Cutting Edge Technology

So we went up to Grandma's house yesterday in Broadway in the Cotswolds, to set up the laptop we gave her for her birthday. Grandma is entering the 21st century and embracing technology. Mr Blighty was in charge of technical issues. I was in charge of childcare and riot control. Boys 1 and 2 were super well behaved right up until the moment they stepped inside Grandma's house. Then shouting and fighting broke out. So I took them to the Broadway playground.

It's a wonderful playground in a lovely setting, a far cry from the crowded London playgrounds we used to frequent when the boys were tiny. Our local was the Princess Diana playground in Kensington Palace Gardens, full of great things like the big pirate ship but so over-crowded, you queued for the swings and then after a few minutes felt obliged to get the boys off the swings due to the hard stares of the waiting parents/nannies. Stressful.

Grandma is good at growing things.

Her garden looked very pretty.

Here is Grandma having a tutorial on laptop skills from Mr B. Pay attention Grandma. Only 46 more points to take in. You need to be hacking into the Pentagon by next week. (Dear Mr American Security Agent please this is a harmless joke, please do not raid Grandma's house, remember she grew up during WW2 and does not take any nonsense).

When I had finished my exhausting child containment activities I spent some time shouting at BT ( apparently a telecomms company) about their failure to set up Grandma's email, ordered in mid August, and their failure to let us know this (obviously being a telecomms company communication is not their strong point, they send letters, now and again which are soon overtaken by events). And of course their technical dept is based in India. The lady was charming. And brilliant at politely not being able to promise anything at all. Ater that I slunk off and read the papers. The Mitfords seems very in vogue at the moment. Debo has an autobiography coming out.

Debo also looks formidable. And what wonderful hair.

Then we went home. I had a couple of calls later from Grandma, very excited about her new toy. Grandma, if you are reading this, switch it off now and go to bed! 12 hours at a stretch is too much!!

Mrs B goes to the mall

So today I went to Westfield, a new-ish shopping centre in Shepherds Bush, West London. I arranged to meet my dear friend, the Delightful D, ("DD"). Below, the Mulberry shop.
I made sure to ask permission to take photos. Some of the sales assistants were a bit hesistant - I think they had heard about my prowess sewing on the name labels, and knew it was only a short step to knocking together a rip off bag or frock or pair of shoes.
This is Prada, these mannequins were wearing the shoes that Jane from Sea of Shoes has. DD and I decided we like Prada, but we do not "get" Miu Miu.

Here we have Dior and some of those iconic Princess D type bags, in all different colours.

DD had her work cut out keeping me under control, I was so excited to see all this loveliness under one roof. I kept squealing like an over-excited toddler at a new playgroup.

We checked out the Dior clothes, just in case they were giving them away. They were n't.

Then we found ourselves in Ferragamo. I am afraid I don't have Ferragamo shaped feet. My feet are more downmarket.

The scarves were luscious. Sadly there is no Hermes in Westfield, so we will have to make do with Dior. Sorry MaiTai!

OO, Jimmy ChOO! ExpensivOO.

DD gave me a Chanel polish, Jade Rose. Thank you so much DD. As you can see, DD is v elegant, she reminds me a lot of Faux Fuchsia. Look at her chic nail polish, I have never seen her sans polish. DD is also big on thank you notes. So she and FF are practically twins. Here DD is showing me her latest perfume find, by Diptyque. And I loved her pretty blouse.

This family had come from the sticks to do a bit of shopping but were quite frankly disgusted by the amount of leather goods on sale. They said they recognised a bit of their Auntie Hilda in Ferragamo.

A queue outside the Apple store. I think it was for the new generation IPod.

DD's cute blouse came from TopShop, so we whizzed in to see if I could get one so we could be twins. But sadly they were all gone.

Westfield really is a Superior Establishment. Architectually it's quite something, and very shiny and clean, like a nice airport terminal.

And then the clock struck 2 and it was time to get in my car before it turned into a pumpkin... and the most shocking thing of all? I did not buy anything. The summer hols have obviously taken their toll. Don't tell anyone. Don't want to lose my reputation.

Back

Wonder what size these are?

Phew!

Today Boys 1 and 2 went back to school. And earlier this week Mr B went back to the Big House (as I have now decided to refer to his work; watch out for Mean Hal, Mr B, don't agree to be his special friend !)

Stressful times, getting those boys ready, the amount of kit required is quite something (cycle clips - check; purple leotard - check; power tools - check..) and it all has to be LABELLED CLEARLY, preferably with their name (666 does not give the right message). I am not good at sewing, I wonder how Boy 1 will get on at rugby with my jeans sewn onto his rugby top. Note to self: do not watch telly while doing labels, process takes 5 hours for one label and final product shoddy.

The whole school outfitting effort turned into some sort of Maths problem, the type which regularly reduced me to tears of frustration at age 14:

• Boy 1's rugby shorts are slightly small for him (not threatening his chances of ever reproducing too small, just too short too be cool, apparently)

• Boy 2 needs rugby shorts

• The 6 pairs of shorts bought over the internet for Boy 2 are all too big for him and too small for Boy 1
• Boy 1's rugby shorts are slightly too big for Boy 1 (they do not fall down during test runs in the house but if another boy grabs them during rugby, they could come down, possibly bringing Boy 2's underpants down with them)
• The school shop was open on Tues, not Wed as you thought, so too late to buy shorts from there

Calculate the risk of the shorts coming down, and years of fees to therapist for Boy 2, versus the cost of buying new shorts and the cost of Boy 1 not looking cool.

Also work out how long it will take to fill a barrel with water if the cubic capacity of the barrel is 3500 cubic thingies and the water flows at a rate of 2.5 whatsits per minute when the train goes into the tunnel. You may use those baffling sine and cosine tables, the purpose of which you will spent the rest of your life wondering about.

You have 20 minutes. For Chrissakes do not show your workings, it's bad enough having to mark this drivel anyway and I'd like to get a round of golf in sometime.

Oh arse! I'll just shove Boy 2 in Boy 1's shorts and tell him to run really fast and make sure no one tags him. Or maybe some Superglue...

Wonder what size these are?

Expedition Blighty

The Blighty family are off on an expedition OOp North, to visit Lovely B, Mr B's cousin who lives near Newcastle. Lovely B has screwed down all the furniture, hidden the silver and padlocked the explosives cabinet. We all have our wetsuits packed as we will be going boogie boarding in the sea. Risking hypothermia in this way has become a family tradition.

When I went upstairs to pack, I got distracted by this book. I know some of you are fascinated by the Mitfords. They were certainly an interesting lot, and I adore Nancy's novels but some of her siblings' politics were decidedly iffy. There are some jolly photos of Diana and Unity with their great friend Mr Hitler. Oh dear.

I have also been staying up way beyond my bedtime watching this. Do you know it? It's trashy and yet such fun. A model dies, and comes back in the body and with the brains of a female lawyer, but with the model's fashion knowhow and streetwise smartness.

Now try to behave yourselves while I'm away. I know it's hard. Of course the Blighty family will be behaving impeccably at all times. Even when their extremities go blue.

Colour Me Beautiful and Other Things I find Worrying about my Wife

Good evening, Mr Blighty here. I have been entrusted with the drafting of this post under the Bloggers Spousal Delegation Act 2010. I trust you will find this post clear and easy to follow. I can assure you that it is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (I have been taking extra care in that respect following the controversial Clamping of People Walking Too Slowly in Urban City Centres Act).

Very occasionally (when she has been reading one of those women's magazines at the hairdressers) Mrs Blighty will ask me if after 11 years of marriage the mystery has gone from our relationship. I can quite confidently say that on the contrary, the mystery only deepens. Particularly the mystery of what on earth is going on in Mrs B's head.

As I am currently on holiday from my highly demanding and important job of keeping my semi-colons under control, I have been able to observe Mrs B's activities from close quarter. I have come to the following conclusions:

a) she is as nutty as a fruit cake with a side order of extra nuts;
b) she spends a lot of time talking about ironing but never actually doing it; and
c) she still has no real understanding of the best way to load the dishwasher.
When I pointed out her shortcomings on this latter point, her response further revealed her lack of expertise in this area - even if I could get it up there, it would not lead to cleaner dishes and would definitely breach Elf and Safety legislation.
Let me illustrate further the mystery that is Mrs B.
The other day I was sitting at the computer checking developments on my latest exciting piece of drafting, The Recycling of Dentures for Old Age Pensioners Act, when Mrs B rushed in from the library waving a book at me and shouting, "Come on Blighty, help me do my colours, I can't work out whether I'm light and warm or soft and clear!"

At that precise moment she looked quite pink and over-excited but I felt it would not be in my best interests to point that out.

Mrs B explained it was all to do with skin tone and she needed to decide what her's was. There were pictures of various celebrities illustrating the different types. "But don't you dare say I am like Judy B***dy Dench!" warned Mrs B. ( Mrs B always refers to the ubiquitous Miss Dench in these terms, on the grounds that Miss Dench is in every single film ever made and is always the same; personally I think Mrs B is jealous that Judy gets to play M in the Bond films and so meet that Craig bloke Mrs B seems to find so personable).

After prancing around with different coloured scarves and demanding whether they lit up her face and brought out her eyes (on stalks??), to which I answered "I suppose so" each time, she stumped off upstairs "to do the ironing". After about 10 mins she reappeared, waving her paws at me and trilling: "Look, I've painted my nails and they match my necklace and this vase". I dutifully took a picture before pointing out she was going to find it a real pain carrying the vase round all day. Mrs B then announced that I did not know anything about fashion and swept off further to contemplate the ironing. Another thing which mystifies me about Mrs B is her approach to gardening; her lack of enthusiasm ("But I did gardening last year, surely it's not time to do it again?") is matched only by her lack of success. She was disgusted to find something had been eating the leaves of her hosta. There were dark mutterings about "those damn deer". Any deer better steer clear of Mrs B for a while. Unless it wants to end up in one of her "nourishing" stews.

Meanwhile anything Mrs B hasn't planted or "nurtured" (I use "nurture" in the loosest possible sense) flourishes with amazing, unstoppable vigour.

Mrs B got very very cross when this Miracle Gro thingie would not work. I found her in the most dreadful pickle trying to attach it to the hosepipe. I tried to calm her down by pointing out that the blue matched her nail varnish. She gave me a withering look. I thought about suggesting she tried spraying it on her chest, but she had the secateurs in her hand at the time.

I suggested a look at the trees at the bottom of the garden might calm her down. The beauty and majesty of nature and whatnot.

But what really did the trick was a little drink of this very fine wine. Mrs B and I drink only the best.

During her latest library visit Mrs B also sourced a couple of relaxation tapes for Boy 1. For some time now he has been doing the Dance of the Seven Bedtimes, coming downstairs to complain he can't get to sleep as he has been lying there for all of 3 mins/ it's too light/dark/the thread count in his sheets is not high enough, he needs silk pjs/his pillow needs spraying with lavender water etc.

"Rest and Sleep" is particularly hilarious. Each evening the house now echoes with a hypnotherapist lady saying in a monotone " Do you know how many muscles there are in your eyelids?" Sometimes you can catch Boy 1's abrupt reply of "Who cares!". The tape is doing the trick, however: he apparently lies in bed constructing unhealthy fantasies about how she is a serial killer before falling peacefully asleep.

Finally can someone please explain why Mrs B keeps leaving this brochure where ever I look? I have promised to buy her a leaf blower, what more could she want? Ah, the mystery that is Mrs B!

Note from the real Mr Blighty, this post was in fact drafted by Mrs Blighty masquerading as me. Further proof that she is nuts.

Further note - the above note was in fact drafted by Mrs B masquerading as......oh shut up

A game of two halves

The other night we went "en famille" to the England v Hungary football match at Wembley Stadium. First I was quite shocked that I had agreed to go. Must have been when I wasn't paying attention. But then I was actually excited.

I have only ever been to one professional football match before in my life, and that was when I was 13 and on a German exchange week, staying with Uschi Langenbeinen who was chronologically the same age as me but in every other way at least 10 years older. We went to see the home team Leverkusen play. (Leverkusen is an industrial city near Koln, most of the city worked for the big chemical company Bayer). Uschi spent the match practising snogging with her boyfriend Boris von Bratwurst and I spent the match practising smoking with my friend from home, Lizzie Dingle. By the end of the match Uschi had an impressive love bite, I had gone green and Lizzie's hair had got singed twice. But enough of these reminiscences of my jeunesse dore.

Mr B explained that it was a "friendly" match. That does not mean they are all cuddly and happy and then their mummies give them chips and ice cream afterwards; no, it means it doesn't count towards any tournament but they still want to win. And Mr Capello the England manager would be trying out his players. And the hardcore England fans would boo any player who was in the World Cup, to signal their disapproval of their Disastrous Performance. (copyright every English newspaper, TV channel and the man down the pub).

We went by train to Wembley. We enjoy a train journey.

I liked this Communist Russian style statue at the train station. This is in a nearby town, traditionally a very wealthy commuter area. This must be the only member of the downtrodden proletariat ever seen in the People's Republic of StockbrokerVille.

When we got there, there were lots of people, but it was very well organised. There were police and police horses. They must have heard about Blighty family outings. Our water bottles were confiscated in case we turned them into missiles but we were allowed to keep a huge pair of heavy binoculars. Strange.

We were in something called the Family Enclosure. It makes sense. You don't want rough, uncouth, noisy groups prone to senseless violence,verbal outbursts and unpredictable lavatory requirements anywhere near quiet, reformed professional football hooligans who have come to watch the football in peace.

Just look at this frightening pair. I gave them a wide berth. Scary. ( What's that Mr B? Oh, are they? Thought they looked familiar).


The architecture was impressive. We went up and up this immense escalator.

The pitch looked enormous to me. Fancy running up and down that for 45 mins each half, er, 90 mins in total. Made me feel tired just looking at it.

Lots of seats. Over there was a mini brass band that lead the chanting. More about chanting later.

Boy 2 wants me to point out that there were about 72,024 people there that night. Boy 2 has more to say: "First Hungary scored and then I wanted my money back and I wanted to go home, and I was very cross and sad and the linesman needs glasses because that goal was sooo not over the line and I got itchy pitchy and had to eat 7 biscuits and it was hopeless we had lost and Daddy said it is not over till the final whistle blows and I did some clapping with Mummy - clap clap, clap clap clap etc INGLUND! - and Mummy was really into it, so embarrassing - and then......Steven George Gerrard scored and we all stood up and cheered and it was brill..... and then.....Steven George Gerrard scored again and it was brill and I always knew we would win and what a great night and Mummy jumped up and down and shouted at Gerrard "Take your shirt off" and Daddy told Mummy to sit down and behave otherwise she would lose a star on her star chart..."

Boy 1 wants to add " it was fun, they booed whenever an England player who had been in the World Cup got the ball, and they booed Rooney when he went off and he had on red boots, and Frank Lampard had blue boots and Joe Hart the goalkeeper had white boots and all the Hungarian players were called Zoltan, and then we went home on the train and it was dark and we went to bed and no bath, yay."

Mrs B here again. I would just like to add that the whole cheering thing is very cathartic and tremendously enjoyable and the only reason I wanted Gerrard to take his shirt off was I was worried he was overheating after all that exertion...

Photo from Metro website

Something for the weekend Mrs B?

A very nice lady called Kate raised an interesting question about my last post, where I mentioned buying my boys purses. I now realise that in America and possibly Australia "purse" is what women carry their most vital possessions around in - credit card, phone, lipstick, handcuffs, welding kit. She imagined Boys 1 and 2 tripping along with little designer bags over their arms, Boy 1 with a Mulberry Bayswater and Boy 2 with a Hermes Birkin, for example. You see, here in England we call "purses" "handbags". For us, "purses" are what you put your money/small change in. What do you people call them? Change purses? Bill folds? Condominiums? Eggplant?

That terrible old know-all Oscar Wilde went on about two nations divided by a common language. He does have a point.

I know in America "pants" are trousers; here "pants" are knickers, underwear. I am always amused that Americans talk about "pants suits." And I think "suspenders" in Americaland are what men use to hold up their trousers; in England these are called "braces"; suspenders are what people use to hold up their stockings/liven up their marriage/wear when playing Dr Frank N Furter in the local am dram production of "The Rocky Horror Show".


The best example of the US/Anglo language mismatch I ever witnessed was during a conference for lawyers from all over the world. Someone asked an Amercian lawyer what she would be wearing to the dinner that evening. "A sheath" she replied. The entire British contingent collapsed in very undignified squawks of laughter. Much to the bemusement of all delegates from other countries. Eventually when we'd picked ourselves off the floor, blown our noses, tucked our shirts back in and put our glasses back on, we explained that in England "sheath" means, er, a condom. (No, nothing to do with condominiums).

So you see ladies, purse sounds weird. But it could have been worse. Much, much worse.


Images from Wikipedia of Tim Curry and Monica Bellucci