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Tree Fu Tomboy.

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A new show has started on CBeebies, Tree Fu Tom. Yes, yes, dyspraxia, all very worthy, but look at it from the point of view of a regular viewer. Another cheap-looking CGI show (I’m sure it’s not that cheap, but I expect it’s not expensive), another male lead.

This prompted me to ask Twitter to name CBeebies shows where the lead was female. Dirtgirlworld and Everything’s Rosie came up very quickly, and 64 Zoo Lane. All solidly girl-centred. Charlie and Lola. Well, I’m not so sure about that – yes, it’s mostly about Lola, but they share equal billing and Charlie is the narrator. Then the suggestions moved to Nina and the Neurons, Same Smile, Come Outside, I Can Cook (oh, you can see where that’s going) and Balamory. Notice anything about those? Not girls, women, and generally quite mumsy women, helping you to learn.

Continue reading Tree Fu Tomboy. →

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More of the same.

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You know how last time it was all about vomit and that? Yeah, that again.

E is running a fever. 39.5 degrees was the scary number last night, until the helpful person at NHS Direct told me that you have to add a degree if you’re taking the temperature under the arm.  40.5.

Yikes.  So I didn’t begrudge her spending the night sleeping on my chest as I was propped up at a funny angle on our (New! Comfy!) sofabed.  I did begrudge her puking on me again, though, but that was in the heat of the moment.  No-one likes being doused in vomit, no matter how cute the emetic.

I am informed that she is much better today.  Responding well to the magickal powers of Calpol, her fever has receded and her demeanour improved.

And soon, I will have other things to talk about.

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books, etc

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Some things I don’t mean to do, and reading a book on my phone is one of them.  Okay, you might say “Well, why did you download the software, then?”, which is hard to argue with, but I don’t know, it’s a brave new world, lots of crazy apps and shit, why not?  It was free!  And it came with a copy of The Invisible Man pre-loaded onto it.  I thought “Eh, let’s see how reading off of a screen works, yeah?”.  Turns out it reads ok, though I’m not doing it for any length of time so we’ll see.

 

Oh, yes, the point of this was that I have a copy of Wolf Hall in my bag, which I totally intended to start reading yesterday and a copy of The Phantom of the Opera at home, which I nominated as book of the month and so have a duty to read.  But what did I do?  I read a page or two of The Invisible Man and now I have to finish it.  It’s a compulsion.  Bloody Wells and his curiously more-ish prose.

 

Also, furthermore, the point is that I want to read books, buy books, paper, physical books.  I don’t want electronic copies.  I don’t want to be thought of as part of the generation that killed books, that would destroy me.

 

Which is why we have so many books for E.  So many!  I bought The Gruffalo’s Child the same weekend as Wolf Hall, and I think it may be my favourite baby book now.  Although I still don’t have a proper voice for the Gruffalo’s Child.  Squeaky Scots, I guess, since my Gruffalo is sort of a bad Robbie Coltrane impression.

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Hey, it’s getting lighter.

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Ahh, the fresh tang of a new update.  So much might have happened in the two weeks since last I wrote, and yet so much has not.  Well, nothing I’m going to blog about anyway.

 

I’m going to try something to kick-start the writing.  I’m going to write out a list of chapter headings for the whole book, ones which sound cool and are also suggestive of the shape of the story.  Most of them probably won’t end up in the finished product, but, eh.  I dunno.  Worth a shot.

 

Baby news: Has been seen to be pincer-gripping, and definitely taking small steps (haha) towards proper crawling.  Very chatty, and copies sounds/movements.  Having her wave at you is just to die for.  Check the flickr page (link at the top) for some extra-lovely pictures of her at Regent’s Park.

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getting on

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getting on

You know, you can buy the Jedward Under Pressure/Ice Ice Baby single for 29p from the Amazon mp3 shop.  I bought the Queen/Bowie original because I wanted to and it cost me 89p.  How is that right?  I feel so old.

Top fact (for me) – this year the second May bank holiday falls on my daughter’s first birthday.  Everyone celebrate Elladay by taking the day off!  Woo!

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done.

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done.

Well, now, I have my Hero and lo, it doth rock most mighty.  It all just… works, as it should.  It feels complete, seamless, where the Omnia felt disjointed and scrappy.  Beautiful.  And that’s all I have to say on it, really.  I think that’s enough – it’s as they say, quietly brilliant.

Re Blogger, well.  I still don’t know.  I have an offer from Aquarion for hosting, which is very generous, but I still – I think – face the same issues.  Maybe I should just go WordPress, but I don’t know if I have the time to sort it all out.  People with WordPress accounts – is it time consuming to do?

Also, I really really now want a personalised url.  I have my eye on mothinabutterfly.net… should I perhaps just shut off all the extra crap (writing and such) and lop it down to a blogspot-hosted blog with that url?  So many questions!

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other things

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other things

Baby stuff, while I mull over the Blogger situation.

I think she’s close to crawling.  She does a kind of.. well, flat out on the ground, arms and legs moving like she’s doing front crawl in the air.  Sometimes she goes backwards.  If she has something to push against, she goes forwards.  It’s surely only a matter of time now.

She also likes to stand, supported, and wobble about.  Maybe attempt a bit of bouncing.  Then get bored and start yelling, because she hasn’t quite figured out sitting back down.  But that’s ok, we’re there for her.  We can help her sit down.

Oh, and Vodafone still haven’t given me the upgrade, the beasts.

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Moving on?

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Shit. Blogger are discontinuing support for ftp. What to do? Migrate to – shudder – blogspot? Buy a new domain from Blogger and hope for the best? Or jump ship to WordPress? I don’t want to do any of these things! I have loyalty to Blogger, dammit I’ve been with them over 9 years now! Nine! That’s an eternity in internet years! And I’ve been on wetflame for, what, 6 years? That’s also plenty FAR time. I don’t want to be on blogspot! But I don’t know what their custom domain shit would do to mikebot’s stuff. I had one instruction given to me when I joined the good ship wetflame – “don’t touch my stuff”. I don’t want to let Blogger in to do just that…


Grump.

I don’t know what to do.
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Holding out for a Hero

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Holding out for a Hero

Today I upgrade my phone.  I talk about this a lot, because I enjoy the process.  The research, endless agonising on gsm arena, working out which one is bestest, flicking between networks’ websites to compare deals, deciding, changing my mind, going back to the first decision… all of it.  So, yes, today I will walk into Carphone Warehouse and demand an HTC Hero.  It fills the gap between a phone and a netbook!  Oh, wait, no, that’s the iPad’s job, apparently.  Good luck with that, Apple, you big mentals.  Still, if you’re a massive giant of a person, the iPad might yet work for you as a regular iPod Touch.  Provided you don’t mind only being able to run one application at a time (SURELY THIS IS NOT TRUE?).

I intended to go to bed at a reasonable hour last night, but then I realised I had to transfer all the pictures of my daughter from my old phone to its memory card and to the computer, so they’re not lost when I reset it to trade it in.  Had a weird moment last night – not the first – when Ella woke up crying and all she really wanted wasn’t food but for someone (it happened to be me) to hold her and reassure her.  It may well be the best part of the job, that, the moments when you realise that your responsibility to your child isn’t just material, isn’t just about keeping her safe and fed and clothed, there’s an emotional need that she has which can be filled *only* by her parents.  Or, to be fair to adoptive parents and whatnot, by their parental figures.

And that, so far, is my favourite part of parenthood.