I’m married (nine years now) and have three children. I live in a three bedroom house, | have a garage and a garden. I have a full time fai job working as a journalist for the one of the worlds most respected broadcasters - the BBC.

But the idea of growing up, in fact the very concept behind ‘growing up’ is an alien one. I genuinely haven’t worked out what it means yet.

Yes ok I know I have to get up early, take the kids to school and work hard, I know I have to do my bit cleaning teh house and looking after the kids - but with the exception of getting up early I don’t find any of the above a chore.

I love taking the kids to school in the morning because I enjoy the funny conversations I have with them (Oceana, 8 and Jaden 6). I like listening to their ideas and theories for the world, the little ‘discoveries’ they’re making on their road to being all growned up.

I enjoy my job, in fact I love my job - I get paid to speak to interesting people, to explore and understand stories and ideas and to then write or talk about those people and ideas in public, to other people - what isn’t to like?

OK so I could live without the cleaning but there is still something relaxing, inspriring about washing the dishes looking out at a beautiful sunset or running around the house music blaring loud doing a ‘man clean’.

If you don’t know what a man clean is then you’re either a woman or under the age of 10 - this is bascially where, once in a while you clean and you clean EVERYTHING in an insane way - the whole house looks different when you’re wife/mother/girlfriend gets back.

And I mean gets back because you can’t do a man clean with other people around - a man clean is a solo experience, a time for man to become one with the polish, the kitchen roll and some very loud music.

It’s the boring day to day cleaning I’m not a fan of - the constant picking things up, putting things away, washing down the sides - give me everything or give me nothing - or maybe just a bit of light washing up.

However I do love cooking - real cooking - cooking that involves sauces, woks and flames - cooking that involves lots of ingredients for me to throw in as I see fit - that is cooking.

So back to back to being grown up - I’ve already admitted I cook, I clean (occasionally), I take the kids to school, look after the kids, change the babies nappy, work and have a house, garden and garage - so why don’t I feel like a grown up.

Why is it that when you take all the responsibilities above into account do I still feel like a teenager (without the hormone riddled angst) having a good time.

I think the problem is that there’s no real definition of what a ‘modern’ grown up is - back in the days of black and white, one job for life, grimy dirty era - man, grown up man, would leave early, work, come home to eat and go to bed.

But in a modern, multi-choice era where it is as important for men to be an integral part of the family unit as it is for them to be at the centre of their work environment, in an era where you don’t just work to live - grown up means something different/.

When we say ‘I’m not ready to be grown up’ and I’m hearing it increasingly from my friends in their 20s and 30s (I’m 28) I think what we really mean is that I’m not ready to be boring.

The world is a different place and what it means to be grown up is a different thing - there was once a time (and I’m sure it is still there) when telling off a child meant actually telling them off, hitting, smacking, putting them in another room - punishment - but I can’t do any of that.

My wife can punish the children - she does the whole time out, take things away, shouty stuff brilliantly - but for me my children are an extension of me, they’re my friends - I don’t want to tell off the people I have wonderful philsophycal discussions about the world with every morning.

I want to engage them in debate, talk to them aboutwhy they won’t eat their vegetables and try to find a resolution to the conflict - my wife wants to put them in another room until they say uncle.

Who is the grown up? She is but then so am I - it’s jus tthat, as you can do multiple jobs and have completely different careers now - so can you have different types of grown ups.

But I only get to be the way I am because my wife is the way she is - do we still need ‘real grown ups’ to keep the rest of us in check?Damn right we do.

So I’l finish by saying universe bless the real grown ups, the ones who make food that isn’t covered in sauces and spice, the ones who know how to say ‘naughty boy’ and the ones who keep the rest of us from flying off into a world of comic book fantasy.

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It isn’t the first time it has had a new logo but is the first time it has been changed in any meaningful way since its re-launch by Russell T. Davies in 2005.

It makes sense for the team to give the show a new brand as it is about to get a new Doctor, companion and lead writer - all at the same time.

However, there is another episode under the old logo, old doctor and old writer to go at Christmas, The Waters of Mars, before the new series kicks off in 2010.

The new logo even has an animated insignia that is basically DW in the shape of a Tardis - lovely.

It sits somewhere between the first logo of the early 1960s and the one used in the television movie in the mid-90s.

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From the opening night gala at the Opera House - Werner Hertzog’s Encounters at the End of the World on Thursday night, through films in unusual places like castles, schools, barns and courts to the closing night gala - Moon on Sunday also at the Opera House.

Over the weekend I will be running from one place to another watching a total of 13 films (well 12 films plus a demonstration of model making) where most will have music and some a Q&A.

Part of the charm of Branchage is that the films are being shown in unusual venues, places where you wouldn’t normally expect to see a film.

So when you take the fact that the film is in an unsual venue, the Q&A and the musical element into account - you’re moving into event territory.

With that in mind I’ve decided to set myself a challenge - write a review of every event I go to - so the review will have to look at the venue, the film, the Q&A and/or the music.

I also want each review to be able to exist as an article on its own and I’m basing this on the basic article structure of a BBC Local page - which is four paragraphs and a minimum of about 300 words.

Actually the minimum is 100 words but that’s far too easy and wouldn’t give me scope to tell the story properly - so I’m setting a goal of 300 to make it a challenge (this article is 375 words to give you an idea of the legnth I’m aiming at).

These are the films I’m seeing and will link each one to the review as it is published.

THURSDAY

Encounters at the End of the World

FRIDAY

Animagica Night (more)
Short Films: London Short Film Festival presents Music & Video
Burma VJ
The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life

SATURDAY

Shaun The Sheep + Q&A (not a film but live demo of making models for the show)
Across The Pond
Documentary Double-Bill: A World Without Women
The End of the Line
The Yes Men Fix the World

SUNDAY

Unrelated
Sounds Like Teen Spirit
British Sea Power perform live to Man Of Aran
Closing Night Gala: Moon

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I’ve resisted calling it a motoring show as it has moved away from that over the last few years, becoming a more generic entertainment show that has motoring at the heart but focuses heavily on the entertaining fringe.

Anyway, BBC HD boss, Danielle Nagler has confirmed in a BBC Internet Blog post that the shows 14th series will air on the BBC HD Channel from November 15th.

She said: “Yes, after several hundred emails from you as to why you feel Top Gear needs to make the journey from the SD to the HD world, I can confirm that the team is now working with HD cameras on the new series.”

In the past this would mean I’d need to get myself a shiny new HD tv to enjoy the series but I’m not ready to give up on my old trusty CRT 100hz flat front television yet.

However, we now live in an iPlayer world and I’ll be able to download Top Gear in 3.2 Mbps MPEG 4, 1280 x 720 , 25 frames/sec or, as I’ll be getting 8mb/second up and 650kb/s down from October - stream it.

Or there are ‘other ways‘ for those outside the UK who don’t have the luxury of iPlayer.

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I can completely understand a newspaper group getting a little anxious when they’ve got a big new service ready to launch, advertising in place and then someone like the BBC, the Government or another publicly funded body launches an almost identical service with tax payers money - but how often does that actually happen.

Most of the time the excuses for objecting to a cool new public service site, channel or project is that it would stop the private company from being able to create something similar in the future - thus cutting off a potential revenue stream.

But for me that is where the argument completely falls down - in most cases the public service version would be advertising free and as the commercial version would probably be advertising funded - I don’t see where the competition is?

OK so there would be a little bit of competing for eyeballs but I like to think that people are smart enough to rely on more than one source for their news and information - I use Twitter and Facebook even though Facebook is fast becoming Twitter.

I read every major newspaper website, I read more than one blog, even if they’re on the same subject and belong to several forums covering the same subject area.

What I’m saying is - why does it matter if the BBC runs a service similar to one a commercial company might run when the commercial company will live or die by advertising revenue (charging for things on the web doesn’t work unless its a mobile app) and the BBC won’t be taking advertising?

Equally why shouldn’t a local council create a local online television service to let people know what is happening in their town if they can afford it - although if they’re cutting other services I would suggest maybe thinking again?

In fact, scrap the example above as that really just seems to be about promoting the council - what councils should really be doing, and this would help local newspapers - is filming all council meetings and then providing a feed - for free - to all the newspapers, radio stations and other media in their area.

Those media services could then broadcast that feed on their sites, cut up videos/speeches to publish with articles and even be able to properly cover local council meetings without having to send a reporter - it could just be on a TV in the background in the newsroom.

This would provide local news services with free content, would allow them to have a journalist doing something else and would hopefully encourage greater transparency in local government.

If councils have the money to launch a TV service or newspaper promoting the council - surely that money would be better spent actually covering council meetings.

In fact, maybe that is something the BBC could help fund with some of the ‘digital switchover money’ instead of giving it to ITV or other broadcasters.

It could be an extention of the digital democracy project but instead of it all being broadcast on the BBC - it could be part of BBC Parliament with a branding free feed offered to each of the relevant local newspapers, websites, blogs and radio stations.

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