Being Me

Right. I'm sure I can cope once it turns midnight.   Just need a little practice ..... "Twothousanununeleven." "Twothousanlevelven." "Twothousanunelevenen." "Twothousandanunleaven." "Twothousanelevenun." "Twothousanun ..." Okay, sod that for a game of soldiers.  I'll try the easier way. "Twentyeeeeeeleven." "Twentyleven." "TwentyEEEEE (big gap to delineate the words)  EEEleven." I give up.  Whose stupid idea was it to have us nununununning and ee-ee-ee-ee-ing all over the place?  Did no one consult a speech therapist before plunging us into this decade? I'm off to bed.  I feel an eejit anyway, sitting in front of my computer practising saying a date when everyone else is out enjoying fireworks with friends. Before I go, though, I'll wish you all a Happy New Ne ... Happy New Yew ... Happy N ... All good wishes for the year ahead. (And, for your in...

I'm not making any of my own New Year Guaranteed-Total and Depressing Failures Resolutions.  Instead, I thought I'd make a list of New Year resolutions which some literary characters should have made .... Resolutions that would have made these characters' lives easier, and the stories a hell of a lot shorter ..... Red Riding Hood: When taking cakes to grandparents, avoid anyone with hirsuitism. Pilgrim: Steer clear of Sloughs. Gulliver: Don't ever lie down in someone else's country. Dr Frankenstein: Use different materials for my sewing hobby. Madame Bovary: Read up on how long the effects of arsenic last. Dr Jekyll: Learn to live with my self selves Jude the Obscure: Refuse to be a character in any of Hardy's novels Holden Caulfield: Revise. Jay Gatsby: Never let the woman drive. Piggy: Lose weight before any journey on a plane. Lennie Small: don't hold on for quite so long. Mr Bennet: Develop a hearing problem. Dorian Gray: Jus...

Let's play Spot the Link .  Here are some happenings from my day.  Can you see the connection between them all?  (That question was ironic and you will see why later.) Happening 1 .   Online chat.   I am learning to use the chat facility on Skype so I can talk to The Daughter in Japan .  The randomness of the resulting conversations, with one person typing a response to a question which was asked two questions ago, takes some getting used to when you're forty-blah and do that What-Did-I-Come-Up-Here-For? thing at the top of the stairs at least once a day. A couple of excerpts ... a) hello, are you there? why.  has everyone else gone out?  what time is it 11:41 Mostly.  Hello. i'm so bored b) sounds good. i need to start writing that essay, but i still have no idea what to write ben barnes!  oh wow.  that will be a trip to london ... did you just have to google ben barnes to find out who he was? ah yes - which essay was this...

Hell's bells! (Not the most appropriate festive expression, I know.)  Yes, all the fuss and bustle of Christmas is over but you still have the whole family, which covers the entire age range, staying over until New Year!  What to do? Well, there's always the 'hang yourself in the bathroom' option, but, let's face it, what a waste of your new silk dressing gown cord when Fran has advice for you which could change everything. Grandma and Grandpa will be finding things particularly difficult.  You can tell, because they will be making the following comments about the children.  (Note that these are invariably made in the third person, directed to a parent.) 1. Does she have to answer her mobile phone at the table? 2. Won't he get square eyes if he looks at that computer much longer? 3. Isn't one chocolate enough for a small child? 4. Do the children always choose their own clothes to wear? 5. When do the children have their nap? 6. Should they be all...

Have you heard the album of songs which Scrooge has just released?  It's called 'Christmas Tunes for the Truly Miserable'.  Here's his playlist. I'm D reaming of  Hoping There Won't Be a White Christmas As I Can't Stand the Sound of Happy Children Let it Snow Sleet and Hail and Keep Everyone Off the Streets and from Laughing Outside my Window Jingle Can-Someone-Stop-Making-that-God-Awful-Clanging-Noise-or-I'll-Throw-Something-I-Swear Bells I Saw Mummy Kissing Slapping and Kicking Santa Claus Underneath the Mistletoe Last Night Have yourself a Merry Truly Awful Little Christmas Then Perhaps You'll Think Again Next Year All I want for Christmas is You A Bit of Peace and Quiet if that's Not Too much to Ask Frosty the Snowman Pile of Slush that No one Bothered to Do Anything With and Too Right, I Say Rocking Around Slobbing on the Sofa wondering whether to bother with the Christmas Tree Everyone's Driving Home For Me Mad at Christmas...

Of COURSE you want to make Christmas special for the little ones!  What parent doesn't?  The kiddies need experiences at Christmas which they will talk about for years to come.  I was the same when I was a young parent (and that was before Sellotape was invented and we had to use moose skins and catgut to wrap the Fisher Price kitchen set).  We did everything we could to make Christmas especially memorable, and I'd like to pass on a couple of ideas so you can do the same. 1. Teach the truth about Santa in a way they will always remember.   Children never forget the Christmas during which they find out that Santa is not real.   Don't leave it to an older sibling or a cousin to break the news - often the job is very unsatisfactorily done because the kiddie begins to cry uncontrollably and the sibling/cousin doesn't have the guts to go through with it.  So, as a responsible parent, it's up to you to make sure the moment really is unforgettable.  Fo...

Watch Rudolf go in this BBC video  .... Rudolf the Reindeer makes a bid for freedom As Rudolf had said to the police earlier on that day ...  'Look, Inspector.  It's like this.  Guys mention your shiny nose once - you just ignore them.  Twice - well, okay, they're jerks, but you stay cool.  Three, four times - it gets kinda annoying.  Five, six, seven - you give them a little nudge with your hoof to let them know you're no sucker.   But three thousand four hundred and seventy nine times?  No one can take that kind of hassle and stay calm, especially when they insist on singing the damn song each time, too.  So, I bribed an elf to attach spikes to the ends of my antlers (these elves are mugs when it comes to illegal height hormone drugs) and then, next time they started the old shiny nose routine, I picked them all off one by one.  Yeah, I know.  Gory.  But, look, that's a lot of meat lying around just now if you're l...