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Saturday, August 30, 2014

International spokesmodel for diabetic eye disease, Amelie Gardner, says "Get your eyes screened today!"...


Well, maybe not today, as we probably won't have any appointments. But soon, and on an annual basis.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

When Hello Magazine comes calling, we'll be ready...


To be honest, we're more Hello Kitty than Hello, but for what it's worth, that's the Gardner family relaxing together around a stylish leather & corduroy chaise longue. It's not ours, obviously. Although we are responsible for the broken glass bottle and numerous cookie crumbs which are just out of shot. In reality, that's a room at the Hilton hotel at Gatwick Airport. Which isn't ours either.

Yes, while other people are heading to Gatwick for a holiday in the sun, we went up there yesterday evening to visit my sister, who's currently employed nearby. I think she's working on the check-in desk at the south terminal. As it happens, we were lucky to get there at all, as yesterday was a day of minor disasters, and I spent most of it wondering if I'd crossed a gypsy whilst breaking thirteen mirrors under a ladder.

To be honest, I knew it was going to go badly from the moment that Amelie turned to me at lunchtime and said "I think today's our lucky day!". It all started from there really. I'd just finished work, and was walking along Eastern Road with Amelie and Toby, trying to persuade Amelie not to pick up the dead chick she'd just found under a tree, when we passed Chris Difford of Squeeze getting out of an Audi near Lidl. He's clearly a big fan of the Germans.

Naturally I had to explain to Amelie who the man was, but having done so, she exclaimed "Wow! I think today's our lucky day! First we found a chick, and now we've seen a famous person! Mummy's not going to believe it when we tell her!"

As it happens, Lisa had other things on her mind. We'd just delivered her to the Sussex Eye Hospital, where she'd been referred by her optician for slightly raised pressures. Her Mum has glaucoma, so they wanted her checked out. And it gave her the chance to act as a mystery shopper for my colleagues.

So I took the kids to Lidl, then the park, before returning home to check out Lisa's new Kindle Fire, which she'd just received for her birthday. And which won't work. At all. Other than as a paperweight. I spent an enjoyable hour going through Amazon's helpdesk articles, before confirming that one of the chips is definitely faulty and it will need to go back.

At which point, Lisa got home. She'd been diagnosed with ocular hypertension and told that she'll definitely have glaucoma within ten years. Which is not the kind of news you want on a Wednesday afternoon. We'll need to get the Kindle working pretty quickly, as she won't be able to see it in a decade. She's been given travoprost drops, in case Red Riding Hood comes round and accuses her of having big eyes, and told to go back in three months.

Unfortunately, that's only the half of it. The other half is that she spent the afternoon being a blinking nuisance to one of my colleagues by refusing to keep her eyes open for the OCT scan. Not only were they forced to do it three times, but they had to get a healthcare assistant to hold up her eyelids. And even then, they couldn't do it. To be honest, I should have seen this coming (through my wide-open unblinking eyes). I could wallpaper St Paul's Cathedral with photos of Lisa with her eyes closed. The fact is, they're rarely open. I think this is why she's always getting lost. She claims she doesn't know she's blinking, but in reality it's like she's permanently looking through a zoetrope.

So having ruined my colleague's day and brought shame upon my department, Lisa returned home, where I told her about her faulty kindle, waited for her to finish swearing, and then set off for Gatwick twenty minutes late.

Fortunately the journey went well. For about a minute. A mile from home, we encountered a fire at the top of Elm Grove, got stuck behind two ambulances and a fire engine, and were forced to make a diversion... right into a major traffic jam. It was shortly after that that my sat-nav died, taking with it all our directions, hopes and optimistic dreams of a nice evening with my sister.

Luckily I have the in-built navigational skills of a homing pigeon. Unfortunately we weren't going home. But despite that, I made it into darkest Crawley, and using my photographic memory of the two seconds I'd spent looking at a map the day before, combined with a bit of common sense and a lot of blind luck, we somehow stumbled across Big Sis's place of work, and welcomed her into the back of our car...

... where Amelie had just spilt a load of apple juice. I had to persuade my sister to sit on a paper bag for the duration of the journey back to her hotel. I'm hoping they do her laundry for free, as it was surprisingly ineffective.

Once at Sis's hotel, Amelie made herself at home...


... while Toby did some plane-spotting through the window...


He then knocked over one of those bottles, and sent broken glass flying across the room on a tidal wave of water.

I was tempted to go home at that point, but Lisa informed me that I'd have to take the children with me, so I decided there was safety in numbers, and opted to stay. It was a decision I mostly regretted.

On the plus side, the Garden Restaurant at the Hilton served us some very nice food...


On the downside, they had to supply us with crayons as a form of art therapy to help us through the trauma of Toby's behaviour. I'm telling you now, if you've never crawled across the floor of a hotel restaurant, picking up dozens of baked beans and sausages, whilst apologising to the diners who have just had forks thrown at them, then you clearly haven't lived. It's just a shame those people couldn't hear my apologies over the sound of Toby screaming. Not that he was unhappy. To be honest, he quite enjoyed wrecking the restaurant. But then he wasn't the one paying.

Still, it was nice to see Big Sis. We couldn't actually talk to her, as we had our hands full with the kids, but she certainly looked well from across the table. Although I spent most of the evening under it. To be honest, I thought we'd already put our friend 'C' off the idea of having children on Sunday, but by the time the desserts came last night, I think Sis was booking a sterilisation on her iPhone. Let's face it, if the Gardners carry on socialising, the human race will be extinct within a generation.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Ice cream burger, anyone..?


I'm lovin' it. I should also point out that Toby's similarity to Hitler owes more to his love of strawberry ice cream than his desire to exterminate millions. Although he'll bite your legs if you get too close.

Anyhoo, today is Lisa's birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MRS GARDNER!!!. I can't tell you how old she is, partly because it would be ungallant, but mainly because I can't count that high. As things stand right now, she's currently barricaded into the bedroom, attempting to enjoy some kind of lie-in, but the way Toby's banging on the door with a toy car and screaming "MUMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!" at about two hundred decibels, I'm not sure it's going to last much longer.

As for her top-secret surprise gift, I ordered that on the internet a couple of weeks ago, and it arrived while I was at work, in a large cardboard box emblazoned with giant lettering telling Lisa what it was. I've attempted to erase her short term memory with a series of mind-altering hypnosis techniques, but to be honest, I think she knows what's coming.

In the meantime, Amelie and I have laid the groundwork for our assault on the 2015 Great British Bake-Off, by hand-preparing some pain au chocolat for Lisa's breakfast. I took some advice from an experienced pastry chef (thanks, Stefan) and turned to the Jus-Rol school of bakery for the recipe. I opened the can and Amelie put in the chocolate sticks. It was a team effort, so we felt fully justified in eating half of them.

Anyhoo, the nice thing about reaching Lisa's jaw-dropping age is that you can look with satisfaction upon your beautiful daughter (who's often mistaken for your granddaughter), and feel pleased that she's inherited your looks...


That was yesterday afternoon down at Brighton Marina, where we had a very nice meal at Prezzo with our good friend 'C'...


She's recently been made redundant (which she was surprisingly happy about), and filled us in on the latest interview techniques currently being used by employers in London. Apparently she's been asked to take along an object which best describes her, then induct a professional actor, and answer questions posed by children. Which might make sense for a job at a stage school, but she'd actually applied to be a Business Manager. Ironically, I felt like handing in my notice on Friday afternoon, but I'm having second thoughts now.

Anyhoo, it was lovely to see 'C', and even lovelier to eat a toasted brioche with two scoops of gelato. Amelie got to grips with spaghetti...


... and 'C' expressed a lot of admiration for the level of patience Lisa and I display when our children are running amok in a restaurant. I told her that in reality, of course, it's not patience. We're just past caring.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

One day, son, all this will be yours...


But until the day you inherit my window cleaning round, there's always the male pattern baldness...


... and the look of a killer, obviously...


I've also been informed that I bear an uncanny similarity to these chaps...


Although my teeth have never been that good.

Anyhoo, at the risk of pointing out the obvious...


... I took Toby down to the marina before work yesterday, in an effort to soak up some rays and unwind with some serious sunburn. I wanted to look less like a hitman, and more like Mahatma Gandhi. Unfortunately, having managed to maintain a reduction in my facial numbness since Saturday, I think I did too much yakking yesterday afternoon, and have been slightly worse ever since. So I need to have a quieter day today.

Fortunately, I only need to work the afternoon. Unfortunately, Amelie's got a friend coming round at eleven. So I think I'll go in early...

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

I think if there's one thing stopping me from becoming Britain's next top model...


... it's the interference from my family...


And the fact that I can't afford a wig. Or a pair of stilts. Better lighting would be useful too. And to be honest, I struggle with the posing. I look like a pregnant cancer victim doing 'I'm a Little Teapot'.

But still, that's what a £5 suit looks like. I think I paid more for the tie. So I've definitely put the save back into Save the Children. I wonder if they sell facekinis..?

Monday, August 18, 2014

With just one week to go until Lisa's birthday, I've found her the perfect gift...


That's a state-of-the-art Facekini, an essential item of ladies clothing which, according to the BBC news today, has gone from being "the epitome of 'old woman style' in China" (their words, not mine) to the cutting edge of high fashion.

And Lisa's nothing if not fashionable. And old. By this time next week, I'll have her looking like this...


I'd walk a million miles for one of her smiles. Al Jolson, eat your heart out.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

As part of my long term recovery plan of peaceful relaxation, I decided to take Amelie to an indoor play centre yesterday. It just screamed convalescence. With the emphasis on the screaming. To be honest, having got there and been faced with the prospect of a hundred caged five-year-olds running amok on a climbing frame, I decided to wait in the car with the engine running.

Amelie had been invited to (another) party at Westows, but as luck would have it, we weren't obliged to remain on the premises, as long as we didn't hold the play centre liable if she died. So with a spring in our step, we headed into Hove to spend ridiculous amounts of money on the children.

We bought Toby's last pair of shoes at the end of May, and he's managed to wear them out within three months. We should let him travel by bus more often, instead of making him walk everywhere. So with Amelie busy scuffing her shoes on a range of giant slides, we ventured back to Clarks Kids to have Toby fitted for another pair. Amelie needed new school shoes, but we already had the measure of her, so were able to pick these up for only £34...


They've got flashing lights, which I think act as some kind of warning that you're spending too much.

As for Toby, the assistant measured his feet, which was slightly embarrassing as they smell like Italian cheese, and announced that he's a 6G. Which is the future of mobile phones. Having browsed the range of three styles available in his size, we eventually settled on these for £32...


According to the Clarks website, they have a "jet plane inspired casual style". Although putting a propeller on a jet plane is not so much casual as sloppy. Anyhoo, it's a pleasure to spend sixty-six quid just to shod my children for a few more months. I wonder if it's too late to adopt Zola Budd and Sandie Shaw..? Personally I think we should just buy one pair between the two of them, and teach them both to hop.

The good news, however, is that I'm far less expensive. Having got myself into debt for the sake of the kids, I decided to do even more to Save the Children, by visiting the charity shop around the corner. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a three piece suit (clothing, not furniture) from there, which had come from Stanley Ley, a legal outfitters in London, who make clothes for barristers and people with good judgement. Brand new, I wouldn't have got much change out of a thousand pounds, but I picked it up for ten quid. I'm saving it for when I next appear in court.

So yesterday, I decided to go back there to see if they had any more. Or failing that, a judge's wig. And sure enough, I managed to buy this...

It's a Romanian slave. He doesn't speak any English, but he's impeccably dressed, and works like a demon.

Well, ok, the bloke wasn't actually included. But I did buy the suit. It's from Marks & Spencer, made of pure Italian wool, features a cupro lining (don't ask), and retails for three hundred pounds. As it happens though, it was actually a different suit I was interested in. They also had an M&S Collezione suit in dark navy, which I tried on in the changing rooms, and eventually decided to buy. I don't actually wear suits very often, but when I do, I like to have a choice of about twelve, so it seemed like a reasonable purchase.

It was priced at £10, and with Lisa and Toby standing at the door of the shop, informing me that we had to go and pick up Amelie now, I suddenly spotted the suit on the left. It was the same price, same size, and even nicer. But I had no time to try it on. So I panicked. And in a fit of charitable goodwill, I decided to buy both.

While Lisa checked her watch, I rushed up to the till, handed the suits to the man, and as he looked at them admiringly, he said "Clothes are buy-one-get-one-free today. So that'll be ten pounds for the two".

You can't argue with value like that. So I didn't. Although I did feel slightly guilty. Still, I'm sure you can save a lot of children for ten quid. Not mine though, obviously. That would barely keep them in shoelaces.

So having dressed myself and the kids, I looked at Lisa in her sackcloth, and decided to take everyone to Portslade to have their hair done. And it was definitely money well spent. I couldn't actually get a picture of them all with their new hairdos, as Toby was busy looking for buses, Amelie was looking for flowers, and Lisa was looking to stay out of the photo...


But trust me, they all looked very nice. I'll be proud of them when they're visiting me in the poorhouse.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

It's all been downhill since the Devil's Dyke last weekend...


To be honest, I regret not asking Stefan, Andrew and Lisa to smile for the camera. We could have had a "Cheese!" and Am roll.

Ahem.

Anyhoo, it's been a slightly frustrating week of working, face-aching, and ordering conference supplies on the internet. I currently have 240 plastic folders sitting in our hallway, and I'm expecting a similar number of pads and pens to arrive next week. I've told Lisa they're for her birthday at the end of the month, so she's accepting the fact that she can't get to the front door past the boxes, on the assumption that she's getting a lot of presents.

As for my decrepit old body, I experienced a downturn in both my health and my mouth on Tuesday, so I spoke to my GP on Wednesday for reassurance that I wasn't dying from an acute cerebrovascular event, and then attended the Occupational Health appointment that was booked for me three weeks ago. That took place yesterday morning, and resulted in a nurse becoming the fourth medical expert in the past month to tell me that I'm overdoing it. She instructed me to take it easy. So I asked if she'd look after my children.

The good news is that having ignored her advice and headed straight up to Crowborough from the Occupational Health department, I arrived back in Brighton mid-afternoon, left work two hours late, and then took the kids to the park and to Lidl, where I found the perfect way to relax...


That's a Chinese-made model car kit, comprising 98 pieces of imitation Lego, and 15 pages of instructions featuring 28 separate steps. And you can buy one at Lidl for £3.99. I know, because I did.

To be honest, it was Amelie's choice (Toby got a £1.49 Hotwheels car), but having opened the box this morning and discovered that the contents looked less like a toy vehicle and more like a fatal car crash with a Haynes manual, I decided that the stated age of '4+' must be a misprint, and should read 41. So I put it together myself. Amelie was quite happy to watch, on condition that she got to add the stickers at the end.

And I have to say, I was very impressed. Lego kits that I had as a child consisted of about 6 pieces of plastic, providing about 5 seconds of fun. This was a genuine feat of engineering. I have no idea who managed to work out how those 98 pieces could be put together into the car above, but they deserve a Nobel prize. I enjoyed it so much, I had to restrain myself from heading straight back to Lidl for another one.

I did, however, make it as far as the internet, and the official BanBao website. And frankly the Danes should be quaking in their boots. The Chinese have got the world of plastic building bricks sewn up. They're even catering for Toby...


That bus is made up of 412 different pieces, and is aimed at children over 5. Although they could be crushed under the weight of the manual. Toby saw me looking at it online, and got so excited, he wouldn't let me visit any other websites. Every time I opened a new window, he grabbed the mouse, shouted "BUS!!!", and wouldn't stop screaming and pointing at the monitor until I got the picture back up. It made checking Facebook quite difficult.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

It's important in life to look where you're sitting...


We've lost three children that way, and quite a few toys.

Anyhoo, I don't know about you, but my idea of heaven is a view like this...


Not the patchwork of picturesque fields and stunning scenery stretching as far as the eye can see, but the sight of my kids disappearing into the distance. It's not only breathtaking, it's a blessed relief.

So with nothing better to do before Hurricane Bertha hit, I decided to take my family up to the Devil's Dyke yesterday. Toby's currently obsessed with public transport, and there's an open-top bus which goes up there throughout the summer, so it seemed like a good way to kill a few hours. And possibly a couple of children. Toby might look happy in this photo...


... but he was on the verge of falling over the side every time we turned right. I had to hold onto his reins to stop him slipping through the bars.

Anyhoo, if there's one thing history has taught us, it's that I enjoy the Dyke a lot more when I'm there with freaks, gimps and bearded ladies, so at the last minute, we decided to invite our good friends Stefan and Andrew to come with us. They're Toby's godparents, so if anyone should be there to witness him diving off the top of a bus and rolling down a mountain, it's them. They're the best people to pray for his soul.

We agreed that Lisa, Amelie, Toby and I would catch the open-top bus from the pier at 11:15am, and our friends would get on at the station a few minutes later. By some miracle, we got to the pier fifteen minutes early, which was handy as it gave us enough time to discover that the bus stop had been suspended due to road works, and we needed to go to the Old Steine instead. To be honest, it was a miracle we'd got there at all, as we'd asked for 'Network Saver' tickets on the bus into town, only for the bus driver to tell us he'd never heard of them. Lisa helpfully pointed out that they were advertised on his own bus, via a sign displayed about twelve inches from his face, but he maintained that in his seven years working for Brighton & Hove Buses, he'd never been asked for one, and couldn't sell them to us. So he let us ride into town for free. Ignorance has its advantages.

We were soon living the high life, in a fairly literal sense, at the top of a number 77 bus...


That photo was taken as we stopped at Churchill Square. Which is where our plans started to go wrong. At that point we were on the open-top bus with about six other people, but standing at the bus stop in Western Road were a group of day-trippers from the local language school. By the time we pulled away from the stop five minutes later, we were surrounded by foreign students, and the bus was completely full. We arrived at the station shortly afterwards, and had the pleasure of waving to Stefan and Andrew as the bus sailed past without stopping.

So it wasn't a good start. But with no choice but to sit tight, we journeyed up to the Devil's Dyke, with the students taking photos...


... Toby pointing at fields...


... and me enjoying the experience of looking over the walls of the rich people's houses in Dyke Road Avenue. To be honest though, no one enjoyed it as much as Toby. I've never seen anyone so excited by public transport. He spent the entire journey grinning like a loon and shouting "Bus!" (which, to the untrained ear, sounds more like 'dove')...


I think he was a bit disappointed when we got there and he had to get off. In fact, Amelie was disappointed too, as she told us the place looked boring, and there was nothing to do. I told her there was lots of space to run around, to which she replied "There isn't!". That was shortly after she'd taken this photo...


So I took her into the woods instead to climb some trees...


... while Lisa attempted to find some space to run around...


I don't think she succeeded. We did, however, do our best to grass up our own children...


... and before long, we stumbled across a man who'd arrived on the next bus and seemed to be looking for someone...


I think Toby was just below his eyeline.

It transpired that Stefan and Andrew aren't the kind of people to let a bus full of students stand between them and a good time, and had managed to battle their way to the front of the queue for the next one. Better still, they'd been let on the bus for free as the ticket machine wasn't working. Frankly, with their broken machines and ignorant drivers, it's a miracle the bus company makes any money.

Anyhoo, having rendezvoused with our friends, it gave Stefan, Andrew and Lisa the chance to recreate a page from the Ray-Ban catalogue by posing in their sunglasses...


Unfortunately they have a long way to go to match this masterful performance from the undisputed Queen of Summer Cool...


Thirty seconds later, she was reclining in short shorts...


Another two minutes and she'd have been topless and applying fake tan. And they say children grow up too fast these days. If her sunglasses weren't Hello Kitty, she could pass for sixteen.

Anyhoo, the six of us were soon enjoying a nice lunch at the Devil's Dyke pub, where I sampled a bit of wild boar, and Stefan continued his gastronomic quest to find the best pie in Sussex, before telling me about the time a bear ate his breakfast. That was before he moved to Brighton. I think it was somewhere in Kent. It was a very enjoyable meal, and only one of us fell asleep, which is always a sure sign of a good time. It also gave me the chance to discuss the poor diet of some of our patients, before ordering the biggest dessert on the menu. It was for research purposes only.

Walking out of the pub caused a slight problem, as Toby spotted a bus, and decided he'd much rather board that than hang about to have fun, but fortunately Stefan managed to persuade him to stay by showing him a good time on a hilltop...


... before demonstrating that his cheap phone from China takes better photos than my Japanese camera...


I really like that one. Obviously the skill and charisma of the models plays a big part in the success of any photo, so a lot of it is down to me, but even so, it's impressive.

Anyhoo, it wasn't long before Amelie was running towards a cliff edge...


... and Toby was running after her...


Her jacket's like a red rag to a bull. And when she took it off, she was friesian.

Fortunately we had a couple of strong-arm men to retrieve our children...


Unfortunately, if you look very closely at that photo, you might just be able to make out the kamikaze death plunge of a particularly determined bee, as it made a beeline an unswerving course towards Stefan's big toe, in an attempt to derail the rescue mission and claim Toby for its queen. Or something. Whatever the bee's true motive (and it's possible we'll never know), it stung Stefan on the toe as he walked up the hill, leaving his foot painful, red and swollen. Still, it could have been worse. It could have stung me.

So with Stefan on the verge of anaphylactic shock, and in dire need of antihistamines, we decided to make Toby's dreams come true by boarding the next bus home...


We'd lost Amelie by that point, but it was a pleasure to find Bono sitting in the back seats. To be honest, it was a miracle we still had Lisa with us too, as she'd popped into the toilets at the pub, and then struggled to find her way out. She'd been on the verge of phoning me after ten minutes trying to locate the exit.

So after a hugely enjoyable afternoon, we waved goodbye to the Devil's Dyke...


... and then waved goodbye to Stefan and Andrew...


All in all, it was a lovely day out. Other people take their kids to Thorpe Park or Drusillas at the weekend. I take mine up the nearest hill on a bus. But despite Amelie's initial impressions, I don't think we could have had a better time.

Saturday, August 09, 2014

Today, I have mostly been working out how to bury my kids in the woods...


I'm thinking some kind of shovel would be useful. Toby's looking a bit conspicuous.

Wednesday, August 06, 2014

I'm not saying Lisa's too organised, but...


She's already done the party invitations for Amelie's birthday in October. I'm helping to organise a national conference for September, and I haven't even printed the programmes yet. Or ordered the pens. The notepads need a bit of work too. To be honest, I haven't really got time to be writing this.

But the good news is that if I need a P.A. to get anything done, I've found a decent candidate in Lisa. Not only has she booked the church hall and printed the invitations, but she's signed up a dance party host and chosen the music. She was last seen comparing the prices of bunting on Amazon, and organising party bags. And I thought all she ever did was play Candy Crush.

Obviously I've had to remove the location of the party from the invitation above, as I was concerned it might go viral, and we'd end up with 30,000 people rioting past our flat and trying to eat all our sandwiches. Although if they were willing to do the conga, I'd be happy for them to attend. In reality, we're only inviting girls, as a kind of subtle riposte to the pernicious everyday sexism which is creeping through society. And because Amelie doesn't like boys.

To be honest, I'm surprised Lisa's managed to do anything at all today, as most people in her position would have lost the will to live. We took Toby with us to the dentist yesterday, shortly after seeing Lisa's Mum (and reading her mail), which meant that in addition to checking his teeth, the dentist was treated to our son's endless chatter about Nanny, buses and ducks. Not even having a gloved hand in his mouth was enough to stop him.

Having received a clean bill of oral health for all three of us, we then popped into the charity shop over the road, and while I was browsing the bermuda shorts, Toby was standing there with Lisa, talking about his Nanny. At which point the shop manager came over and said to him "Ahhh... is your Nanny lovely..? She certainly looks lovely..."

Whereupon we realised that she thought Lisa was Toby's grandmother. Interestingly, I found that a lot funnier than she did. In fact I had to insist we leave the shop pretty quickly. Partly because I was laughing so hard, but mainly because I didn't want to hang around and get called Grandad.

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

I might not have written much over the past week, but fortunately I know someone who has. Whilst the the ancient art of letter-writing remains lost to most people outside of Clarence House and Her Majesty's Prison Service, my 80-year-old mother-in-law is still flying the flag for people who aren't on Twitter and think e-mail is the first son of Abraham. So having watched a recent television news report about the effect of the warm weather on energy companies' profits, she felt moved to put pen to paper in the hope of expressing her heartfelt views as a consumer in a letter to British Gas...


Obviously, since Royal Mail put up the price of stamps, she's unlikely to be able to post it, but the sentiments remain valid all the same. I particularly like the bit about a donkey kicking the woman's brains in. I presume she means she's got her head up her own ass. Admittedly, I got a bit confused when my mother-in-law started talking about her daughter's three sons, but having put it down to either senile dementia or compulsive lying, I realised she was talking about Lisa's sister.

Anyhoo, I'm right behind her. Since lottery tickets doubled in price, I'm struggling to pay all our bills, so I'm certainly not going to shed a tear for British Gas. If it's getting warmer, they'll make more from air conditioning. I did feel a slight twinge of pity when I thought my mother-in-law was accusing them of having to keep warm in Morrisons, but I think that was more of a handwriting issue than a supermarket one.

Anyhoo, we'll see what response she gets from the fat cats of British Gas and their back-scratching mates in government. I'm quite looking forward to it. They'll probably cut her off.

All of that aside, I have actually done some writing in the past week. I've been working afternoons at the hospital since Thursday, but my mornings have been spent making this...


As the title suggests, it's my follow-up to this effort from last year. Stefan did the pictures and I did the words. The conference isn't for another seven weeks though, so I've made that image un-enlargeable to foil any attempts at industrial espionage. I don't want anyone stealing my spelling mistakes.

Admittedly, at more than 1500 words, it's not the snappiest of posters, but personally I just see that as increasing its potential market. It can be displayed anywhere that desperate people have time on their hands: waiting rooms, night-bus shelters, Guantanamo Bay. The possibilities are endless.

Anyhoo, it's good to make a splash...


And I have to grab the limelight away from my kids somehow.