Happy New Warhammer

Er hello, it's Boy 1 here, I am doing a post for Mummy as she is very fried tried tired after Christmas, she is asleep on the sofar with lots of rappers wrappers from After Eight choc mints and bits of tinsel in her hair.

Every few minutes she half wakes up and shouts "Does anyone want a mince pie?" Daddy says she has Post Christmas Hostess syndrome..

Most important is I got some Warhammer for Christmas.  It looks like this.

You buy the figures.

Then you spend ages painting them with special paint with cool names like Goblin Green, Devlan Mud and Skull White and oooh, Bleached Bone. Nice.

And then you play complicated battles with them, there is a long rule book and you have rulers and stuff to measure the distance that your weapons can fire. 

Mummy got quite interested in my Ork figures, I showed her all the paints they needed and explained at length their weapons and armour and boots and stuff..

When she saw all the paints, Mummy stomped off muttering that she could not believe that an Ork has more nail polish and paints and accessories than she has..
Mummy is back on the sofa now...

"No Mummy, I don't want a mince pie.."

Christmas Almost Here And Other Worries

Dahlings, finally we are getting a bit Christmassy at Blighty HQ.

Here is an action shot of Boy 1 decorating the tree (Boy 2 had already bunked off, bored with this interior decoration nonsense cutting into his Wii football game time).

You know how dear Faux Fuchsia holds that "Nothing says legal advice like pink tinsel" which is the most beautiful and profound statement ever to grace the internet, in my humble opinion...

Well, to me, "Nothing says Christmas like a sozzled fairy lashed to a Christmas tree": meet Esmeralda, fairy, former good time girl (I can't confirm or deny those rumours that she at one time dated Warren Beatty) and moderate dipsomaniac (sherry mainly).  She is a family character and as old as .....oh never mind..

Here are some more tree shots.  The decoration by Boys 1 and 2 was initially enthusiastic then a bit slapdash....small boys don't bother with the hooks and loops to hang stuff from branches, they basically throw items at the tree and see what sticks...

In other news my Maternal Bosom (junior size) swelleth with pride.  The other night at supper Grandma Whacker (again in residence for Christmas riot control) mentioned that according to the Daily Mail (right wing rag which regularly froths at the mouth over political correctness gone mad) children were now banned from making the star shape with their hands when singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little B list Celebrity" as the star shape in signing for the hearing impaired means lady er parts..

Quick as a flash Boy 1 starts doing some very authentic looking signing...where has he learnt this?  What a talented child!

Boy 2 is laughing like an unblocked drain.

In fact, Boy 2 is laughing just a bit too much.

"What does that mean? Is that real signing?" I ask.

Through fits of giggles Boy 2 explains that Boy 1 has just spelt out "Go Forth and Multiply!"
"You see, Mummy,  X (name of adorable, shy, butter wouldn't melt little friend ) showed us how to do it ages ago."

Cue Maternal Bosom deflation.

In another worrying development, I was very taken with a most pleasant Christmas song I heard on the car radio yesterday - you know the type of thing, some one's nuts roasting over an open fire etc..what a very nice voice that chap has, I thought to myself....

THE HORROR! It was none other than Justin Bieber!
AAAAAAAGH!
I am now a Belieber, the oldest Belieber in the world...

Please don't tell anyone....

Last Week

Not Linda in Chile but Caroline of Brunswick, wife of a King George; she was so badly behaved romping around the Continent in a "bawdy manner" she got herself tried for adultery...note to self: probably NOT suitable role model but do have some Euros left over from last hols...

Dahlings, last week was both lovely and exciting, as Linda in Chile was in London town and I got to meet her in Real Life.  Linda is a loyal and eloquent commenter on Faux Fuchsia's blog, and when I started this blogging malarkey, Linda kindly followed my blog too.

Mr Blighty is also a big fan of Linda, as he approves of her erudite, balanced and beautifully written comments:

• these are the qualities for which Mr B as a parliamentary draftsman, looks in a woman; I am feeling a bit insecure right now:  
• can you:

guess  discern?

So I hotfooted up to town, met Linda at her hotel on the Strand and we toddled off to the cafe called The Crypt under the Church of St Martins in the Fields.   We had so much to talk about - all the big issues like nail polish, shoe buying, husbands v credit cards and how the Chileans speak Spanish without the lisping - the latter was a big shock to me, where's the fun if people around you don't need to pop on raincoats?  I was brought up on Nigel Molesworth who opines that "..you have to lisp when you speke Spanish which make it all very difficult.."

Nigel gives this helpful example:

thene: A hathienda. Enter don jereth de la frontera molesworth.
A thervant: who ith it?
Don Jereth: it ith only me ith ithabel ethpecting me?
A thervant: yeth.
Don J: O thuper!*

Linda and I then gambolled around the National Portrait Gallery, among the Tudors ( "You can say what you like about Henry VIII but in his younger days he had great legs") and then looked at Caroline of Brunswick and some Georges, which shamingly Linda knew much more about that I (I spent my entire secondary school career struggling with  "The Dissolution of the Monasteries: Was Henry just jealous that Cardinal Wolsey looked fab in red?")


We also saw this lady.

But the fun did not stop there!  Mr B and I had the pleasure of going out to dinner with Linda later in the week.  We went to Odin's, which I visited years ago and loved because they have lots of lovely pictures on the walls (though none of Henry VIII).  A good evening was had, (I particularly liked the figs in wine pudding) and we saluted Marylebone High Street and the Malene Birger shop (which is just opposite Odin's) in homage to Faux Fuchsia .

Taken from Odin's/Top Table website

Linda, it was so lovely to meet you.  And don't hold back with the lisping, you know you want to really!



*From How To Be Topp by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle, quite possibly one of the most important books ever written.

Cyber Sulk?

Well as cyber sullks go, that was quite exceptional. 

Except I wasn't sulking. Honest.

I just seem to have been soooo busy.

So I hired Top Management Consultant Anders Hoch  to review operations at Blighty Inc and make recommendations on how to improve productivity.

Here are excerpts from his report, with my reaction in italics.

Taking Blighty Inc. Forward  Into the 20th Century*

* Anders old chap how much wine did you have at lunch exactly?

Scope of Review

We were asked to review all domestic operations of Blighty Inc.  We observed operations at Blighty HQ and interviewed key personnel in Catering, Procurement, Staff Training, Laundry Services, Hygiene and Health Services, Transport, Policing and Judicial,  Social Activities and Sport (which in this report will be collectively referred to as MUM).
Er, that's  me I think...

We also spoke to the Chief Executive Officer and Finance Director.  So Mr B gets the fancy job title, typical

We had a brief interview with the junior members of the Blighty Inc. team but they were very busy watching telly and were unwilling to fully enter into a dialogue  you mean they ignored you completely as they were watching re-runs of Top Gear on Dave TV


Scope of Activities

The breakdown of MUM activities during a typical working day are:

23%  reading gossip on the Daily Mail website
27% drinking tea, reading fashion blogs
2% furiously carrying out domestic tasks in state of guilt and quiet frenzy
12% looking for reading glasses
5% reading thrillers and detective novels
5% answering cold calls on telephone from insurance companies and acting delightfully dizzy and charming while telling them to get lost
4% ringing Grandma Whacker back and apologising for being so rude under misapprehension that she was selling car insurance and of course you don't mean her to do that with her insurance policy

5% watching X Factor with Mr B and putting on silly Northern accent and exclaiming "oooh Gary has such kind eyes, I really feel he understands me and my journey" and falling off sofa with laughter inventing sob stories for contestants: "It would mean the world to me to win X Factor as I have a conjoined twin who is currently in prison  and a granny confined to a wheelchair by terminal flatulence..."
77% watching junior executives playing rugby in a light drizzle
86% watching junior executives playing football in a light drizzle
34% attending to sports related injuries
36%  sports psychology counselling
7%  cobbling together costumes for school theme days (" I know it's a fitted sheet but well- to- do Romans would definitely have worn fitted sheets, honest!")

10% watching The Killing, exciting Danish police thriller
45% providing taxi services to Blighty junior executives
42% struggling to help with Maths homework


Key Recommendations

• MUM is a very inefficient member of the Blighty team; her role needs to be more focused, and preferably carried out by someone else with better motivation and better skills re work product delivery do you mean get a cleaner?  Yay!
• MUM to attend management training course and be reprogrammed
• MUM must be denied access to the Internet
• MUM to give up tea and novels
• MUM to stop watching X Factor But Gary is the only man who really understands me
• junior executives to give up rugby and football and instead take up needlework at home
• MUM to accept that never going to get through 100 hours of The Killing so return the DVD the library NOW
• junior executives to learn to drive They are only 9 and 10 so this might be a bit tricky

So there we have it.  I am going to be re-programmed.  I  will be dynamic, efficient and focused. 

Just as soon as I've had a cup of tea and a little sit down.. and a look at the Daily Mail website...

I'll Be Back

Oh dear, have really fallen off the  blogging wagon recently...but in the words of the Terminator*, I'll be back!"

Dahlings, I leave you with a Public Education Announcement.  I know which category I fall into.

* excellent new role model for dealing with obstreperous offspring (and try saying that after a gin and tonic) who are now on holiday from school AGAIN...yep, 2 week half term..

Mrs Blighty, Rock Chick

The other night I went with Mr B to see his old favourite group Echo and the Bunnymen play.

When I mentioned this recently to anyone, they looked a bit blank and then said, " Oh, yes, Echo Beach."

Nooooooo! That was quite different, that was Martha and the Muffins.

The Bunnymen are a rocky, moody, sort of post punk band with a charismatic Liverpudlian lead singer called Ian McCulloch.

Their best known song is "Killing Moon", featured on the soundtrack of  the film " Donnie Darko".


Must admit, prior to the event I was not terribly enthusiastic as I knew Mr B used to go to gigs wearing a greatcoat and pointy shoes and with his hair all spiked up, and it all sounded a bit goth and gloomy to me.

In fact, it was brilliant!

It was a thrill to skip off up to London on a school night and meet up with Mr B.  And the concert was at the London Palladium, a theatre I last visited for my 8th birthday to see Cliff Richard (bless  Grandma W, she organised that for me, what a nice mummy).  So it was great to see the inside of the Palladium again and bang on to Mr B about seeing Cliff and Olivia Newton-John, while Mr B carried on a parallel monologue about last seeing the Bunnymen at the Glasgow Barrowlands in 1984..not quite sure whose anecdote had the most street cred, mmm, tricky one..

The Bunnymen were good, really good -  a very tight band - and Mr McCulloch can really sing.  And what confidence, arrogance, to sing in front of all those people !   He was a real character - he took a lot of liquid refreshment between, even during, songs, we were a long way from the stage but the bets were on Guinness, with whisky chasers... a soothing vitamin drink and mineral water.


Here's them doing The Killing Moon  back in the 80s. They did it brilliantly last night too, they just look a lot less boyish!

And now dahlings, I am off  for a cheeky nap on the sofa - it's very tiring being a rock chick at my age.

Mrs Blighty, Literary Stalker

As I mentioned in my last post, I am completely caught up in the Gus Dury novels of Tony Black - hardboiled Scottish detective novels set in Edinburgh with gritty characters and punchy dialogue.

I dropped old Tone a line, a bit cheeky, telling him how his readership included none other than Grandma Whacker (who quite frankly at her age should be reading The Lady and, maybe for a bit of excitement,  The Radio Times).

Well, look back at the penultimate comment on my last post - the author himself commented! How very nice of him. So impressed he did that.

Here is Mr Black, talking about the latest Gus Dury novel. 

Mmmmm, he's a bit of a dish, isn't he? And that accent! But I am not going to push my luck.  No more cheeky comments.  Otherwise I might get a visit from a couple of heavies...

A Worrying Pair

Dahlings, there are two members of Blighty Limited who are giving me cause for concern.

First, Boy 2.

I was prepared to overlook this (and blame it on all those wildlife programmes he watches).

Mummy: Can you stop playing now and get out of the bath?
Boy 2: OK, Mummy, the killer whale just has to finish off the seal..

I decided this was just a sign of his keen interest in History and not a warning of  Hannibal Lecter tendencies.

Excerpt from Boy 2's school report - proof that teachers do have a sense of humour or evidence of something more sinister?

But this.

Boy 1 was being particularly noisy and annoying the other evening when Boy 2 was doing his spelling homework.  I do vaguely recall Boy 2 saying something along the lines of "Mummy can't we tape his mouth over?"  It was only later I noticed he had got the electrician's tape from the toolbox in the garage...

So the youngest in the Blighty family is a worry. But so is the more senior end.

I thought Grandmas were supposed to sit serenely doing sewing and smelling of Parma violets and face powder, and for excitement might listen to The Archers.

Not so Grandma Whacker.  During her recent stay she was engrossed in these rugged detective novels set in Edinburgh,  which she has recently discovered at her local library*. 

The dialogue is, to put it mildly, quite robust.   You know you are in trouble when Grandma is reading lines like this, spoken by our hero after he has visited a very rough council estate :

WARNING, THIS IS VERY CRUDE, NOT FOR THE EASILY OFFENDED
"Later, eh. I've just escaped Deliverance territory and I'm mightily relieved not to have a length of hillbilly parked in my farter..."

Should I contact the library and ask them not to let her have any more books by this author?

Must go.  Have to hide the electrician's tape again.


*Gutted;
Loss;
Truth Lies Bleeding; and
Long Time Dead, all by Tony Black.
I have now read Gutted and must say it's excellent, and a refreshing contrast to the whimsical Corduroy Mansions of Alexander McCall Smith

Mrs Blighty Turns Over A New Leaf

Enough of this obsession with animal print fripperies.  I am a mature woman of today, I will stop yearning after silly frocks in dodgy prints. Instead I will engage in spiritually enriching activities like learning to mix up killer cocktails playing the harpsichord and pickling  -er - squirrels  pickles and reading Tolstoy in the original Russian ( note to self: take evening class in Russian for Beginners).  I will devote myself to Mr Blighty and Boys 1 and 2.  Where are they actually?  Oh I forgot, they are in the office/at school.  Well, anyway, I will make sure they always come home to piping hot underpants and a freshly laundered Chicken Kiev.

Ooh.  Look at this,  this is nice....

From Next

A couple of thoughts -
I am terrified of snaks, so would this dress give me the heebie jeebies?  Would it squeeze me tight and then swallow me whole?
Why am I looking at patterend dresses when my current uniform seems to be navy blue jumper/cardigan/trousers? yes, I have turned into Sensible Navy Blue Mummy.

LA Woman

Hello,  my name is Mrs Blighty and I am addicted to all things leopardy, and that is why I have come to Leopards Anonymous.

The shops continue to act as enablers: everywhere I look there is leopardy goodness to be had.

I bought these little leopardy numbers as I JUST HAD TO. (Note to Mr B, Head of Austerity Measures, Blighty HQ - they were from New Look and therefore Cheap as Chips, so would have been a Crime not to buy them).

And I NEEEEEEED this cardi from Pure.  Need. It. Badly.

(Note: I think the other hand in the above photo is that of the chap the model is with; at least I really hope it is...)

And look at this dress from old Toppers (TopShop).

Right.  I WILL be STRONG.  I am off for a lie down and a look at the school fees invoice.
That'll calm me down.

Mmmmm, could really do with some leopard print silk lounging pyjamas. RRRRRRRR!

Sussex-Full Weekend*

A couple of weeks ago we spent a lovely weekend with our lovely friends  in their lovely house in lovely rural Sussex (can I write for Hello magazine now please?)

Their house which dates from medieval and Tudor times is full of  interesting and eye-catching details.


Like this chimney and half-timbering.

And there are lots of beams inside.

This is the sitting room.  Our friends lived in Shanghai for a while, hence the striking Chinese art.

I love the colours of this vase.



And these tiles around the fireplace in the guest bedroom are charming.

The basins are from China too. 

This is an old bread oven.

The fireplace in the sitting room gives away our friends' past in the Royal Navy.  I used the sword to force Mr B up the aisle at our wedding Mr B and I used the sword to cut the cake at our wedding.

 

This made me laugh - on the wall in the loo.

K and S, thank you for a great weekend and thank you for letting me show bits of your home on the old blog.

*Not, Sex Full, no, that would be rude, Successful, geddit? Yes I know these puns are just ghastly but it's my blog and I'll pun if I want to.

View From My Kitchen Window

 A while ago Hostess invited other bloggers to post the view from their kitchen window.

I  like to get in on these things. So here is my view.

Complete with one of those cute but annoying muntjac deer.

Annoying, first because I can never remember how to spell their name, secondly because they chomp off bits of plants - they neatly decapitated my hostas, thank you very much.  Also late at night they sometimes go in for this weird barking to each other, sounds like a hacking cough, possibly a mating call, most unattractive to me (but then I am not a deer, or a smoker).


And this was the view from my kitchen window yesterday.

Grandma Whacker gambolling about,  trying to fly a kite.  What is she like? It was lunchtime and I was calling all children to the table and there she is, still outside playing.  She really is most wayward and Sets a Very Bad Example. She never got the memo that Grandmas should sit quietly inside reading an old copy of the Radio Times while having a little drop of sherry.

Must go. Some one needs untangling.

Mouth Guards And Other Daphnes4Boyz News

Just two days ago Boys 1 and 2 returned to the country club cunningly disguised as a school, known as Daphnes4Boyz*. Of course, now it's the weekend, so we are having a well-earned break..again..don't want to burn ourselves out too soon..

To keep us poor befuddled parents on our toes there have been a few changes:
The Library is now the Drama room/second dining hall;
The Drama studio is the now the Library;
The School Uniform Shop is now the Geography Room;
The Store Cupboard is now the School Uniform Shop;
The Headmaster has swapped offices with the Bursar;
The Bursar is now a man**;
No motor vehicles*** are allowed to drive through the school, except the school minibus which will bear down on you unexpectedly just as you are bending down to tie up Boy 1's laces;
Mr Gummage the Science Master's hair has changed colour., to darkish brown with alarming gingery undertones.

Other things remain the same:
the Changing Rooms remain on an entirely different Time Zone to the rest of the school - 5 minutes inside their humid portals equals 1hour 10 minutes in the outside world; for example, Boy 1 "pops in" to collect his kit mid-September and comes out just in time for Christmas...
the amount of kit required by each boy equals body weight of boy x 5 kilos + 2 bricks + weight of one medium sized classmate gagged, bound and shoved in bag but deduct engine size of Range Rover or other deluxe 4x4  but add on weight of  1 cement mixer if you walk home..

Here at Blighty HQ we have been thrown into despair and dismay by the non-fitting of Boy 2's fancy schmancy bespoke mouth guard****, needed for that violent mudfest called Rugby. The mouth guards arrived, moulds having been taken of small boys' mouths - quite which small boys I know not..  Cue application of boiling water (to mouth guard of course), attempts at remoulding (mouth guard, not Boy 2), wailing, shrieks of agony, predictions of thwarted rugby glory etc.


Never mind.  Another change is that there is now a MAP, yes a MAP of  the playing fields which will be written up to allow parents to work out exactly which pitch their son is playing on.

No longer will I have to wander around the entire playing field trying to spot my offspring - let's face it, they all look the same in the mud, all arms and legs and pinky-white and jiggling about...

Damnation!  I can no longer claim to having arrived on time for the match but to have been terribly delayed by  not being able to locate the exact pitch..





*formerly known as Daphnes4Boy$ but rebranded over the summer hols due to the US debt crisis and the loss of that country's AAA credit rating, payment of school fees can now be made in gold or copper.
** result of new appointment, not gender reassignment.
*** legacy of Archgate - when delivery lorry over-optimistic about height of arch linking school buildings so took a few important bits of the arch with it on its way through.
****it seems this blog is in danger of turning into an outpost of the British Dental Association.

Mrs B Armed And Ready To Save The World

The other day I dropped by Lisa at  Privilege and read a post on something mysterious called an Arm Party.  I got the wrong end of the stick and thought it meant you had actually to get together with friends and all show off and clank your bangles and bracelets and other arm accoutrements  - handcuffs, electronic tags, blood pressure monitors. bits of string off the Sunday joint (roast meat, ok) etc.. I was a bit worried about the Elf and Safety implications of such a gathering - what if I got over-excited mid-conversation, swept my hand back theatrically (as I am wont to do), and knocked out the teeth of the person next to me with an arm bulked up with bits of metal, leather, spikes and painted enamel? .... But, as Lisa explains, Arm Party is  a term invented by a feisty young New York fashion blogger called the Man Repeller http://www.manrepeller.com/.  And it simply means having lots of jewellery decorating your wrists, in an artful and eclectic manner.

Lots of the bloggy fashion girls seem to go in for arm parties.  For some, the party never stops and I applaud their ability to get out the house on time and to get through airport security unmolested.

Here is Miss Atlantic-Pacific.

Here is Miss Sterling Style

Having read Lisa's post, I knew that the world would not be safe until I had really got to grips with the whole Arm Party concept...and you know me, so selfless...so I spent a  lovely half hour or so saving the  Universe looking at bingly bangles on the internet...

I saw this,

TopShop bracelet

 And this.

TopShop bangle

 And this

TopShop charm bracelet - guess which website I was on!

In the end I bought this, I mean I did not want to, but the entire galaxy was at stake. It reminded me of those Hermes ones but was just a little bit cheaper. (And as it's just going to get covered in Nutella and toothpaste anyway....)

TopShop imitation leather bracelet £8.50

Hermes leather bracelet, a bit more than £8.50

Another Hermes leather bracelet

Phew, the world was a safe place again.

And now I know why Wonder Woman wore those cuffs.

Fangs Are Not What They Used To Be

Boy 1 is losing teeth at an alarming rate.

In the space of a fortnight  he has lost 3 teeth.

He lost 2, 2 days in a row.

I feel I am being SHOWERED with teeth.

Every time I look in my purse, there is a tooth....

Some thoughts on this:

• If he carries on at this pace, I will have to sell the car just to finance the "Tooth Fairy"
• Could he be pulling them out himself?
• Are they in fact his teeth?*

*note to self: check Boy 2 dental situation