment, which did little to reinforce my innocence.
"OK" he said, clearly not believing me. He picked it up and walked it slowly to the nearest bin, leaving me to cringe while I imagined him calling back to the control centre and asking them to redflag my membership and add a note to my account that I was pervert.
My anger here is towards the person who discarded the magazine in the first place, of course. Who leaves porno mags lying around in public? I can only assume you have so much porn that you don't notice when some goes missing, which frankly isn't a good sign - for God's sake, get another interest: do us all a favour and take up a sport or hobby, will you?

Slugs: Vile things. Little animated pockets of snot. Never liked them. But I like them even less now, since they starting hiding under the handle of the green recycle box, ensuring that they burst all over my fingers when I try and lift the box up.
Have you ever had burst slug under your fingernails? It is exactly as unpleasant as it sounds. I am actually dry-heaving a bit just typing this.

Children who throw dead animals at you: Picture the scene: I am on the beach in North Wales, leaning against the sea wall, and chatting amiably with an old friend and his girlfriend. We are discussing weighty, serious matters as befits people of our age and status: the economy, politics, long lists of all of our friend's character flaws, why Big Brother is shit - that kind of thing. The beach is warm and sandy, the waves are supplying a soothing background hiss, and the sea is as sparkling as our oh-so-witty conversation. It is a perfect holiday moment. What could possibly ruin it?
As it turns out: some children throwing a dead animal at us.
There is a rustling from the woods behind us, and a giggle, and then out of the sky drops an uninvited guest. It is a dead mole, it's eyes glazed, it's mouth firmly shut in a grim little rictus. It doesn't look any happier about it's sudden arrival on the picnic blanket than we are.
I stand up and look into the woods. A small band of children are melting back into the treeline, hooting with laughter. One of them - presumably the molehurler himself, a boy of no more than eleven - stops and calls over to me:
"Sorry about the rodent, mate"
Now, I know what you're thinking: What a schoolboy error. That's a common misconception, moles are actually of the Talpinae family and not rodents. And you are quite correct, though it's worth remembering that (a) he was a schoolboy and (b) if you are the kind of child who flings animal carcasses at tourists, then I suspect scientific classification is not high on your agenda: they are all just members of the 'ammo' family to you...
He smirks. I tell him, in short angry words, what he can do with his dead mole. He disappears, laughing, and leaving me to kick a small furry grey corpse further along the beach, so that my children won't find it and be tempted to poke it with sticks when they return with their ice creams.

There. I feel much better now.
Thanks for listening, I'm sure something will come along soon that winds me up all over again...

Death at the dinner table

2009-08-12T20:21:00.013+01:00

Another mealtime, another brief descent into madness. And, as always appears to be the case, the meal is chicken and rice. Why is it always chicken and rice? We should stop eating the damn stuff: it might be coincidence but it just seems to cause problems. This time it all kicks off at the very second we all raise our first forkful.
"When Mummy grows up, she will be a Daddy..." announces Youngest, with the air of a sage making a proclamation.
"No" says Eldest, immediately. "When Mummy grows up, she will be dead."
There is a nasty, half-second pause, much like the one you get at the top of a rollercoaster when you've stopped climbing the initial hill and levelled out, at the moment when you get a good hard look at the imminent drop. You know - a fraction before all the screaming starts.
"No" refutes Youngest, and looks to us to agree. Her sister gives her the stinkeye, and looks to us to back her up.
There is uneasy quiet, as two well-meaning parents try hard to think what to say. It's like the eldest has handed us a tin opener and a can clearly marked 'Worms', and is daring us to open it, while the youngest is begging us not to.
I seek refuge in cowardice, and fill my mouth with food, rendering me unable to speak (when you've got no other options, there's always mastication).
My wife is made of sterner stuff. A master politician, she opts to attack the premise rather than answer the question. "Why do you think that, darling?" she asks the little one. "Why would Mummy want to grow up to be a Daddy?"
I think perhaps I can help answer that one, so I hastily gulp down my food. "It's a matter of evolution," I suggest, swallowing painfully, and with partially chewed rice cascading from my mouth as I speak. "It's so you can become as wise as Daddy."
"No," all three of them say at once. In addition, my wife gives me one of her special looks, the one where her head angles slightly to one side, her eyes widen in surprise, and her fingers flex involuntarily. It is the kind of look a cat would give a mouse, if said mouse came out of it's hole one day armed with a sharpened matchstick, and challenged the cat to a fight. I decide that, on reflection, perhaps I will keep quiet after all.
"It was meant to be joke..." I say, in a small sullen voice.
"If I grow up to be a Daddy," continues my wife, nodding in my direction and managing to load the word with more disdain than it was ever designed to hold, "then what does Daddy grow up to be?"
"A skeleton" says Eldest.
Another pause.
"No..." says my wife - but far, far too late for it to carry any weight as a convincing denial.
"Yes," insists Eldest. "A skeleton. He will be killed and turn into a skeleton. All his bones will come out."
"A skeleton..." says Youngest, thrilled with the word, even though she has no idea what it means.
"It goes like this," continues her sister, "Boy - Daddy - dead - skeleton."
"And it goes Girl - Mummy - Daddy," insists Youngest.
"I am not just 'a Daddy', you know" I interrupt. "Boys don't just automatically turn into Daddies when they grow up. There's more to it than that."
Both girls look at me vacantly.
"Before I was a Daddy, but after I was a boy, I was a man." I explain.
"Past tense" mouths my wife silently, and smiles sweetly. The other faces around the table remain blank.
"I am still a man," I add, feeling it suddenly necessary to insist on that fact.
"No, now you are a Daddy," says Eldest. "And soon you will be a skeleton."
"Skeleton man" says Youngest, delighted. "Skeleton Daddy man."
"Eat your dinner" I say.
"Skeleton dinner," she replies happily. "Skeleton chicken. Skeleton rice."
"Dinner" I command, pointing at her bowl. "Let's have no more nonsense. A boy grows up to be a man, and if he has children then he becomes a Daddy."
"And then he stops being a man?" asks the Eldest.
"No," I say, though quietly thinking that, based on my own experience, that might well ultimately depend on how many daughters he has. "He stays a man."
"Until he becomes a skeleton..."
"Mummies become Daddies," burbles Youngest, mashing her food with the back of her fork. "And then Daddies become skeletons. And skeletons become chickens. And chickens become rice. And rice becomes toucans..."
"Toucans have beaks instead of faces!" adds her sister. "And when they open their mouths they go 'Caw! Caw! Caw!'"
"And lights come out of their mouth!" shrieks Youngest. Both girls collapse, insensible with laughter. I stare at them in complete bemusement.
"Are they on some kind of medication that I don't know about?" I ask my wife, when it becomes apparent, after ten seconds or so, that they are not going to stop.
"No."
"Hmmm. Do you think perhaps they should be?"
"No, apparently this is all pretty normal."
The laughter continues, punctuated by the odd intelligible word - I can make out 'toucans', 'lights', 'beaks'...
"Perhaps there's some medication that I could get instead?" I wonder aloud.
"Just three more weeks, and the school holidays are over" says my wife, with the air of a woman who is crossing off the days on a calendar.
"Skeletons," shrieks the Youngest, "with beaks!"
"Just three more weeks..." repeats my wife, as if reassuring herself.

The Skunk-skunk Saga

2009-08-04T21:02:00.020+01:00

June 2008: Last year, we spent a week on the Northwest coast, staying at my inlaws house in Morecambe. During that week, on a trip to a toy shop in Bowness in the Lake District (a venue that I estimate is about 300 miles from our own home, making a casual return visit inconvenient, to say the least) my eldest daughter decided to buy a soft toy with her holiday money. The toy was in fact meant to be a squirrel, but she called it 'Skunk-skunk', whereas I called it (in private) "That hateful rat-thing with the bug eyes".
As is the manner with all her soft toys, for the week that she got it, it was the single most important object in her life. She took it to bed. She sat it at the table when eating. She insisted on carrying it around everywhere with her. She would press it's horrid little face into mine when I put her to bed, saying "Night-night kiss from Skunk-skunk." And she would continually - continually - keep losing it.
It was lost and found multiple times that year: in the car, down the sofa, in coat pockets, left at school and in the garden - a seemingly endless cycle of loss, inconsolable tears, a tense and frantic search, before (finally) recovery and stern exhortations that she should take better care of her toys.

April 2009: And then one fateful day, Skunk-skunk got lost and couldn't be found again.
Now, we've been here before, and it usually blows over - another toy comes along, takes it's place in her affections, and we can all move on. I can almost measure my daughter's age in favourite cuddly toys: I have lived through the eras of Red Ted, Green Ted, the Bunny twins, Carrot the Rabbit, Snowbear, Ducky and many, many more. There is always another toy, I thought - just give it time.
But it wasn't to be - not this time. The tears lasted for weeks, a small session of heartbreak at every bedtime, and with no apparent sign of the distress abating. We searched everywhere, at least twice. Relatives and friends who we had visited were called, on the offchance they were harbouring the fugitive. Cupboards were turned out. Light-fingered little sisters with previous convictions of toy-theft were quizzed extensively. Finally, things came to a head when I came home from work to find an A4 poster stuck to the tree outside our house. It was a picture of a red, mostly amorphous mass, but I thought recognised the two big eyes in the centre. The misspelled words written underneath confirmed my suspicions and explained the whole sad story:

"Lost Touy - Skunckskunc - plees help..."

I went inside, and was immediately besieged by the artist.
"I have been making posters to help find Skunk-skunk," she explained. "I have drawn one for you to put up at you work." She handed it to me, another A4 sheet with the same message, meticulously coloured in.
"How many of these did you make?" I asked.
"I lost count. One for the tree. One for the fridge. One for my bedroom door. One for school. One for you to take to work. One to give to Nanny..."
Lots, then. It must have taken her all afternoon. I looked down at her sad, earnest face, and decided steps should be taken. I took her hand and sat her down on the stairs.
"Sweetheart, I think Skunk-skunk has maybe really gone this time..." I began.
"Daddy, I know. That's why I have drawn posters. So when somebody else finds him, they know who he belongs to..." she explained patiently.
"Yes..." I said, trying to sound optimistic, but picturing the many and varied possible deaths of Skunk-skunk in my head (shredded in washing machine filter, found in park and chewed to bits by dog, thrown away by accident, drop-kicked into canal by vengeful sibling, etc) "...but I'll tell you what: we are going on holiday again in July, back to Morecambe. If he hasn't turned up by then, we will go back to the toy shop in Bowness and try and buy another one."
She pondered this.
"OK," she agreed. "But will you laminate my poster, for your work?"
"I think if Skunk-skunk was at work, Daddy would have seen him..." I suggested tentatively. Her face clouded over.
"But Mummy told me you would laminate it. She said you would laminate it, and then show it to everyone at your work..."
At this point I became aware of a faint sniggering coming from the kitchen.
"Did she? Good old, Mummy, eh? Always there with the bright ideas..."
"Mummy is very helpful..." said her number one fan.
"Yes," I said, meaning the opposite. "Helpful..."

July 2009, last week: Skunk-skunk has remained lost. We step off the ferry at Bowness. As our feet touch dry land, our daughter asks (as she has done every day for a month): "When are we going to the toy shop to get Skunk-skunk?"
"Be patient..." chides her mother, then whispers to me: "I do hope they have them in stock..."
I have not considered this. We could be minutes away from the mother of all upsets.
"Let's hurry..." urges our daughter, tugging on my arm.
We get to the shop which is small, with a single central shelf. The soft toys are on the far side, out of view. We round the corner to find...loads of Skunk-skunks. Baskets of them. This is something of a relief to me. I pick up one of the red squirrels and waggle it at her.
"Here we go then, sweetheart. It's a new Skunk-skunk, at last..." I say.
She is not really listening. Instead, she is staring, transfixed, at the shelf.
"They make pink ones now.." she says in a voice full of wonder.
"What?" I ask, mildly irritated.
"Pink ones..." she says, pointing.
Indeed, it appears that they do now make pink Skunk-skunks. There are a row of them right in front of me.
"But you lost a red one," I insist.
"Pink..." she says, plaintively.
"You have been crying for months about the red one," I say. "How can your affections have switched, just like that?."
"Can I get them both?"
"No, just one..."
There is period of umming and ahhing. She picks both up, one in each hand, as if weighing them.
"I will buy the pink one now, and the red one next time" she finally announces.
"Fine" I say, feeling slightly saddened at this last minute switch of loyalties - she ran a poster campaign, for Gods sake. I decide that, when her back is turned, I will secretly buy the red one as well, and hide it away in a cupboard until Christmas.

August 2009, last week: Home from our holidays, and while tidying away the coats and shoes, my daughter picks up her old pair of wellies and tries them on. Her foot won't go into one, as something is stuck inside, so she tips it out - and lo and behold, the original lost-and-long-presumed-dead red Skunk-skunk falls out onto the floor.
Now she once again has a red Skunk-skunk to go along with her new pink one. She is naturally delighted, and it appears so is everyone else - except for me, because I have just purchased a replacement red Skunk-skunk which is now clearly surplus to requirements.

August 2009, this week: I come home from work, and find the rest of the family are out. I sit on the front wall to catch a bit of sun, and wait for them. Soon enough, the car pulls up, but it's clear something is wrong. I can hear our daughter crying over the noise of the engine. That can't be good...
I open her door and she collapses, sobbing, into my arms. I look at her mother with a raised eyebrow.
"She has lost her pink Skunk-skunk" she explains.
The sobbing intensifies.
"She wanted to take it with her, and I think she left it in the park. We have been back to look for it, but it's gone..."
The sobbing turns to wailing.
"Well, at least you still have your red one..." I suggest.
The wailing gets louder. I refrain from telling her that we have a spare red one in a cupboard, as I don't think that will help either...

The unsuitability of paintbrushes

2009-07-22T21:39:00.015+01:00

It is my father's birthday shortly, and I have no idea what to buy him.
In truth, I have had no real idea what to get him for his birthday for about a decade now. It was so much easier when I was a child, and all the money I had was the pocket money he gave me in the first place: expectations were lower. I could get away with buying him a family sized tub of salted peanuts three times a year (Birthday, Christmas, Father's day) and he could get on with the business of eating handfuls of them in front of the TV: a simple harmonic relationship that suited us both. But now I am all grown up, with a job and a house and wife and everything, the pocket money sadly dried up years ago, and I now feel I have to put a great deal more thought and effort into birthday presents. Unfortunately, he has never really seemed to care much about birthdays, and as he gets older he is getting increasingly harder to buy for - which leads us, inevitably, to The Annual Birthday Present conversation:
"Dad, it's me."
"Hello there. How are you?"
"Good. I'm ringing to have The Birthday Present conversation."
"Oh, already? Must we?"
"We must. What do you want this year?"
"I really don't know."
"No, nor do I. Think, please."
There is a short pause. I am much like my father in many ways, and I can tell he finds this question - one which most other people would welcome, what with it eventually leading to the receiving of a gift - as faintly irritating. I can understand that; I don't really know what I want either, both at the micro level of birthday presents and often in the wider 'life in general' context as well. As a result, I find being asked to think about what I want is always faintly tiresome.
"Well, I do know one thing I want - a nice set of decorators brushes."
"A set of what?"
"Decorators brushes. Some good ones."
There is a pause while I mull this over. "When you say 'decorators brushes', am I to assume you mean 'paintbrushes'?" I ask.
"Yes. A good set."
Two things strike me about this request. Firstly, I know with absolute certainty that he deliberately chose to say the far more specific 'decorators brushes' to avoid any confusion with artists paintbrushes, and I am quietly appreciative of this - I am the pedant son of a pedant father, so I mentally give him a 'high five' for linguistic accuracy, though part of me is aware that stuff like this is why our wives sometimes hate us. And secondly, as suggestions go, that is a truly awful present to buy someone.
"No. I'm not buying you paintbrushes."
"Decorators brushes..."
"Yes. I'm not buying you any."
"I've got lots already, but they are all rubbish. I've always wanted a top quality set."
"Really? Always? Because I've got to say, as 'lifelong dreams' go, owning a good set of paintbrushes seems eminently achievable. I think you could have probably sorted it out before now if it mattered that much to you...are you going to be doing any painting soon?"
"Maybe. I don't know. But you always need paintbrushes."
I close my eyes, and grimly imagine a world where I have bought him some 'quality decorators brushes' for his birthday. I can see it all too clearly: as a result, he will feel compelled to paint something - anything - to test them out, and then equally compelled to show me the resulting finish that is achievable with said brushes. I can easily foresee a time where I am staring in front of a blank wall, which he didn't really want to repaint and I don't really want to look at, and nodding mutely in agreement at how smooth it looks.
"Let's try and get a longer list." I say. "What else would you like?"
There is another, lengthier pause. "I don't know," he says finally.
This is not a surprise: if a man has so little idea what he might want for his birthday that he suggest 'paintbrushes', he is not likely to have a second or third choice handy. 'Paintbrushes' is a barrel-scraping choice as it is.
"How about some music?" I ask.
"Yes..." he says, managing to make it sound like 'no'.
"Mind you, I don't know what you'd want. I can't imagine what kind of music a man who wants something as asinine as 'paintbrushes' for his birthday might like..."
"Coldplay?" he suggests drolly.
We both chuckle halfheartedly, painfully aware that multimillionaire Chris Martin is unlikely to be crying on his beautiful superstar wife's shoulder just because we think his band are boring.
"Did you actually want the latest Coldplay album?"
"No, I've got one of the old ones. I can just play that again."
"What about books?" I ask.
"I'm not reading books much at the moment - I have great stack of them waiting to read already."
"What about magazines? A magazine subscription."
"Ah yes, that's a good idea. What do you think I'd like?"
"How would I know? 'Paintbrush Fancier Monthly'? What magazines do you read at the moment?"
"None, really."
"So you'd like a magazine subscription, but you don't know which magazine?"
"Not really..."
"Something serious? Something funny?
"Funny, maybe? I don't know."
"Well, what criteria am I meant to use to choose it, then, Dad?"
He thinks for a second, then says. "I don't like magazines lying around that only I get to read. So something that Ann can read as well."
"Seriously? Are you for real? The first thing that comes into your mind when I ask what kind of magazine you'd like is one that other people can read too?"
"Yes, I guess so."
I sigh audibly. "What about some wine?" I ask
He perks up at this, "Oh yes, some good wine. That would be excellent."
"OK, wine sound promising..."
"But not too good, or it's a waste."
"What?"
"I can't really appreciate expensive wine. I mean, I like it, obviously, but to be honest I can't always really see why a twenty quid bottle of wine is meant to taste so much better than a ten quid bottle, for example. Often I think cheaper wines are better. So if you buy something too expensive, I probably won't enjoy it as much as I feel I should."
(I should point out, just in case you were wondering, that my Dad is still mentally sound. I know it may read like it, but he is not addled in any way - quite the opposite, in fact: he's very sharp. I just want to be crystal clear that he's not confused - he's just awkward...)
I grind my teeth gently. "So, Dad, just to recap, your wishlist for a birthday present is as follows: paintbrushes that you are not sure you need, but claim you've always wanted (though not enough to actually buy for yourself), a subscription to some kind of unspecified magazine where the most important factor is that your wife can enjoy it, and some wine that is 'good' - but not so good that you feel its wasteful?"
"Sounds about right."
There is a lengthy pause.
"Can't you take up golf?" I whine. "You're always threatening to. There's no end of golf-related crap I can buy then, it'll make birthdays so much easier..."
"When I retire. Few years to go yet..."
"I have no idea what to buy you for Christmas either, by the way."
"Oh, Christmas is different. You can relax, everybody gives you rubbish at Christmas, so I don't mind so much what you buy me then..."
That does it, I think. Peanuts it is...

Lovemonkey rules

2009-07-14T22:53:00.004+01:00

Dinner time. I am trying to avoid catching the eye of all the others sitting around the table, for various reasons:
a) My two year old daughter is holding a floret of broccoli in front of her chin, and keeps saying "Look at my beard". I am pointedly not looking at her because every time I do, I have the overwhelming urge to snigger, which encourages her further.
b) Her sister. I am not looking at her because she is giggling uncontrollably at Little Miss Broccolibeard, and if I do it will set me off as well.
c) My wife. I am avoiding her gaze, but can feel it burning into me. This is because, not two minutes previously, I held up two florets of my own broccoli and pretended they were alien ears. My wife is thus staring hard at me, in order to wordlessly impress upon me that the ongoing 'food as a facial feature' show is both unwelcome, and entirely my fault. It is the look a wife gives her husband when he has failed to set an example. I cannot meet her gaze because she is correct on all counts, and I am clearly a worthless worm and a disastrous role model.
Fortunately, at this point, my eldest daughter make a declaration that takes the heat away from me. "Sophie at school has decided that James is her lovemonkey..." she announces.
Her mother laughs out loud, and nearly spits her drink out (a little part of me wishes she had, because that would level out the 'poor table-manners league' a bit, but sadly she has more self control and catches herself in time).
"Her what?" she asks.
"Her lovemonkey."
"Her love...monkey?
"Yes. Lovemonkey. Sophie says James is her lovemonkey."
(At this juncture I should point out that these are not the real names of the children involved- who are all in Reception class at school, and hence only five years old. There are two reasons for this: firstly, because it seems highly unfair to talk about other people's children on the Internet, and secondly because I cannot actually keep track of the majority of the names of my daughter's school friends in the first place. This is largely because they are all at knee-height to me and moving fast, so often all I see is the top of their heads, and it seems unfair to ask them to wear name badges when they visit the house. I can say that a lot of the boys names seem to start with 'J', but I think that is the case everywhere at the moment. So for the purposes of this post, I'll be randomly picking names from an Internet list of top 20 UK child names. Let's just all agree that my reason for doing this is that I am being considerate, rather than simply lazy.)
"And what is a lovemonkey, exactly?" I ask.
"I'm not sure. Sophie made the rules up. We all have to have one though."
"All of you?"
"All of the girls. I don't really know all the rules."
"The rules?"
"The rules of lovemonkeys. There are rules, but only Sophie know them all."
"And what do they do? Lovemonkeys?"
"I'm not sure. That is a part of the rules I don't know."
"Look at my moustache! It is funny!" announces her younger sister. I can see from the corner of my eye that she is now trying to balance a green bean on her lip. I resolutely continue to fail to make eye contact with my wife.
"Have you got a lovemonkey?" I ask
"Yes. My lovemonkey is Josh. I wanted Ben, but he was already taken by Emily."
"Oh. OK. Why did you want Josh?"
"He has got a guinea pig."
From across the table: "Look at me, Daddy! My moustache! It is green, Daddy! IT IS FUNNY!"
"And, are you, er, happy, with your lovemonkey?" I press on.
She shrugs. "Yes. I don't care." she says.
"And, er, is he happy to be your lovemonkey?"
"He doesn't know. We don't tell them."
"Beard and moustache!" intervenes her sister. "Both at once! Both green! Look!"
"Put your food back on your plate at once, and stop playing with it" commands her mother.
"But Daddy made ears with his..." she points out. Once again, I feel the Steely Gaze of Spousal Disappointment on me, but shrug it off.
"You don't actually tell your lovemonkey that they have been picked?" I persist.
"No. That is another rule."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Sophie made the rules up. I don't really understand them."
I push my meal around my plate, and think: yep, that sounds about right. All the basic tenets of male/female interaction seem to be there: somebody else is in charge, only a select few ever seem to fully know what is going on while a large number of participants have no clue what they are doing or even that they are involved in any way, nobody will explain the rules, and one of the best ways to become more desirable in life is to have more guinea pigs than anybody else. These seem to be important life lessons - I am quietly impressed at how sophisticated a model of adult human behaviour it all is. All it seems to lack is having a few people bucking the system and making life difficult for everybody else....
"Sophie has three lovemonkeys. She is allowed, because she knows all the rules..." my daughter adds.
Ah, there we go - bingo.
"That seems unfair..?" I venture.
She shrugs again, genuinely unconcerned. Ah, sweetheart, I think, I hope you can stay this nonchalant and happy and unbothered by it all for as long as possible.
I finally look up at my wife. "Can I be your lovemonkey?" I ask.
"No, not any more. Not with table manners like yours."
"Make ears with your food again, Daddy!" shouts a little voice from across the table.

The fall of King Hubkin

2009-06-10T21:46:00.003+01:00

We are sitting at a shady table in a cafe near the beach. Our youngest is asleep in her pushchair, presumably quite worn out from all the shouting, and a pleasant peace has descended. My wife is flicking through a book, and I am watching the world go by and idly pondering the cryptic crossword. (14 Down: My downfall is I twist with shrub (6))
"Shall I draw you a picture, Daddy?" asks our eldest, Biro at the ready. She is turning into quite the prolific little artist, having discovered a love for drawing and painting that she has inherited from her mother, and which I have found can readily be exploited: the provision of a scribble pad and a ballpoint pen buys me enough peace to read the paper.
"Yes, please." I say.
"I will draw a picture of you" she announces.
"Sounds good..." I say, sipping on my drink
There is a period of companionable quiet. Pages turn, and pen scratches on cheap paper. Our youngest snuffles in her sleep and gives a smile of triumph, perhaps having dreamt of taking gold in the World Under-Three Olympics screeching event.
"There we go." announces Eldest. "It's a picture of you."
I study it critically. Her drawing is really coming along.
"It's excellent" I say. "Fit for a king."
She smiles broadly.
"In fact, you should make me into a king" I add. There is an audible 'tut' from behind the pages of my wife's chick-lit, but I ignore it,
"Can you give me a crown?" I ask.
There is some dutiful editing. A crown appears.
"There we go" she says. "Now you are King Daddy."
"King Hubkin..." snorts my wife.
(That remark will need further explanation, and requires a glimpse into the workings of my marriage that some readers may find disturbing. I have a large number of names that I can call my wife if I want to annoy her - not rude names, you understand, just little nicknames that absolutely infuriate her, as she finds them demeaning. Personal favourites include 'The Breadknife' or 'The Long-Haired General', and recently I have been experimenting with the phrase 'wifelet' after reading that it was the term the Marquess of Bath used to describe his many, many partners. She, in turn, has been testing out a wide range of retaliatory phrases to annoy me with, the most successful of which has been 'Hubkin' as a derivative of 'husband' - the diminutive, cutesy nature of the word sets my teeth on edge. With use, the meaning of the phrase has since changed slightly, and it is now the term she uses to describe me when I am being a pain in the arse, e.g "Cut it out, you are being a total hubkin.")
"King Daddy, I think you'll find she said..." I correct loftily.
"King Hubkin" she insists.
"Er, I am the one with the crown around here.." I say pointing at the pad. Our daughter looks at us with wide eyes.
"I can draw Mummy with a crown too?" she suggests.
"Good idea..." says her mother.
"Meh.." I say, and go back to the Cryptic. (23 across: Lost power when hurled too far? (10))
There is much scribbling, for an extended length of time.
"Ta da!" our daughter finally announces. We crane over to get a good look.
"Oh, that is very good, sweetheart..." her delighted mother says.
"Hmmm." I say, less effusively. "Tell me, why did you turn the paper round like that?"
"I wanted more room to draw Mummy."
"Yes, but because Mummy is drawn sideways to Daddy, now it looks like I am lying at her feet. It looks like she is standing on me..."
"I really like it..." says my wife.
"Also, her crown is much bigger, I can't help but notice."
"Yes, I had more room to draw it" explains the artist.
"What are those dots you have drawn on her?"
"Sparkles. Mummy is sparkly."
"I see. And you have also given her fairy wings. And what's that you've drawn on my face?"
"Eyelashes."
"They look like tears..." I say.
"This is the best picture ever. We should keep this picture on the fridge" announces my wife. "In fact, we should frame it." I cannot bear to look at her, but there is no real need: she is radiating glee.
"Can we do that, Daddy?"
"Yes, maybe..." I say sadly.
"I know!" says her mother. "Even better - perhaps Daddy can scan it, and put it on his blog!"
My daughters face lights up. She looks ecstatic.
"Oh can you, Daddy? Please? Please?"
There's no way I can let her down. Her mother knows that.
"Yes..." I say in tiny voice, and go back to the crossword. (31 down: Pecan, cop and emu collude for a fitting end, (11))

Flatpack magic

2009-06-01T20:25:00.016+01:00

I am sitting alone in my car in the car park at Ikea, drumming my fingers on the dashboard in frustration.
Not, as you might perhaps have expected, because of my location - in fact I have come to terms with the fact that Ikea and I are in a long-term relationship. I simply cannot see any way in which the Swedish pine-peddlers will not be enjoying my custom for the foreseeable future, because my family are growing (in physical size, that is - not in number), whereas my budget for new furniture has remained fairly constant for many years at around 'nil'. Seeing as my children continue to (a) grow, thus requiring new beds and the like, (b) almost casually break the furniture we already have and (c) find myriad other ways for me to spend any 'spare' money we might accrue, it's clear I will be offering up the meagre contents of wallet to the Temple of the Allen Key for several years to come. Need for new furniture + lack of funds = Ikea.
No, my issue is with something that been a cause of frustration in my life for much longer than trips to blue and yellow prefabricated warehouses at the edge of major towns: namely, my mother. She is 'helping' with our Ikea trip by driving my wife and children to the store in her car, so that my own vehicle is free to transport home any furniture we buy. And she has gone missing.
I last saw her about half an hour ago, as I crested a hill. As I glanced in my rear view mirror I could see her car in the distance, doing her customary 37 miles an hour. As the speed limit on the road was 60, and it was a single track road, I could also see the enormous tailback of traffic behind her, which stretched off to the horizon. I could also faintly hear the hooting and shouting.
In the intervening thirty minutes and eight miles - which are essentially a straight road - she has somehow gotten lost. That, or somebody has rammed her off the road in frustration.
I call my wife's mobile. She answers the phone with a very detectable air of resignation, which is not surprising, as I have been calling her regular intervals to complain about the speed my mother is driving at. She has thus been placed in the excruciating position of being asked to pass on a series of increasingly rude comments to her mother-in-law, which she has politely declined to do. Wise to this, I have taken to shouting my messages at the handset so that my mother can hear anyway. I suspect my wife has not enjoyed this situation one little bit.
"Where are you?" I snap.
"We are a bit lost..." she says, after a pause
"How? I mean, seriously, how? It's basically a straight road. It's not like you were going too fast to read the roadsigns, is it?"
"We followed the wrong car..."
"What?"
"We saw another Ford Focus in the distance, so we followed that. It wasn't you. It didn't go to Ikea."
"You followed another car without ever drawing up close enough to see if it was the car you wanted?"
"It was going a bit fast for your mum to catch..."
"God. Where are you now?"
"Not sure.."
"Give me a description of what you can see..."
She does so. It becomes immediately clear that they have driven some ten miles further on from the correct turning. I give fresh directions, adding (at volume) my opinion on the optimum speed they should travel at in order to get to the store before it closes, and ring off.
However, I still feel I need to vent some frustration. I decide to call the one person in the world who probably knows exactly how I feel.
"Hello?" says my sister.
"How do you stand it?" I ask without preamble. "How do you not go stark staring mad and leap out of the vehicle, screaming?"
There is a short pause, but it doesn't take her long to catch on.
"Is it her driving, or has she lost her sunglasses again?" she asks.
"It's the driving. I have toenails that grow faster then she drives."
"It's the glasses that annoy me the most at the moment. I think her record was six times in one day. She takes them off, and then can't see well enough to find them again."
"Can she see well enough to drive?"
"Only very, very slowly, apparently..."

Some time later, my family arrive. My children seem very pleased to see me, which is good, because in the time they were gone I was starting to worry they may have forgotten what I looked like. My mother gives a disarming smile and a shrug, and my wife looks mutinous, a look I clearly interpret as saying 'We will discuss your phone calls later.' But the rest of the Ikea trip proves to be very easy: the store is very quiet, doubtless because most shoppers who drive at normal road speeds have been and gone long before we arrived. We don't even have to queue for the traditional Ikea lunch in the cafe:
"These meatballs are very nice," says my mother. "I wish I could take some home"
"They sell them in packets for the freezer..." adds my wife, helpfully.
"Will they keep? For the journey home? Won't they melt?"
"At the speed you drive, I think that's a certainty" I reply. "In fact, I think there's a fighting chance the polar ice caps might have melted by the time you get home,...
"Oh, hush now, and eat your meatballs. Your Daddy is a grumpy Daddy, isn't he, girls? Grumpy...."

Later at home (which I arrive at far enough ahead of the others to have a cup of tea, a shower, a chat with my neighbours and a lengthy read of the paper before they limp into view), I try and assemble the new bed for our youngest daughter. It becomes clear that one of the pieces supplied is incorrect: on the supplied instructions it has two holes milled in it that are mysteriously absent on the actual article - though to compensate for this I have been supplied with an extra inch-long length of dowel that serves no purpose whatsoever. I resort to checking my eldest daughters bed, which is meant to be the same model, and which features correctly milled pieces. From this I can deduce that in the two years between the purchase of each bed, the model has slightly changed - and what I have in fact been supplied is the new model of bed, only with the instructions for the old model, and a bag of fixings that do not quite match either. Taking it back is not an option, as my daughter needs a bed to sleep in that night, so I persevere with a fixing solution of my own design using the large bag of spare Ikea fixings I have accumulated over the years. This is not a complete success, it must be said, and my mother comes in to check on progress just as I realise that I have broken a second piece of the bed by hammering a dowel into a promising-looking hole that turned out to be too small for it. As a result I am indulging it a bit of imaginative swearing, which she generously chooses not to hear.
I look at her sadly. She is waiting (very patiently) for me to assemble this bed, so that I can then disassemble the cot my daughter previously slept in, which she can then take home with her to give to my sister. I realise that, in an exquisitely unpleasant turn of events, not only are two small children now dependent on me to provide a bed for them that night, but after day of griping at her, its actually my mother who is now waiting for me.
I decide extreme measures are called for. I fetch my tube of industrial adhesive, suitable for gluing chunks of concrete together, and apply it liberally. Sixty seconds later, as promised by the manufacturer, the undrilled piece is firmly glued in position to it's neighbour - but as a side effect both seem to be stuck to the floor.
"That doesn't look so good..." she observes.
"It's probably because you've lost your glasses..."
Even she smiles at this. It's good to have a mum like mine.

Turtle trouble: A postcard from Turkey

2009-05-19T19:07:00.011+01:00

I've been away. Let me show you.
Imagine Europe, as pictured from above. Find the Aegean sea, and pan across a bit, to where Europe meets the East, in Turkey.
Zoom in a bit. Focus on the Southwest coast.
Zoom in a bit further. Picture the Muğla Province, rich in scattered ancient ruins and modern marble quarries.
Zoom in further. Find the coastal resort of Sarigerme.
Track SouthWest, until you find the 4-star First Choice holiday village. In the South corner, you will see a block of apartments. Head for that, observing as you do that the fine people of the Marriott hotel chain are building a 5-star luxury golf resort some 25 metres away.
At this juncture you can add a soundtrack, which will enable you to marvel at the scant respect the contractors have for local planning regulations that are meant to restrict building noise to reasonable working hours. (You can also feel a slight twinge of envy, if you like, because on this trip we're going four-star and the people next door will eventually be going five...)
You may also choose, at this point, to wonder aloud if this beautiful region of the world - which features a sparkling sea that laps a beach of tumbled gemstones (where protected turtle species lay their eggs) and a series of jaw-dropping 4000 year old tombs carved directly into the hills - will really be improved by the addition of a 18-hole golf course and another set of waterslides. Then remind yourself that the local economy relies almost entirely on tourism, and that you have contributed to the ecology problem by just being here - so in some tiny way, if the turtles all die, it's your fault...
But leave that aside for now. Continue zooming. Swoop down through two floors and find apartment 3011.
More specifically, find the bathroom. And that, my friend, is where you will find me.
On the toilet. At my lowest ebb all week.
(What, you thought I'd write about the good times on holiday? How little you know me...)
I have been sitting for some time, lamenting both the second chicken kebab with chili sauce that I ate the night before (and which I believe is responsible for my current situation), and my new swimming trunks, which were purchased in haste a few days before leaving for holiday. They feature a blue and white floral pattern and, in the the lengthy time I have had while seated to examine them puddled around my sunburnt lower shins, I have decided they make me look ridiculous.
But this is only one source of discomfort for me - leaving aside the first, most obvious and pressing issue, I am also not enjoying the fact that I am performing for an audience of three, as follows:
a) Myself, in a large mirror that runs across one full wall. This allows me to catch the occasional glimpse of my contorted, sun-reddened face, which is extremely disconcerting - because with one thing and another I am not really looking my best.
b) A large inflatable whale. This was purchased for my daughters to ride on in the swimming pool, and which they have decided in the meantime to store on the bathroom floor. This means that, by happy accident, it can 'observe' everything I am doing with its big cartoon eyes. Every 30 seconds I stare malevolently at its stupid painted smile and think about stabbing it with some nail scissors - but that would involve rising from my throne, which currently feels inadvisable.
c) My youngest daughter, who is outside the bathroom and whose short chubby legs, complete with pink sandals on each foot, I can clearly see through a louvred panel at the bottom of the door. She has been chatting amiably to me for some time, even though I have tried to explain that this is not strictly welcome right now, because Daddy is busy. Unfortunately, as she is currently enrolled in the School of Toilet Training herself (sadly, it appears, with graduation day still same way off), she clearly feels a kinship with me in my current position and has decided to share some some of the verbal encouragement she normally receives:
"How is your poo doing, Daddy?"
"It's...it's fine. Go away."
"Are you trying hard, Daddy?
"Go away. Please."
"Is it coming yet?"
"Go away. I'm begging you."
"You need to try hard, Daddy....."
"Go and see Mummy, will you?"
"You need to concentrate."
"Go away!"
"Concentrate, OK, Daddy? Concentrate and try..."
At this point I notice the absence of toilet paper. I recall with some sadness that I removed the last roll myself, in order to show my eldest daughter that if you draw something in wax crayon and then rub it hard with tissue paper the wax melts and soaks into the paper, leaving a translucent pattern. Even now she is in the other room, making a series of stained-glass window pictures to adorn the window, tearing up sheet after sheet of precious toilet roll and throwing it in the bin.
Outside the door, my youngest daughter discovers she can reach the bathroom light switches. As a result, both the main room light and the one above the mirror start going on and off intermittently.
"Keep trying, Daddy..." she calls through the door.
In the flickering light, the whale continues to smile at me. I swear it is laughing at my swimming trunks.
Zoom out now, and just keep going. Up through the apartment roof, up away from the turtle beach, higher and higher, until Turkey is spread below you, the planes heading for Dalaman are passing beneath your feet, and you can clearly see the curvature of the earth.
Now, listen.
I'm sure, even at this height, that you can hear me shouting for my wife...

Dog, Car, Camera, Car, Road, Rabbit, Tree.

2009-05-04T16:26:00.017+01:00

"Please, will you just just stop shouting? Stop shouting. Stop shouting. STOP SHOUTING!"
"But you are shouting..."
"I am shouting because you can't even hear me asking you to stop shouting over the noise you are making. That's better. Thank you."
"I am bored..."
"Shh, now. Daddy is concentrating on driving."
"Can we have a song on?
"Song on! Song on! Puffamagicdwagon!"
"No, no songs."
"Puffamagicdwagon!"
"No, no more 'Puff the magic dragon'. Not again. Let's play a game instead."
"I-spy! I-spy! I-SPY!"
"I said stop shouting!"
"Yes, yes, good idea - we can play I-spy."
"Me first! Me first!"
"Me first! Me first!"
"No: me first."
"Stop shouting. Please, will you just stop shouting? How many more times?"
"I tell you what, I'll go first. Are you ready? I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with 'D'..."
"Dog?"
"Doggie?"
"No."
"It is 'dog', mummy - there was a dog just there."
"Yes, I saw. There was a dog. But that wasn't what I chose."
"Doggie?"
"Why not? You should choose 'dog'. It is a waste if you don't choose 'dog'."
"It is not 'dog'. Any other guesses?"
"Is it 'death in a huge fireball, because the driver can't concentrate'?"
"No. Play properly."
"Is it 'despair'?
"No. Try again."
"Is it 'dog'?"
"Ha ha. Very funny..."
"Doggie?"
"It should be 'dog'..."
"Fine. Fine. Let's say it was 'dog' after all. Well done, all of you..."
"Me next! Me next! My turn!"
"OK, your turn. Off you go."
"I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with 'red'."
"With red? What do you mean, red? 'Red' is not a letter..."
"Car?"
"You can pick a colour or a letter. It's allowed."
"Is it? Since when?"
"Since forever."
"Car?"
"Well, nothing can 'begin with red'. You can't begin with a colour, so you would say, 'something that is coloured red...'
"Just drive, will you? She is five. It is a kids game, not a grammar test. Nobody is scoring her on sentence construction..."
"Car?"
"Yes. It was 'car'. That one in front of us."
"Very good. OK, little one, your turn..."
"Nooo! I want another go."
"But your sister has guessed it...it's her turn."
"That was too short! I made it too easy! I want another go - it will be longer..."
"Yes! Another go!"
"Stop shouting..."
"Okay, well, if you are both happy..."
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'C'..."
"Car?"
"No."
"Caravan?"
"No."
"Cat?"
"No."
"Hmmm, are you sure it's not 'car'?"
"No, Daddy, it is not 'car'. I already said so."
"Car?"
"I'm only asking, because last time we played, you said it wasn't 'car', and then at the end you told me it actually was a car, just 'not the one that you meant'..."
"Which was news that Daddy didn't take very well, if I recall..."
"It is not 'car'. We already had 'car' last time. Do you give up?"
"Cloud?"
"No."
"Car?"
"No. Stop saying that. It is not 'car'!"
"OK, we give up."
"It is 'camera'."
"Camera? Camera? Really?"
"Oh, well done. That's an excellent word, sweetheart."
"Where was there a camera?"
"At home."
"Oh, for the love of..."
"Shhh, now. It's your turn."
"I don't want a turn. I'm driving."
"Get on with it."
"Something beginning with 'C'..."
"Car?"
"Oh, come on, say it properly..."
"Oh, for Heavens sake! Fine. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'C'..."
"Car?"
"Yes. Well done. Your turn."
"You can't do that! We had 'car' already. That is cheating."
"Cheating? You think I'm cheating...? When you just had 'camera'?"
"Do another one!"
"Unbelievable..."
"Yes, play properly."
"God. Okay, okay..I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'R'..."
"Rabbit?"
"Rabbit? No. There's no rabbits here..."
"Rhinoceros?"
"Rhinoceros? Rhinoceros? Can you actually see a rhinoceros?"
"Is it 'road'?"
"Yes. Well done."
"I'm seeing a pattern here. Are you just saying the first thing you can see immediately in front of you?"
"No, because then 'R' would be 'red mist', wouldn't it?"
"You're not really trying very hard..."
"That's right, and do you know why? Because I'm driving. I don't know if you've noticed, but in front of me is this sort of wheel, that I keep turning left and right, and what's actually happening is that it's making the car go where I point it..."
"I swear, sometimes it's all I can do to not to slap you upside the head..."
"I'm driving. I have to concentrate."
"The light is red. We're stationary at the moment..."
"Is 'R' for red light, Daddy?"
"Rabbit?"
"Yes, fine, OK, turns out it was 'rabbit' after all. One just magically appeared in the footwell. Well done. Your go."
"Where? Where is there a rabbit? I can't see a rabbit..."
"It's your sisters turn now, darling..."
"But I want to see the rabbit..."
"Shhh, now. Let's just play. Come on sweetie, your turn..."
"I spy...little eye...something beginning with...tree."
"Tree? Beginning with 'tree?'.."
"Yes, tree."
"Is it 'tree'?"
"Yes! Tree! It is 'tree'! Well done."
"That's not right! It can't start with the thing it is! That's CHEATING!"
"Will. You. Please. STOP. SHOUTING!"

(I've wanted to do a post that was 'dialogue only' for a while now, but my apologies to those reading via email subscription, who I suspect have no highlight colours to help them determine who's who...though it may well read better that way, I can't tell...)

Princesses and poor men.

2009-04-23T21:45:00.002+01:00

Wedding anniversary night. Nine whole years married, despite me clearly having a series of debilitating character flaws that would have caused most women to throw their hands up in despair and head for the hills, long, long before we started picking out china patterns. My wife not only remains married to me, but also claims to intermittently enjoy it - which either says a great deal about her superhuman levels of patience, tolerance and forgiveness, or my truly startling prowess in the bedroom. It's a tough call, but I'll let you make your own minds up.
We have celebrated the event by really pushing the boat out: we have 'enjoyed' a really pretty middling takeaway curry and had a good sneer at Surallen's Calvalcade of Business Idiots (i.e The Apprentice). We have then done what every married couple with young children does when given the chance: gone to bed for a good hard sleep.
Sleep is sadly not arriving, however, because I have drunk most of a bottle of wine and am feeling 'a bit chatty', and because the curry its working its dubious magic and I am breaking wind, really quite dramatically, at intervals of around 3-7 minutes.
I am also occasionally giggling at the noise I am making. She really is a very lucky woman.
"Nine years ago today, I was being treated like a princess. Look at me now..." she says sadly into the dark.
"Wow, did you hear that one?" I interrupt. "It sounded just like a duck quacking..."
"Like a princess..." she reiterates, a touch manically.
"You still get treated like a princess..." I retort automatically, but without much conviction, as this is topic of conversation we have explored many times in the past and I cannot ever remember it ending well.
"Huh" she snorts. "Oh yes, just like a princess. Yesterday a child came into the toilet while I was sitting there, and forced herself onto my lap. I had to pee with a toddler bouncing on my legs. I bet that doesn't happen in Buckingham Palace..."
"You should have locked the door."
"If I lock the door they pound on it and howl, like rabid coyotes...what is that ungodly smell?"
"Amazing, isn't it? I've shocked even myself with that one..."
"Like a princess" she says, like mantra, and I can hear her fists clenching and unclenching in the dark. "Like a princess. Like a princess..."

Truth is, dignity is in short supply for everybody round here. This was ably demonstrated to me when my eldest daughter decided she wanted to join me in the bath this week. It was grim. I blame her mother, who has carefully instilled in both our girls the idea that the male body, and in particular the unique aspect of it, are subjects of universal hilarity that should be treated with both ridicule and utter contempt. This does not not mean, though, that she did not have questions...
"Daddy..." she asks, as I was towelling myself dry "...what are those things?"
I sigh exasperatedly. Not this again, I thought. Last time we went to the swimming baths and got changed in a family changing cubicle, both girls chanted "Wi-lly! Wi-lly! Wi-lly!" for so long and at such a volume that I was seriously worried that somebody might call Social Services, who would then be waiting outside when we opened the cubicle door.
"You know what that is." I say, crossly, trying to close the subject down.
"No, not your stupid willy" she says disdainfully. "The ugly things behind it."
I cover myself protectively with the towel. I realise that an explanation should probably be forthcoming, but am not quite sure what to say - primarily because, although we have decided on innocuous words for a 5-year old to use when describing other parts of the anatomy, we have not had the foresight to think of one for these particular appendages.
"They are my... (What? What? Come on, think, you can't say 'balls', she'll say it to her teacher)...my hurty things. They are the bits that hurt Daddy when you run into him. Or that time when you hit him with the broom. Or that other time, when Mummy tried to throw Daddy the remote control..."
"Oh" she says, clearly feigning understanding (which is just fine with me). Sadly, there is more she wants to know.
"Do all men have them?
"Yes, that's right. They do."
There is a pause.
"Even poor people?" she asks.

I've thought about it a lot since, and I still don't understand what the underlying logic was to her question. I love the idea though - if you follow it through, it could suggest that the ownership of a full pair was something of a status symbol, a mark of honour, something to be admired.
If only that were true. I can say with absolute certainty that it isn't the case in my house...

Woodpeckers, sharks and Songanomics

2009-04-06T16:34:00.003+01:00

I am asleep, enduring a hideous dream whereby, through a series of freakish accidents, I have been mistakenly sent into the G20 summit in place of Gordon Brown and not only have to fake an understanding of world economics but also his Scottish accent.
It is not going well: people keep asking me "Well, what do you think, Gordon?" and all I can do is shrug and say "Och, I dunnae.." in the most unconvincing way possible, while they all look at me with increasing suspicion.
"But Gordon, people are losing their jobs by the thousand..." says Barack Obama.
"And zeir 'omes.." adds Sarkosy, with a touch of Gallic menace.
"Hoots! Dinnae fash, I'll think o' sommat..." I say, while a bead of nervous sweat flops from my brow and stains the silk of my Labour Party HQ tie. It is a relief when a bright flash of green darts over the heads of the armed security personnel guarding the doorway, and a woodpecker suddenly lands on my shoulder. It begins to peck incessantly at my head.
"Excuse me" I tell the massed ranks of world leaders. "I must just deal with this..."
"Wake up, Daddy..." says the woodpecker.
I open my eyes. I am lying in bed on a Saturday morning, with the curtains blowing in the breeze. My youngest daughter has climbed onto the bed next to me, and is rapping on the side of my head with her tiny knuckles.
"Wake up, Daddy" she repeats. "I am here to rescue you."
"You....are?" I ask. I look at her in some confusion. She is wearing a pair of bright orange swimming goggles, an inflatable rubber ring, and nothing else.
"Yes" she nods. "From the sharks. We are going swimming."
There is a long, long pause while I gaze into her goggled face.
"Am I still dreaming ?" I finally ask, in genuine confusion.
"No, you all awake now" she says, happily. "I saved you."
"From the....sharks?" I ask, stupidly peering under the duvet to look for predatory fish.
"Yes", she nods, slipping down from the bed before announcing: "Going to save Mummy now."
At this point, as our local Naked Rescue Force Ranger (Ocean Division) leaves, her sister enters the room, jingling a plastic moneybox. She stands at the side of the bed and comes straight to the point.
"I will sing you a song" she informs me, "If you give me some money."
"Good morning..." I manage.
She frowns in mild annoyance.
"Good morning" she tuts. "Daddy, I will sing you a song if you give me some money."
It is clear from her tone that early morning pleasantries are to be considered at best irrelevant, and at worst an intolerable barrier to commerce. Times are tough in our household; I realise that everyone is feeling the effects of the worldwide financial meltdown, but we also have to deal with a five-year old who has discovered (and then wholeheartedly embraced) the concepts of money, trade and rampant consumerism.
"What songs do you know?" I ask, reaching for my jeans, and dying a little inside when I see her face brighten visibly at the soft clink of coins in the front pocket.
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?" she offers.
"What else?"
"The La-la-la song?"
"Is that the one when you just sing 'La-la-la' to whatever tune comes into your head?"
"Yes."
"Uh-huh. What else?"
"Twinkle Twinkle Little Rabbit."
"How does that one go?"
"It sounds like 'Twinkle Twinkle', but instead it is about a little rabbit."
"I see. Have you changed anything else? Does it still rhyme?
"No - it is just the same, but instead of 'star' I say 'rabbit'.
"Well, OK. In that case, I will have one 'La-la-la' song, please."
She pretends to clear her throat and then sings the 'La-la-la' song. Somewhat inevitably, on this occasion it turns out to be to the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'.
"Very good" I say, rooting the loose coins out of my pocket. What little change I have all looks to be worryingly like high-denomination coins, so I have to do my best to hide it from her. Fortunately, I spy a lone twenty pence piece, and with the deftness of a ninja extricate it from my clenched fist without it clinking against any other coins.
"Here you go" I say, handing it over. "Well done."
"Thank you very much" she says.
There is a pause. She looks at me expectantly.
"Yes?" I ask.
"Mummy always buys three songs" she says.
"Oh, does she?"
"Yes. And she said you would buy three songs as well."
"Well, of course she did. And we can't argue with your mother, can we now?"
"No?" she says tentatively,.
"No. There's so little point, after all..." I mutter, in the resigned voice of a man who is looking at the very real possibility of having to pay at least £1.70 to endure three slightly different variations of the song 'Twinkle Twinkle' before his breakfast. "But the thing is, I haven't got any money left..."
She looks at my tightly clenched hand with clear skepticism. She is, after all, her mother's daughter, which means she has a full range of finely honed senses for detecting my own particular brand of bullshit.
"Where has your money gone?" she asks.
"I don't know. Perhaps the sharks took it?"
"Don't be silly, Daddy. There are no sharks in bed."
"No, not now, there isn't. Your sister rescued me from them...."
"Da-deeeeee...." she whines.
"I haven't got any more coins. Honest..." I lie.
She thinks about this.
"You can owe me" she decides.

The '109th post' special: Self-indulgent navel gazing

2009-03-27T20:49:00.001Z

Isn't the Internet wonderful, though? I mean, really, isn't it?
It's like a vast swirling ocean of mystery. The things you can find out there sometimes make your hair stand on end, particularly if you venture into the uncharted waters of what gets returned with Googles 'moderate safe search off'. (Note to my wife: As promised, I never do that, as it is all just porn and fake Rolexes - at least, that's what I'm told. By the way, for my birthday I'd like a new watch, this new one I bought is rubbish...)
But the best thing about the Net is that for every slightly weird, off-centre or marginalised search term, there's still a set of returned results. Which means that for every blogger who checks their Google Analytics regularly, desperate for the ego-feed of knowing that six people visited their site yesterday (i.e every blogger, ever) there is a list of strange, sometimes compelling 'referring links' that show you exactly what phrase your visitors typed into their search box which then led them to your site.
Which means, by extension, that for a blogger struggling for inspiration (someone who, let's say, normally writes caustically about family life, but who has not been belittled by his wife recently and whose children have been remarkably well behaved of late, and so is lacking in source material) there is the chance to examine these 'referring links' and try to desperately mine some low-grade comedy out of them, in a hideous act of navel-gazing that both shames them as a writer and deters return visits by regular readers.

I hope by now that you can see where this is headed.

Here then, for your (carefully enclosed in quotes) 'enjoyment' are some of the recent search terms that drew poor, unsuspecting saps to this corner or the web. Pity these people - they didn't deserve this. I have linked the phrase they searched on in each case to the post they were taken to. All are 100% genuine, and for me each paints a delicious little picture in the mind. I am only sorry I have no opportunity to contact them to ask further questions...

1) "What does it mean if a man offers wife tea?"
What, indeed?
I like the ambiguity of this one, as I can picture two scenarios. In the first, a bitter, disgruntled misogynist has, after many years of marriage, accidentally prepared his wife a hot beverage and is now questioning his masculinity as a result.
In the second (which I slightly prefer) a married couple visit a single male friend who offers them both a cuppa, and the husband is suspicious that the phrase 'Do you take sugar?' is a coded message for "Do you want to pop round sometime while your old man is out at work, and get it on?"

2) "Does Kirsten Dunst put out ?"
A much less ambiguous query. I have no first-hand experience I can draw on here (oh, if only...) and her Facebook profile mysteriously lacks any useful clarification on the subject, but I still feel I can assist: Yes, I think she probably does, to the right person - which, I suspect, is almost certainly not the kind of person who types "Does Kirsten Dunst put out?" into a search engine.

3) "Marriage Guidance Hong Kong"
This is my own stupid fault. Last time I went trawling through the 'referring site' links I ended up writing a jokey post about a site visitor from Hong Kong who had erroneously been directed by the term 'marriage guidance' to a page I wrote of some of the worst marital advice you could ever imagine. What I didn't realise at the time was that by writing about it, this site would then feature even more prominently in the search results of the next person who searched for 'Hong Kong marriage guidance' - who would click on the link, thus reinforcing Google's belief that this was a useful resource on the topic, so making it appear for the next persons, and so on, and so on...
As a result I now get at least a couple of visitors a week from Hong Kong whose marriages are crumbling and are seeking help, and all they find is a cheap joke about Heather Mills.
(Sudden thought: dammit, by writing this I have just made it worse...)

4) "Things a wife should know"
Here's what I like to think happened: there's this very young, very sweet, recently married wife, and she's worried that she isn't doing everything she could to endear herself to her new husband - thing seem a little rocky already. So she goes on to the Internet, types "things a wife should know" into a search engine, and discovers that all she has to do to keep her husband happy is never buy square mugs, disposable breast pads or 'Spirit of Christmas' room freshener. With this new-found wisdom, and confident in the knowledge that expert help is only a few clicks away, she casts aside all of her self-doubt and goes on to enjoy a long, fulfilling happy marriage. (Many years later, after decades of searching, her eternally grateful husband tracks me down to thank me in person and inform me that their first-born son was named in my honour).
Yeah. That's what happened.

5) "Single testicle humiliation"
Oh, look, you don't need me to describe the scenario I have in my head here, right?
But I will say this: Mum, you remember when I started writing this blog, and you generally liked it, except you thought it had far too many references to testicles?
Do you understand now, that there is a need out there for this kind of stuff?
Can you now see that this blog is a valuable resource to the Single Testicle Humiliation Community?
Bet you feel foolish now, eh? I wasn't just talking 'a load of ball', as some of my funnier friends in the STHC like to say.

And there we have it. I have been informed, since I started this post, that when a blogger starts writing about their referral links, it is the beginning of the end. I prefer to think of it as the end of the beginning, and perhaps I can move on to new era of thoughtful, mature analysis and insightful writing...
Next week: my spam folder, and an examination of the many ways you can spell 'Viagra' by artfully deploying accented characters and mixing upper and lower case.

Podge, buns, whales and a doughnut.

2009-03-19T20:02:00.011Z

It is my turn to give the girls their breakfast.
This is long overdue; I have somehow managed to evade this responsibility for weeks on end, but my wife made a specific point of asking me the night before if I would get up and give the girls their breakfast in the morning. She also made a point of interpreting the noncommittal grunting noise I made in reply (I kind of said "Hnngh?" with a deliberate upward, questioning inflection, so it could really have meant anything) as complete acquiescence to her request, and has selfishly gone off to shower herself - which is how I come to find myself standing in the dining room wearing ill-fitting pyjama bottoms and a concerned frown.
Both of my children are sitting at the table, looking at me with a kind of surly, barely repressed rage - this is because the only way I could achieve the miraculous feat of getting them up to the table to eat was by turning the television off and threatening to throw the remote control out of the window if they didn't sit down, right now, immediately, STOP whining.
The little one looks particularly mutinous. She glares directly at me while drumming on the table with her 'Rupert the Bear' teaspoon, saying nothing, but thumping out an angry irregular rhythm that suggests approaching war. BaddabaddaBAP. BaddabaddaBAP.
"What do you want for breakfast, then, my little rays of morning sunshine?" I ask (because I strongly feel you are never too young to learn to appreciate sarcasm).
"Television", says the eldest, showing that the sarcasm is in fact coming along nicely.
"Television is not a foodstuff" I clarify.
"Hot cross bun, then..." she says, looking mournfully out the window and refusing to turn her head, in a way that suggests her day is already shaping up to be full of disappointment, and it is only 7.15.a.m...
"OK, a hot cross bun..." I say, with a remorseful sigh. The sigh is because I have prepared hot cross buns for her before, and it is a lengthy, hateful process. Despite my best efforts, I am still not entirely sure of the arcane acceptance criteria that she applies to determine whether said bun is suitable for consumption. I think the rules that apply are as follows:

The bun can be eaten hot or cold, but no preference will be expressed as to the required temperature on any given occasion until serving time, whereupon if you have guessed incorrectly she will simply refuse to eat it.
Fortunately, if her preference is for a cold hot cross bun (yes, serving food to my daughter involves oxymorons) it must be served uncut and unbuttered, so you can start off by simply taking one out of the packet and handing it to her, and she will then either eat it without complaint or throw it back in disgust.
If it is the latter reaction, it's because on this occasion she desires a hot hot cross bun. The next ten minute could therefore be very trying, so at this point it is wise to refamiliarise yourself with the handy 'hot-cross-bun-preparation flowchart' that is taped to the wall next to the toaster.
The bun must be sliced horizontally and toasted on setting 3 (all other settings will render the bun inedible) with the newly exposed bun innards facing outward, towards the toaster's heating elements (any other toasting position will render the bun inedible).
The bun must be buttered, but quickly - if you are too tardy with the buttering, the bun will lose too much heat and will not fully melt the butter (and if any butter remains unmelted at the time of serving the bun is rendered inedible).
Putting the bun in the microwave for ten seconds to melt any unmelted butter is considered cheating, and will render the bun inedible.
It must be presented on a plate (serving it in a bowl will render it inedible), but it must be the right choice of plate (plate choice will change daily, on a random basis, and the incorrect choice of plate will render the bun inedible).
The final hurdle is bun presentation. Toss a coin to decide if today she would like the halves of the bun stacked one on top of each other, or left sitting side-by side. The wrong choice here will, naturally, render the bun inedible...

...hence the despondent sigh at her choice. Frankly, when preparing hot cross buns for breakfast for my five-year old, it really is anybodies guess as to which runs out first: the hot cross buns or my patience. I turn to my youngest daughter.
"And what about you? What would you like?"
"Podge" she says.
"Pardon?"
"Podge."
I involuntarily suck in my stomach. This appears to be an exciting new low in parent/daughter relations.
"Don't call me that, it's rude."
"Podge."
"Stop it! Just tell me what you want for breakfast!"
"Podge! Podge. Podge!"
Her sister turns back from her contemplation of the garden. "She means 'porridge'..." she explains.
"Yes, podge!" insists the little one.
"Ah." I say.
"She is too little to say 'porridge' properly."
"Yes, yes, I understand that. I thought she meant something else. I thought she was being rude."
"Why?"
"Doesn't matter. You cannot have any porridge" I announce.
"No podge? Why?"
"Because we haven't got any", I lie (the truth being that I loathe the stuff and can't stand making it).
"Want Daddy's crunchy breakfast" she immediately decides instead.
This is the price I pay for my deceit. 'Daddy's crunchy breakfast' is a costly, sultana-packed cereal full of honey-soaked nut clusters. I am very partial to it and dislike sharing - primarily because it seems that whenever I want some, all that is left in the packet is a sad yellow sultana-free dust because my children have eaten all the good stuff. Nonetheless, it is a reasonable price to pay for not having to make porridge.
A short while later, we are all enjoying our breakfast: Eldest has deigned to eat the second of the hot cross buns I toasted for her, while I have settled with eating the one she first rejected. Youngest is cheerfully scattering my special, high-end, expensive breakfast cereal around her chair and across the table while I bite back my resentment. Peace reigns. It is short-lived.
"Daddy, have you heard about the whales?" asks the eldest.
"Whales?"
"They are beautiful creatures..." she says, in the manner of someone reciting a script.
"Mm-hmm" I say
"But they are all going to come up on the land soon."
"What?"
"The whales. They are going to come and get us. The ice will melt and they will come on the land instead. So we have to turn the lights off to stop that happening."
"To stop the whales?"
"Yes. We have to keep them in the sea, or they will come and get us."
"By...by turning the lights off?"
"Yes. And the red light on the television."
"Who told you this, sweetheart?"
"Mrs. Brown."
This takes some thinking about. It appears that the eco-message she learnt at school about the melting icecaps and the resulting threat that poses to sea life has somehow transmuted in her head from 'how to save the planet' into 'how to prevent the menace of whale invasion'. I am not quite sure how to reset her expectations here, and decide it is too early in the morning to try.
"Well," I say lamely. "We'll just turn the lights out every day then."
"Oh no, just for one day is enough. Just for Eco-day. That will keep them in the sea."
"No, I think we have to do it every day."
"Every day?
"Yes. Every day. All the time. Just one day is not enough. If the ice melts and the planet floods..."
"...then the whales will come? The whales will come and get us?"
"No, no. Look, the thing about the whales, what I think Mrs Brown meant was ..."
"Turn the light out! TURN THE LIGHT OUT!"
At this point, the little one decides she has had enough breakfast, and it's time get down to the serious business of picking fights. She points at me with her spoon.
"Daddy," she says in the voice of someone making an important announcement. "You are a doughnut."
I sigh.
God, I think, she's really taking her time in that shower...

Heartstrings, hats and homosexuality

2009-03-10T21:08:00.016Z

Sigh. Another week, another inevitable series of blows to my pride, like the pounding of tiny hammers. Let's just take a little look at the events that have served to gently erode my self-esteem in the last seven days, shall we?

1) We are all in the car, driving back from visiting my inlaws. Despite the lateness of the hour, our eldest is chattering away like a drunken monkey, filling the car a with a constant stream of good-natured gibberish:
"I love my Mummy," she sings. "And my sister".
"Ah, that's nice" says The Wife. "Anybody else?"
"Tatty Ratty" she says firmly, waving her revolting, dribble-stained toy rabbit.
"Aha. Any other people?" suggests TW, nodding in my direction in a way that she perhaps thinks is discreet, but is in fact anything but.
"No, I don't think so..."
"What about Daddy?"
"No...."
"No?
"No," she says airily. "I like Daddy. But I don't love him..."
I wince visibly. I imagine the snapping of paternal heartstrings can be heard even above the road noise.
"That is not very nice..." chides her mother.
She thinks about this for a while.
"I was only joking you" she announces. "I do love Daddy."
"Good."
"Just not as much as my Mummy and my sister..."

2) My wife and I are attending Parents Evening at the local school. I am delicately reversing the car into a parking space, when my wife suddenly notices the hat I am wearing. It is a knitted woolen hat, of the type favoured by snowboarders, skateboarders and The Youth in general, and in truth it has little business being on the head of a 37 year old man - but then, I am am not wearing it to be urban or edgy: I am wearing it because I am getting old and my head increasingly feels the cold. Sadly, it becomes apparent that I am also wearing it wrong, in some mysterious way:
"What the hell is up with your hat?"
"I'm parking the car dear, could you not shout at me until I've done that? Only the last time we hit a car in a car park it was a Porsche, and the repair bill was pretty costly..."
"You look ridiculous."
"It's a hat. You've seen it before. Many, many times."
"You don't wear it like that!"
"I'm not sure how else you can wear it? You just sort of put it on your head."
"No, no, no. You can't even dress yourself properly, can you? It should go over your ears."
This seems slightly unfair. It is, after all, my hat, along with my head, and indeed my ears. I feel that I have reached the age where I should be able to arrange these three things in a way that best suits me, without a Fashionista harpie shrieking at me (though I do inwardly concede that if my hat were pulled down further over my ears I would not be able to hear her, so there is some merit in the idea).
"Take it off," she commands.
"What?"
"Take it off, in case anybody I know sees you looking like that."
I put the handbrake on. It makes the same grinding noise as my teeth...
"What?" I ask
"There will be people in here that I know. The teachers, other parents..." And she rips the hat off my head, and confiscates it away into her handbag.
"But that is my hat..." I say, both pointlessly and helplessly.
"The way you wear it make you look like a mental patient" she informs me.

3) In a few days, I'm off for a long-planned weekend away with 'the lads', if such a term can be given to a group of men with an average age of 40, who are all married with kids. This trip has been discussed at some length, and my wife has prepared our children for my absence during the coming weekend by explaining that "Daddy is away with his friends", and that while he is "off with the boys" that Mummy and the girls will do lots of nice things together.
However, it appears our eldest has misunderstood the nature of my trip in one very significant way, as is proven when she meets me at the door when I come in from work.
"Come with me, Daddy", she says, taking my hand, and leading me to the dining room. Another five-year-old girl is sitting there, clearly her friend from school.
"This is my Daddy" announces my daughter.
"Hello..." I say
The other girl nods disinterestedly.
"My Daddy is going away at the weekend with his boyfriends..." adds my daughter.
"They are not my boyfriends" I correct her, perhaps a touch too quickly.
"They are..." she insists,
I close my eyes sadly. I can see the inevitable chain of events unfolding in my mind, whereby the visiting girl informs her parents (who in turn inform everybody else we know, and possibly post the news on the Internet) that I enjoy the odd weekend away with my boyfriends. This will make the school run next week a whole lot more interesting...

A cat, a puppy, and a pair of idiots...

2009-02-26T20:17:00.012Z

I walk in through the front door after a long day. As I hang my coat up, I hear the thud of tiny little feet, and my youngest daughter, now two and a half, stomps the length of the hall towards me from the kitchen.
I am often struck, at moments like this, in just how different she is from her elder sister. Our eldest is shy and restrained, not prone to showing affection and often not that keen to admit when she wants to receive it - she will, at most, lean against your hip in an offhand way when she is feeling particularly tender, but will do so in such a way as to suggest that she is slightly tired and you are merely conveniently positioned as something for her to rest up against. Sometimes I think she is like a cat: cool, detached and mysterious, giving nothing away, ostensibly happy to share your house and your dinner and even the sofa, but who subtly lets you know that you may only tickle its ears when it suits them for you to do so...
By contrast, the little one is like a bouncy puppy, open and affectionate, with whatever emotion she is feeling at any particular moment written large on her face. She is always demanding to be picked up and hugged, showering you with kisses at bedtime, and rushing at you every time you come through the front door. The last of these is a joy for me, and as she rushed towards me I crouch down with my arms open wide. She skids to a halt in front of me.
"Hello sweetheart" I say.
"Hello, idiot" she replies.
There is a pause. Ah, this is new, I think. I try again.
"Hello, sweetheart."
"Idiot," she says gleefully. "You are an idiot."
"You mustn't say that word to Daddy. It's not nice."
"Idiot."
"Stop it. Now."
"Idiot."
I step into the front room. My wife and eldest daughter are huddled on the sofa hugging their knees, while something with pastel hues and soft melodies plays on the television. There is a palpable air of tension in the room.
As I stand in the doorway, the youngest pushes her way between my legs and marches into the room.
"Idiot" she says over her shoulder.
"I see she has learned an exciting new word today?" I ask my wife.
"We are not talking about" she replies, through gritted teeth. "We are ignoring it. We are ignoring it, until that she decides it is not worth saying, because it is no longer getting to me any more."
"Oh, really? How is that working out?"
"Idiot" calls a little voice.
"Not great, so far."
"No, I thought I could sense that."
"You are an idiot."
"Where did she learn this?"
"I am not quite sure.." replies my wife, with a meaningful look at our eldest, who goes into her best sphinx impression, and suddenly seems transfixed by the TV and mysteriously unaware of all that is going on around her.
I sink into the chair and nod at the television. "Well, she certainly didn't learn it from 'In the night garden'..."
"Hello, idiot..."
"She's too young to understand. She has no idea what the word means..."
"Yes, I realise that."
Three of us sink into silence. The fourth marches up and down the length of the sofa, pointing at the rest of us in turn and saying "You're an idiot. You are an idiot. Idiot. You idiot.."
I put up with this for a full ten seconds before clearing my throat.
"I have further questions..." I announce.
"Go on..." says my wife.
"Why is she naked, except for her welly boots? Because I have to say, I might find this a bit easier to bear if she wasn't. It kind of makes it extra patronising."
"Idiot, Daddy."
"She asked to take her clothes off, because she was hot. It's nearly bath time, so I thought it was OK."
"I see. And the boots?"
"She didn't explain. She just went out into the hall and came back into the room wearing them."
"Did you ask her about them?"
"Yes. See if you can guess what she said...?"
"Idiot!"
At this point I snap. "Stop it! Stop calling us idiots! It is not a nice word, and I have had enough. I am not an idiot, and you are the one marching up and down in a pair of pink boots with your bottom out..."
Silence falls for a few seconds.
"Upsie-daisy..." burbles the TV
"Bottom!" says our eldest, starting to giggle. "You said bottom. Bottom! Bot-bot!"
"Idiot!" laugh the youngest.
My wife draws her hands slowly down her face and sighs,
"We should have wine with dinner," I suggest to her. "Lots and lots of wine..."

Ankles and blankets

2009-02-10T20:53:00.006Z

We are lying in bed. I am doing one of my 'habits', one that my wife finds less than endearing, and which I have christened 'washing machine ankle'. That's not exotic rhyming slang or a coded message, in fact it's a pretty basic description: my right ankle has, over recent years, taken on an alarming 'click' - so that as I rotate my foot in a circular motion, the whole ankle bone makes a series of small clicking noises at regular intervals, just like the dial of a washing machine when you set the programme.
ClickClickClick, goes my ankle.
"My ankle is still clicky" I announce.
"I can hear" says my wife, in the voice of a woman who has not only heard the click in my ankle every night for the last two years, but has also heard me remark on it with thudding monotony over the same time period.
"It doesn't hurt." I add. "It just clicks."
"Yeah, you've said before."
"Like a washing machine dial" I add.
"Yes. You've said. Many times."
There is a pause. ClickClickClick, goes my ankle.
"I wonder if it's because of the cold."
"No. It's because you're getting old. Bits of you are wearing out."
There is probably some truth in that, but I don't like to think about it. This week I found a grey hair up my nose, which I feel is both ominous and significant. When the hair in your nose starts to change colour, no amount of 'Just for men' hair dye can help disguise the aging process.
Action must be taken. I get out of bed and turn on the light.
"What are you doing?" she asks, in a voice that makes it clear that what she really means is Why don't you just shut up and lie still, so I can go to sleep?'
"I think my ankle clicks because of the cold. I need an extra blanket."
"Do it quietly.." she hisses.
A few minutes later, I return with the blanket from my office. This is a recent purchase, and one that I am delighted with: I bought it for £2 in a sale in the New Year, to address the issue that my office is so cold in the mornings that I needed something to stave off hypothermia while I waited for the radiator to kick in. I think the blanket is fetchingly brown and retro, and was fantastic value for money: my wife thinks it is the single most disgusting item I have bought in some time and loathes the sight of it. Its very presence in the house offends her artistic sensibilities.
As I appear in the bedroom door with it she reacts instantly, as I knew she would.
"Get that out of here" she says. "You know I don't want it in the house"
"Stop talking to me like I'm a naughty dog who has just dragged a dead animal into the house. It's just a blanket."
"It's not a blanket. It's a hatecrime against taste."
"Interesting - you don't think 'hatecrime' is perhaps is bit strong, no? To describe soft furnishings? You don't think that perhaps you've lost a sense of perspective on this?"
"No, I don't. Take it out."
"No. My ankle clicks. I need a blanket."
"I am not having that thing on my side of the bed."
"Oh, for heavens sake, why not?"
"Because it's vile. It's the worst kind of nasty Seventies design."
"You won't have to see it. The light will be off. I'm not going to sit up in bed all night with the light on, looking at a blanket..."
"Even with the light off I'll know it's there. I'll be able to feel it, leeching bad taste into the bedclothes."
"Give over."
I fold the blanket in half, and cover my side of the bed with it before slipping under the covers. I turn the light off, and settle down. Within a few minutes it becomes glaringly obvious that (a) I am now way too hot and (b) the clicking in my ankle was not because my feet were cold. Neither are facts that I feel I should trouble my wife with, because she would only get all righteous about it. Better, I decide, that she never knows.
"Give us a cuddle" I say.
"When you burn that blanket."
"No, I'm cold" I lie.

Stupid things that I have bought

2009-01-27T20:49:00.011Z

In a rare moment of uncharacteristic consistency, here's the followup and matching counterpart to a previous post where I discussed the various foolish things my wife has wasted our hard-earned cash on. This time, as promised, why don't we examine a few ill thought-out purchases of my own?

1) A Curious George bathtime bubble-blower.
This was a present for our youngest this past Christmas. She is not really one for communicating her hobbies and interests, so you have to kind of extrapolate from observed behaviour. On that premise, her hobbies seem to consist of casual violence and wanton destruction, and much as I am sure she would appreciate a claw hammer and big bag of marbles for throwing, they did seem somewhat inappropriate for a two-year old. But she has also been known to sit still for literally minutes on end while the Curious George DVD is playing, so a 'bubble blowing' bathtime doll of her favourite cartoon monkey seemed a good bet.
I could not have been more wrong: she loathes it.
The Curious George bubble-blower is a foot-high plastic monkey that you can take into the bath. When filled with bubble mixture, he blows bubbles when squeezed - at least, that is what he is supposed to do. However, in practise, what he actually does when squeezed is puke a sickly white foam out of his mouth, like the last shuddering death throes of a rabid dog. His chest cavity then wheezes dramatically as it sucks in air, which is very unsettling. Couple that with the fact that he has a horrible 'skin-like' rubbery surface and the cold dead eyes of a serial killer and you have the stuff of childhood nightmares - and that's before you consider that, in order to fill him with bubble mixture in the first place, you have to open a slot in the back of his head and inject it into his cranium using a special syringe specifically supplied for this purpose, like a kind of 'My first vivisection' doll.
She screams when she sees it. An epic failure on many levels, although I think my purchase is not quite as large a failing as whoever commissioned it in the first place and then subsequently greenlit production. Here's a handy tip for any toy manufacturers reading this: any child's toy that requires you to insert a syringe into a monkey's head is almost certainly in need of a rethink.

2) An umbrella from Poundland
Yes, yes, I know; I was asking for it. It's the pound shop, right? They only sell things for a pound. Even before the world economy came crashing down and sterling went into freefall, you couldn't buy much for a pound. And there's so much that can go wrong with a cheap umbrella: it can fail to deploy, the spindles can break, the fabric can tear: it's very clearly an unwise object to only spend a pound on. And yet, here's my defence: it was raining, and I didn't have an umbrella - but I did have a pound. And I only needed it to last for 30 minutes.
It lasted twenty. Then a sudden gust of wind not only blew it inside out, but blew all the fabric clean off the frame, which whirled away like a giant bat - leaving me forlornly holding an umbrella skeleton in a torrential downpour, much to the amusement of a whole busload of passing commuters.

3) Battery operated toothbrushes.
I buy them, at great expense. I successfully clean my teeth with them that night, and the following morning. Then, while I am work the next day, my youngest daughter picks them up, turns them on, and leaves them in bath, because she likes the buzzing noise that makes. When I get home that night that batteries are flat, and I find that I am left with what is effectively a standard toothbrush that I have paid 6-7 times over the odds for.

4) Mister Kart.
My wife maintains this is indicative of just how little I actually understand her, and still cites it now, over a decade later, as an example of how crass I am. I still maintain this was a sound purchase and that she needs to get over herself. Why don't you be the judge?
There was a time, before I wore down her defences though an intensive programme of unsubtle psychological attrition, when my wife was 'just' my girlfriend (I hope this lays to rest the scandalous rumour that the only reason she is married to me is that she was purchased over the Internet). Back then, I used to make a bit more effort and try to go out of my way to impress her, which I now realise was a cruel mistake, because all I did was set her expectations waaaaay too high, and she has been on a downer ever since. But during that time (what she would describe as "the golden days", when I was prepared to suppress my farts in her presence and to at least pretend to be prepared to talk about 'feelings') she lived in London, and worked as a fashion textile designer. When she visited me at weekends she would often bring work back with her, which meant my dining room soon started to fill up with paint, pastels, sketches of flowers, etc. This artistic detritus began to interfere with my own usage of the room during the week (largely the storage of pizza boxes and the long term collection of dust) so, in a moment of shining altruism, I decide to invest in a storage solution for it all.
"What's this?" she asked, looking horrified when she saw it.
"That is Mister Kart" I explained, pointing to where the name had been injection-moulded into the black, shiny polypropylene surface in a distant Chinese sweatshop.
"I see. And what is Mister Kart for, exactly?"
"He is a three-drawer storage solution, useful for..." I began.
"Mister Kart," she interrupted icily, "is a plastic vegetable rack. For keeping potatoes and carrots in."
"That is just one suggested usage. Mister Kart is versatile. Mister Kart, can also, for example, be used to store paintbrushes. Or pastels. Or..."
"That is the ugliest, cheapest piece of shit I have ever seen in my life, and if you think I am storing my art supplies in it, you are mental."
A short pause.
"I bought if for you," I explained, slightly hurt. "It's a gift."
"You don't understand me at all, do you?"
A much lengthier pause. In retrospect, it was a key moment in our relationship. I suspect, had I played things differently, that I would not now be married with kids.
"You don't have to use it." I said weakly.
When we moved out of the house, some two years later, I found the still unused Mister Kart under the stairs. I went to put it on the removal van, but my new wife gave me a look like thunder and so I left it in the kitchen for the new house owners. I hope they loved and appreciated it more than the woman it was bought for....

More seasonal retail misery

2009-01-18T13:52:00.015Z

(A belated post, started some weeks ago, but only finished now)

What with the Christmas shopping, and then the January Sales, I've recently had plenty of opportunity (much as I did about this time last year), to remind myself just how hateful the retail experience can be. This time around, my children are bigger, more aware of what's going on, and hence more vocal about their own feelings on the process. These feelings appear to be crystallised: when looking at Barbie Princess dolls they are very much pro the modern commercial Christmas, whereas whilst shopping for anything else they whine incessantly without pausing to draw breath. My soundtrack for the 2008/2009 Yuletide Retail Hellhole Experience would be the endless looped repetition of Christmas music but with the lyrics drowned out by children howling atonally that they are tired/hungry/have done a poo.
Our Christmas 'big food shop' (AKA "let's give Tesco all of our hard-earned money for way too much food that we won't eat and will ultimately throw away") warrants further discussion, starting with the truly bizarre idea my wife had about it: she thought it would be 'fun'.
"Fun?" I asked, genuinely taken aback. "Fun?"
"Yes - fun. If you let it, it could be fun. You know - picking out special treats, getting caught up in the festive mood..."
"Ugh. It won't be fun. It will be Hell, only with boxes of dates and tins and Quality Street.."
Of course, it wasn't fun. It was dire. Shopping in supermarket is always dire, but during the holidays it's far, far worse: not only are the stores crammed to capacity, but many of the extra seasonal visitors are people like me, who have been dragged there against there will. This means the crowds are not only unusually large, but also overly resentful - and it only takes a small incident, like somebody else picking up the bag of satsumas that you had your eye on, for things to turn really ugly...
My own experience was not improved by my youngest daughter, who discovered that when seated in the child seat at the front of a trolley that I was pushing, she could easily reach up and gather in her tiny fist both of the drawstrings for the hood on my sweatshirt. She could then suddenly tug hard on these, which would collapse the hood into a tight, painful viewing-port centred around my nose. If the drawstrings were then yanked harder, she could physically drag my hooded face down onto the handle of trolley, forcing me into a bent-double position that enabled her to repeatedly kick me in the chest while I flailed blindly at her. She found this hilarious, (as in fact did many onlookers), though it must be said I got tired of it pretty quickly...
When we finally got into the checkout queue and were told that the average waiting time in the line was approaching an hour, all three of us - both of the children and me - turned mutinous. Sensing a possible impending 'incident', my wife sent me and my charges to the cafe to buy a hot drink and a snack, while she stayed and nobly queued. Sadly, this brilliant plan of distraction failed on two counts: firstly the queue at the cafe was so long and slow-moving that my youngest actually fell asleep in the line while sitting on my feet and leaning on my shins, and secondly, just as we had finally sat down with our drinks, my wife appeared looking flustered, to announce that the shopping had all been rung up on the checkout but she has forgotten her credit card, so could I drop everything and come back and pay? Quickly? Only she had noticed that the people in the queue behind her weren't taking the delay that well...
When we got back to checkout, the man waiting in the queue behind us gave me such a filthy look that I felt compelled to draw out the payment process for as long as possible just to spite him: 'forgetting' my PIN for two attempts, changing the card I used at the last minute, suddenly remembering my loyalty card, pointing out a random item that I decided we hadn't actually put in the trolley and asking for it to be taken off the bill - that sort of thing. He looked apoplectic by the end. I was tempted to smile and nod, and wish him a Merry Christmas as we left, but it seemed a bit much...

My little moonchild

2009-01-11T20:51:00.011Z

'You get the kids your deserve" runs the old adage, but I'm never quite sure what it means.
Does it mean that if you are an exemplary parent, you get exemplary children? Or does it mean that if you were a little bastard as child, then your children will be little bastards as well, as a kind of karmic revenge for your childhood unpleasantness?
Nobody seems too sure on this, which is surprising, because from almost the moment of conception it seems there are no end of people rushing to offer you unrequested advice on how you should bring your children up, what they would do differently (by which, of course, they mean what they would do better) and what your own specific failings as a parent are. Some also seem to think that by having sired offspring of their own, it gives them an insight into your own children that is somehow better than the 24/7 love, care and concern that you yourself provide. (Perhaps the most stunning example of this was the women who came over to me while I was shopping and told me I was mispronouncing my own daughters name - an act of such brazen effrontery that I was lost for words for a few seconds before pointing that actually, no, after some consideration I was pretty sure I'd got it right, what with me being the one who named her and everything...)
But I digress, and here is where all this is leading: my eldest daughter will not stop mooning me. So if you really do 'get the kids you deserve', I think something has gone wrong, because neither interpretation makes sense: I certainly don't lead by example in this regard, and I'm told I was an insular, prudish child who not only kept his bottom in his trousers at all time but did his best to avoid other people all together, preferring instead the company of either a good book or my extensive selection of original Star Wars figures. Why then, when I'm lying on the sofa on a Sunday morning, does my four-year old think it hilarious to take off her pyjamas and block my view of the television almost completely with her backside?
"Don't do that" I say.
"Bottom", she says, just in case I'd missed the point.
"Put it away" I say.
She wiggles it at me. "Bottom" she repeats.
"Bottom" confirms her sister, watching this performance and nodding.
I flail at the offending article with a cushion, but to no avail. I could actually throw cushions, but past experience tells me that (a) she will find this uncontrollably funny and (b) I will run out of spare cushions long before she runs out of spare bottom.
"Bottom" she taunts. "Bottom. Bot-bot."
"If you keep this up," I warn, "I will write about this on the Internet so that all your friends can read about it when you are a teenager."
"Bot-bot. Bottom."
"There will be a boy you like." I say. "And when you bring him round for tea, I shall sit him down with the 2009 archive and ask him to read it out loud while your face burns crimson..."
She waggles her backside again. "Bot-tom. Bottom" she reiterates.
It's clearly time to up the stakes.
"If you do not put your bottom back in your pyjamas, where it belongs," I announce, "then when we go out for lunch today, you cannot have apple juice. You can only have water."
Now, this may sound like the mildest sanction in the world, but the result is immediate. She stops and looks at me carefully, as if to say: You wouldn't dare, so don't go there.
I glare back, trying to say with my eyes: Oh yes, I went there. I just dropped the 'AJ' bomb. Deal with it...
There is stare-off, during which her bottom remains prominently on display. Finally, she reluctantly pulls up her trousers, before casually announcing: "If you do not give me any apple juice, I will catch you on fire."
I am slightly taken aback by this, but decide that rather than it being an early sign of deeply worrying anti-social and pyromaniac tendencies, it has more to do with the fact that she has just watched 'Finlay the Fire Engine' on CBeebies. However, my inner pedant cannot resist further comment.
"Set me on fire," I say. "Not catch me on fire..."
She gives me look of pure disgust. In retrospect, it may have been deserved.
Later, when I tell my wife about the whole sorry episode, she laughs like drain. I point out the her eldest daughter has now developed a tendency for running butt-naked around the house, giggling. My wife laughs even louder. And then I recall her teaching the girls her patented 'Shake your boom-boom' dance, and the way she treats the sight of my own backside, and it all suddenly becomes very clear: every child has two parents, and in this case, I've got the daughter my wife deserves...

The danger of compliments

2008-12-31T12:46:00.006Z

Late morning, on a day during that weird dead period between Christmas and New year - the period where if you are back at work then you wish you weren't, but if you aren't working you kind of wish you'd saved your valuable days holiday for something better. We are in the car en route to Dunstable to book a holiday, which serves to heighten my mixed feelings about both the trip and the day in general, as although I definitely want to go on holiday, I very much don't want to go to Dunstable.
Fortunately, my internal tensions are suddenly swept aside when my wife pays me a compliment: "I like the stubble you've grown on your chin" she observes. "In this light it almost makes you look rugged"
There is short pause, filled with wonder. Even the girls, singing in the back, fall silent in astonishment.
"Really?" I question, in confusion more than anything else.
"Yes," she says, idly turning away to gaze at the frozen fields rushing past. "It's nice. Sexy."
Now, I am sure there are men out there who receive compliments from their spouse so frequently that this seems trivial, even tiresome. And there are still others who have the presence of mind to know how to react appropriately, instantly returning a compliment to their partner and engendering a general sense of well being and mutual admiration in all parties concerned. Sadly, I fall into neither of those categories - I react like a habitually beaten dog who has been given a sudden inexplicable tickle behind the ears, and become quite giddy.
"Well," I say the blood rushing in my head, "I am a very sexy man..."
"Uh-huh" she says, in a tone of voice that is at best non-committal, but which I suspect actually signifies rapidly waning interest in the topic.
"Powerfully sexy..." I blunder on.
"Hmm..."
"Dangerously sexy, in fact."
"Hmm...."
"So dangerously sexy, I had to be registered with the United Nations... "
"You should probably stop talking now."
"...as a weapon. Because, you see, my weapons-grade sexiness is such a danger to..."
"Well done" she interrupts. "You've babbled so much egotistical rubbish in 10 seconds that it's really put me off you. Order is restored: I don't think you're sexy any more - I think you're an arse."
There is moment of silence while I consider this.
"I think you are are just saying that out of self-defence" I announce. "Because my sexiness is so overpowering, you need to try and protect yourself..."
She groans and turns the radio up. It is looking like a long day ahead for both of us.

You'd better watch out (seriously)...

2008-12-26T12:33:00.009Z

Some days you sit there, racking you brains for something to write, the blank screen glaring at you for days in malevolent emptiness - and then sometimes, out of nowhere, you get a gift like this:

Christmas Eve. I am marshalling 'Team Princess' in the bath with, it has to be said, fairly limited success - there is great deal of bathwater on the floor, on the bathmat, across all the towels and all over my clothes, and yet despite that both of their faces are dirtier than a Dickensian street urchin. Both girls are making an unholy high-pitched screeching, and the noise is truly horrendous: from the racket they are making a passerby would think I was torturing small animals in the tub, rather then merely attempting to wash my daughters' faces. But it's Christmas, so in time-honoured tradition I can evoke the spirit of Santa Claus to help me discipline my children:
"Stop that noise!" I tell Princess #1. "You know that Santa is checking his list tonight, don't you?"
She stops wailing to think about this. Sadly, Princess #2 is paying no attention and continues to shriek like a baby owl with its tail on fire*, but just having one of them stop is blessed relief. I press home the advantage.
"He is checking his list," I warn, "to see if you have been a good girl."
Sullen silence from Princess #1. Magically, Princess #2 also falls quiet, though I suspect that is because she is just looking for something to fill with water and throw at me.
"He can't really see if I am good or not" announces Princess #1, defiantly.
"He can." I insist, "You know the song: 'He sees you when you're sleeping..."
"But I am not sleeping..."
"..he knows when you're awake..." I continue, teeth gritted, "He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good, for goodness sake..." (I am aware that as I deliver this last line, a note of pleading has crept into my voice).
She pauses to think about this. Now is clearly the moment to strike with the coup de grace and scare her into compliance, so I adopt a suitably ominous tone.
"And if you are not good," I warn, "you know what will happen, don't you?"
"Yes" she says, nonchalantly. "He will not leave me any presents."
"Exactly"
"Instead, he will poo in my stocking."
"Exac...he'll do what?"
"He will poo. In my stocking. When I wake up, my stocking will be full of poo."
"Ugh. No. No, that doesn't happen. He doesn't do that."
"He does. That is why we leave him a mince pie. In case he needs to make a poo."
"Urgh..."

So there we go. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all - and I hope this year you all get exactly what you deserve...

*This is just a metaphor. I have never set fire to any owls.