” Education, Education, Education” Tony Blair was prone to hurumph when we still believed, and you know he may have had a point. Not a coherent policy obviously but his point was that “kids are our future” could have had a slightly deeper meaning than appealing to core voters and being the right size for a soundbite. Then again, maybe not.

Not our kids, anyway.

Random and Verbal have taken their new playroom hostage and parental negotiation has had little part to play. They are five and seven respectively so it’s not like this mini rebellion to authority should come as any suprise is it? We’re lucky to have got this far.

Here’s their version of the constitution (since as a country, we never bothered to create one) and it’ really rather sweet.

The spelling isn’t good. Neither is the punctuation and the less said about their inability to conjugate the verb, the better. This has brought a rye smile to us as all powerful parents but guess what? We do respect it, knock and even take off our shoes and in return the room stays amazingly tidy. Compare this to the rest of the house where if I’ve not tripped over a roller skate or been decapitated by a skipping rope, I’ve assumed we’ve been burgled, this is a major step forward.

So no shoose and please nock before entering – that’s me told then.

.. Yes honestly I’m surrounded by women. But regrettably not in a petal laying, grape peeling, brow wiping kind of way. That fantasy remains sadly unfulfilled and it seems rather unfair that’s this situation has only finally unfolded so late in my life. My God, when I was studying for a degree in Computing when we had 4 women, 2 not sure and 1 definitely not in a student population of 250, I’d have happily hacked out a kidney for such an opportunity..

This has come about after a reorganisation (I wanted to say at this point that our team motto is Reorganise now! Create the illusion of progress” but since my boss reads this and cravenly I’m actually in agreement of the latest shuffle, I’ll not. Oops, bit late now) which redistributed bodies in a kind of random Brownian motion except with politics replacing physics and proper cat fights over window space.

I know you’re keen to know how this has affected me. You’re not? Well I’m disappointed “ you should know by now that’s what’s coming. So on the surface, hardly at all, our little enclave occupies a rather sought after corner of the top floor with splendid views of the London Eye (if we crane our necks) and the never ending building works opposite (if we don’t). Somehow we’ve managed to scam a wobby table, a couple of extra chairs and a large whiteboard (another motto; He who fails to clean the board shall suffer painful death by paper shredder“) so it’s no surprise that there are many who covet our comely corner.

However, the musical chairs of the office move has passed us by except to usurp our immediate colleagues and replace them with almost infinite number of the fairer sex. This presents us with a problem. We’ve passed many pleasant hours debating Sven’s midfield formation, the importance of powertools in a non secular society and the most effective root vegetables for farting (sub divided by volume, key changes, octival offset and lumpiness). Almost all of these discussions have been improved by proper swearing and the odd non politically correct comment. Odd as is every other word. This clearly is going to have to change and already I’m suffixing slam down conversations with the helpdesk using the fuck pseudonym poot�?. And rather than referring to an esteemed team member as a brainless dickhead who couldn’t find his arse with an atlas AND a copy of gray’s anatomy�?, we’re reduced to the rather old school Damn His Eyes�?. It lacks a certain something.

It’s a trial I can tell you.

And it get’s worse. Oh I can see you shaking your head and mouthing Poot, Damn His Eyes, he’s nothing more than a Charlatan’s shadow of a gentleman” “ well read on, dear reader, read on.

At one point in the unpacking process, one of this myriad collection of besuited equality warriors exclaimed with some excitement Panic over, I’ve found the Xmas decorations�” Ladies turn your back for a second WHAT THE FUCK?”. Christmas decorations? You may as well garnish the hanging scaffold with a bit of holly. Jesus (point taken), come end of term in December, all we want to do is get drunk, avoid the office, and try oh so hard not to amusingly photocopy our arse in what can only be thought of as a career limiting move.

Pretty soon it’ll be chintz monitor covers and conversational gambits involving potty training, the calorific value of fish paste and below ankle fetishes. Although hopefully not at the same time. The last one scares me the most; straight blokes tend to own three pairs of shoes, a sturdy set of sensible blacks for work, a pair of trainers for 5-a-side football and almost anything else and a pair of sandals “ annually retrieved from the dusty innards of the wardrobe “ for going on Holiday. This seems to be exactly the same amount that most women buy in a week, all of which have been specifically designed for the single purpose of murdering an innocent foot. And even when they talk about Men’s shoes, I’m wandering barefoot in the land of Imelda Marcos. I mean what the hell are brogues” Anybody?

There’s a level of background chatter that may push me over the edge. Remember Michael Douglas in Falling Down”. It’ll be like that only I’ll find a proper use for those Christmas decorations especially the spiky tree.

Through the safety of the Internet Looking Glass, I’ve insulted the Scots, The Welsh, Car Drivers, Fellow Cyclists, Scooter Riders, Folding Bicycle Misfits, Americans, train operatives, trains, train companies, 4x4s and Ken Livingstone. Now my rantings have encompassed the stereotyping of my female colleagues.

But look on the bright side, I’m going to hell anyway, you’ve only been watching.

Since I’ve been reduced to quoting rubbish formulaic TV based nonsense, here’s another: Life Laundry�?. That phrase pretty well encompasses the transformation of my old office to the kids playroom, except with far more angst and less floppy hair.

My approach to room clearing follows a basic principle that if an object “ whatever it’s value “ hasn’t been used for a period of twelve months or more, it becomes charity or skip food; no arguments. This clashes somewhat with my wife’s alternate hypothesis that at some undefined point in the future, this pointless trinket may well hold the key to world peace. Kleptomania is a harmless enough hobby I suppose (hello Pot, Kettle calling) but it feels like we’re preparing for a nuclear winter. We’re barely staying afloat in a sea of the unnecessary and the more useless and cluttering the item, the more we argue over its’ efficacy.

Here’s a sample conversation to illustrate the point:

Me: We already own four phone charges and this one waves dismissively at electrical ner’do’well doesn’t even fit anything we still own�?

Her: We can Ebay it then�?

Me: On the surface, that’s a rational argument but you and I both know that it will still be here in a years time, secreted away in a forgotten corner waiting for me to tread on it, because something more important got in the way of selling it. Like anything�? And breathe.

Her �?Well if you think that, you can sell it yourself�?

Me: I don’t want to do it remember? I’m all for skipping it, that’s its’ natural habitat now, let’s put it out of its’ misery. At no point is keeping it my problem�?

Her: But it still works, it’d be a waste to just chuck it away�?

Me: Throws hand theatrically in the air and sighs heavily Fine! Whatever! But if it’s still here in a month, then you have to eat it�? Crosses arms, Mexican Stand off

Thankfully we have ACAS personified in that much maligned room; the loft. Should there ever be a world shortage of useless shit we’ll be in the money but I fear for the roof.

Still, after this small fracas lasting a only couple of days, it’s worth noting that the kids love their new playroom almost as much as I love my new office “ the reason is similar; none of us have to tidy our room up and we get to keep important stuff out of sight of the hoover. That’s not the same as the kleptomania described above in case you were in any way confused.

We’re reacquainted ourselves with much of the house previously buried under Doll’s Houses, Decapitated Barbies and randomly stuck stickers. At one point I discovered something that may have once been a carbon based lifeform but was now essentially coal. I wonder if we’re missing a cat?

The much ignored fact that they kids want the playroom painted in a contemporary style known as beery vomit�? is really a small price to pay to getting a bit of our life back.

See what I did there?

Last week I wrote this:

Normality will resume; flags will quietly be binned, Tim’ll lose at tennis, Andrew will lose at Cricket and the Rugby team will forget that once they were quite good”

Do I get a prize? No? So it seems me and the other 10 million people who predicted the same will be disappointed. Still we can at least assuage our disappointment by drinking deep from the fountain of I told you we were rubbish“. If it’s good enough for the media, it’s good enough for me.

Watching the game, buffered from its’ awfulness by a bucket load of beer, it rapidly became clear that neither side deserved to progress further. The Portuguese play in a playground style of mum, he’s hit me, he did, he did, he did, honest” and after one particularly petulant incident, I fully expected them to collectively blub, before taking their ball home. Our team was separated from greatness by exactly the same gap which separate the hype from reality. For the first sixty minutes, we seamlessly transferred our dreadful, laboured form from the first four games into this one. And then their was the small matter of Shrek and the Groinal stamping. For which he was given his marching orders.

I dunno. In my day, playing at a level which generally involved drinking before the match, an opposing defender attempting to violently harvest your bollocks through a scything challenge, grudgingly engendered a little professional respect. Aye, he was hard bastard but fair” you’d wince while examining the stud marks marching up the inside of your thigh.

Still with Rooney in the changing rooms presumably laying into the kit man or chewing on the benches, those left on the pitch did their best. It was almost enough with a Canadian who thinks he’s a German playing with a verve and passion that best defines an Englishman. I know I said he was rubbish but this was merely a clever motivational strategy.

And then the inevitable penalties. Martial law was declared in our house and a media blackout followed in the barn. Children were banished as were any electronic devices that could broadcast the inescapable nay predestined outcome. For want of anything better to do, my time was occupied polishing a set of wheels and pretending I didn’t care. When I finally returned to the house and the glum faces surrounding the TV, I found I still did.

Everyone knows sport is just nationalism dressed up in a tracksuit but we’ve been so comprehensively stuffed this last couple of weeks, we’re reduced to supporting a Scotsman. Oh he pretends to support the English and talks of British Sport” but the United Kingdom was just a crappy marketing Brand nearly four hundred years ago, and it’s fooled almost no one since. You only have to listen to the second verse of the national anthem to see that.

Maybe we should change the Anthem to something more uplifting. Land of Hope and Glory perhaps although Land of Mope and Snory seems more appropriate (the first post result, the second post result hangover). Or maybe we should just set more realistic expectations. No, /Sven mode/ *sorry, sorry, sorry*, I’m just being silly.

Still, it’ll be good to see the end of the flags though. Patriotism is one thing; exploding children cooked in the back of window locked cars is quite another.

UPDATE: So Murray lost. Never mind eh, misery loves company. I have it on good authority that we’re in with a sniff of a medal at the under 13 allcomers tiddywinks competition.

Sherlock Holmes used to talk of a 4 Pipe Problem? when pontificating on a complex mystery involving an overgrown dog, a villainous character superbly defined by the simple culinary definition of a bad egg? and the odd dead body. From this our hero pulled together the wispy threads of evidence before delivering the guilty verdict with hardly a tip of his ever present deerstalker hat.

My life isn’t as complex as that but roll forward a hundred years and watching the England football team becomes a four beer problem.

Continue reading “Watching England.” →

From the times today

Well that’s university funds well spent. Did they go visit these turretless tank driver’s co-workers and friends to discover if they were arrogant wankers as well? Actually they needn’t bother; I’d wager they are based on no research nor statistical corroboration other than bouncing off these pointless symbols of supposed status and actual twatiness.

Jeez, that must be most pointless piece of research since men would rather watch football and drunk beer than discuss shoes?. It’s put me in mind of the IG’s.

That’s warm if you live down south and wet if you venture into the Penninian rain shadow that is Manchester. My arrival at the city limits triggered a downpour that if not exactly biblical certainly made you wish for rubber shoes and some anti-smiting cream. Having covered the hundred and seventy miles from home to Manchester in just over two hours, it only took me a further hour to find the hotel.

That’s the problem with technology you see. My PDA/TomTom thing reverted to the ground state of anything running WinDoze which is a blue screen, an unhelpful error message and the occasional apologetic electronic chirp. The backup plan of a printed map with detailed directions would have worked so much better had I completed the simple sequence of print, collect and carry. One out of three isn’t bad I suppose.

After attacking the city in a one man pincer movement, the Hotel appeared (well not exactly appeared as teleportation is still a young science) all concretey and welcoming out of the gloom. I then handed my car keys to a man I’d never met who aside from a Liverpool accent and a pair of Winkle Pickers looked every inch the valet parker they’d promised. I never expected to see the car again but my faith was partially restored in humanity the following morning when – aside from a tired looking interior obviously the result of a night’s hard taxi-ing – the vehicle was returned with the same number of wheels, and hardly any new “custom bodywork” as I like to think of the litany of every increasing dents.

The hotel was another one of those contemporary ones. You know, sink on the outside of the bathroom, remainder of bathroom designated a “wet zone” meaning everything you own disappears underwater and you must gain rapid surfing skills to remain upright on the way back into the bedroom. There was a mirror in the shower for shaving that had it not steamed up within one millisecond of the water being turned on may have had some possible use. The whole place was designed by a women because one of the few joys of hotel occupation was cruelly denied me.

I speak of leaving the toilet seat up. Being surrounded on three sides by women in my family, it’s a guilty pleasure not oft repeated. The sense of power being able to stumble into the bathroom unencumbered by difficult aspects of motor control involving seats and er, other things. But no, the flusher was cunningly hidden behind the seat meaning short of punching a hole in the ceramics, there was no way to have the whole seat up experience.

I will obviously be writing to the manager to complain in the strongest possible terms.

I didn’t bother with the in room dining on the grounds that there is only so much lettuce a man should see in his lifetime. And one day, I’ll rediscover the knack of sleeping in hotels. Last night failed to blaze that trail of discovery sadly.