there's no unrest in this country December 29, 2004  

A good Christmas was had by all, particularly Rebecca. From her point of view, of course, it was a random day during which she was given multiple presents for no obvious reason. From our point of view, it was a great chance to give her lots of toys and suchlike, most of which she promptly ignored in favour of the wrapping paper. I'm happy to report that after we removed the wrapping paper from her, she's taken to her new toys with a vengeance, and some of the more delicate are already taking on that happy battered look. Many thanks to all (and my word, there were a lot of you!) who gave Rebecca a Christmas present. An excellent day for all, and we've nearly finished all the leftover food - woo hoo!

Have just spent a morning playing with Rebecca (and with her helping me put up stair gates), I can report a few things.

Rebecca really likes the piano break 2/3 of the way through Is There Anybody Out There? by the Bassheads. Actually, she's quite partial to a lot of early '90s house and techno - I think it's the simple, repetitive loops that appeal. And c'mon, it's not like most of the rave scene had lyrics that were particularly more complicated than "If You're Happy And You Know It". She's also coming along very well in learning the various dances for songs. I'm particularly proud with her progress in the famous dance "Big Fish, Little Fish, Cardboard Box".

She is also very fond of the classic game, Baby Juggling. This involves either throwing her up and catching her, or swinging her around upside down. She giggles, chortles, and generally has a great time. As a friend of ours once said, "It's a fine line between roughhousing with your child and Shaken Baby Syndrome".

Rebecca is fascinated with the stair gates. This extended to attempting to shake the bars in classic "I didn't do it, copper, you got the wrong geezer, you slag!" fashion - before I'd bolted them in place. Whoops! Thankfully, Daddy has very quick reactions, and I caught the bars just prior to them falling down the stairs.

Heather's currently off on a bike ride, getting in the winter miles in preparation for next year. I did a quick 20 yesterday morning, and am currently aiming at spending a happy half hour with next year's Audax UK Calendar to get myself sorted out for the new season. Should be a good one. I'm aiming to knock off a 200k ride (in 14 hours, which should be doable) prior to leaving the UK - 200k is the official distance for a randonneé, and it's on my goal list for next year. Since my longest official day in the saddle is about 145k or so (85 miles Oxford > Cambridge last year, plus riding to and from the start) this should be a nice wee challenge. In the meantime, I'm happily road-testing my new Ground Effect winter training top on the rough roads of Cambridgeshire.

There's an annoying safety precaution that a lot of smaller Cambridge villages are now taking. I'm not sure of the official term, but I call 'em judder strips. It's an area, about 20m long, of textured road surface, with loads of very small peaks and troughs. The idea is that as you hoon around the countryside, confident that breaking the speed limit isn't really a crime, you hit this strip immediately prior to entering the village. Inside your car, you feel a bit of a vibration, and this alerts you do drop from 65 down to 40 or so - after all, 30mph is a silly slow limit, even in a village where children may run out unexpectedly. Inside a car, it's a bit of a vibration. On a bike, it's like you've foolishly said "Do your worst!" when entering Madame Sin's Parlour For Exceptionally Naughty Boys, and they've shoved a pneumatic drill up your arse. Everything shakes, all the bolts on your bike loosen slightly, your fillings drop out and it is generally a most unpleasant experience. But, y'know, it's a cheap way to knock the wind out of boy racers, so a lot of villages are doing it. Hooray.

We're currently spending our Saturday nights (we've got a child, we feel no obligation to go out and do stuff) watching the new Billy Connolly series on telly, Billy Connolly's World Tour of New Zealand. It's about an eight part series about his recent (last year) tour of NZ, about 60% travelogue about the country as he passes through it, about 40% bits from his shows. Funny stuff. Heather and I do tend to find ourselves yelling at the telly a lot, though. Typical shouts:

"No! Don't go to Hamilton! It's a dump!"
"It's 'tan-ee-fa', not 'tuh-nee-fa'!"
"No, not the folk bands! Ieee!"

Good to see the homeland on the telly, all filmed cheap on video so the landscapes look faintly washed out and you loose the depth of field and sheer impression of distance and majesty. We mentioned this effect to several UK friends who then looked a bit worried and said "wow, I thought they looked really incredible as it was...". So there you go.

regional man of mystery December 25, 2004  

Rebecca is making leaps and bounds. Well, not quite (unless she's in her bouncer) but she's certainly making great progress. She's gone from crawling, to starting stand up (with a following wind, and something appropriate to hang on to). This morning, we let her have a romp on the bedroom floor while I brought Heather breakfast in bed (nothing special, we do this a lot). Rebecca was fascinated by the plate, and nearly managed to crawl up from the floor, up onto the futon. This involved two steps of about 15cm each (onto the futon base, then onto the futon itself). The first time she tried, I put my hand behind her feet to give her something to brace against to get from the futon base to the mattress, and she almost made it. The second time, I didn't help at all and she more or less got up - panting with effort, grinning like a wee loon, and grabbing for the toast.

At this rate of progress, next week we confidently expect cartwheels.

How much is a membership in the Institute of Advanced Drivers worth in terms of being a safer driver? Not a lot, it would seem.

Roll on Christmas. We've got little planned. I suspect that a fair bit of houseproofing will occur, and I plan to take Rebecca for numerous walks. I can't stand bloody egg nog (I have ethical objections with the way they raise the nogs), but I'm a terror when it comes to mince pies. And we've got a duck to roast (no, I said a duck), so that should be an interesting challenge.

We fulfilled our happy pre-Christmas tradition by taking off from work at 11am (on orders from management, I should point out) and spending four hours drinking. Two hours in, people were drunk enough to start confessing to all the gossip-worthy stuff they'd done (or, in some cases, had done to them) at the office Christmas party. I can say two things after this afternoon:

1. Reverend James is a very good session beer.
2. If we had our Christmas party anywhere with access to a photocopier or stationery cupboard, God help us all.

Merry Christmas to all! Photos of our festivities now available at the Christmas photos page.

i'll come at you like a nun sandwich December 18, 2004  

OK, so the prohibition on eating pork in several major religions is generally held to be a basic sanitation measure, as improperly cooked pork can do a number of bad things to you. So why don't any religions prohibit eating chicken? Isn't salmonella pretty bad, too? Uncooked poultry is pretty iffy, isn't it?

I got some porn spam today that included the phrase "prenominal quality video". I'm assuming that's a typo for "phenomenal", but what a great mistake. 'Prenominal - adj placed before a noun, esp. (of an adjective or sense of an adjective) used only before a noun' - Collins Concise Dictionary. Now does that sound like the kind of pornography you'd pay good money for? The mind boggles, I tell you.

You've got to like a song with a chorus that goes:

I saw this thing on ITV the other week, said that if she played with her hair she might be keen. She's playing with her hair well regularly, so I reckon that I could well be in.

I'll have to say, I avoided that The Streets because everyone liked 'em. And the reason for this, of course, is that they're bloody good.

Phrases that annoy me: "road toll", used to describe the number of people killed in road traffic accidents in a given period of time. I hate this phrase because a toll implies that you can't get out of it, or that it's been levied by some higher authority. When, of course, the point about road deaths is that most of them could be prevented if people actually realise that they're in control of several tons of human-mangling machine moving at high speed and actually start driving safely. Grr.

rolling rolling rolling December 15, 2004  

Rebecca crawled for the first time today. She's been threatening to do it for a while now - mainly while attempting to escape from the changing mat, I must admit, but it all counts. And this morning, Heather saw her take her first proper crawling... er... crawls, across the living room floor. Woo hoo! Now, nowhere is safe. And blimey, that means I'd better get a stair barrier this weekend. Ah well.

I remember when I was a student: we were broke, we couldn't afford to go out, so we stayed in and did stuff. Read. Wrote things. Cooked. Occasionally - in the rare flats with both a telly and the political will to use it - watch TV. Then we got jobs, had money, and went out dining at fine restaurants and drinking in less fine pubs. Now we're new parents, we're back to flat broke and spending time indoors. It's a funny old world, innit? Still, it means that I'm catching up on my reading again.

The Christmas rush is ramping up hard. At the moment, our media seems to consist of about 70% ads for things, 25% subtle implications that you're a depressing loser if you don't spend at least £750 on this Christmas (I believe the average figure is slightly under that), and 5% programs talking about the dangers of debt culture and how to avoid spending money. I suppose that they've got to cater to the leftists.

I've been watching a fair bit of The Mighty Boosh recently. It's genius, I tell you - or at least, I reckon it's pretty funny. Odd sitcom set in a zoo. You've got to love any sitcom that includes a long sequence with a character being offered your standard Robert Johnson "sell your soul to be able to play music like a genius" offer by The Spirit of Jazz. Said SoJ being a huge, coal-black Baron Samedi character, with a skeletal face, dreadlocks, coal-black skin, and a full white suit including a top hat - which is on fire. The scene lasts about for about three minutes of conversation, throughout which The Spirit of Jazz moves eerily back and forth, top hat blazing away, hissing and spitting as he goes. And then just after the bloke has signed his soul away, the Spirit of Jazz jumps up, yells, "Shit!", rips the top hat off, and beats the flames out. "Why didn't you tell me my hat was on fire, man?" "Er... sorry, I thought it was your look." Bloody genius. That, and the line "a kangaroo can punch through steel" - also genius.

The Mighty Boosh was originally made as a radio show (actually, it was originally a theatre comedy thing, but the first broadcast material was the radio show), broadcast on Radio 4. Radio 4 does a good line in comedy. I'll admit to being a fan of radio comedy since I was a kid, when my dad got me hooked on The Goon Show. As I grew older, I discovered comedies like Round the Horne, Hancock's Half Hour, I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, The Navy Lark, and of course the original Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A surprising amount of my adolescence was spent listening to radio comedy, and I'm a big fan of the BBC's CD reissues. And it's good to see that Radio 4 is still doing comedy in a big way. Quite apart from the Mighty Boosh (available to buy on CD or just sneakily download), there's a number of highly worthwhile shows of varying topicality. Current favorites are The Now Show and the ever excellent I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue.

Of course, to maintain my highly credible alterno-styles I also listen to spoken word from the likes of Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra.

Under two weeks to Christmas. I must order our duck.

a kangaroo can punch through steel December 10, 2004  

New Rebecca photos (including value added photos of our trip home) now available from the photos page. Witness the cuteness!

I've started pulling faintly trials moves on my daily commute. The current fun one is when hopping off a kerb (don't get started, Cambridge has dual-use paths) at moderate speed. Approach kerb at slight angle, lift the front wheel up, roll forward gently, pop the front wheel down gently on the road, then pull the rear wheel up (slight nosewheelie) and pop it sideways onto the road. Ideally the rear wheel moves about a foot sideways, and you go seamlessly from moving at a mild angle on the kerb to moving straight ahead down the street. Bit tricky, and best done in clipless pedals, but good fun if you nail it right. To be honest, I just like hopping my rear wheel sideways. I am a simple man.

but does it validate? December 05, 2004  

Help. I saw this tattoo and had the following reactions:

1. Man, you're going to regret that in ten years.
2. Hey, where's the stylesheet?

Worryingly, I had those reactions in the opposite order. Help me.

We spent a few hours in the pub t'afternoon, catching up with The Reverend Jim. The Fort St George had a very appropriate beer on tap. Nice.

church of what's happening right now December 02, 2004  

Went to see The Incredibles last night. I've been experiencing severe memetic discomfort for the last week, as I keep accidentally calling it The Invisibles and then getting annoyed with myself. Excellent film, though - highly worth seeing. The joy and beauty of animated movies is that FX shots that would cost huge amounts and take months to film live-action can just be stuck in as throwaway shot in the background - hey, they're creating everything ex nihilo anyway, right? Trademark Pixar humour (though they weren't playing it for gags, noticeably), a good heart, and the slightly jarring elevation of the underlying elitism in most superhero movies into an explicit plot point - I'd say it was worth the time. It's worth seeing for the costumier character alone.

The fun thing about going to see animated movies is that you get the ads for kids' toys. I'm sure in a few years these ads will be a source of great contempt and annoyance, but at the moment they're just a source of amazement at the dreck that is sold to small children in the name of entertainment. On the other hand, the trailers for the upcoming attractions look good: Robots definitely looks worth a look. Was slightly disconcerted to discover that Snoop Doggy Dogg is doing a voice in an upcoming family movie involving talking animals. Guess what animal they've got him voicing? Man, I remember back when Tipper Gore was presenting Snoop Dogg as the antichrist. I also remember when he was making (as in directing, not starring in) porn movies - about three years ago, to be precise. I guess the rehabilitation period on these things is pretty short these days. Society loves a rogue, as long as he doesn't move in next door.

Definition of frustration: sitting on a 100MBps connection, watching a perfectly simple 130MB download (required for a project at work) take three hours. 0.2% network usage: great. Talk about a series of high-speed networks connecting bottlenecks.

Currently watching eagerly to see if the Civil Unions Bill passes back in NZ. We're a first world country full of bloody adults, now let's act like it and stop being so bloody precious about things. Personally, I'm all in favour of the following approach:

• Remove any legal status from marriage. Marriage becomes a purely religious ceremony, that you can undertake if you'd like.
• Introduce civil unions, giving all the legal protections currently enjoyed by marriage, for any two consenting non-related adults.

Boo yah, separation of church and state. You can sign up for a heck of a lot of legal status (and obligations!) with your partner, or you can go and get yourself a religious blessing of your relationship, and ne'er the twain shall meet. Well, they'll meet quite a lot, but won't affect each other. Since it's entirely possible to have a completely areligious wedding (we did), I don't see why we should be propping up religious notions of partnership. Blimey. I'd even go further than that, and go from "civil union" to "civil bond", where 2+ consenting non-related adults can enter into the contract. Not that I'd want to myself, and a bit of a hard sell, but why not? If all we're doing is formalising people's living relationships and giving them some legal protection, then let's bit the fucking bullet, people, and actually take into account the variety of human relationship. A few limits on it, of course - the whole thing about not being related leaps to mind, and minimum ages are generally a good idea - but stuff it, let's just go for it.

Phew, got a bit carried away there.

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