It seems that the Halloween pumpkin Evan and I carved has somehow contracted Single Parent Dad’s hideous body wasting disease. I think it must have happened when we took it down to his house last week. I think I may even been able to pinpoint the exact moment of infection:

Thankfully I’m not worried about the health of any of the Hughes family as the disease is only transferred from vegetable to vegetable.

But this pumpkin is certainly rotting at quite an extraordinary rate, far faster than Amy’s one. Even renowned pumpkin expert Professor Beryl Chicken says it’s beyond hope:

I’ve still got three healthy and uncarved pumpkins sitting out in the front garden however. I did have four but I used one on Monday to make a pie and some soup.

I was particularly pleased with the pie (made from a recipe very kindly sent me by DJ Kirkby). I even made the pastry from scratch and everything. Of course it took me about six hours in total to do it, and when I’d finished the only person who actually liked it was me (Kerry and the kids not being too keen on cinnamon). But I enjoyed myself and that’s the main thing. Plus I got a thrill out of the fact that both the pumpkin and the eggs I used were purely the product of Old McHughes farm. Tom Good has nothing on me.

On the other hand he soup was ok, but nothing special. I think it suffered from the fact that the variety of pumpkin I planted is intended for carving rather than cooking – the bigger ones are less tasty apparently. Again I was the only member of the family who was willing to eat it, but even then I ended up throwing half of it away. Don’t feel too sorry for me though as that’s the outcome of much of my “cooking” efforts so I’m very much used to it.

My next culinary project is going to be a Christmas cake, something else that I’m the only one who’ll eat (my family are both picky and weird). I put a call out on twitter for recipes and got a gratifying number of replies. I think I’m going to go for the one given me by Jane from Nine Long Months; mainly because it’s one handed down to her from her mother and I like the provenance that goes with that.

However, judging by the fact it took me so long to make the pumpkin pie, I think I’m going to have to clear a full week in my calendar for the cake. Maybe it’d be wise to aim for next Christmas rather than this so as to avoid disapointment.

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Here’s a small extract from my list that hints at what you lucky people might be reading here at All That Comes With It over the next few weeks. Warning, contains spoilers:

• Hate having to pay for ketchup
• Pictures of muddy boots
• Dinner vs Lunch

Pretty thrilling stuff eh? Perhaps this blog should come with caveat that it shouldn’t be read by pregnant women and people with heart conditions.

But this list doesn’t always steer me right however. I was flicking through it this evening trying to figure out if I had the energy to post when I noticed a couple of entries I made after waking up at 3am this morning.

• New word: Tonither
• Play on words on Obi-Wan Kenobi: Oh bee? One ken no bee! – work out joke with this as punchline.

It seems that 3am is not my most creative time of the day. Or my most lucid.

Still, after contemplating them for a while I was able to add another idea to my list:

• Lazy post about crap post ideas

Job done.

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This is the month traditionally associated with NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where people from all over the blogoshere pledge to post an entry every single day of November. This used to be an all pervasive event on the internet, but since the organizers went a bit mad with power and announced that every month was NaBloPoMo it seems to have lost momentum somewhat. Off the top of my head I only know of Mark from Views from the bike shed who is doing it this year. But that’s ok with me, as anything that encourages Mark to post more often can only be a good thing.

I am vaguely tempted to have a go at NaBloPoMo myself. I enjoyed it last time I did it, although it got a little wearing towards the end. As it stands I haven’t actually missed a day this month yet, so I think I’ll just see how it goes.

Of course some other lunatics, such as Preseli Mags are actually attempting to write an entire novel this November as part of NaNoWriMo. I’m guessing the men in white coats will be knocking on their doors any time soon.

But none of these people are doing anything as magnificent, heroic, or public spirited as Mr Lee Sargent from Quit Your Day Job. Because, ladies and gentleman, Lee Sargent is on a one man quest to bring back the Magnum P.I. style moustache.

In the month of November Lee has pledged to go from this:

To this:

What-a-guy.

And what’s more, as if singlehandedly returning Tom Selleck’s ‘tash to the streets of Brisbane isn’t enough, Lee’s going to be raising funds for a very worthy cause as he does so.

Movember is an annual, month-long celebration of the mustache, highlighting men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer and depression in men. Close to 3,000 men die of prostate cancer each year in Australia alone and one in eight men will experience depression in their lifetime – many of whom don’t seek help. The Momember Foundation puts money into research, treatment programs, and awareness raising; doing valuable and much needed work on a global scale.

So why not head over to http://au.movember.com/mospace/204841/ and make a donation to a very worthy cause. You might as well – it’s only Australian dollars so it’s not like it’s real money. I mean look at it:

I’ve seen more convincing currency in a monopoly set. I bet it’s got bloody koalas on it somewhere.

We’re going to pop in on Lee’s efforts throughout this month here on the blog, and you just know I’m going to keep nagging you until you give something. so you might as well just get it out of the way now and sling a few dollars his way. Go on. You know you want to.

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What you need to do is to invent your own phonetic alphabet based on comic book heroes. You’ll be fluent in minutes.

Oh Steve, you really should be more careful what you suggest to me.

So here it is, my own special phonetic alphabet created with a set of self imposed rules. The primary one being that I didn’t allow myself to look anything up, every superhero name had to come from memory.

And there lies the problem, my memory is completely shot. Some letters were dead easy (I can think of about 20 heroes for B alone), but some are frustratingly elusive. The letter I in particular is very annoying. All I can come up with is Indigo Girls, but that’s not right (despite their incredible harmonizing and dungaree wearing powers). I must admit I’m somewhat hampered by my heavy DC bias, and so have a more limited knowledge bank to chose from

So I’m calling out for help from the readers of the blog. OK, so I’m not. I’m calling out for help from Rol, Greg, Lee, and Avitable. The rest of you useless buggers probably don’t even know your Red Hood from your Joker, but I’m more than willing to be proven wrong. Help me complete my list so I can submit it to NATO for consideration to replace their ridiculous and outdated version.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

• A – Aquaman
• B – Batman
• C – Catwoman
• D – Daredevil
• E – Elongated Man
• F – Flash
• G – Gnort
• H – Hulk
• I –
• J – Johnny Thunder
• K – Kilowog
• L – Lobo
• M – Mister Miracle
• N –
• O – Orion
• P – Punisher
• Q – Question
• R – Robin
• S – Spiderman
• T – Tick
• U –
• V – Valor
• W – Wolverine
• X – Xavier
• Y –
• Z –

Any suggestions?

Drawing by the rather excellent Lee from Quit Your Day Job

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Track list

1. Electric Car – They Might Be Giants
2. Monster Mash – Boris Pickett
3. Trying Vegetables – Joshua Rich
4. Purple People Eater – Barry Cryer
5. Older – They Might Be Giants
6. Popcorn – Barenaked Ladies
Intro and outro (Casino Royal: Mexican Border Brass Ensemble)

I’m very pleased to be able to present a special family focused episode of Radio All That Comes With It, with guest presenters from all corners of the globe (well, the English speaking bits anyway).

All the tracks on this podcast are either kids or kid friendly songs, and it’s my rough intent is the podcast is something that families can listen to together (in the car or whatever). I’ve played it through a few times at our house and it’s already a firm favorite with my two. Granted, that’s probably because the narcissistic buggers are actually featured in it, but you get my point.

Many thanks go to Lee, Clair, Idaho Dad, and Greg for contributing their vocal talents and musical tastes. Apologies go to the people who I’d offered to give a bit of technical support in creating a segment, and then got too busy to actually follow through my promises. The deal is still on though if you’re still up for it, as I plan on doing this again in the next couple of weeks.

Similarly if anyone reading this fancies having a go at presenting their own segment then you are more than welcome. In fact it would be fantastic. I had a great time putting this together, and think a collaborative global podcast is a really cool project to play with for a while.

Just leave a comment or send me an email at dghughes28@yahoo.co.uk and let me know you’re interested.

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In an effort to prolong the possibility of a private conversation just a little bit longer we’ve now switched to using NATO’s phonetic alphabet. So for example “Shall we buy some S.W.E.E.T.S” (aka “candy” for the chronically American) has now become “Shall we buy some Sierra Whiskey Echo Echo Tango Sierra”.

This new system is all well and good, aside from the small fact that now I can’t understand what’s being said either. In fact I’m so bad at processing that particular type of information that I’m pretty sure that Amy will come to grips with it before I do. No doubt the time will come when Amy turns to her mother and says “Let’s put Dad’s Uniform Kilo Uniform Lima Echo Lima Echo in the Bravo India November without telling him”.

To illustrate my ineptitude, in order to write that last sentence I had to look at the entry for the phonetic Alphabet on the mighty Wikipedia nine times. Which wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t only ten letters. And three of three of them weren’t repeated twice.

But anyway, as I was saying, Amy’s reading and writing has really come on recently. However she’s not quite at the point where she’s started reading for your own pleasure. All that’s about to change however as, inspired by a recent tweet from Dad Who Writes, I have ordered her a new book for her birthday.

Behold its wondrousness!:

This, combined with the Beano, is the very same book that started me off reading all those years ago and I couldn’t be more ecstatic that it’s still in print. As a child I struggled with reading quite a bit, what with my dyslexia and all. But I can still remember the thrill of sitting engrossed in this hallowed tome, eager to consume every last morsel it contained.

And now I get to pass that enthusiasm and joy on to my daughter.

Of course she’ll probably just throw it into a corner and play with the Nintendo DS we’re also buying her. But a father can dream can’t he?

And just because I can’t pass up an opportunity to post this photo, I should also mention that Amy is the only one of my children that inherits a relic from my childhood. About a year ago I gave Evan Larry, my stuffed sheep that shared my bed from birth all the way through to my late teens:

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I’m back on the celery sticks now, but for the purposes of the Fat Club Competition it’s all irrelevant anyhow as this Wednesday Ian from Single Parent Dad managed to shed his final lb in order to cross the finishing line. Therefore it is my unfortunate duty to crown him the winner of our contest to see who could lose 14lb in weight the quickest.

So commiserations go to my fellow contestants Kerry, Catherine, Erin, and Barbara. I think we can all take consolation in the fact that losing 14lb in just four weeks is probably a symptom of some horrible wasting disease, and no doubt Ian will end up with various bits of his body rotting off by the end of the month.

For the sake of the blogosphere I’m hoping his hands will go first so he can’t type any more.

I would suggest continuing the contest to see who comes second. However I suspect that may well be my wife Kerry and, quite frankly, I don’t need that kind of humiliation in my life at the moment. So I now bring the contest officially to a close. Feel free to continue it on your blog if you wish however.

We were actually down at Ian’s house on Wednesday and I had intended to film some sort of award ceremony where I would present him with his prize (a Ginster’s Steak and Ale Pasty). However once we arrived I remembered how impenetrably thick Ian’s Birmingham accent is and I didn’t really want to lower the tone of my blog by giving it airtime.

We did have a good time down at Ian’s however, one of the highlights of which was carving three of the home grown pumpkins we brought down with us.

Amy and Evan had their usual fantastic time playing with Max. And Kerry and I were just about able to tolerate Ian’s incessant whittering. So all in all it was a pretty successful trip.

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I’ve been incredibly fortunate to make a number of really good friends through this blog. And many of these friendships have transcended their “virtual” boundaries and grown to be as solid and as real as any I’ve developed through traditional means.

All my blogging friends are incredibly important to me, and my life is enriched by them immeasurably. But my friendship with a chap called Greg has a particular importance to me.

You probably don’t know Greg. If you do it’s probably only because you’ve read one of my sycophantic posts about him. These days he rarely engages with the blogging world, either in comments or over on his own blog. But nearly four years ago when I first dipped my toes into blogging, he was my mentor. His was the first blog I ever read, and his were the first comments I ever received. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be doing this, and so I am truly grateful.

He also bought me my first ukulele, and therefore has incured the wrath of my entire family.

He also happens to be the funniest writer on the whole internet. His is the only blog that I’ve gone back through the entire archives and read every single post ever written. Twice. And I ended up in tears of laughter both times. And there’s a fair few posts to get through too – this guy was one of the pioneers and his first entries date back to 1999.

Unfortunately Greg’s just about given up on blogging over the past couple of years, and the internet is a far poorer place for his absence. I keep trying to persuade him to start up a joint blogging venture with me. I’d happily mothball All That Comes With It for the chance to collaborate in a trans-atlantic “Tales of Two Families” type site. But he just smiles at me, mutters various polite platitudes, and then changes the subject. Damn his eyes.

We’ve flown over to the states to visit Greg (and his fantastic wife Deb and their two kids) twice. Once in 2007 and once earlier this year. Those two visits have been amongst the best holidays I’ve had in my life – and considering that they live in deepest darkest Wisconsin that’s really saying something for their prowess as hosts. They also came over here to visit us too. Despite the distance between us, he and his family are among the Hughes’ most valued friends.

In short, I like the guy and I like his family.

I’ll stop now as I’m probably pissing him off. However in order to illustrate the man’s comedy genius I thought I’d repost a video he did for me.

Just as a quick explanation: A couple of years ago a younger, fatter, me attempted to start my own meme based around pretending to be an orangutan. Here are the rules, followed by my own video:

The Every Which Way but Loose Meme.

The rules:
1. You are auditioning to be in the latest orangutan related comedy blockbuster: Dunston Checks In II: Return of the feces flinger.
2. The Screen Actors Guild restrict non-human primates to only three facial expressions in order that they are not used as cheap substitutes for actors such as Jean-Claude Van Damme and Rosanne Barr. These are: The Raspberry, the Head Shake, and the Face Slap.
3. Create an audition video exhibiting your talent in these three areas.
4. Try and persuade some other idiots to do it too

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Now here’s Greg’s response. To quote The Holmes in the comments section of the original post: “His timing is…it’s awesome.”

I’m sorry Greg. I know you’d have rather I hadn’t posted this. But what can I say, I like to sing your praises.

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…many of the parent bloggers I speak to are desperate to make some money from their blogs. As one blogger told me last week: “I’m just so sick of working for free.”

Now I recognize that I’m as much of a corporate whore as the next man (free blu-ray player and trip to London anyone). But seriously? Complaining that blogging without being paid is “working for free”? Do you charge for taking family photos too? Demand money for doing your garden or reading a book?

I’m being unfair. I don’t actually know the context of that particular conversation and so shouldn’t really comment. But it does raise a wider issue – the increasing commercialism of parent blogging.

Its pretty widely accepted that UK parent blogging today is probably at around the same point that US Mommy and Daddy blogging was three or four years ago. When I first started All That Comes With It people like Clare’s Dad and Idaho Dad were able to list just about every Daddyblogger in the world on their blogroll. Sure, it was a long list, but it was doable. What’s more, If you go back two or three years again you could do the same with Mommy bloggers as well. These days however US parent blogs of both genders number in their tens of thousands.

Here in the UK parent blogging is now slowly gathering up more steam. Mummy blogs are popping up everywhere, becoming so numerous that you couldn’t follow them all even if you wanted to. Daddy Blogs are less common, but new ones are slowly starting to appear here and there and the momentum is growing.

However there is a fly in the ointment. Currently it seems that every second blog that is starting up is doing so with a hearty scream of “SHOW ME THE MONEY!!”. The ethos of blogging appears to be moving from the ‘zine mentality of the 70’s into the greed is good mentality of the 80’s. We’re sliding from do-it-yourself punk into slick and commercially driven new romanticism.

But I don’t want to be a new romantic damnit. I don’t suit the makeup.

This could all be sour grapes. I could be taking this attitude because other people seems to get more PR pitches and free stuff than I do. I could well be sticking out my bottom lip and proclaiming “I don’t want to play your stupid game anyway”. But still, I’m becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the compromises I’ve already made on this blog to commercialism (the blu-ray reviews, the advert I filmed for Disney, the walking sock contest I recently held).

In my day job we frequently get visits from pharmaceutical reps. Ostensibly these visits are to inform us of latest research on their products and discuss medication side effects and treatment strategies. But in reality the research they present has been so heavily spun it can’t be trusted, therefore any claims that rep visits are updating our professional knowledge is completely laughable.

So why are the reps let in the door? Because they bring lunch that’s why. Bribery, pure and simple. They bring cakes and flapjacks and buns; crisps and sandwiches and fruit. All paid for indirectly by the taxpayer through charging the NHS inflated pharmaceutical prices.

And that’s just the nurses. The doctors get free holidays and weekends away out of the fuckers.

I made a decision a few years ago never to accept anything from a pharmaceutical rep. So while my colleagues are munching on chocolate eclairs and pringles I sit self righteously in a corner, pointedly not eating anything and smugly reveling in my highly evolved sense of ethics.

Of course none of my colleagues notice my silent protests. And even if they do they often mistake the smug look on my face for an expression of gastric discomfort and assume I’m not eating because I’ve got trapped wind. But still, it helps me sleep at night and that’s the main thing.

My current dilemma is that I’m unsure if I should extend my “no cake” policy to blogging. The reason I blog is to document my family life and connect with friends. Bringing commercial aspects into that seems to sully it a little. I feel tainted somehow, like I’m exploiting my family and my friends in order to get free stuff.

On the other hand I have developed a pretty strong editorial process. Every blu-ray review I’ve done has been completely honest and I’ve turned down a few very tempting freebies because I felt them to be incongruous to the blog. But I still feel uncomfortable. Like I’m teetering on the edge of a slippery slope

Then again, I seem to be uncomfortable with everything at the moment, as evidenced by my propensity for “thinking aloud” posts recently. My mojo is back, but it seems to have brought a tendency for rambling and wordy introspection with it.

I must make it clear that I’m not judging others for taking up these freebies and PR offers. In particular some of my best blogging buddies are in that grey hinterland between pro and hobby blogging, and so their relationships with companies and professional media types are wholly appropriate and I would not criticize them for them .

But I don’t want to be a journalist or a copywriter. I thought I did in my early twenties, even getting myself the ubiquitous media studies degree. But then I quickly realized that life wasn’t for me and chose to be a nurse instead.

So now according to Erin I have to come up with my traditional poignant open-ended morality statement. I think the best way to describe my dilemma is that I’ve always viewed blogging as an extension of my home life rather than my work life, and the potential to get material gain from writing here has muddied the water for me somewhat. My fear is that by treating All That Comes With It as a commodity rather than an artistic expression (*snort*) I’ll spoil it for myself somehow. But the lure of cool free stuff can often seem very tempting.

So far I think I’ve struck the right balance, but I need to be mindful that my greed doesn’t tip my own self imposed see-saw of integrity.

How about you, what are your thoughts?

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Arjan and Dad Who Writes thought it was a giant courgette. Don’t they know that giant courgettes are actually called marrows? Arjan I can forgive because his first language is Holandish (or is that Netherlandese), but for Dad Who Writes there is no excuse. Go away and study your Alan Titchmarsh more carefully next time.

Over on flickr, JJ Daddy-O suggested it was a zucchini – which is actually the US word for courgette anyway (those wacky Americans). I’m not sure what the US word for marrow is, probably “xisuduw” or something. Then again everything is supposed to be bigger over there, so perhaps they would just regard it as a medium sized gherkin.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant because it’s not a courgette, marrow, zucchini, xisuduw, or gherkin. It’s a pumpkin.

Honestly, it is.

I’ve got three more that look exactly like it too. The reason that it’s green not orange is that it isn’t ripe yet, but I’ve no idea why it’s elongated like that. It’s not because of the variety because I got three normal looking pumpkins from the same plant, see:

Maybe it’s that uranium fertilizer I’ve been using.

Anyhow according to the internet there isn’t much of a chance of it ripening now it’s been taken off the vine (which I had to do as the parent plant was going rotten and yucky). I’m not sure if there is anything you can do with mutant unripened pumpkins. Anyone got any suggestions?

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