Equal ops for children.

Taking Roxy for a walk yesterday, I stopped for a rest (Roxy's request - she refuses to go past a certain stretch of low wall until we have sat there for a few minutes). Sometimes, Roxy will hop up onto the wall to sit next to me. This time, however, she simply flopped to the ground (a sure sign I needed to get her home soonish) and basked in the warm sun.

As we sat there, a small group of schoolchildren came along with a couple of adults carefully shepherding them in the right direction. When they were encouraged to ask questions of random people, I realised they were on a field trip.

A couple questions later, it seemed they had fulfilled their quota, and were preparing to head up onto the pier. Before they did so, the teacher wanted to make sure her charges understood what they needed to do and what to look for.

At that, the teacher held her clipboard over her face to hide a smile, while the less restrained man at the back of the group wheeled away, doubling up in silent laughter.

My own laughter was not silent, and I felt moved to literally applaud the young boy for an apparently progressive attitude. The teacher, may or may not have been impressed, commented to me that, "in all the years I have done this and asked these questioned, not once have I had that answer."

Win.

(Bull)dogged

"British Bulldog, one-two-three!"

That phrase should bring a small wave of nostalgia to many of you (mostly Brits, obviously). British Bulldog is a game played by many children (and adults, on occasion), normally in the school playground. It did go through a dark phase during the 1990s, when political correctness and the imported culture of litigation meant that many schools banned the game as being too dangerous.

Bollocks.

I'm a physical coward, and I LOVED playing B.B. I was useless, granted, but I had fun anyhow. What's a scrape or two to a kid? Nothing. Yes, I will admit that there could be - and has been - the odd serious injury, but you cannot and should not stop children from having some energetic, social, spontaneous fun.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, here is a graphic for you.

Image from BBC News site http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7592648.stm

Now, because of said political correctness shite, I haven't seen or heard of Bulldog being played for a long time. However, on an evening walk with Julie and Roxy, I saw a youth activity group getting into a game of Bulldog. As I say, I had been a long time since before schools were banning Bulldog, and Julie was never too keen on it in the first place. So when I commented on what game was being played, I had to remind Julie of the rules. It didn't take much for a connection to be made and Julie was nodding her head in recollection. It seems she had had it confused with another popular schoolyard game...

...Oh well.

Define 'tidy'...

Moving from Wednesday, when we were discussing the pets of a friend of mine, we go to my friend herself - or, more precisely, one of her daughters.

Sam, it seems has managed to craft and near-perfect the habit of not tidying up after herself. And before you say it, Julie, I know she still won't be as bad as me.

Sharron, Sam's mother, asked her several times to clear away all the toys, books and what have you. Asked, cajoled, ordered, and commanded. In the end, in fear of tripping over something and hurting herself, Sharron gave in to the inevitable and did it , as mothers all-too often do.

Naturally, Sam can tell the difference between a cluttered, messy room, and a tidy one. Not that she commented upon it when she came home from school. Even when her mother raised the subject, Sam remained unimpressed.

...somebody pass me a dictionary, please. I think I've been getting it wrong all this time...

Heard of sleeping

It's time for a guest spot; Sam is a frequent visitor to this blog, although this is the first time she has been mentioned by name. One of Sharron's daughters, she seems to delight in coming up with the most innocent, knowing - and way-out-there - phrases. Today, it seemed, there was a conversation going on, although it was fairly one sided. Never mind that neither Sam nor her mother could strictly be classed as being present at the time...

This might actually ring a bell or two with various members of my family, as I am well known for being able to hold a conversation with someone while I am asleep. As is my sister. Yes, we managed to have a conversation with both of us being asleep, apparently. It was enough to turn a mother to drink...

Baby, it's HOT outside.

For people who have been living on another planet for the last week or so, Britain is in the middle of a heatwave.

Similarly, those people may not have heard that Prince William (second in line to the throne of Britain) and his wife, Kate Middleton, are expecting a baby. In fact, said baby is a little overdue, as the original due date was for early last week. In fact, I was mildly thrilled to think that I might have shared a birthday with the third in line to the throne... Oh well.

Kate Middleton, pregnant and pretty.

As it stands, though, the baby, whose sex the royal couple are as of yet unaware, is overdue. Enough so that it is theorised (ie, gossipped) that Kate was induced. In any event, it was reported today that the royal mum-to-be is in labour in hospital (link to BBC article).

Meanwhile, in our own household this morning, I was enjoying a cup of tea, and Julie was scrolling through news stories and relating some of the headlines to me. Obviously, Kate Middleton's situation was going to be high up on the list...

...thanks for the image, love...

The Wedding banned

It's been about six and a half years since we were married. It was a lovely day, which was pleasant, considering the weekends either side of the one we booked were absolutely vile. Mind you there was one vile thing about our wedding day - my head. As the morning went on, my head grew progressively worse until I found myself trying to cope with a near-migraine level headache.

Toffed up, me and my best man got a taxi to the hotel where we got married, and began the process of meeting and greeting various friends and relatives. It was the first time I had met many of the younger ones, and I was pleased to note that they were a fairly well-behaved bunch. I'm not much for children at the best of times and I definitely didn't want any excitable kiddies that day.

Our home-made table centrepiece. Hedgehog, of course!

Apart from our tying the knot, we both agreed that the highlight of the ceremony was when my foster brother, who is severely disabled, acted up at precisely the point I had predicted.

Before the wedding, we had to drop by the registrar's office to discuss things. I was adamant that I wanted Jim to be there, so I was making sure that there would be no objections on the part of the officials. However, I did warn them that Jim has a broad sense of humour and, while unable to speak, he uses his laughs to communicate some things very well. And, being mischievous, he responded well to the question, "is there anyone who objects to these two being married.?"

Cue the snigger.

The registrar hadn't quite believed me when I warned her, so this snigger came as something of a surprise; I knew from our first meeting that, while efficient, she was also officious and patronising.

There was another incident concerning the registrar.
When we moved to discussing some of the finer details of our ceremony, the matter of restrictions was raised. Now, I had heard something about this. If you were to be married in a non-ecclesiastic manner, then the music played should have no religious references. This ban included Robbie Williams' hit 'Angels'.

I objected to this. Not so much for the banning of a Robbie tune (which I rather like, actually), but that there were restrictions being placed on our special day - one we were paying for. Nevertheless, argued the registrar, angels are a religious construct and therefore cannot be played at a civil ceremony.

Ridiculous.

The registrar went further; we were not allowed to choose any music that was inappropriate for such an occasion, and we would have to submit which songs/tunes we had in mind. Julie was also unimpressed.

I burst out laughing, but the registrar was none too happy, and gathered up her papers, saying, "well, I think that's all we need to discuss for today," before bidding us 'Good day' and leaving.

In the end, this was the music we chose for the ceremony. Approved, of course.

• Bride's entrance: 'Horizons' by Genesis
• Signing the documents: 'The Rose' by Bette Midler
• The couple leaves: 'Handbags & Gladrags' by Stereophonics (it's Our Song)

------------------------------------------

PS - apparently, the ban on ecclesiastical references in songs has since been lifted.

Ten, not ten.

Last year, Britain stopped airing TV programmes via analogue signals. In the final few months leading up to the switchover to digital TV, there was a sort of genteel scramble to either replace or adapt televisions. It didn't help that many people (us included) thought for a while that we would have to buy completely new TV sets. This was something that incensed us. We don't have much in the way of money, but compared to a pensioner who has to decide whether to spend a day's money on heating or food, it's a small fortune.

In the end, all we had to do was adapt our analogue TV, push the signal through the DVD recorder and away we went. Of course, we had to pay to get someone in to show us that. Nothing we could do got us a reliable signal.

Once it was all sorted, we sat and scrolled through the channels to see what delights lay in wait.
...
...
...
...
...
Well.
What a load of crap.
I knew there was a reason I preferred reading and listening to music.
OK, so we only have Freeview, but we're not going to fork out for stuff we're not going to watch, are we? Especially as a lot of what appears to be on offer are repeats.
To me, one of the oddest channels is Challenge TV; showing repeats of game shows from days gone by. If you are of a certain age and lived in Britain at the time, then you will no doubt recall some of the weirdest notions for game show formats. Bullseye was a cross between darts and a pub quiz, and 3-2-1 asked people to make the most tangential leaps of logic to solve clues and win prizes.

There are other game shows on the channel, too. One of them pits adults against children, the premise being that adults are often less intelligent (or have less knowledge, at least) than their offspring.

When Julie saw the programme title in the listings, she seemed to take it as a very specialised challenge.

Oh deary me...

World Book Night 2013 - update

Hi folks, you may recall that for the last couple of years, we have been involved with World Book Night, which encourages people to read by the wonderful process of giving away brilliant books for free.

Well, we're at it again. This year, out of the twenty titles available, I chose to give away copies of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.
However, in keeping with our previous efforts, we will also be giving away other goodies too. Over the next few weeks, I will be introducing them. Here's the first; Skallagrigg by William Horwood.

This is my all-time favourite book. It's not a fantasy novel, but it has an invented mythology within it. It challenges you to face up to facts of life that are extremely uncomfortable. What would you do if you suddenly found you were the father of a cerebral palsied baby and that the child's severe handicap was due to the car accident that also killed your wife?

The threads in this book are woven together with such care and skill that you not only find you are able to follow Esther Marquand's life in various care homes and schools, but that you also want to. You want to help her along, cheer her on and doff a cap to her when she achieves something amazing.
I love Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. When Frodo leaves Middle Earth at the end of the book, I will cry rivers for him. Esther Marquand is different. My emotions for her are nowhere near as primal. However, for a middle-aged man with no severe handicap to find himself identifying with a frustrated, heavily cerebral palsied young girl (and later, young lady), that indicates writing of the highest calibre.
Don't just take my word for it, though - here's a great blog about it.

Skallagrigg is going to be one of the prizes for one lucky person in our free draw. Since it's been out of print for a long time, the copy on offer is not of the highest quality, but it's readable and won't fall apart on you.

That's it for this time - next week, I shall reveal one of the other prizes that will be up for grabs.

A beast in a bad place

Eastbourne is a seaside town, and as such has a history of providing activities and places for tourists. One of these places is Princes Park.

It's a pleasant place, with a recently renovated play area for the kiddies, a small lake for model boats and feeding the birds. There is also a bowling green and a small putting course, and a series of nicely planted walkways. On the Eastern side, there is a decent sized grassy area for staging events such as circuses and concerts. When the Olympics were on this year, the council erected a massive screen so people could come and watch various events and ceremonies - all for free.

One of the attractions from days of yore has lapsed nowadays. More commonly associated with Blackpool, Julie recalls that there used to be donkey rides in Prince Park.

Julie also recalls not being too keen on the idea. Her mother, however, seemed to be very fond of it and repeatedly asked the young girl that was Julie then if she would like to have a ride. As I say though, Julie remembers this with fondness, but also a certain determination. She never wanted to ride a donkey, and she never did.
Mind you, she could have phrased it better when she told me about it all.

...no comment.

Painting the sky with feathers

It's time for a certain young guest star once more :-)

Sharron and her family were visiting her mother-in-law, who had recently been seriously ill and now returned home. The weather was quite pleasant, apparently, which made a nice change from the wind and rain that had been hammering the northern parts of the country for some days. In fact, the sky was a beautiful shade of blue, so much so that Sharron remarked on it to her daughters. They looked out of the windows, and then the youngest daughter said:

You gotta love the surreal innocence of kids, eh?

Insectile-related synaesthesia?

Hi folks, how is your weekend going so far? Julie's at work right now, but that's fine, because it allows other people a chance to shine on here. Mind you, today's special guest seems to be heading towards having a permanent support role, considering her output so far (here, here and here. The last of these has a permanent place in the top ten, it would appear).

Yes, once again, one of Sharron's daughters makes one of her special pronouncements. Special enough, in fact, that it prompted her mother to make a request on facebook for possible explanations...

For a little while, the meaning remained quite elusive. However, I think I have it - maybe it's all that time with Julie?
Basically, my reckoning is that Sharron's daughter saw this little bug and imagined it inside her shoe, wriggling around. And that she imagined it so well, she thought that she felt it. What do you reckon?

Oh, you're going straight to Heck for that one, kid...

Whoo!So, today is March 31st and the end of Julie's Gems' a-post-a-day marathon. I only dropped one day (due to ill health), for which I apologised profusely on Facebook. And for THAT, everyone chose to drop into sarcasm mode, saying how dare I be ill and/or miss a post?
I hope it was that, at least. While it's nice to have as many followers as we do, this site is a little young yet to be attracting the obsessive sort, surely?
In any event, today marks the final day of the March Marathon* and I thought it nice to end on a gently humorous note, and to give Julie a little break for the day. There isn't even any mention of Scrabble.**

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Long-term readers of Julies Gems will know that I (not Julie, not by a long shot) am a fan of comics, specifically webcomics. I have posted some examples in the past - only those, of course, that fit the admittedly broad definition of being a Gem. Have a look at these examples, and you'll see what I mean.

Here's another one, one I have been waiting for just the right strip to post on here. Odori Park is a hemi-demi-semi-autobiographical strip*** about a small family (two parents, one young boy) who also happen to own a book shop. The twist is that Colin is US American and Arisa is Japanese. Normally, the comic is just cutesy and the humour is smile-inducing, but relatively slight. The art is nice and clean though.
This time, I was leafing through my bookmarks and reached Odori Park and immediately laughed out loud, whilst simultaneously wincing, and wincing hard. Put it this way, you know how Julie can be sometimes child-like in the way she phrases things? And that even then, children are the real deal and can offer up a full meal of non-sequiturs and still have energy left over for a large helping of bafflement. AmIright? You know it's true. See? There's a whole load of kiddie-related gaffes right here!
Anyhow, back to Odori Park and a prime example of how to bite the hand that feeds you. Almost literally.

WHOAH, kid! You are going to go hungry for weeks for that comment!
Just a little note; normally, Odori Park is presented horizontally, but if I presented it in that format here, then it would be far too squeezed and you'd end up not being able to read it. Fancy more? Trot along to Odori Park, then.

*Uh-oh. Now I have named it, that's it. It's formalised and set in stone. I'm going to have to do this next year, too.
** Whoops.
***Read the "about" section on the site. It makes more sense there.

Admirable cross-species logic.

As the title implies, this Gem involves logic, rather than the lack of it. However, as you are probably well aware, logic, when applied by certain people (politicians, people who deal in statistics, children, Julie), can be equally off-putting. And, when applied expertly, completely baffling.
Today's Gem - or, I should say, the first part of it, comes courtesy of a conversation between two friends of the daughter of a friend of mine.
Er.
I'll try that again.
At school, one day, Scott and a friend of his were talking about a certain female acquaintance, one who was held in much high esteem by Scott's friend.

And Scott does have logic firmly on his side. In case you are unaware, the duck-billed platypus (or Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is an Australian mammal, but one with very curious attributes. It is one of very few animals classed as 'monotremes', while literally translates as 'one hole'. you see, unlike most mammals, monotremes have only one hole for evacuation of waste and reproductive processes. Not only that, but they also lay eggs, rather than giving birth to live young. This means that these odd creatures represent an extremely old part of mammalian evolution, showing us a spot somewhere between reptiles and true mammals. They're also somewhat venomous and are capable of giving an unwary human some real discomfort.
When this story was related to me, I laughed and immediately declared it worthy of appearing here. My young friend then spoke to Scott, giving him the good (?) news.

Pretty insistent, isn't he? Mind you, I'm not too sure about his life ambition. I wouldn't mind being there when he tells his careers master what he wants to be. The look on the guy's face ought to be worth the travel costs alone.
Of course, Julie agrees with Scott, expressing it in her own inimitable manner.

Logical, if not entirely eloquent, love.

Spike has a temporal memory lapse

We were discussing books the other day. I had an ulterior motive as I was hoping to garner a few literary Gems to use on bookmarks I want to make. as it turned out, I managed to jot down a few Gems, but pretty much the only book-related Gem came courtesy of yours truly and doesn't work as a stand alone gag.
Yes, that's right, I Gem'd myself. In a public place, too.

You see, we were in a cafe and I had asked Julie about books she had read when she was younger. Once we had got the inevitable Janet & John (or equivalent - I was a Rainbow Reader) out of the way, Julie began to talk about Enid Blyton. As it happens, Julie isn't much of a book person, and those that she does read are either chick-lit, celebrity biographies or spiritualism (Ghost Hunters, Colin Fry and all that.. stuff). Me, I'll read most things, but chick-lit and spiritualism don't interest me at all and I really have to be in the mood to read a biography. However, our childhood reading matter is a different thing entirely. As it turns out, we were both massive fans of Blyton's Famous Five series. Apparently, Julie used to buy them in bulk, keep them under her bed and plough through them in one extended bout of frenzied reading. Julie then mention Blyton's other celebrated book series, The Secret Seven and it struck another chord in me. Or, as I put it...

...but I don't any more... eh? What? Doh!

Slightly unsightly kitty-cats.

Today is a guest spot courtesy of the youngest daughter of one of my friends - you haven't met this young lady before, but I'm wondering if today is an indication of Gems to come...

Most of us have visited an optician in the last year or so. Isn't it amazing how the test seems to incorporate another new aspect, either some new, dazzling gadget or something that will cause you great discomfort (I'm sure there is no real need for those damn puffs of air, despite what that berk in the lab coat says...). For children, the test is set up a little differently. After all, the average child can't be expected to sit still for ages and put up with the indignities that we adults have been used to since we started working. Even the eye chart is more interesting. All we get are some random letters that decrease in size to eye-wateringly small lines. No, our darling kiddies get this instead.

Isn't that a lot more interesting? If you think I'm making this up, take a look at this optician's site.
Even more interesting - entertaining, even - is the following exchange between the optician and my friend's youngest daughter.

Well, yes. That would do it.

Saturday bonus - Outnumbered special

There's something I've been meaning to do for a while now. A little while ago, we posted a guest slot featuring the daughters of a friend (have a look HERE for more) and I used a picture of a cute girl to illustrate the Gems. What some of you may not be aware of though, is that the girl is not a complete unknown...
Read on...

For non-Brits, there is a TV programme known as Outnumbered, a sit-com featuring a family of two parents and their three kids. The thing is, the kids are young. OK, so one is a teenaged lad (15), but the other two are only eleven (boy) and nine (girl). The nine year old girl, Karen is the source of most of the show's appeal, being a little too young to take in trivial things like scripts... Then again, that was pretty much the idea when the show was created. There is some scripting, but otherwise, there is a strong improvisational element - and this is just as well, because sometimes, the kids - especially the young girl - will do or say something that isn't strictly what had been rehearsed. Take, for example, this conversation between Karen and her mother about the differences between men and women...

ps - The ages I gave for the children were correct for the first series. What? You thought I was under the impression the girl in the picture was nine? Gimme a break.

The kids are alright. Well, mostly...

Hola and happy weekend (with all due apologies to those of you working Saturday and Sunday).

Today, we have another guest slot, courtesy of the daughters of a friend. You have met one of them already in this post. Today, she makes a repeat appearance and brings her younger sister with her. T is only four, so some allowances can be made, but we can still have a chuckle and say "Awwwww" fondly, can't we?

One day, the two girls were playing with their dolls; naturally, the dolls all have their own outfits and accoutrements, according to whatever scenario takes the girls' fancy. On this occasion, T was readying one doll and packing some clothes into a small bag. When she was done, she announced...

If it wasn't a word before, it jolly well is now! Mind you, she could have come up with something a little easier for me to type...
Ah well.

More recently, the older sister, S - who is six - woke up one morning with something of a stiff neck. It was fairly severe, in that she couldn't simply move her head from side to side to free it up. Instead, when S wanted to look at something to the side, she had to swivel her whole body around and look at it that way. I'll tell you something, I think S explains it much better...

We all know what S meant, but doesn't that conjure up such a wonderful image? Slightly reminiscent of Worzel Gummidge in a way...

The kids today have no taste.

It's our anniversary today (five years and I still love her to bits), so I thought I would give Julie a break. Instead, we're going to feature the daughter of a friend.

I met a friend (henceforth to be known as 'S') in Manchester while I was off on business and she was telling me that her daughter has a habit of coming out with odd phrases, just like Julie does. I asked her to prove it and spent half the evening sniggering and outright LOLing at the stories I was being told. Take, for example, the time when my friend and her daughter were sat eating dinner. S's daughter was eating chicken-flavour noodles, while her mother was eating the actual meat. Apparently, S's eldest hates chicken, but loves eating chicken noodles. My friend asked why her daughter hated actual chicken meat and got this answer...

To quote my friend directly,

I had to ask her to stop talking at that point as my brain couldn't handle it any more 

Have a great weekend, folks!