Another Drinking Post

This, presumably, would come in very handy after working your way through the dictionary using the Cocktail Creating Typewriter from my last post. Imagine, in the fullness of time this could lead to drinking and driving becoming legal again.

Can You Spell Drink?

Every now and again you come across a drinking accessory that really takes your breath away, today was another of those days.

Imagine, you can say things like, "I wonder what Dogs taste like?" Then simply type it in and see. Marvelous.

Jazz Pointing

I had the (dubious) pleasure of spending an evening in the company of Jazz Oldie Chris Barber and his Big Chris Barber Band - it isn't something I'll be planning on repeating, although I will begrudgingly admit the band members were all excellent musicians and were clearly having a great time performing.

However, there was a welcome and unexpectedly entertaining distraction from the jazz itself in the form of what appeared to be a pointing competition. What on earth is that? You may be wondering. Well, allow me to elaborate. Essentially, Chris and his Big Band were constantly pointing at each other during the show, usually at someone who had performed a particularly twiddly twiddly bit, although at one point Chris himself did go round pointing at the entire band individually. Presumably it's to ensure the audience is aware of the twiddlyness and remind them to appreciate it fully, but given that the pointee had not two seconds before been standing at the front of the stage in a spotlight performing said twiddly bit, it seems a tad redundant.

Anyway, just thought you ought to know.

The Girl Who Could(n't) Fly

Poor little Phoebe is suffering at the moment, as are we (see previous post) and her tired, ill crabbiness combined with our tired, healthy crabbiness is causing more than a little friction in the Mungo household, especially around bed time.

The dual pronged crabbiness attack combined, forming a pincer movement if you will, in a rather tearful bath last night. As a result, I was rather grumpy even though in true toddler style she'd cheered up quite a bit by the time we got round to cleaning her teeth.

"Daddy, " she said, "can I go in the Pinky-Ponk to the bathroom?" The Pinky-Ponk, for those of you who aren't fans of In the Night Garden is a sort of airship that the characters fly about in sometimes. I replicate this by getting her to squat down and then picking her up with my hands under the backs of her legs as though she's sitting in a chair and then zooming her round the room. She loves it.

"No," I replied "you've been too naughty. If you want to fly in the Pinky-Ponk you'll have to do it on your own." And marched off to the bathroom. She didn't follow me. Then a little voice said "I can't, I'm too big." As I looked up, she duck-walked round the corner with her hands behind her knees, straining upwards with her arms. "I'm too big, I can't pick myself up."

Grumpiness was dispelled. Bless.

The Anti-Parent Disease

Sometimes you come across something that seems purposefully designed just to get you. Poor little Phoebe has (we think) got croup. It's quite an odd disease, it only affects children and the symptoms are worse at night. The indirect effects are much more sinister though.

Poor little Phoebe is very ill at night, restless, coughing, crying, temperature, the works. Needless to say we get some of the fallout from that and we don't get a very good nights sleep either. In the morning though, as we stumble zombie-like out of the bedroom she's feeling better and bouncing round like a huge great bouncing thing that wants to play. So we do, it's hard work. Then by mid afternoon she's feeling grotty again, turns into a huge great bouncing thing that's in a bad mood and wears us out even more, before finally going to bed and sleeping really badly. Then the cycle repeats.

So what we seem to have here is a kid's illness that appears specifically designed to grind parents down, essentially getting them at both ends of the day.

It just seems suspicious, that's all I'm saying.

Interesting Eavesdropping

I don't usually listen to other people's phone conversations on the train. Well OK, let's say I don't usually find other people's phone conversations interesting enough to remember. After all, short of sticking my fingers in my ears and singing "La, la, la, I'm not listening." there's little you can do to not hear someone sitting next to you talking.

However, the other day the woman sitting next to me said something that made me actually pay attention. She had just taken a call from someone, it was fairly innocuous stuff but then she said something like "I'll be there soon, I'm just about to get on the tube." Now, this was a blatant lie as she was sitting right next to me on the train. I did consider that she was going to get off the train (it was a bit earlier than the one I normally get so stopped a few more times) and then get the tube but she got off at Surbiton, which as we all know doesn't have a tube station.

So then I started to wonder why she'd lied. There are two obvious possibilities, and a few less obvious ones. The first is that she wanted to surprise the person who called by turning up unexpectedly early and the second is that she wanted to give herself a bit of time to do something without appearing to have taken too long to arrive. But let's think about this for a moment. Perhaps she knew someone else was listening in to her phone calls and was trying to throw them off a bit. Or perhaps she was trying to trick someone, such as a potential lodger, into thinking her house was nearer to central London than it really is.

I suppose as well that she could have said "tube" but meant to say "train".