11

Now this is worth building a shed for:

11 - the beautiful game

Butter Cutter

Is it just me, or is there something decidedly exciting about cutting a fat slice of butter off a pack with the wrapper still on?

I am of course willing to accept that it might just be me. Sorry for your time. Carry on.

Homeward Bound

As an appendix to my previous post, bravo!

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone
"Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn’t strike me as that daring, either. Isn’t New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It’s not like we’re living in downtown Baghdad."

Some thoughts

Today I was idly flicking through some RSS feeds trying desperately to catch up with the 834...835...836 posts I had missed. This caught my eye and I lobbed it at Instapaper to read later:

Psychology Today: A Nation Of Wimps

A short time ago, having finished dinner, I was perusing bookofjoe which threw up this:

Thudguard Infant Safety Hat

I mean, really?

As a father I find myself lurching inside, heart-in-mouth as Freyja hurls herself across the living-room/garden/stairwell yet again. But she manages to miss all the hard/pointy/sharp stuff with an insouciance born only of youth. I know I'd hate her to misjudge it and meet the still-about-to-be-painted skirting boards at pace. But I'd hate it more if she grew up not knowing what it was like to learn that life has 'bumps' and she needs to develop the skills to deal with them. And yes, I'll always be there when she needs me, but it's up to her to decide. With #2 almost certainly days away, she's going to have to learn to share a whole lot more; be that our time, our affection, our attention or our biscuits.

I'm utterly besotted with my family and completely up for the challenge of guiding her and the rest of our brood into, I hope, wonderful people who make judgements and mistakes but at the same time learn perseverance and independence. It's at times like this that you start to realise what your own parents went through and if I can be half as good as them, I reckon I'll be on the right track...

TheOne, TheOnly, TheO

We may have been beaten on the night, but I could watch this forever:



Brings a lump to the throat. Simply brilliant.

I Have Nothing To Say...

...that wouldn't be termed 'partisan', 'biased' or' sour-grapes' by many people who have not set foot on the left wing of a snowy pitch on a Sunday morning in February against a fat pub team of middle-aged cloggers from the arse-end of Tadcaster. I have, however, so I shall say what I like :)

Whilst tonight was one of the most entertaining games of football I have witnessed for a long time, the decision of the referee to award a penalty for the alleged 'tug' on Babel was an utter disgrace. I ask anyone who may have stumbled across this corner of the internet to look at the first leg and the Hleb incident on 65 mins (no penalty given) and then examine tonight's Babel incident on 85 mins (penalty given) and explain to me in no uncertain terms what the rubbery fuck was the difference? Eh? Nothing. Oh, apart from the referee. Either it is or it isn't a penalty. Yes or no. Black or white. Pinky or Perky. Cheech or Chong. Randall or Hopkirk (Deceased), etc...

For most of the game it was impossible to split the teams. I was discussing this at length with some Liverpool fans in the pub when the penalty as awarded; even they had the good grace to be embarrassed. The Guardian MBM commentary described it as "not entirely clear-cut". That should be in the dictionary under L (for Liberal). I know I'll almost certainly have calmed down by tomorrow but for now the result has a nasty aftertaste. Admittedly, us taking the lead on 13 minutes forced Benitez into a reluctant attacking formation. Perhaps we would have been better off scoring in the 89th minute. Now, for the purist, an almost certainly dour Liverpool-Chelsea semi-final does not fill the heart with glee. Oh well. Penalties, anyone?

Anyway, I keep reminding myself that Arsene told us in August that this team was "not ready". Having been top of the league and in with a shout of the semi-finals of Europe's 'super-league', all us Gooners begged to differ. Maybe he was right. Bring on 2008-09?And Theo...

I Like To Moov It

So you know Lego and Meccano, right? And you know how kids can get a bit bored with their toys and bikes and scooters and that. Well...

Make It, Moov It!

Sorted.

Available June 2008; get to it, mens.

April (Snow) Showers

The barmy weather continues - is someone playing 'cloud bingo'? We've had tic-tac sized hailstones, full-on thunderstorms, umbrella-busting gale force winds and now 3 - three! - inches of snow, all in the last month. Still, we wrapped Freyja up well and lobbed her into the garden for her first real lark about in the white stuff. She absolutely loved it.

Cheered me up after Arsenal's (second) feeble 1-1 draw with the Scousers. We've been linked with Quaresma again, who is worth ~£5m of anyone's money; come on Arsene, get the chequebook out...

Muxing It

Rampaging through your bandwidth like an RIAA spokesperson on crystal meth, it's Muxtape. Everyone loves making compilations, don't they? Here's what I had lying around at work on the top sekrit (shhhh!) Z: drive...

Enjoy it while it lasts :)

I Just Found My New Email Sig