Build 'em high,

I was passing a building site the other day and it reminded me of my long past childhood, when we had a different name for them;

Playgrounds.

Even today, that ferrous tang of dust at the back of the throat you get as you pass a construction site flips me back thirty years to the excitement of sneaking in after school, exploring a maze of corridors lined with naked breeze blocks, each gaping doorway a porthole into another dimension of possibilities.

Of course, War (with a capital wuh) was the game of choice, if one had a willing cadre of tiny Nazis (nine year-olds), and the latest in offensive hardware (sticks). Occasionally you might turn up on your own, but the chances were some other like-minded individuals intent on having an adventure of their own would quickly arrive, and everyone would happily get caught up in everybody else's games..

You couldn't go past a building site after 5.30 pm without the echoey sounds of "DAGGADAGGADAGGA-EEEEOOOOOWWWWW-BOOSH-AIEEEEEE-SCHNELL-DAGGADAGGADAGGA!" rebounding off the brickwork, patiently ignored by nearby adults everywhere.

If you were on your own, there was a simple joy to be had in wandering around, seeing what a house looked like before it was fleshed out by bricks and plasterboard, exploring the labyrinthine intestines of wall spaces and airing cupboards without boilers in, no-one to tell you what to do, or what not to do, the master of all you could survey. You can forget Narnia. This was real magic.

And then there was scaffolding.

Oh man, how great was scaffolding?

Such was our monkey-like climbing ability at that age, we could scale the outside of a half-built three-storey edifice in about the same time we could walk a similar distance on the ground. A wet day made the slippery planks all the more exciting.

Even in the seventies though, society had noticed the youthful penchant for invading building sites, and dutifully put on safety videos at school.

These were invariably made by someone who believed the only way children would learn was by using realistic special effects, so cue scenes of unlucky children being absorbed by silage, the camera lingering on their (worryingly well-acted) looks of terror as the gloop closed over their faces. Then the kid would be shown as a ghost saying he wished he hadn't gone into the silage pit on the farm*.

Or there would be one warning of the dangers of playing on railway tracks, with a once sporty kid getting his leg trapped in a set of points, before an unconcerned Intercity 125 zoomed past, it's engine drowning out  a high pitched scream. The next scene would involve the boy looking wistfully at his football boots, before the camera pulled back to show him in a wheelchair, stubby legs ending at the ankles, and therefore revealing the reason he was looking at his football boots, and also why he was a bit sad, was because now HE HAD NO FEET!

Subtle.

The building site film contained walls of mortarless bricks falling without warning onto pint-sized dummies, discarded hammers on scaffolding being dislodged  by a wayward child and landing on the head of his friend down below, or the whole shoddily fastened scaffolding giving way and collapsing in a heap of Meccano-like death on a gawping crowd of interlopers. It was all done with appropriate realness, including after shots of children lying in pools of blood, or in hospital with drips and casts in situ, or looking horror-stricken at the mangled remains of their friends.

It was practically an advert.

Any nine year old who hadn't previously thought of going before definitely wanted to now, especially if there was the chance of finding randomly discarded hammers or walls that toppled like cards at the merest touch.

So, after a seventies tea of fish fingers and proper chips done in a deep fat fryer like the one that destroyed that house near the park that time, we would set off from our various homes with the express intention of meeting up at the new estate, breaking in using the time honoured technique of stepping over the foot-high single strand of wire that demarcated the boundary between boring reality and our adventure playground.

Things are a Little different these days:

Six-foot fences, metal gates, padlocks, floodlights, warning signs and orange flashing strobes mean that anyone caught inside the perimeter is properly trespassing and not simply out for a wander, like in my day, when it was perfectly possible to find yourself in a construction site without realising you'd walked in.

So, the health and safety brigade denies an entire generation of children the imaginary delights of adventure, the stimulating process of exploration, and the bonding camaraderie that running around an unattended building site can give, but at what price?

Oh, yeah, all those child injuries and deaths.

Pfft.


* Splashing about in a silage pit was obviously something all children were desperate to do in the seventies, judging by the effort displayed by the authorities in preventing us diving head first into them.

Hi kids, I'm Mr Shiny Face!

It seems like a geological Ian since I last wrote a blog post. An epoch. An age. A bit of a while.

Well, fifteen days.

That's a half a lifetime if you're a housefly.

I suppose keeping a blog must come second to ensuring my children don't do all that diseased starving they seem to go for with just the merest hint of a couple of months neglect.

Arguably.

The point is, I have less time to myself than Big Ben. It takes me about a month to read a paperback at the moment, and I have to pencil in visits to the toilet on the calendar.

The only telly I get to watch these days is children's TV, and like most parents I appear to have absorbed every song and dance routine via some sort of mental osmosis, where information goes from a strong concentration (television) to a very weak one (my brain).

There are certain things my kid likes which I don't actually mind watching as well, such as anything with computer generated trains in it, or Zingzillas which has the universally acknowledged winning combination of monkeys, coconuts and the occasional ukulele.

Then there's the stuff  I can't stand. This includes just about anything with the word "green" in the title, or that purports to campaign for the environment with monotonic children prancing woodenly around city parks telling you to recycle and not eat dog poo.

Also, old stuff that used to be stop motion animation but is now all CG. Lay-zee!

Yeah, I'm looking at you Noddy.

And finally there's the stuff I would probably watch instead of most adult telly programmes. Essentially, Timmy Time, which is ace.

I've also got to know who all the children's TV presenters are now. They invariably portray perky, smiley, intensely annoying caricatures designed to appeal to their target audience, and they do it well.

After a while, though, you start to see aspects of their real personalities shine through, like a thundercloud behind the sun.

Er . . .

Anyway, inaccurate meteorological similes notwithstanding, I used to think the hardest part of the job must be pretending to get all excited over the next episode of some hastily cobbled together art programme where a bloke tries to craft a crown out of twigs without making a four-year-old look like Jesus, when in reality you've just split up with your other half, have a tequila hangover and feel grumpier than a hippo with hemorrhoids.

Which, I have on good authority, is pretty bloody grumpy.

They still have to appear upbeat at a moments notice (TV presenters, not anally challenged hippos).

But then I remembered, parents do that all the time.

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy"

"Yes son?"

"You know bananas?"

"Yes son?"

"They are yellow!"

"Fascinating son."

"And do you know something else about bananas?"

"What's that son?"

"They are yellow!"

"Fancy that."

So, presumably, anyone with a child could be a kids TV presenter. And why wouldn't you want to? It looks like great fun.

It'd be even better if you could do it partially drunk.

"Hi Kids! Know what time it is? Yay! Ooh." 

Shake head.Close eyes, then force them back open.

"See that . . . pretty colours, jus' there? No there . . ." 

Swipe at rainbow midges in front of face.

"S'nice, is that. S'ver' nice  . . . ver', ver' nice  . . . zzz . . ." 

Prod from director.

"WHOA! Greeeaaat! That's a lovely show, that is, that . . . er . . . " 

Squint at autocue.

"And now, it's time!" 

Nod sagely; scratch chin and then look at hand.

"Oh, for . . . er . . . cartoons yay!" 

Sit down on floor and stare at camera.

"Why can't I see them? Quentin! Why can't I see the cartoons?" 

Put hand to ear, listen intently.

"Oh, right. Sorry kids! My mistake. It's not cartoon time yet. Let's go over to my good friend Cokey the Clown! Yay! Look at his funny white nose!"


I'd watch it.

Phone socks.

This year, I resolve to be more frugal!

Having just had a credit card bill for, and this is approximate, a lot of pounds, it occurred to me that maybe I could be a little more restrained.

Sure, that bat-detector will be useful, at dusk, and who in this day and age can really do without a goose-peeler, but perhaps there were alternatives to some of the luxuries I have treated myself to in the past year.

I don't mean to deny myself, for I deserve lovely things, but why should I spend hard-earned moolah on goodies just so some fat cat in a corner office can have more fizzy wine and another extra large Ferrero Rocher?

Instead, I intend to use my considerably phat skillz to construct things I need, like a chap of yore.

This is not as fanciful as it at first seems, for I do have previous. Apart from my spoon, which is still talked about in hushed awe-laden tones in the fields of carpentry, ergonomics and aesthetics, I have also made other useful things.

For instance, I made a stylish and practical holder for my Blackberry mobile telephone.Thus saving myself a substantial amount of money yet still ending up with a phone cover.

Below is a pic. One of these is a "genuine" professionally made and marketed  cover, soullessly gouged from the back of a cow, machine stitched together and implanted with a harsh magnet, then labelled before being sold on the internet like the symbol of capitalism it so obviously is.

The other was lovingly, tenderly crafted from materials originally used as something else, finding new life, a new purpose, in another guise, the epitome of cyclical regeneration, environmental responsibility and fiscal thrift.

I'll leave it to you to decide which one is better, but I think we all know the answer:

The one I made is . . . wait for it . . .  on the right!

I know!

One might argue that I did  not simply make a phone cover out of an old sock, but I took away all of the sock that was not phone cover.

Of course, I did have to buy an official leather Blackberry case so I could take a photo of it next to my homemade one, but this is a philosophical point rather than a economic one.

I now have to consider what items, luxury or otherwise, I can make myself. I have a load of spare nails, coat hangers and squirrel tails so the children are going to be okay for homemade toys, but if you have any other suggestions then I'd be happy to hear them.

Unless, of course, it's for homemade bagpipes, because I'm still wanted in Scotland for assaulting that caber tosser.

Merry . . . Saturday!

Christmas time, and I'm off, which makes a decent change.

Doesn't seem a year since I was lamenting being at work over christmas, but it was!

This year, however, I am of a different ilk, and can join in the festivities without the possibility of having to zoom off to have my mood ruined by someone selfishly having a heart attack or taking an overdose on this most joyous of of days.

Yay!

Now, There is actual, genuine snedge outside and the kids are gradually coming down from the excitement of evidence-less faith in a big fat guy who lobs toys down your chimney even if you haven't got a chimney. As well as sugar.

Presents have been given and received, telly has been watched, dinner has been eaten and the traditional bicker has been attended to. Both stomachs and marriages are close to splitting, which is the official sign of a successful traditional exmuss.

My son, who is a few months short of his fourth birthday, turned his nose up at the stonkingly good home made beef wellington with all the trimmings, and opted instead for a Babybel cheese and a slice of bread (no butter) for his christmas dinner.

This is actually better than might be expected because, if it was his choice, the christmas menu would be something like this:

Starter: Minstrels.

Main Course: A Minstrel joint with flambéed Minstrels, roast Minstrels and boiled Minstrels, drizzled with a Minstrels jus.

Dessert: Minstrels crumble with custard. Made out of Minstrels.

This would of course be followed by a nice cup of Minstrels to finish the meal off. And maybe a quick look at the Minstrels board.

I've flicked through the films, and was quite excited about Shrek the Third and Top Gear, but in general I'm not overly bothered about telly. This is good because, well, let's face it, the TV selection is pretty crappy, and that's even with the most up-to-date supermarket freesat box. The Queen's Speech wasn't even done by Helen Mirren. Just some old granny in a bling hat.

Mind you, I would've been more excited about even the most straight-to-bargain-box-in-Blockbusters offering if the synopsis was like the one I saw just a couple of weeks ago on Movies4Men:

Rogue agents are ten a penny. In fact, the majority of secret service agents are rogue. And that's political dynamite, that fact.

Rouge agents though? Well, they're a different breed altogether. Not only are they charged with hijacking Concordes (presumably by going to an air museum and towing it out), but they must do so looking fabulous!

Now though, in the here and now, things are quieting down. Peristalsis is overcoming what initially seemed like a insurmountable obstacle and now just looks more and more like a big job, whilst alcohol gently caresses my system like a cerebral Thai lady-boy with well-oiled hands.

So I have a moment to reflect.

Yup. That's some good reflecting there.

Good reflecting.

Anyway, let me take this moment to wish you a very happy Saturday, and please spare a thought for all those who have to work over the weekend.

Happy christmas.

Tactical re-tweet

I got pestered by some mates into joining Twitter, which I duly did being a modern, technomological sort of person, interested in the relatively new phenomena of social media and cyber-gregariousness that now pervades our society like a funny smell you can't decide whether or not you like, encouraging us to become "friends" with people we've met at a bus stop and are unlikely to ever see again.

So, there I was, Twitterised.

Of course, I obeyed the law and became a follower of Stephen Fry, because I believe that's compulsory and there may very well be some sort of penalty for not doing so.

I read other folks tweets. Some were quite good, or informative, or interesting. Most were banal. I played around with it, tweeted a few times, even twittered occasionally.

But I have to confess, I don't really get it.

To me, other social media makes a sort of sense. It's great for sharing photos with far-flung family, of arranging rare nights out, and for generally having a regular natter when otherwise you might only talk to someone every couple of weeks on the phone. It really is quite social.

Twitter seems very . . . one way.

You post a sentence. It gets displayed for a while. You write another one. Done.

And for the number of people that are going to read mine, I'd be better off writing them on a Post-it and sticking them to my fridge door.

I decided to cheat and directed my Facebook statuses (Statees? Stati?) to become tweets, so I look like I'm a dedicated Twitterer, when in fact I only occasionally look at it. This way, Mr Fry's loyalty enforcement officers won't come after me.

I do get notifications when someone new follows me, which is all very well when it's a friend or acquaintance, but most of them seem to be businesses including, strangely, a Japanese Garden centre.

Lately, I have been experiencing a sudden surge of new followers on Twitter. At first this excited me because, suddenly, people were showing that they liked what I was saying and wanted to know more! Coincidentally, they all seemed to be ladies with a penchant for naturism, for their avatar pictures were often bereft of clothing.

Amazingly, Yasmine, Constance, Celeste, Ebony, Sexxy69 and DickLuva all turned out to be less than genuine, and were in fact spamming for business in order to drum up trade for mucky films.

Apart from the copious displays of bare boobs, their expressions should have clued me in. Half closed eyes and slack jaws are, it would seem, the industry standard "look" to demonstrate sexiness, and totally not indicative of an over-enthusiastic lobotomy.

Anyway, I've blocked them on grounds that pictures of naked ladies are actually available on the internet, if you look hard enough.

So I've been told.

And then I promptly got another one. Just before I blocked her, I couldn't help but notice her name.

In such an industry, market research would, one presumes, suggest using an alias that might be judged "sexy", a name to tempt a potential Joe to view your wares, a nom-de-pute if you will. This isn't difficult, as you could just use those ones associated with contemporary screen lovelies, maybe Angelina or Nicole, Kirsten or Eva. No imagination needed.

Here, such market research had obviously passed my new fan by.

Her name was Mildred.

Now, bad as I feel about labelling people, but when I think of someone called Mildred, it isn't in the context of sexual relations. Apologies if your name is Mildred and you're reading this*, but it really doesn't rank high in the annals of eroticism, does it? The image that springs to mind is of someone with removable teeth.

I wonder if you were a chap in the market for some negotiable affection, would you pay less if your lady of the night was called Doris or Edna?

I may be over thinking this.

Initially, writing this made me feel a bit shallow, and possibly sexist against men for not including them in this diatribe. But maybe the opposite is true. Genuine desirability depends on subjective impressions, the recognition of humanity, the identification of (and maybe with) a real person, not just on plastic pertness and a gormless physiognomy, lovely though those attributes must obviously be.

A name is important.

Of course, the popularity of any name changes from one generation to the next, so todays Angelinas will be tomorrows Myrtles, and the height of allure will one day be represented by Maude, Ida and Mildred.

Anyway, with that tangent well and truly offed, I deleted Mildred and exited Twitter for a few weeks. I'm obviously not exploiting it to its full potential, which may be my fault, but I also don't seem to have the urge (or indeed the time) to learn how to.

Ultimately, blogging may have ruined Twitter for me, because why would I want to tweet when I can squawk?

*Although, to be honest, it's not really very likely, is it?

Charity, Limited.

We had one of these flyers through our door the other day:

First glance, they look like they are the epitome of altruism, helping poor, needy, pink skinned, blue-eyed children who can't even afford Ben 10 or Barbie Elastoplasts.

And look! In case you didn't get the message that they help children, it is reinforced by a picture of a dog:

Surely they must indeed be a worthy cause, for why otherwise would they have a picture of a dog?

In fact, this isn't a charity, but a business which aims to get you to give them your old stuff so that they can sell it on for a profit.

I haven't got a problem with that per se, but it does try and emulate charitable organisations, and it's only when you notice there's a company number at the bottom rather than a charity reference, you realise.

It's even got the dodgy spelling that real charity fliers have.

Personally, I tend to give my old stuff away (if it's one of those rare items that I haven't destroyed doing whatever it is I do that turns clothes into rags within weeks) to charities like the Salvation Army, because they go directly to people who need them, rather than via a shop or agency.

This one is a bit cynical mind, although it defends itself by saying it provides clothes to the less well off.

This is true. If they pay for them.

I'm not here to bang on about faux chariddy, but it was the marketing technique of this one that got me thinking. Obviously, someone has read that cute things have big eyes and outsize heads, playing on our inherent protective instincts of infantile things. From this, they have decided that the dog must be photoshopped to have an even bigger head and bigger eyes than you might find in the real world.

Because, obviously, you can't find a picture of a genuine cute puppy anywhere, can you?

Look at this one though:
Hideous.

A normal picture of a real one would've been better, even if it is one of those tiny dogs which are supposed to be fluffy and white but have those horrible reddy-orange patches where they constantly drool, lick or piss on themselves.

So I wonder where cute ends and hideous begins. Probably the cutest thing I've ever seen on the internet is that Slow Loris being tickled. It's got the big eyes, the gentle demeanour and the appropriate baby-like visage to bring out all the gooeyness in you.

The makers of Shrek got it down pat with Puss in Boots:

What about stuff people have phobias about. Is a baby snake cute? A spider?


I think that's fairly cute.

This however, was supposed to be, but misses the mark by an order of ew:

What are they trying to do? Encourage little girls to hate babies?

Nasty.

Of course some humans, who worry about what they look like because they no longer have to worry about eating or being eaten, notice when someone else is cuter than they are and then try and increase their own cute levels when they feel they are in deficit, with mixed results.

You see, this is cute:

However, despite much thought, work and money, this is . . . er . . :

. . . I don't think anybody knows what this is, but cute isn't the adjective that immediately springs to mind.

I suppose we should remember the shallow subjectivity of beauty, and maybe we can all be cute on the inside.

Actually, scratch that. I've seen a liver.

Anyway, the company that started off this train of thought, Rutex Ltd, leaves its email address at the bottom of the flyer, so I have sent them a message telling them I am a Nigerian finance minister, who needs to store three million Euros worth of penis enlarging pills in their office, and if they send me their account details and passwords I will give them a hefty consultation fee, 100% honest, may your God or Gods be kind to you.

Wonder if they'll fall for it accept my business proposition.

The gift of getting gifts.

Whilst a-shopping in a shop today, I noticed they had an offer on toy cars. Might be a nice little treat for a small person I thought to myself, magnanimously, and might just have the pleasant side effect of shutting up a whingeing kid.

And look, they had an special on Transformers!

Can't go wrong with transformers, I reasoned. Always popular, as they combine the traditional roles of . . . well, cars and robots. Yes, very traditional.

I was about thirteen when Transformers came out. Transformers the toy, not the electrical current transferring device, because that's been around since Einstein invented electricals.

I was lucky enough to have a couple of the figurines, and must have got a full two or three enjoyable hours of excitement transforming Optimus Prime into a lorry and then back again before his arm came off and stayed that way for ten years.

There was also, if I recall correctly, some sort of reddy-brown jet fighter contraption, the transforming process of which being so hideously complex that you had to have a working knowledge of 11-dimensional M-theory physics to convert into its robot alter-ego and back.

It was almost certainly a governmental test to seek out the precocious mathematical prodigies who could complete the task, and then put them to work in the Department of Very Hard Sums.

Because of this, most of the time I played with it was as an aeroplane with a random foot sticking out, or a robot with one big flappy wing impeding its progress.

Anyhoo, this Transformer I clocked in the shop was a police car, and was quite little, which excited my inner child. I wondered what the intervening quarter of a century had provided in the way of toy innovation and transformer design. I turned it over to look at the back before I parted with my hard-earned two quid:

And I'm glad I did, because the back bore the legend "DOES NOT CONVERT" in a font similar to that found on military cartons definitely not containing glowing bullets.

Huh?

So the Decepticon Transformer Barricade Police Vehicle, who's sole selling factor is the ability to change from a car into a gurt monster robot to terrorise local populaces . . . er . . . doesn't.

What a disappointing label. Like having a sticker on a knife informing you it "DOES NOT CUT" or a post-it on your wife saying "DOES NOT LOVE YOU".

What's the point of it then?

I wonder how many children have got one of them home and then suffered the crushing desperation of trying to transmogrify it into a robot, only to be defeated by the cynical marketing ploy of the manufacturers?

Dutifully, I put it on the floor, stamped on it, and then replaced it on the shelf in the shop, before slinking home.

Instead, I think I shall look to get such presents from a mail-order catalogue because they must rely on fairly full descriptions to persuade you to buy their tat. In this way, the toys do exactly what you'd expect, and also incidentally provide some potential career advice:

That, friends, is a Playmobil Amphibious Getaway Car, complete with dark-suited masked driver holding suitcases bulging, presumably, with valuables he has just liberated from the oppressive banking authorities using toy guns and toy threats to kill.

Now, with that you see, you get everything you pay for. You get a car for getting away, you get a legally ambiguous hero to drive it, and you get a sense of glamour attached to the criminal underclass.

Actually, it's quite a good idea. If you're doing a bank job near a river, imagine the surprise on the coppers' faces when you drove into the water and chugged your way to freedom.

Devious minds, them Playmobile fiends.