Hospital

A couple of weeks ago my little girl became a bit ill. After a few days of Calpolling and copious Ibuprofenisation our doctor diagnosed her as having a urinary tract infection, sent off a wee sample and dished out some magic wellness-juice.

Unluckily she turned out have a strain resistant to various antibiotics commonly used in the treatment of UTIs, and so got worse and worse over the following week until, last weekend, she was admitted to hospital. Once there they took blood samples and had the results back within an hour, showing her to be systemically unwell and harbouring a severe infection. An ultrasound of her right kidney lit up like a night scope, indicating an atypical pyelonephritis.

No-one likes to hear the word 'atypical' when it comes to medical conditions.

Cue, intravenous access, another, different antibiotic and a week of worry at her bedside for me and her mother.

After a couple of downturns and an initial awkward refusal to show any signs of improvement, she obviously decided to let the new antibiotics do their job and got better over a period of twenty-four hours.

We then thanked the incredible staff, left a donation for their social fund, said our goodbyes to some of the other parents we had got to know, wished them well and came home.

Thankfully, my daughter is now back to being her industrious little self. Despite the course of antibiotics she's been given tasting like Tutti-Fruttis, she's still determined to fight every dose as if they were made of ground up needles and chilli powder. As I try to get the syringe with the liquid  past her clamped little teeth I actually relish the struggle, as it’s a vast improvement over the lethargy and flatness of a week ago.

Anyway, my stress levels over the last few days were similar to those found in a tight-rope walker with an inner-ear problem, but the relief of knowing she was on the mend was palpable. It's only then you notice the tension in your shoulders that has been there all the time start to recede, and you can  begin think of other things without automatically labelling them as unimportant. Like going to work and doing food shopping.

In retrospect, you almost feel guilty about coming out of hospital when so many other children are still stuck there. I was struck and humbled by the well wishes of other parents whose children had far more serious, even life limiting conditions than a kidney infection, no matter how atypical. There seems to be room for compassion for others in people who have the best reason in the world not to give a damn about anyone else.

As grateful and relieved  as I am for the wonderful care my daughter received, my mind keeps flipping back to the Children's Ward, hoping that they find the cause of 2 month-old Josh's convulsions, that Aaron loses the ticks his autism meds have left him with, that 2 year-old Cameron's 6 weeks in traction for his broken hip aren't too traumatising, and that Oliver's mum and dad never have to use the CPR that the nursing staff were teaching them on the day we left.

Here’s thinking of them and others in similar situations.

CD underside

Whilst meandering through the aspirational section of Gloucester's ToysWeSell (note the inverted 'W'), I was struck by the number of dressing up opportunities for the modern child. Apart from aliens and, to me, scary monsters (Frankenstein's zombie is even more terrifying when only 3 feet tall), it was the vocational outfits that seemed more interesting to my boy.

He pawed through various guises of doctor, police officer, nurse, builder, plumber,sailor, firefighter and farmer, all designed to give him a taste of what could be in his future. 

Even the pirate costume made for an interesting career possibility, although it was a traditional swashbuckler with jaunty cap and neckerchief, rather than a more realistic Somalian with an RPG.

"Look," I said, holding up a Spiderperson ensemble and some sort of man/bat hybrid. 

"Oh yes." replied my son, half-heartedly humouring me, before returning to study the intricacies of a chef's outfit.

I suppose this is because, at their tender age, a job is as far out a possibility as being a werewolf or a witch, so the costumes based on reality are just as exotic as those based on make-believe.

(Eventually, after profound and deep thoughts on the possibilities of shaping ones future through association, my son demonstrated his considerable grip on reality by deciding to be 'a ladybird'.)

There were even workplaces you could buy, such as plastic kitchens for the future chef, workshops for the potential engineer, laboratories for the wannabe scientist, engines for tomorrows mechanic and . . .

Oh dear.

"What did you learn today, son?"

"Burger flipping and a lazy way to spell 'through'. "

There is a tiny chance that this comes across as a bit snobby, and I would like to point out that, having been a burger flipper myself (and actually rather enjoyed the piss-poor life experience that it was), I feel I'm well within my rights to get all hoity-toity about this.

So there.

To be honest, a lot of the extravagant gifts you can get for your child seem a bit pointless to me, especially the ones that are basically toy buildings. Seeing as how all-consuming and complete their imaginations are at that age, you might as well throw a tarp over an old tent frame and that'll suffice as just about any structure their current universe requires.

Every time I come out of one of those toy emporiums having not bought something, I have the very odd feeling that my child has benefited somehow.

Not sure what their sales force would make of that oddly warped mindset.

We did consider buying some colourful plastic tat for my daughter, who is now a whole year old and has discovered the joys of lobbing things around.

Happily for her, we realised we didn't need to buy anything new for her to throw, because our naively positioned CD collection makes for excellent ammunition:

In my defence, the Terence Trent Derby CD is the missusses.

*Wanders off, humming "sign your name across mah heart . . ."*

Ingrate Expectations

Being a parent gives you all sorts of concerns. From worrying that the sniffle and tiny red spot on their chest is actually some sort of necrotizing cancerous meningitis, to apprehension over what career your child will take up when he/she/it grows up all contribute to a sustained high level of stress hormone that, without a doubt, must take years off your life and makes Gordon Brown's current position seem about as stressful as that of Jennifer Lopez's nipple tweaker.

A job that comes with it's own place to put your hat can't be bad.

We want to do the best by our sprogs, and will take action to protect our little genetic investments because they're the closest thing we get to immortality, other than blogging.

This action may not always be particularly rational. I'm sure our GP is fed up of telling me and the Missus that the tiny bit of eczema on The Boy's eyelid probably won't infiltrate his brain, and that a child needing less sleep than you is not an indication that said child is unwell, it's just natures way of being a complete git, now stop moaning, you overanxious parents, and go order more coffee and ProPlus tablets.

For the long term, the action we take is in trying to ensure our little bundles of joy reach their full potential. Lots of books, interaction, educational toys, singing, music and cheesestrings will, we hope, let them flourish into complete, well-rounded (although not obese) confident people, able to make the world their bivalve and snatch the pearls within.

But without putting too much pressure on them, of course. There's nothing worse than pushy, over-expectant parents, although I do hope he mentions us in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Complete Bodacious Awesomeness in the Fields of Science, Art, Music and Parkour. We'll put it on the mantlepiece next to the World Cup and Wimbledon Trophy.

When I was a kid I wanted to be David Attenborough, especially if dinosaurs were still alive somewhere, which I hoped for with the reality-avoiding desperation that 7-year-olds hope Santa exists and Scientologists hope they don't look really, really silly.

All hail Xenu (just in case).

Of course, this was an achievable goal, had I just a bit more brains, ability and competence, and was also willing to put the work in, which I wasn't, so I didn't. I did eventually become a biologist, and had an enjoyable decade in the pest control industry before embarking on a second career of ferrying mildly-injured drunk people around in a blue-light taxi.

I take heart that my brother, when asked, told us he wanted to be "a moo-cow".

Ahahahaha! What an idiot! A moo-cow! At least I never said moo-cow! Who's laughing now eh? EH?

Actually, he is. He's now a respected PhD in the biochemical sciences, with all publications in journals that have swirly DNA helices on their white covers, and cut-away diagrams of cell membranes and words like "hydrophilic", "phospholipid bilayer" and "moo".

Wish I'd said moo-cow.

Anyway, with the coffin of childhood dreams buried forever 'neath the clay-like topsoil of harsh reality, I can at least live vicariously through my own son.

So what shall he be?

A scientist? A medical doctor? A musician? A sportsman? A famous artist? A non-corrupt, non-cheating, non-rule bending or at least non-getting-caught politician? Maybe he will combine many talents and become a modern renaissance man, furthering the whole technical, psychological and ethical frontiers of the human race, blowing apart our currently entrenched mindsets and forming new paradigms with which we can operate a fairer, brighter future! He might not even have to Google the word "renaissance" to see if he's spelt it right.

The possibilities are endless!

His mother, however, pointed out the following photo, which reveals he might be a builder:


Actually, as long as he's happy and I get a garage out of it, I'm good with that.

The Seventies Tribute to Tony Hart

I was born long ago, in the Year of the Unsuitable Panda, or 1971 as it's known by more humdrum but accepted calendars.

This means that, as a nipper, I was subjected to things that would be unacceptable for contemporary children. Amongst others, these things included going out unsupervised, eating bright blue things, playing with knives and buying your own fireworks with the sole (discretionary) warning of "Do NOT let off indoors!" which amused us for hours, as this was a euphemism for flatulence.

'Health' and 'Safety' were two separate, unrelated terms when I was being dragged up. The first described what you would get by staying outside for nine hours at a time, in the winter, with a jumper and mismatching woolly gloves you'd inherited from Auntie Gladys, who must have had two fingers and three thumbs judging by their fit.

"You've been playing Pong all day! Get some fresh air in your lungs." a concerned adult would say through clouds of cigarette smoke "It's healthy is that." And then they would slink back into the dark, orange-linoed recesses of a seventies abode, probably to make a drink and get ice out of a plastic container shaped like a pineapple.

The term 'safety' was typified by the act of not falling off the Witch's Hat in the playground. For those of you who don't remember, the Witch's Hat was a large conical frame that spun (span? spinned?) irregularly around a central greased spindle of wrought pig-iron:



The lowest point was about 15 feet off the ground, and the highest, which was the aim of every seventies child to get to, was somewhere in the ionosphere, just above the Golden Eagle eyries. You could see it in the clouds as solar winds caused aurorae to flicker around it's summit. Around the bottom were the broken and maimed bodies of friends and classmates who had failed to hold on as the speed got up, their cries drowned out by the ethereal metallic groan of the ill-maintained equipment.

At least, that's how I remember it. And Wagon Wheels were the size of real wagon wheels then.

Anyway, I digress. As a seventies child I was also influenced by the relatively new phenomenon of children's television. Admittedly, a lot of it was abject shite, and involved plummy voiced women telling stories about how children should just do what they were told, when they were told and life would be far more pleasant for everyone involved. Except, of course, the children.

Now and then though, there were shows which were universally lauded for their high standards, and one of these was 'Take Hart'. For the very young or those that are Britishly Challenged, this was a kind, gentle, genuinely pleasant show where an avuncular artist called Tony Hart showed kids how to draw, and then got them to send in their paintings where they were displayed in a segment cryptically entitled "Gallery".

That was it. And we all loved it. Just about everyone I knew sent in the odd piece to him, and then hoped it would be one of the eight hundred scrawlings that were shown as if they were valuable Constables. I never got on it, nor in fact did anyone I knew, but I think this was because I was from a mining town where crayons were in short supply and we had to make do with coal and dried dog shit.

And in the seventies, dog shit was white! You just don't see that anymore.

Take hart also introduced us all to the long-standing animated character of Morph, a shape-shifting plasticine man who lived in Tony's paint box.

Sadly, Tony Hart died in January, aged 83, and the level of tributes in the UK was touching, including this, where people made their own Morphs in remembrance of him.

Now, you can imagine my pleasure when I turned up to work the other day and found another seventies child wanted to remember Mr Hart, and had set up a Gallery of his own on the canteen wall. He had left a number of coloured pencils and some sheets of paper, and asked people to contribute in memory of the great man.

I thought this was a commendable idea as, not only did it honour an influential (sort of) character from our childhoods, but also allowed those of us that missed out on having a picture displayed on national telly in front of literally dozens of viewers, to momentarily correct that oversight. So, when my half-hour break came up, I diligently got scribbling, in an effort to represent the feelings of seventies children everywhere upon learning of Tony Hart's demise.

So, for your viewing pleasure, I present my effort. It's entitled "Morph's Scream" and is entirely uninfluenced by any other painting whatsoever:



RIP Mr Hart.

Boaring day out

I'm on holiday! We're currently at a B &/or B in East Devon, near Exmouth, and have really lucked out with the weather. Blue skies and white fluffy clouds as far as the eye can see.

I love this bit of Earth, and because my sprog is a bit young to be camping, we've splashed out on the aforementioned B&B for the sake of convenience. The Full English breakfast every morning is perhaps overdoing things, and I'm sure my arteries now resemble a cave where half-blocked walls reluctantly allow fluids past, and furry deposits amaze pot-holers with their sheer scale. Only made of lard and cholesterol. Not that I'm going to not have one for my last day tomorrow mind. I've paid for this, health risk or no, and I'm damned well going to choff my way through another plateful of egg, snorkers, bacon, fried bread, toast and the strangely out of place but tolerated tomato representing the vegetable minority in a meat and grease world.

It's a proper working dairy farm as well here, look:


As you can see, it's Friesian outside. A than' yew.

Now, in order to entertain my youngster, and to further facilitate his education in the natural world, we took him to a rather marvellous wildlife sanctuary stroke gardens stroke bird park stroke fish shop. He was initially fascinated by the peacocks, and one conveniently displayed for us, which probably gave my boy the impression that animals are put on this planet to pander to him in every way. This is not a mindset I want him to get into, as that way arrogance lies. Happily, the peacock concurred, choosing a moment of blissful peace and quiet to scream incoherently in my little boys face. Result - one wailing, shaking toddler who is now inconsolable if he so much as glimpses a feather.

Possibly a bit far that. We moved on and showed him some more peaceable birdies, like this ornamental pheasant, which soothed him a bit:

Purdy, huh?

One thing they did have, which was pretty cool, was a family of tiny otters from the far east, which are only a couple of feet long. We were there in time for feeding, and it was great fun to behold. Very popular with the kiddies, and you can see why:


Another popular attraction was this:



Jurassic Pork. A few of our rarely seen native hogs, which are a lot bigger and cooler looking than I was expecting. Also hairy. Very, very hairy. Look at this thang:


There were some other unattended kids blocking our view, and I wanted to see the boars a bit more clearly without these jostling juveniles obstructing our view. They were a bit loathe to move using subtle techniques of "Can the little boy have a look?", and just stood there sullenly. At least they did until I informed them that those muddy, creamy spheres the boars were gnawing with their oversize tusks were actually the skulls of lost children, who's parents had decided it was easier to leave than traipse back all the way from the car park to look for them. There was sudden disquiet and, moment's later, an obvious urge to go and catch up with their folks.

Mind you, it's believable when you watch them:



See? Baby heads. Okay, it helps if you're six. And have been told it's a baby head by an irresponsible adult.

Still, their future costly therapy is a small price to pay, as my boy got some nice close up views and was rather taken with them, especially the baby pigs (called Hamlets, I believe) which found a comfy perch:


Very little difference to my own role really, offering a comfortable place to sit for ungrateful offspring.

You blog for fifty posts, and whaddya get?

Good grief.

Fifty posts!

Who'd've thunk I had that much wittering contained within the pink mushy bit above me eyes? Well, actually anyone who knows me probably.

I was thinking of celebrating with a huge, HUGE fanfare of links and celebratory pictures trawled from the internet, with videos of fireworks and Red Arrows flybys, with interactive flash games and academic essays on the benefits of perseverance in the face of . . . er . . . not persevering.

But then I thought, actually, that sort of thing takes little effort on my part, involving just sitting at the computer and generally surfing the internet superhighway, trying not to get distracted by porn and videos of car crashes. The whole philosophy of this blog, if it actually has one, is to celebrate life, and one can't celebrate it if one doesn't experience it. Can one? No. One cannot.

So I went out and took a couple of photos on my phone.

First, at the local supermarket where they let people advertise second hand goods on their wall. I often look at these as you can get some real bargains there, and with the advent of eBay and it's computerised ilk, it's an often overlooked source of tat, as well as the occasional useful item. Often, it's not what is for sale that amuses, but the hand written sales pitch or information to be found on the card:


It's a BABYS MOSES BASKET that is IDEAL FOR A BABY apparently. Well thanks for that. I was going to buy it to store distributor caps in. I expect they had some space to fill and thought they'd better put a description in, just in case someone buying a Moses basket didn't know what it was for, although it might have been better used to supply a health and safety warning about not using it to send newborns down-stream, as it's frowned upon. Actually, I feel a bit mean, taking the rip out of notices such as this. And it's a good price, so if anyone needs one, let me know and I'll pass on the number.

Later on, I went to a playgroup. Obviously, I had my kid with me as otherwise that would just be weird. Whilst there, one must suffer the indignities of being dressed by two year olds, and they were particularly insistent that I wear this:


It's a US style fire-persons hat. Because children have no sense of gender equality, I was forced to wear it as I was the only man there, and therefore would apparently be more convincing as an employee of the fire-service, even though I'm far more likely to accidentally start blazes than deal with them. I made a mental note to tell the mothers to go to the next fire-station open day and show their children that women are also employed there, and some aren't even lesbians. That way, they could be the ones receiving the nit-infested toy hats and I could watch tolerantly from the sidelines, eating chocolate biscuits and complaining about not losing my baby weight.

Whilst putting it on (after checking for poo, obviously, as it does have a rather potty-esque feel to it), I did note the irony of the warning label inside:

Of course, if I was a real firema . . .person, I would probably request exactly the same label. Only sensible really.

So there you go. I've got my half-century of posts in, and it's simply a smattering of pictures from my phone, with full intention to carry on in the same vein.

Name that tuna

In order to get things back on track, and to stop veering off into a world of rants and spoof fiction, today I am simply going to blog about names. Not human names though, because commenting on the current fashion of naming your child by randomly stabbing pins into words in magazines is starting to wear thin. I presume that's how it's done anyway. Certainly explains why there are fewer Janets and Peters, and more Marabaya-Chantelles, Rygon-Mullets and Fantavia-Savingsaccounts doing the rounds.

Where was I? Oh yes, names. I was thinking about animals in particular, and I concluded that it doesn't half help when picturing them if they are given a name that is very descriptive, although it does risk being a bit boring. You can be pretty sure the Whale Shark is going to be fairly sizable, and the fact that it's a shark makes it exciting. The Proboscis Monkey is probably not going to have a tiny schnoz and being a monkey is cool, and the giant soft-shelled turtle . . . well, take a guess. Of course, a house mouse is a mouse that lives in a house. Even it's scientific name Mus domesticus means . . .er . . . house mouse. It's not exciting but there you go.

In the old days, adventurous biologists (who were as apt to shoot new species as study them) would have free reign as to what they might call any new animal they came across, and they could use local lingo (e.g. Kangaroo; Macaw), their own highly educated minds (e.g. Hyrax, Ceolacanth) or just randomly choose something daft to see if it would stick (e.g. Aye-aye, Frog).

Biologists are probably running fairly low on original names nowadays, so I expect it's unlikely that there'll be anything as esoteric as a Salamander or Narwhal announced to National Geographic in the near future.

No, all that's left are subdivisions of animals that we already know about, so naming them is less down to imagination or classical education, and more to do with what you're actually looking at. A seahorse from the south pacific, for instance, is likely to be named a South Pacific Seahorse.

Marine biologists are especially good at this, because they're discovering new species all the time, what with us having only explored a fraction of the oceans. They have to be pretty realistic, and a good example of this can be found in aquariums. Or is that aquaria? I was at the Birmingham Sealife Centre just the other day and saw these two signs for denizens of the same tank:


A starfish with all red knobs on it, and a little fish, shaped like a box, that was yellow. Twenty seconds thought by Jacques Costeau's descendants and job done. Simple as that.

Of course some were more cryptic. Take this fishy critter for instance:

I can just imagine the thought process that went into this nomenclature.
"Hey, Jacques, what shall we call this thing with the big eye?"
"Er . . . hang on . . . I'm having an idea . . ."

This makes me sound like a bit of a curmudgeon, but I'm not really having a go at animal names. For every dull name there is a corker. You have the Common Crab versus the Sally Lightfoot Crab, the Pigeon versus the Magnificent Bird of Paradise or the Brown Rat versus the Naked Mole Rat.

My current favourite name of a bird, apart from the obvious and brilliantly named Blue-Footed Booby, is one I saw at the same place as the Wandering Whistling Duck, and it's this:

It's called a Crested Screamer.

Now that's a cool name, and it's descriptive.