The show I wish was available on DVD would have to be Danger Theatre. This was cult viewing while I was at university. My favourite section was The Searcher. If the opening titles aren’t silly enough for you, how about “Golfers! Hold your balls!”
Yes, that was Robert Vaughn. Hmmm.
On Friday 23rd May, at 0959 to be precise, Ben was five. It also happened to be an Inset day at his school which was nice for him, although he now does think he will have his birthday off school every year.
After collecting Jessica from pre-school, Ben, Andrew and I headed off to Pizza Hut where we met a couple of Ben’s friends and their mums for lunch. We then went on to The Mad House, a soft play centre. Because it appeared to be only Ben’s school which was closed that day, the place was nearly deserted apart from a small number of pre-school age children. It meant that Ben, Jessica, Joseph, Megan and Katie had the place almost to themselves, and the grown-ups, Andrew, Wendy, Claire and myself had free choice of comfy sofas to sit on and watch the children.
All in all it was a pretty nice day, Ben got lots of great presents including a camera, Transformers, Lego, Power rangers Watch and SpiderMan toy, and on the Saturday we had a family tea party complete with birthday cake where he received even more presents like a Power Rangers suit and toy phone, Power Rangers figures, bike stand and more Lego. We are off to Legoland in a couple of weeks, have a feeling his collection will grow some more….
A couple of weeks ago I came to the realisation that Louise and I don’t use our CDs any more. We have a big old glass cabinet hanging on the wall, half full of CDs and half full of DVDs. The former are almost never taken out. The only music we tend to listen to is on the radio or on our MP3 players, typically in the car. So why are we wasting space on storing these CDs when there were piles of DVDs stacked up around the TV?
Thus started my Ripathon, wherein I ripped every CD in the house, including all the weird and wonderful discs previously banished to the loft. After several weeks of fitful work I am finished; I am the proud owner of 1400 tracks and Louise has a more impressive 2400. Or in time terms, it would take me four and a half days of continuous play to listen to my collection, or six continuous days for Louise.
I now have the largest playlist of my life to listen to. I’m about 220 tracks in, rating the tracks as they go by. For a long time I resisted the urge to get into the whole “star rating” idea. Being a bit obsessive, I worry about issues such as the difference between two stars and three. And you mean I have to decide this 1400 times?! Why can’t the machine learn what I want to listen to? Oh well, better a half-good playlist today than a magically learning system next year.
Jayne asked me if this all meant that I’d start downloading tracks instead of buying CDs. I’m not entirely sold, mainly because you don’t get entirely the same quality of sound (theoretically) from an MP3 as you do a CD. In addition, I prefer to use Vorbis in place of MP3, which gives you better sound quality compared to an MP3 of the same file size. That said, with the death of DRM, I’m a lot more prepared to court the idea.
All this, of course, doesn’t help me get at the boxes of vinyl stuck up in the loft. Given that I’ve touched these, I think, on one occassion in the last ten years, I’m also wondering if it’s time to sell my 1210s. I’ve held off doing this (if it’s not stating the obvious at this stage) for a long time. For much of this time I’ve considered teaching some of my old skills to Ben or Jessica in a few years from now but the more time passes the more I wonder if the world has moved on…
Update: My postings seem to be exhibiting a certain synchronicity with the news at the moment: Napster is launching a music download service without DRM.
Two and a half years ago, I took it on myself to lose weight. In sixth months I managed to lose eleven pounds through fairly tight portion control and some exercise. And by “some” I mean not much. It wasn’t going to get me into to the record books but for someone who’s always been overweight it was very empowering
However, over the last two years I’ve slowly slipped into bad portion habits and the “not much” exercise dropped off to “very little”. In a not entirely unpredictable turn of events, as of this weekend I’m back to where I started. So, yesterday morning I got on my trainers and went for a run. This morning I went for a run again. It hurt but I can live with that. The older I get the more inclined I am to get off my flabby arse and do something about it.
The plan is to go running four times a week, before work when necessary. If you see me, ask me how it’s going. The knowledge that I might have to admit failure is going to help me during the 6am starts…
If ever there was an example of why turning your back on the world and creating a closed society is a bad idea, then the current insanity in Burma must be it. Sooner or later “the enemy” may turn out to be your only friend. We’re all in this together, or as some more eloquent said, we are one.
Perhaps I spoke too soon?
The eastbound slip-road traffic lights at the Maidenhead junction of the M4 were operational today for the first time. They didn’t seem to be helping much but I was passing at a time later than usual so perhaps it’s relative.
My view on “the future” is that it is arrived at by the accumulation of many small changes, a bit like evolution. This is probably why flying cars aren’t likely to turn up any time soon; there’s little evolutionary advantage to a car that flies or glides a little bit, so the process of getting to a fully flying car is a bit of a non-starter. Bummer.
It is a year today since Madeline disappeared, and it is her birthday on 12th May. As a parent I can’t imagine the pain her family must be going through, not knowing if she is alive or where she might be. I think it is also brought closer to home by the fact that I belong to a May 2003 baby forum on the internet.
I signed up when I was pregnant with Ben, and “met” a whole group of ladies from around the country, the only thing we have in common is that all our babies were due, and born, in May 2003. It wasn’t until we all met up in 2005, that Andrew realised that one of the ladies I had been chatting with was in fact the lady who was opposite me in the hospital, and who I spent 3 or 4 days with - our children were born on the same day.
I can’t help but think that quite easily Madeline could have been one of the children in our group, and her mother could have been someone I knew or had met. Whatever did or didn’t happen on the night she disappeared, what should or shouldn’t have been done, despite all the rumours and speculation, the bottom line is that on the night of May 3rd, a little girl was taken away from her family and friends. And that is what we shouldn’t forget.
Ben started Infant school on Monday 21st April, and Jessica started pre-school the next day. Ben has quite a long day, lessons start at 8.50am and pick up is at 3.10pm. Jessica goes from 9am to 11.30am, which is quite long enough for her, most days she is very tired in the afternoons, but I think she will get used to it.
So far Ben seems to be really enjoying school, although complains that they haven’t actually taught him anything. Ben did say he didn’t need to go as he could already write his own name, knew how to count to 39 and spell some words. We convinced him he would learn how to read whole books at school, I think he thought they would teach him on his first day. He has been ready for school for some time, and has been looking forward to it and I am really pleased that he seems to have settled right into it. He is quite happy at getting on his uniform in the mornings and setting off, he goes into the classroom very confidently on his own.
We have had the first episode of peer pressure conformity - I was told last night that I wasn’t to cut his sandwiches into two big triangles, he wanted four small squares as “that’s what everyone else has.” I have also shown myself as “bad mummy”, by neglecting to notice one morning that Ben wasn’t wearing a polo shirt under his school sweatshirt, on possibly one of the hottest days of the year so far. I had to drop a shirt off at reception for him.
Jessica has likewise settled really well. She had been wanting to go “Ben’s nursery” for about the past year, she already knew her way about, and what went on, and had to be dragged away every day after dropping Ben off. Now she gets to stay, and is in her element. Every day she brings home paintings or models, has made new friends and caught up with some old ones, who had left her behind at nursery when they went onto pre-shcool.
The most exciting thing to be happening soon is a farm coming to the nursery - there will be a cow, donkey, dog, chicks, sheep and lambs, guinea pig and rabbits. Already Jessica is telling everyone she will be feeding the lambs milk and grass - and planning on bringing one home.