Yes Sir That's My Babies

For me, parenthood is the best thing in the world: it's better than all those other things we think are important like careers, homes and pastimes. So last weekend was a very special one as we were not only able to spend it with our lovely daughter Sarah but also with our equally lovely granddaughter Rose who braved the worst that Scotland could throw at them to make it to Southport in one piece on Thursday. We didn't do a lot but being together was very special.

We were able to get out and about with the baby thanks to our wonderful cake making friend Jan Harbon who loaned us this magnificent baby carriage allowing us to take Rose on the dog muck avoiding exercise that is a walk in the local park (aren't they supposed to pick it up - the owners that is not the dogs). It seems that despite the dogs on a lead signs the done thing is to let the dogs off the lead and then carefully inspect a couple of manky rose bushes whilst, to their complete ignorance, Rover and Lassie do their own thing - slap bang in the middle of the path. We'll miss seeing the big old pram in the hall, it has such a homely feel to it.

The log fire came in handy as Sarah and Duncan are keen on being green and Rose has real nappies and not disposables. They're nothing like the nappies our kids had. They're very swish and come complete with fancy pants. They seem to be good for the baby as she's very comfortable in them and Sarah says she's had virtually no nappy rash at all.


You'll have to indulge me now as I upload some photos I promised to post here so my mum can copy them.

Happy Granddad

Happy Nanny

Happy Great Grannies

And Little Miss Sunshine

Thank you.


It's back to reality now and the business of helping Flo sort out her Christmas presents today. We're having a little party for her friends on Thursday so it's off to the supermarket for plenty of Sherry and Turkey.

As little Rose disappears like the Cheshire Cat back to Scotland.

Home For The Holidays

Sarah braved everything the weather threw at her yesterday and managed to get Rose down from Scotland to see us despite her train being cancelled and Duncan having to drive them to Inverkeithing to find one that was running. They did well to beat the storm that rapidly became  known as Hurricane Bawbag on Twitter and then on the BBC and in other media until someone pointed out that Hurricane Scrotum didn't have quite the same cachet as Irene, Katia or Andrew. They arrived in Preston almost four hours late but we made the most of the delay by taking in the town's delights - we spent the afternoon enjoying a cup of tea in Morrisons.

We are so pleased that they made it as it gave Marion's mum Flo the chance to see her great granddaughter for the very first time. Flo has been in a rest home for three or four weeks now. It hasn't been easy for her but she finally seems to be starting to settle there and she was thrilled to meet Rose. 


Sarah's a great mum and Rose is coming on in leaps and bounds and can do so many more things than she could the last time we saw her. They have so much more for babies than they did when Paul and Sarah were infants and Sarah tells us that before they learn to talk lots of kids are learning to sign so she has enrolled Rose for signing classes.

I'll reserve judgement on that one.


Staying with the home for the holidays theme, I realise that the following is probably an exploitative piece of cynical manipulation by one of the world's largest companies. But cynical or not, I challenge you to watch it with a dry eye.





And on a more blatantly commercial level here's another that's nonetheless a joyful representation of having family home is all about. 

So Sad

I knew that there was a double murder in Southport this week but the victims' names meant nothing to me and I paid little attention to the story. But when I opened the local free newspaper that dropped through the letterbox today I immediately recognised the younger woman as Angela, one of the checkout operators at the local Tesco. It's a very big store and has scores of men and women who operate the checkouts but we always look for a familiar face and are prepared to wait for an operator who we know will guarantee a friendly smile and a few minutes' conversation over the tedium of packing the groceries. There are perhaps four or five on the checkouts who are always worth an extra few minutes queueing and Angela Holgate was one of them. Always polite, efficient and friendly and prepared to say 'hello' when we passed in the street, she was a person at the periphery of our lives. We didn't know her in any capacity other than someone who scanned our shopping. But she was someone who made that weekly chore a pleasant and friendly experience and treated us as customers rather than just another trolley to scan. Her premature and violent death is a very sad and tragic reminder of the fragility of life.

We can't wait to see our granddaughter Rose tomorrow. Fortunately she has yet to encounter the horrible world that can snuff life out so needlessly and hopefully it will be many years before she understands such horrors of 21st century living. Our daughter Sarah is travelling down from Leuchars to Preston and we've got a whole four days with them before they have to head back to Scotland. Sadly Duncan can't make it this time but we hope to see him in the New Year.

I see the payroll loan companies are in the news again today. There was a bloke on Radio 4 this morning attempting to justify their enormous interest rates. But there is no way that you can justify charging somebody £50 to borrow £100 for two months. It means that if the lender started with £100 and lent it out on 1st Jan, on 1st March they would have £150. If they continued to roll up the loan (or lend it to another borrower), on 1st June they would have £225, on 1st August they would have £337.50, on 1st November £506.25 and at the end of the year £759.37. This is an annual interest rate of 659%. Now I don't know about you but if I could get 5% interest on our savings at the moment I would be quite happy. That means that my £100 would be worth £105 on 31st December compared to £759.37 "earned" by the payroll loan company. So are the payroll loan companies respectable or are they simply loan sharks under another name? I'll let you decide.

 We saw Hugo on our Orange Wednesday trip to Vue today. Although it's classified U, this is not a childrens' film. Filmed in (for once) spectacular 3D it is a magical story of a young orphan who lives amongst a labyrinth of clocks in a Paris railway station. It is very much a film buff's film with director Martin Scorcese playing homage to the early days of moving pictures in a whimsical tale of a boy, a girl, an old man and the boy's father who are all connected to a wonderful mechanical automaton. Sacha Baron Cohen adds a touch of comedy as a Railway Inspector cum child catcher and Chloe Moretz adds yet another fine performance to her already impressive CV. She's only fourteen but has already stolen three big films. As I said on an earlier blog, the most impressive child actor since Jodie Foster.

Not Our Best Week With Tesco

As I wrote yesterday, we returned from last week's Tesco visit with minor, but very expensive, damage to the car. We go there a lot and it's the first mishap we've had there in years of shopping. So I wasn't expecting any further incident on our next trip. 

With our granddaughter Rose coming on Thursday we wanted things to look seasonal for her so I went out to get a small Xmas tree. They were all wrapped in that plastic mesh stuff so choosing one was a bit of pot luck. And my luck was certainly out as, when I got home and Marion unwrapped it, it turned out to be the most pathetic specimen you could wish to see. I know that Rose is only five months old but even she would think she was visiting Uncle Scrooge not her granddad if she'd seen it. I only wish I had taken a snap as it would have raised some smiles for my readers.

So back it went and, after twenty minutes waiting at the service desk, the woman in charge shared our amusement and arranged someone from "produce" to assist. He disappeared only to return ten minutes later and tell us he couldn't remove the plastic from a couple for us to check so we had to accept a refund and buy a lovely (unwrapped) one from Dobbies down the road. 

'So he bought a duff Xmas tree" you say? Hardly worth blogging about. I would agree if we hadn't returned to the store today to stock up for Sarah and Rose's visit. Ten minutes into the shop I heard an almighty crash and turned to find poor Marion sprawled flat out on the floor. We were in the milk aisle and the floor was wet through from a spillage. Marion was in agony having taken a heavy fall and really was crying over spilt milk. A Tesco employee ineffectually offered token sympathy and pointed out that just ahead was one of those signs that warn of "Wet floor. Cleaning in progress". A cleaner came by and Marion complained only to be told "you should have seen the sign". Unhappy with this attitude she sought out the manager who, unbelievably, explained that they don't employ the cleaners. I would argue that, even if the cleaner is not on the Tesco payroll, they do employ the cleaners. The manager was OK and took down all the details and asked if she could do anything further but when Marion said she was feeling a bit better, she took her leave. If I had been the manager I would have gone straight to the flower, chocolate or wine department and while Marion was recovering, selected a small gift by way of apology. Every little helps they say. Not from our experience.

It's exactly a year ago today that I had my new hip fitted. It's a good job I didn't take that fall and end up with a dislocation.

We're eating very little meat at the moment. Here's tonight's tea. Chick pea and sweet potato stew with brown basmati rice. It was delicious, nutritious and extremely cheap. We're not vegetarians and we're not on a budget but it's certainly a very enjoyable diet and one that I recommend.

Honesty Is The Best Policy

It's a subject that provoked plenty of lively debate and discussions with colleagues in the past. When our Sales Co-Ordinator said that he had handed the waitress some gift tokens that she had absent mindedly not kept when he used them to settle his bill, some in the office thought him daft and implied that he should have booked another table and returned next week. Others like me and Marion applauded him for his honesty. When our then very young son Paul carelessly opened our car door in high winds and it slammed into an extremely expensive 4 x 4 we left a note on the windscreen and duly sorted out the damage via our insurers at the cost of an expensive excess. The office debate was divided on this one too with some saying that they would have driven away whilst others took the line that we took. But honesty is the best policy. Do as you would be done by. You reap what you sow. What goes around comes around and all that. 

So when we got back home and unpacked our shopping after a trip to Tesco the other day and found this damage to the rear bumper it was clear that not everybody lives up to the same maxims and those who surprised me in in our office debates were clearly not alone in their way of thinking. OK it doesn't look a great deal of damage in the photo. The bumper was dirty after a trip down a muddy farm track when visiting some friends but there are two distinctive bumps surrounded by star cracks in the paintwork and there is no way that the perpetrator could have been ignorant of the damage. The only way to return it to how it looked would be a whole new bumper protector which, with fitting, will be several hundred pounds. So you reap what you sow? I'll let you make your mind up on that one.

Copyright The Times. Sorry Mr Murdoch. 

On a happier note, one of our guilty pleasures is the weekend papers. We buy The Times and Guardian on Saturday and the Sunday Times on Sunday. We used to have The Observer too but it went downhill when Kate Flett left and we gave up on it recently. Spending a few hours with such great writing is a luxury. This week The Times had a fabulous Paul McCartney interview by the brilliant Caitlin Moran which ended with her genuinely urging Macca to add The Frog Chorus to his future sets on tour. This photo which accompanied the piece, captures the essence of Moran so beautifully and cheered me up for the day.


I don't know what it is about the women writers of the quality press but, whilst I read this morning that 80% of newspaper columnists are men I find myself enjoying women's writing far more. I follow my favourites on Twitter and I have just noticed that whilst I follow Caitlin Moran, Grace Dent, India Knight, Suzanne Moore, Kate Flett, Marina Hyde and Janice Turner the only blokes on my list are Barney Ronay and Tim Dowling. Perhaps I just don't have time for the alpha male pontifications of the likes of Clarkson and Rod Liddle or maybe Im just lacking in testosterone.

We are excitedly waiting to welcome our daughter Sarah and our granddaughter Rose on Thursday. Rose hasn't been to our house before so Marion has been busily babyfying the guest bedroom. And she's done a lovely job.

Her addition of Snoopy in the moon to the seascape above the bed was an inspiration. It's such a pity that it will be just four days before they head back to St Andrews but we hope to be in Scotland not long after Hogmanay.


And, if you aren't familiar with that Paul McCartney classic I mentioned, here it is. Tesco shoppers please take note.


 

An Open Letter To The Today Programme

Dear Today

This morning you featured an interview with seventy nine year old Miss Debbie Reynolds. What a breath of fresh air it was. Listening to someone with such joie de vivre was uplifting - inspiring even.

I've been a loyal listener for years but I can't be alone in feeling ground down every day by your constant drip drip drip of doom, gloom and misery that must send many of the country's movers and shakers off to work with a black cloud over their heads. Hardly the stuff to stimulate creativity.

OK you've got a duty to tell things as they are but there must surely be room in your schedule for a Miss Reynolds type character to appear on a more frequent basis. I know that you had a similar interview with the equally upbeat Doris Day some time ago and I felt very much the same then.

Does it have to take septuagenarian and octogenarian American film stars to provide the only infrequent oasis of positives in your Sahara of negatives? Or could you find another antidote to Robert Peston et al on a more regular basis?

I don't want you to patronise your audience and turn Today into Jackanory but I can't have been alone in feeling good listening to Debbie today and that has to be a good thing.

More like it please.

Yours etc


JB

Mugs

You've got to laugh at all the hoo hah about Jeremy Clarkson and his now infamous comments on The One Show. OK so Clarkson made a joke that was not very funny but from all the ridiculous posturing on Twitter and the BBC's complaints line, you would think that some people really thought that he was advocating the execution of the public sector strikers. Some people (like Clarkson) get a kick out of winding people up and like nothing better than seeing their wind ups take root. It used to happen at work. Someone would find a chink in a colleague's armour and then work away at it until, to their great amusement, their victim reached boiling point. It might be a football team or a difference of opinion on politics but with the right comments and the right colleague the wind up merchant would go home happy.  


It was easy to avoid the wind up by simply ignoring the comments and if everyone had ignored Jeremy Clarkson last night he would not have achieved the notoriety that he enjoys. If you read his weekly column in the Sunday Times you would hardly be surprised at him spouting this sort of stuff. Every week his (very readable, I'm afraid to say) quarter page contains some outrageous comment or other that is clearly intended to shock but equally clearly written with tongue firmly in cheek. When the poor bloke who tweeted that he was going to blow up Robin Hood airport if they didn't clear the snow ended up being arrested everyone (except the police) knew it was a joke. So it is surprising that today, those very same people (the sort of people he LOVES to upset) fell for it hook line and sinker.   

Here's a tweet from popular comic Jimmy Carr. As someone from near Liverpool should I be complaining about this outrageous stereotyping? Ah no. It's a joke. Like Clarkson's it's not one of the funniest but I know he's not being serious. Or is he? Anybody want to write to the Liverpool Empire and get his show cancelled in April 2013?


And talking of jokes, the internet has been going bananas in the last seven days over Benton or Fenton the deer chasing dog in Richmond Park. It's a good little viral video and, like all good things there are all sorts of spin offs on YouTube. This one is better than the original. But if you are one of the two people on the planet who haven't seen the original watch it at the bottom before clicking on this or it won't mean a thing.


.