All posts in category: Kids/Family/Relations

I will get arrested if I ask a stranger to stuff my pudding in her secret little container

December 20, 2019
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
View all 1 Comment

Why...

By a remarkable set of coincidences have I managed to get to 63 and never spent Christmas Day in the snow? On the only two times up to age 24 it snowed in the UK on Christmas Day I was out of the country. Every other year was spent there. No snow. My wonderful parents never got the ski-bug, so I actually never skied till I was 42! Once I started making a few bucks, my love of diving had me spend nearly every Christmas somewhere hot. So that was nearly 25 Christmases doused in Ambre Solaire with the odd one spent again with family and friends in snowless England. Now married to my American wife, we live in Malta where Christmas is usually around 20c/75f. Occasionally we spend it with her family in Old Town Alexandria, just outside Washington D.C. I missed a snowbound Washington Christmas, coz the planes from the UK were grounded due to bad weather or a strike or both and again when it snowed in the UK a few years ago we were in Washington enjoying a heat wave. So, I have given up.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

That’s a wrap

December 13, 2019
Friends Kids/Family/Relations Technology
View all 0 Comments

Why...

Is the ability to gift wrap beyond my and most men’s skill set? If there is one action, I find hypnotic at this time of the year, it is the origami-like skills of people in the gift-wrapping department... or my wife. They can wrap the most obstinate and obvious of shapes in a trice, disguising the original into something totally different; a starfish into a perfect cube, an umbrella into a triangle. My wife could wrap up Michael Angelo’s David and make it a perfect hexagon, with possibly a bow discreetly tied to his gentleman’s salami. Give me even a simple rectangle like a hardback book to wrap and it’s a disaster. Scissors never cut in a straight line, or snag and leave little waves of scrunched paper along the edge. Immediate ticking off from my scalpel perfect wife. Even if I trim again, the fold at one end will be pointy while the other end will be squared off. The top of the book will be face against the bottom of the join of the gift wrap paper. The finished object will have an excess of paper so large at one end that it will look like something is trying to escape from the book; like that little monster that popped out of John Hurt’s tummy in Alien.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

The Grand old Duke of York

Why...

Does arrogance always trump common sense? I rarely write about “moments du jour”, that is what editorial in journals and newspapers are for but... I have never watched anything so toe-curlingly embarrassingly thermonuclear-awful as Prince Andrew’s performance on his recent interview with the BBC. Forget about when Pat Nixon (wife of President Nixon and accused of taking bribes) cried on TV that she never had a fur coat, only a good Republican tweed one, or Jimmy Swaggart blubbing from the pulpit begging forgiveness and swearing he is off hookers and cocaine for life...until the following week. It made Sarah Palin’s comment that she knows about Russia coz she can see it from Alaska look positively electrifyingly brilliant. Prince Andrew’s performance was a televisual feast of what not to do. No sympathy for victims, laughable excuses for staying in Epstein’s house for five days, just to tell him their friendship is over, that our hero can’t sweat from a condition from being shot at in the Falklands War, he never noticed girls running about any of Epstein’s houses because he never notices staff. The problem is he is just so honourable! Andrew has managed to take what was a bubbling under story into being front page news for five days worldwide. 6% of viewers believed him! He has lost a ton of sponsors to his charities, asked to not be Patron anymore to others and as I write agreed to step back from Public Life for the time being. Furthermore, he has pushed the FBI closer to feeling his collar, all because his self belief rode roughshod over other people’s advice. His actual defence is his arrogance and self belief mixed with a confidence he can wing an interview against a real pro. Prince Andrew is his own perfect storm. An IQ rating the same number as his shoe size but thinks he is the smartest man in the room All the on screen charm of a traffic warden with halitosis and as pompous as a Maitre D in an overpriced restaurant Non-existent sympathy for Epstein’s real victims. Indeed he is trying to make himself the victim! I suspect when Prince Charles eventually takes over, a ten year posting to Tristan de Cunha (a remote British atoll in the South Atlantic) will be next on Andrew’s CV.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Where there’s a will, there’s a... relative

November 8, 2019
Friends Kids/Family/Relations Politics Sex Uncategorised
View all 0 Comments

Why...

Did God invent money? To keep you in touch with your children.

It’s a sad truth that money trumps politics, religion or sexual orientation as the biggest buster-upper of families.

Here I stick my hand up and admit in my own family if mention is made of wills and inheritance it’s like nails down a blackboard.

Before we get personal, let me start with the tax logic... or utter lack of it. If you’ve had your nose to the grindstone, worked hard and paid your taxes, why do you get taxed again gifting it to whomever you please. Now I know in the UK there is a daft provision that if you live for seven years after the bequeath then what you bequeath is tax free. But why? What cockamamie logic is that?

When you are on the last lap of the race of life and you need money to look after yourself and lessen the burden to others... sorry, you must give it all away to lessen the inheritance tax bill. Either you live in poverty in your last years or rely on those you gave your money too will look after you. Either has the potential for disaster.

Next. The taxman's beady little eyes are more shortsighted than a mole. They value an Estate at time of death, not at the grant of probate. Mad. Let me give a simple example. Let’s say you sadly popped your clogs before the crash of 2007 when stocks were high but your wife who achieves probate afterwards when stocks were often more than halved; she would find there was very little left after the taxman had his Jaws like bite.

Then there is probate itself. Legal constipation at its finest. Even simple probate takes a year and more complex ones taking up to five times that.

Once you have got through all this... the legal challenge. A minefield and the explosive device upon which many a family have trodden and blown themselves to smithereens.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

I want to determine Government Policy... right after I’ve tidied my room and finished my homework

Why...

Should a 16 year-old get the right to vote? Winston Churchill once said the biggest argument against democracy is to hold a five minute conversation with a voter. God knows what he would have said if confronted with an acne-infested child whose only experience of voting is on Big Brother or X factor! There is good reason to keep the vote at 18. It’s called maturity and experience. The same reason in the UK you have to be 18 to:

Buy cigarettes, rolling tobacco and cigarette papers
Buy alcoholic drinks in a pub or a bar
Buy fireworks
View, rent or buy an 18 rated film
View, rent or buy pornographic material that does not contravene UK obscenity laws
Place a bet in a betting shop or casino
Get a tattoo
Join the Army and fight in conflict
Drive a car
Fly a plane

At sixteen all you get to do legally is shag, stop going to school, and so remain an unemployable moron, and ride a moped. And now there is demand these people get to vote!? At 16 boys are just packets of testosterone ready to challenge any status quo and girls often naive romantics; both sets are naturally drawn to the idealism of socialism (often pushed by zealot teachers) without the knowledge that it has failed in just about every country to embrace it. Hence, Socialists are always eager to lower the vote to people 99.9% of whom pay no taxes and have about as much experience of the real world as Paris Hilton’s chihuahua.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

No, it’s not an illness nor a condition... it’s lack of self-control

October 18, 2019
Entertainment/Media/Arts Fasion Health & Beauty Finance/Law Kids/Family/Relations Sex Sport
View all 0 Comments

Why...

Is everything bad that happens to young people not their fault or beyond their control? However, if anything good happens, especially by blind stupid luck (yes, you lottery winners & Love Island/ Big Brother) it is all down to destiny and a well-deserved reward from society ‘for being me’... especially if I am lazy and lack a nanogramme of skill. We have created a generation that is obsessed with the self and values just existing as a reason to enjoy rewards, regardless of any talent (a bit like the succession in the monarchy....). When growing up, my generation wanted to have a talent to allow us to be an astronaut, athlete, Rock God, movie icon, Wall Street Titan or porn star. Ambition was about having talent. A recent survey showed that the most popular ambition now is to be a reality TV star; i.e. not bother with learning to fly, run, play an instrument, sing, act, count or keep a hard on for a day! Basically, you just permanently shop, make vacuous statements and put your name to a line of cosmetics to get paid buckets of money. If you have butt cheeks between which you could park a Harley Davidson, even better.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Sorry. Your toddler ain’t Einstein

Why...

I understand no parent is going to say to their friends that “My child is as thick as a whale omelette”………… But when pointing to their offspring gurgling “car” while pointing at the family pet, why do parents always say “Isn’t he lovely? But did you know little Tommy is very advanced for his age…….” Just because your nipper can insert a spoon of apple puree into his mouth instead of an ear, does not necessarily mark him out as a future brain surgeon. There is a long way to go from sitting in your own pooh to sitting in your own Porsche.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Cover up! ...My wife, the sunscreen Nazi

Why...

Does my wife insist I face the summer’s rays, either fully covered up or looking like an animated meringue… a white blob completely covered in cream? As I watch Sky News today from Malta, I see the UK is nudging 40c (104 Fahrenheit). My fellow countrymen are slowly melting whilst watching their new Prime Minister inflict verbal assault and battery on the Leader of the Opposition in his first Prime Minister’s Question Time. I note none of the MP’s gathered are smothered in sun cream despite it being hotter than Beelzibub’s underpants. Clearly their wives have never met mine.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

If you don’t want to do it, screw up badly ... once

Why...

Do people moan about doing things they hate? Don’t like washing up? Drop a few tea-cups or leave a couple of cornflakes welded to a plate. Hate spring cleaning? Dribble drops of eggshell enamel onto the dog’s head. My father, when asked to change his first nappy (and they were toweling ones back in the day) gagged at the smell then promptly flushed waste and nappy down the loo. He blocked the drains for an entire apartment block and was forbidden from ever changing my diapers again. Result! At school I found playing cricket matches a waste of four sunny afternoon hours. Dragooned into playing against another school because I was a half decent bowler, I swapped the ball for a tomato. Splat! Cricket whites covered in red spots. I was called to the housemaster, told I was a disgrace to the school and as punishment I would never be allowed to play cricket again. It took the acting skills of De Niro to look thoroughly upset, rather than punch the air for joy.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Big brother is watching... while serving you bacon and eggs

January 10, 2019
Animals/Pets Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
View all 0 Comments

Why...

Do I get paranoid about waiters who hover and watch over me?

We have just returned from an exercise in fear that my wife called a holiday in Nepal. Somewhere around 50 years old I turned from someone happy to do a handstand on the top of the 50 metre/160 ft high Roman Aqueduct The Pont du Gard to becoming afraid of heights. When I was in my twenties, before a litany of accidents, I was scared of nothing. Fall off a horse a few times and suddenly it gets harder to get back in that saddle. Therefore the knocks and bangs from reckless adventuring in my life has annoyingly driven fear through experience into my psyche. The self preservation instinct has turned me from Leo the Lion into The Cowardly Lion.

Nevertheless I was always told to face down your fears... so not to be outdone by my fearless (and younger) wife, I gritted my teeth through a helicopter ride across Annapurna range and a plane ride to Mount Everest! Added to this was a jump off Mount Annapurna in a hang glider and a trip on the world’s fastest (120KPH 80 MPH) and longest (2km 1.2mile) zip line. Toss into that an encounter with several rhinos and a tiger... all without having to change my underpants.

My wife on the other hand thought all this a hoot and in every photo is seen grinning like Jack Nicholson in One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest while I had the fixed manic smile when Jack played the Joker in Batman. I have tried to explain to her to make the most of it as soon, she too will be grabbed by old age jitters.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Eat drink and be merry ... for tomorrow you can diet!

Why...

Is every avenue of pleasure depicted as a path to Armageddon? This time of the year I must admit I cram too much food and drink into my stomach, but does this really mean the grim reaper will be sharpening his scythe? Christmas overindulgence needs to be balanced with a feeling of wellbeing, a grudging love of fellow man and slipping a few extra £,$,€ into the collection box. But happiness is not a terminal disease. Nevertheless, TV presenters wearing Elf ears or Santa hats, give out dire warnings of all the drawbacks to the holiday season. Frankly if I live a couple of years longer without ever having eaten a chocolate eclair or enjoyed (in my bachelor days) a memorable Christmas Eve in Manila in the warm embrace of a pair of Air Stewardesses and some wakky baccy, I think I would have missed out. As Hunter S. Thompson said, “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

?You can’t always get what you wa-ant ... ?but if you try sometimes, ?you just might find You get what you need?

December 14, 2018
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life
View all 0 Comments

Why...

Do we let the little green-eyed monster ruin our lives?

Jealousy is a one-way emotion which if you can turn into a two way one can become a source of deep satisfaction.

No doubt at Christmas you are a little irked that Aunt Lottie saw fit to give you a pair of socks printed with reindeer’s antlers but gave her other favourite nephew a Rolex.

True, but in exchange for the Rolex would you really want to be cousin Nathaniel? No. So let it go. You can always get your own back in subtle ways; like asking Aunt Lottie for dinner and sitting her next to someone with opposing political views. Then just serve her something she hates, sit back and watch the show.

I was never a great athlete at school and was more than envious of the sporting prowess of some of my peers until time for the annual Crick race, a 19-mile run that only the very fittest were allowed to enter. It was a huge badge of honour to be selected... in my view to run until nearly dead.

My crocodile tears at being told I had not made the cut were soon dried as I watched the runners cross the finishing line with pain and exhaustion etched over their chiseled features. One up for the couch potatoes!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Old Mother Hubbard

September 13, 2018
Animals/Pets Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life
View all 0 Comments

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.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

It’s all about service

July 13, 2018
Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life Travel/Nature
View all 0 Comments

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.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

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

June 8, 2018
Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life Sex
View all 0 Comments

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).

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Christmas is coming... Oy vey!

December 21, 2017
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Sex
View all 0 Comments

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!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Summer’s over… time for a holiday!

September 14, 2017
Animals/Pets Friends Kids/Family/Relations Sex
View all 2 Comments

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.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

When will we ever learn...

July 13, 2017
Animals/Pets Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
View all 0 Comments

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!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

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.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

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

June 16, 2017
Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life Politics
View all 0 Comments

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?

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Subscribe to my weekly posts

Archives

Recent Posts

Categories

What drives you crazy?

Want to know when I publish the next blog?

All posts in category: Kids/Family/Relations

I will get arrested if I ask a stranger to stuff my pudding in her secret little container

Why...

That’s a wrap

Why...

The Grand old Duke of York

Why...

Where there’s a will, there’s a... relative

Why...

I want to determine Government Policy... right after I’ve tidied my room and finished my homework

Why...

No, it’s not an illness nor a condition... it’s lack of self-control

Why...

Sorry. Your toddler ain’t Einstein

Why...

Cover up! ...My wife, the sunscreen Nazi

Why...

If you don’t want to do it, screw up badly ... once

Why...

Big brother is watching... while serving you bacon and eggs

Why...

Eat drink and be merry ... for tomorrow you can diet!

Why...

?You can’t always get what you wa-ant ... ?but if you try sometimes, ?you just might find You get what you need?

Why...

Old Mother Hubbard

Why...

It’s all about service

Why...

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

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...