Dinosaur Thing

Hey I'm an Astronaut

My 2 and a half year old daughter asked me what I do and when I told her simplistically "computers" she stubbornly said "no" so I ran through a series of obvious professions to see what she thought I was and after a stern "no" at "Fireman" I got a firm "yes" for "astronaut"...cool !!

What I did on my holidays

Like most parents of young kids I was pretty much wrapped up with my 2. Whilst it feels like a chore at times their little personalities develop 10 fold when spending quality time with us so at the end of the holidays its great to see how much they have developed in 2 short weeks. My son's favourite Xmas present was in fact his present to me...a lego Star Wars X-fighter which we hope to finish today. He himself was ladened with Ben 10 toys including a skateboard he has no chance of riding. My daughter too was blessed with loads of Peppa Pig stuff but was more concerned at Santa being greedy and eating all the cookies. I am looking forward to some structure and frankly adult conversation. Speaking in fluent CBeebieese for 2 weeks does get to you after a while. 

Snakes on a Plane

I'm pretty open about just how miserable flying into and around the US is right now due to the complete lack of humour of security and airline personnel over there but recently I travelled from Raleigh up to Baltimore on South West where the flight attendant did announcements in comedy voices and concluded his address by saying "...do not smoke in the bathrooms. We have detectors and we will release the snakes". For some reason I immediately felt like I was on a distinctly unprofessional airline but frankly at least the guy was trying to make the experience enjoyable. Compared to his colleagues, who clearly all go to the same school of customer management where either Sgt Hulka or some English Public School master was head lecturer, he was at least a breath of fresh air.

Dear Real World Santa

Dear Real World Santa,

Lump of coal as usual then?

Joe

The Day Pluto Got Fired

This weekend was marred by the gift from a "friend" of a Barney DVD for my son. Unfortunately he loves it and played it 5 times over the weekend driving us nuts in the bargain. At about the 4th showing I relayed to my wife the story of when myself and my friend Andy watched Pluto being fired at Disney World in Florida. We were on a cheap golfing holiday and decided to go to Disney on a day when we couldn't get any tee times. It was a scorcher of a day so we took shelter for a while at Mickey Mouse's birthday party show. I'm sure we could have thought of a better place to go if we really tried but we didn't. Anyway picture the scene, on stage were all of the main Disney characters over at Mickey Mouse's house being organised by Minney and a twentysomething blonde cheerleader with completely infeasible hair dancing and singing in that sugary sweet way that Disney seems to churn out by the bucketload. In the audience were around 30 mothers and their over filled kids and around 30 dads who were all thinking "hey I could have gone for a beer through all of this". Anyway in the middle of a dance routine centred around decorating the house and getting the food ready, Mickey makes a sudden and unexpected appreance and all of the characters freeze in a mixture of horror and surprise. All that is except Pluto who managed to slip his paw around the cheerleader and onto her left breast. She then went form sugary sweet to to a stern "get-your-hand-off-now". Pluto then put some bashful paws to his lips and when she turned back to the audience held both high in triumph to a boisterous cheer from all the dads.

Phil Goes Ape !!

Just love this new commercial for Cadbury's Dairy milk that is a tribute to all air drummers everywhere. Not sure if Phil will like it though. Excellent !!

Blackberryless at last

After nearly 6 years of having the mill stone that is the Blackberry tied to my neck and being forever in trouble with relatives for inappropriate "Blackberry diving" I'm finally rid of the little beast. Long live the smart phone !!!

Good vs. Evil

If the price tag wasn't so scary I'd be begging for this. A "Good vs. Evil football table" with each of the players carved out of the planet's most good and evil. Here's the line-up. Not sure about some of the signings on the Good side, Mother Teresa and Mary Poppins doesn't seem right and why oh why does Bobby Moore get a look in (boring !!!) My wife will testify to The Child Catcher inclusion on the Evil side though. My money is definitely on Evil winning with this line up. Discuss?

Is there anybody out there without an iPod?

Just received my 5th invite in a fortnight to a conference with the unbelievably enticing "iPod shuffle" draw. Is there anyone out there not got an iPod by now let alone a miserable shuffle? No? Please somebody tell IT event organisers. It makes you look cheap guys.

Burn's Night

Ah I love Burn's night. As a Scot I always felt this was more our national celebration than St. Andrews day and definitely not that sorry excuse for Caledonionism "Tartan Day" (yeauch!). If any of you get an invite to a friend's Burn's Night then you should go. It really is a unique event and one that everyone should savour kilt and all and especially if you are not Scots. I was always surprised at just how far and wide the night is celebrated. My late Uncle James Callan used to do an annual tour of the former Soviet Union in the communist years as a guest speaker at various Burn's nights across the state as Burns was revered as a true "peasant poet" among Russians. My favourite Burn's Night story was of a journalist who was invited to a Russian Burn's Night in Moscow. As the Haggis was being piped in by 3 pipers and held by a proud chef he suddenly slipped and fell. The journalist felt it was a suspcious fall and queried it with his host. "Oh he didn't really fall" he said. "Its tradition". And so the story unfolded that at an early Burn's night a chef genuinely slipped and fell and dropped his haggis but the whole evening was so steeped in tradition and ceremony that everyone thought it was too and since then subsequent chef's were coached to slip and drop the haggis.