All posts in category: Kids/Family/Relations

Old Mother Hubbard

September 13, 2018
Animals/Pets Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life
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Why...

Is my freezer always at bursting point with stuff I will never eat? When I go shopping I seem to buy not only for my wife and I but for the freezer... like it’s an actual person who needs feeding. “Ooooh, lark’s tongues. I’ll put those in the freezer. Yum, anchovy and chocolate mousse. Looks so interesting. I can freeze it.” The result of all this largesse is my fridge is crammed full with stuff that in the cold light of day I don’t want to eat. Conversely, I feel guilty about throwing out food, so this abundance just sits there.

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Love me, love my dog

August 31, 2018
Animals/Pets Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life Sex
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Why...

When you come to my house do I suggest you don’t criticise my dogs as I won’t judge your children (at least not out loud).

Now I completely accept some people don’t like dogs... in the same way I accept that some people believe Elvis Presley is alive, well and riding Shergar across Area 51.

The thing about dogs is their love is unconditional. Even Hitler’s pet Alsatian Blondi no doubt thought Adolf a loveable chap who fed him scraps and gave him a splendid kennel complete with a swastika weathervane. That pooch was always pleased to see Mein Fuhrer, even after a hard day’s genocide.

In fact dogs are the ultimate sycophants. They laugh at your jokes, look at you admiringly, even perform tricks on demand... of course in return they expect to get food and shelter.

Dogs have indeed come a long way from their wolf forebears and many are more metrosexual with clipped nails and smart coats than flea infested hunters of old. In fact were man to become extinct in a haze of radioactive mushroom clouds, I’m afraid man’s best friend would follow pretty shortly afterwards.

The idea that Pepe the Chihuahua would survive in a post apocalypse world is farcical unless the radiation allows him to develop thumbs to open any tins of Kanga Chunks that he might uncover in the ruins of the post atomic blast.

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It’s all about service

July 13, 2018
Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life Travel/Nature
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Why...

Do hotels with four or even five stars find the basics of what is expected so hard to deliver? The Porter. When I pull up in a taxi or my car, why is carrying my bags into the hotel a spectator sport? A porter should be there. No excuses. Instead, nearly all hotels are perfectly happy for me to lug cases inside when some spotty teenager dressed like an organ grinder’s monkey then expects a hefty tip as he wheels my bag from reception to the lift. I always enjoy pulling out a note then tearing off a third and saying... “That part is my share of taking these out of the car to reception.” Internet. If I am paying a decent price for a room don’t piss me off asking to pay an additional $25 a day for Internet. It’s grossly expensive and just appalling customer relations. WiFi is now as basic a requirement as electricity, aircon and hot water. I was recently charged for internet and then given a download service of less that 1 MBPS. For those luddites reading this, it means even a simple presentation document takes so long I would need a shave and a haircut by the time it finished downloading. Unless I am actually in Africa, watching BBC News Focus on Africa is as pointless as last year’s football results. If I am in Stockholm I could not give a toss about basket weaving co-ops in Laos, but more likely a terrorist attack in London. BBC, CNN and other news agencies seem to be mostly advertising monologues for third world dictatorships. You just get endless reports from parts of the world that are as relevant to my life as Morris Pole Dancing. If you are a five star hotel with an International clientele shell out the few extra pennies to allow us to watch rolling news (Sky News for the English... and Russia Today for those who like fairy stories before bedtime). Perhaps if I should just thank Reception on check out for such interesting news channels and offer to pay in Matabele gumbo-beads when presented with the bill? Bathroom. As I wrote before (here) I don’t wear glasses in the shower so print shampoo, conditioner and shower gel in big letters and have enough lights around the mirror to let a woman do her make-up. Bedroom. One switch by the bed to turn all the lights out.

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Whatever happened to the three martini lunch?

June 28, 2018
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations
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Why...

Have we let naked ambition put cordial working relationships on a strict diet? Of course I blame purple braces, red Porsches and Gordon Gekko. The first casualty from Big Bang in the 1980’s was the three martini lunch. If lunch was for wimps, then count me in (if that’s no too much trouble)! I remember my early days in the City working in Lloyd’s Insurance market on Kidnap and Ransom insurance. Twice a year I would have lunch in the Directors boardroom at Fenchurch Street Brokers with an underwriter who got deeply offended if after cocktails then wine, we did not finish off a bottle of port. Of course we were fried as owls and no work was done that afternoon, but we never had a row, always got our man back if someone was kidnapped and the world shone brightly through the gimlet of the bi-annual assault on our livers. Could this Underwriter have been a touch richer, more ruthless and generate more moohlah for his company? Possibly? But then I probably would not have wanted to spend time with him or give him my business. In 1980 everything suddenly got serious. Fun was out as the new slave drivers assured us no one could possibly get rich being a bit silly. I suppose that’s one reason why shortly after Big Bang I left the City and ended up working for a man who had made millions sticking his hand up a Frog’s bottom. Jim Henson and The Muppets were back then an Entertainment behemoth... and not that we ever overindulged in anything to the detriment of that wonderful company, but indulge we all did. And it all (like Kermit) went along swimmingly. Chalk one up to the silly people.

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In the old days we cooked real food and made our own entertainment

June 8, 2018
Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life Sex
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Why...

Do some people in their sixties plus go all starry-eyed when harking back to the days before the microwave and streamed entertainment?

“When we were young, we played cards,” they moan.

So giving your kid a regular gambling fix is better than subliminal history via Vikings and The Tudors or world class fantasy literature of Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings?

“The family stuck together and entertained each other,” they pontificate, sniffing at Netflix, Amazon, Sky, etc...

“Which is why in some remote regions your husband, your brother, your cousin and your uncle were all the same people,” I reply. This is even an argument to allow easy access of porn to occupy Uncle Ernie rather than him insisting on a game of doctors and nurses with his niece and nephew.

However, I do accept that building a tree house, riding a bike without a helmet, a game of conkers or walking unaccompanied to school did generate a dollop of risk. No one I grew up with got away without a broken limb... if not two.

“And we had such innovative games. So much more involving than just a video screen.” True but...

I remember being given an Atomic Energy Lab from a toy company called Gilbert that had a small sample of polonium and uranium! At seven I had fuel driven planes whose propellers regularly tried to sever my fingertips, steam engine trains with boilers heated by methylated spirits (so you were stoned before your fingers got third degree burns) all jumbled up with catapults and a wicked gun called a Johnny 7. This little darling had seven different missile firing guns each capable or poking out an eye or pissing off the next door neighbour’s cat.

I never wore a seatbelt and quite often steered the car sitting on my father’s lap. (Please note we never had an accident... we saw dozens).

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Your grobulator is not in sync with your doo-hickey

April 14, 2018
Friends Kids/Family/Relations Technology Uncategorised Work
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Why...

Do I have to listen to drivel? Jargon is really a verbal hedge professionals hide behind... waiting to jump out and financially mug you. The truth is most businesses are not that complex, but to make everyone think someone has an IQ the size of a planet, people make up complex words (acronyms if in the Army) that no one understands. Never let a simple word stand in the way of a complex one, especially if as a lawyer you can charge £500 an hour to explain it.

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Christmas is coming... Oy vey!

December 21, 2017
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Sex
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Why...

Is Christmas so confusing? The weird thing about Christmas is we all think we have a shared vision but in fact each of us has a very specific ideal that has very little in common with anyone else... apart from over indulgence and a fat man with a beard (or thin if you are Dutch - see what I mean?). Is it a real or fake tree? If it’s fake, you need to use it for twenty years before it is ‘greener’ than a real one. In Catalan they have a guy called the Caganer in the nativity scene. This is a guy having a poop! Yup apparently it denotes fertility and good luck. In Austria Santa is accompanied by a demon called Krampus who punishes the ‘naughty’ kids in ‘naughty or nice’ and in Holland the locals black up like Al Jolson as a character called Black Pete. First thing Christmas morning is it stockings or boots? (no, not those kind of stockings and boots... though they may indeed make a very Happy Christmas for someone). Is a cracker a paper present you pull, a good looking member of the opposite sex you pull or something you put cheese on? Is the Christmas meal dinner on Christmas Eve, lunch on Christmas Day or dinner... or all three? Do you overeat Roast Turkey, Roast Goose, Roast Beef or nut cutlets? In Japan the whole country eats Kentucky Fried Chicken. So popular is it, that you must order two months in advance. I sort of get it as turkey sushi would bring salmonella as it’s Christmas present. In Greenland it’s Kiviac which is fermented sea birds wrapped in seal blubber. Yum! Outside, is it snowballs or sunscreen, football or soccer, ski-ing on snow or water? Inside it is splodging in front of the TV to watch a Christmas Story, The Great Escape, Elf or The Queen’s Speech? In Sweden everyone watches Donald Duck!

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Summer’s over… time for a holiday!

September 14, 2017
Animals/Pets Friends Kids/Family/Relations Sex
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Why...

Travel in August? The wonderful thing about living somewhere warm, safe and sunny is friends and family need little persuading to come and visit. The problem about living somewhere warm, safe and sunny is friends and family need little persuading to come and visit. The revolving turnstile of visitors each bring dietary and booze requirements, want sightseeing tours, shopping trips to craft villages and go to our favourite restaurants. These all need to be methodically ticked off again and again and again. I think I know word for word the excellent film about Malta called the Malta Experience and verbatim the menu at Cent’ Anni in Għargħur. Our French Bulldog Clouseau suggested to me that dog friendly revelers are always put in the same seats at the dinner table to short cut the two days for him working out who will sneak him a snack at the table, who is a messy eater and drops tidbits on the floor and who will greet his inquiring snout with a smack. As for accessories we are as good as Circuit City with a collection of chargers that fit every phone and computer as well as plug adaptors that can run a hairdryer from Hungary to a make-up mirror from Macau.

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When will we ever learn...

July 13, 2017
Animals/Pets Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
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Why...

Is it a surprise if, four hours after ending the evening with Vodka shots and jelly babies, I have a hangover you could land a Jumbo Jet on? The one saving grace about over indulgence on holiday is you can skulk about in a dark room till midday… when even hangovers that make your hair hurt begins to subside. But it seems there is a moment on every vacation when even perfectly sane people have some sort of synapse malfunction and revert to being teenagers. My saintly in-laws last year suddenly realised they had never jumped fully clothed into a pool and to their immediate left stood such an inviting one.... splash!

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Just pack it in...

Why...

Do I take clothes on holiday I never wear? When my wife proof reads this article there is a high chance I shall be sleeping in the bath tonight at our next hotel destination... except of course I couldn't fit in as it will be full of cosmetics, dirty clothes, new shoes, etc, etc. My gorgeous wife would look wonderful in a sack (assuming it had a Prada logo on it) but to please me she likes to pack a different outfit for each evening. She argues logically that I too need to take a suitable variety of clothes. So I end up with enough costume changes to keep Madonna happy on a World Tour. I should be grateful my wife makes such an effort instead of complaining about suitcases the size of the Hindenberg. What I am really grateful for is neither of us like winter sports as at least flimsy summer stuff takes up less room than the Mr. Bibendum (Michelin tyre man) outfits needed for apres-ski.

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Holiday reading... nah this is not far-fetched enough

June 16, 2017
Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life Politics
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Why...

Can I not find a decent fiction for my holiday read? Their plots are so boring compared to reality. In the last 12 months true events would have been roundly rejected in Hollywood as too far-fetched. Uncle Donald's mental pirouettes with regards to Russia, Korea and the CIA, make House of Cards shenanigans seem rather tame. The TV show Veep has stopped being a comedy and is simply a reality show. Then there is Melania Trump who looks as comfortable in her role of First Lady as a Nun in a Trojan factory. I think she is very cool but a plot line suggesting a First Lady having posed in the nude would have been rejected by even Mills and Boon. It's not as if there is not Volume 2 still to play out with second generation Trump... Ivanka and Jarred are names that come from bit players of Star Wars. And Tiffany??? In a recent poll of the most popular name for strippers the name Tiffany came second. What was Trump thinking (or thinking about) when he chose it?

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Listen to Einstein. May I present the all in one shredder, vacuum cleaner and sprinkler system...

Why...

Do we do not listen to Uncle Albert. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and to expect different results". Why do I think every puppy will be different? We have a new French bulldog (Clouseau). His capacity to munch his way through anything made from rubber to industrial grade titanium is remarkable. Today he managed to eat a handful of coffee beans, a mobile phone, a tax return and then chew up an entire ream of paper (500 pages). Obviously he did not consume the lot, but rather like a fox in a henhouse, managed to damage each page enough so it could no longer go in the printer, whilst actually only ingesting two sheets. He has developed a taste for the left ear of one of his elder brother pugs and my right leg is sexier than Beyoncé with a bark. He has an uncanny knack of knowing when I have just fallen asleep so his nip to a big toe wakes me up. I get mad, he looks at me with those big cow eyes.....then pees in a slipper. I have no doubt he would relish anthrax on toast and he still cannot understand why I stopped him chewing on a snail as if it was a gobstopper........ Groundhog Day. It happens every time we get a puppy. It should be no surprise....

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Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow you will want to strangle the relatives

Why...

Do relatives take priority over anyone else at Christmas? Don't misunderstand me, I adore every branch, root and twig of my family. However I also love my dogs, a couple of classic cars, a Lalique mask, a nicely worn leather jacket, a teddy bear and some very dear friends. Yes all in different ways but it seems at Christmas family is often to the exclusion of all else. Now as a kid I used to find it fairly amusing to meet up with Uncle Tuppy (yup, swear that was his name), Great Aunt Alice, Aunty Sheila and others who now are long gone and no doubt pulling crackers and swilling port in heaven. However as we really only came together once a year the novelty value soon wore off and I thought they were all bonkers and I am sure they felt I was some snot nosed brat (none of the aforementioned had kids). A brief lunch maybe but to stay manacled together for three or four days is a recipe for Lizzie Borden-like hungering for an axe! Distant relatives are like fish. After three days they go off. Christmas is a time of good will towards all men but to achieve that maybe put a time limit on each person? My American cousins are lucky as they have a Christmas doppelgänger a month earlier in Thanksgiving. That is the big family get together, always on a Thursday (see why Click Here). They get that out of the way and have the choice at Christmas to go away, be with friends or again link up the family tree.

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Ear ye, ear ye....

August 4, 2016
Animals/Pets Entertainment/Media/Arts Kids/Family/Relations Sex
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Why...

Does the humble ear only get credited as being one of the six senses. It is so much more... Sex. No, I'm not talking sound here. Please watch the delightful French movie The Untouchables about the millionaire paraplegic Philippe and his driver/manservant, Driss. It's a wonderful movie despite its backdrop of the ashes of living after such a disabling accident. It is in fact an utter affirmation of the joys of life. In it, the fondling and rubbing of Philippe's earlobes is his only sensory pleasure and to him on a par with sex! So the ear is also a sexual organ.

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It's an AMENDMENT dummy. It's already been altered....

July 21, 2016
Finance/Law Kids/Family/Relations Politics
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Why...

Do I have to see my dear transatlantic cousins twist and turn in the wind of argument over gun control? I know this is a subject that has undone many a Brit scribbler but I am deeply perplexed at the argument that it's practically divine a right to bare arms.... or arm bears.... and then quote the second amendment. Isn't that the point? It was an AMENDMENT. The original needed altering. It wasn't right first time. Perhaps in this day and age it ain't right now? The constitution was changed to allow you Colonials to bear arms to form a militia against perfidious Albion....but we ain't coming after you anymore. And if you think even a battle-bus full of patriotic armed citizens was going to prevent a modern attack such as 911 or the Boston bombers, that's wildly optimistic? A hand gun revolver if you must, and a bolt action rifle for hunting, but Yogi and Boo-Boo don't wear Kevlar nor run at 70 miles an hour so you don't need armor piercing bullets that pop out at a zillion rounds a second to stop them. Clearly if you have a country with a gabillion guns sloshing around in it, it's a trifle tricky to ask everyone to hand them back. And I suspect the least likely to then hand them back are those that you would most like to. It's therefore tough beyond belief but you have to start somewhere. How about the manufacturing bullets for certain weapons becomes an imprisonable offence unless supplied at a shooting range? I accept there are some countries who's citizens are armed to the teeth and live a relatively peaceful existence; Switzerland for instance (I claim a little bias here as I have a Swiss passport). Every citizen is issued with a rifle to defend against invasion. It's actually pretty pointless because if Uncle Putin wanted to get in, all the passes are mined and blowing those up is far more effective than a bunch of yodeling bankers trying to take pot shots at the Russian Army. Still no one has gone on a murdering rampage as far as I know. However maybe it's because gunfire exchange is less evident in Swiss culture. Heidi was not packin' an Uzi as she wandered around the Alps, and even William Tell could only fire one arrow at a time...even if it was at his son's head! The peaceful locals are renowned for whipping up cuckoo clocks not 3D printed handguns, chocolates not 1, 000 round magazines.

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Beware! Hair... It is not Darwinian but it's certainly Machiavellian...

July 7, 2016
Fasion Health & Beauty Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Is hair growth so inconsistent? Falling out. What exactly is Nature's point in letting some men go bald? Obvious answer, I suppose, is because she's a woman and it screws with men's egos! I mean baldness is not exactly Darwinian Evolution of the Species material. As someone who is lucky enough to still have a thick mop on my head, I do sympathise with my mates who now have a shiny dome where once stood a mighty forest. Can someone explain to me why? Not the medical reason but what is the evolutionary point of baldness?

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Drip drip drip, my patience is going down the drain......

June 30, 2016
Entertainment/Media/Arts Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life Technology
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Why...

Do the smallest actions by some cause such heated reactions from others? OK so watching some guy pick his spots while at the traffic lights is not the best way to start the day, yet for another motorist this morning it actually infuriated her so much she honked her horn. Maybe she was an unemployed beautician who took offence at his do-it-yourself work depriving her of a living? I regularly strike up an argument with traffic lights that I am certain go green only for three nanoseconds the way I want to travel but stay red for at least a decade to allow the other traffic to slide by quite freely. My wife on the other hand takes the view ‘that's life’ and why do I complain?? I then point out she would rather play hopscotch on a mine field than go for a swim in the sea (she doesn't like swimming in deep water) so she has no reason to pick on my own bête noires. Off we go, pointing out things that only drives one of us crazy and is water off a ducks back to the other. People with earphones that leak hiss like maniacal cicadas have the same horrendous effect on me as fingernails scraping down a blackboard for my wife.

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Psycho taught me to fear the shower.......

June 23, 2016
Animals/Pets Friends Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
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Why...

Does the shower hold more horrors than a Michael Moore documentary? The flat where I am currently staying requires the delicacy of a safe cracker to prevent me turning the faucet mixer so either I freeze or boil. Acceptable temperature is a gap of about two millimeters. Equally dangerous is the curtain. It's so close that it continually billows against me trying to wrap me up like a sushi roll. I have already mentioned the lunacy of hotel sized shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and mouthwash; all being in small little bottles that you need to wear glasses in the shower to read, (My Eyebrows are Silky Soft and my Hair Smells of Listerine. Headings Health and beauty. April 16, 2015) but caps and tops in general are a nightmare. May I suggest the following letter to Proctor and Johnson

Dear Mr./Mrs. Shower Gel/ hair treatment manufacturer,

Perhaps one of your researchers/designers/marketing people might like to join me in my next shower?

When I use your product, guess what? My hands are soapy. So a round little top that I need to unscrew (especially if it has a top that is shiny silver) just slithers in my hand like a fish. It's quite possibly the most useless invention since the Parisian taxi driver's manual for good manners.

Actually I don't want anything that even has a top; be it unscrewable, twistable, pop-able .....Any top in a shower is superfluous to my bathing requirements. With nowhere to put it, I end up holding it in my teeth. Then it drops onto the ground. Next I step on it, swear loudly as it breaks as I can never reseal the damn bottle. Flip top only is my strong advice.

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Beware, Card Shark

June 16, 2016
Entertainment/Media/Arts Friends Kids/Family/Relations
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Why...

Do I get roped into imaginary celebration days? Before I start this week's blog......I have a confession. For a few years I was the co-owner of the Hallmark Channel (Internationally) that I bought with a consortium from the eponymous card company still owned and controlled by the Hall family. There were some pretty freaky things that I learned about cards (before the digital universe blew a hole in Hallmark with Blue Mountain, Moo, Jibjab, Moonpig and Funky Pigeon). Firstly, was that the more Catholic or Protestant the country, the more cards it sent. You expect the major European countries, but right up near the top was the Philippines! Now for those of you who have never been there, I beg you, go.... I adore all of Asia (with a special love for Vietnam) but if you want to see a race in self-conflict you cannot beat the Philippines. Nothing on earth trumps Catholic guilt and boy, the Filipinos, with their lust for life and smorgasbord of sin, have a tsunami of things to feel guilty about.....and yet Christmas carols start blaring from the radio in September. They send a shedload of cards, several to the same recipient!!

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I name this child Hildergaard…. Whether she likes it or not.

February 4, 2016
Finance/Law Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Are parents so shortsighted in the naming of their kids? My father just managed to stop his Godchild being christened Helen Angela Parry. He pointed out she would forever be known as being accident prone as her initials would read Miss.HAP (She is happily in her sixties now and was christened Angela Helen). I know we are not allowed to say anything negative about St. David Bowie, but I see his film Director son did ditch the name his dad gave him, Zowie Bowie, to use instead the less dramatic Duncan Jones. Had the lad been born in Denmark, he would not have been allowed to have that name. An extraordinary by law in Denmark, states that the local authority has the right to name a child if the parent’s choice does not meet with their approval! “Nope, you cannot call him Apple. His name is… Adolf. Next please.” This near Orwellian control is not what you expect from a country that gave us Lego bricks (and leg-over with beautiful blond au pairs - nannies to you yanks). Although the Danes did of course cause a furor over the Mohammed cartoons controversy, I suspect they did not fear an economic backlash of a boycott of famous Danish goods…. Well at least Danish bacon and Carlsberg beer might not have been too worried.

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All posts in category: Kids/Family/Relations

Old Mother Hubbard

Why...

Love me, love my dog

Why...

It’s all about service

Why...

Whatever happened to the three martini lunch?

Why...

In the old days we cooked real food and made our own entertainment

Why...

Your grobulator is not in sync with your doo-hickey

Why...

Christmas is coming... Oy vey!

Why...

Summer’s over… time for a holiday!

Why...

When will we ever learn...

Why...

Just pack it in...

Why...

Holiday reading... nah this is not far-fetched enough

Why...

Listen to Einstein. May I present the all in one shredder, vacuum cleaner and sprinkler system...

Why...

Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow you will want to strangle the relatives

Why...

Ear ye, ear ye....

Why...

It's an AMENDMENT dummy. It's already been altered....

Why...

Beware! Hair... It is not Darwinian but it's certainly Machiavellian...

Why...

Drip drip drip, my patience is going down the drain......

Why...

Psycho taught me to fear the shower.......

Why...

Beware, Card Shark

Why...

I name this child Hildergaard…. Whether she likes it or not.

Why...