Baby, Pop culture, Written

Something of the Night Garden

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This is an homage to the awesome Lore Sjoberg’s ratings.

Iggle Piggle

I can’t quite feel anything for Iggle Piggle, much.  I don’t dislike him, but I don’t like him either.  He’s a bit of a blank, isn’t he?  Oh, sure, he likes bridges and dislikes mucky patches, but don’t we all?  He likes Upsy-Daisy, but we never get a sense of how that relationship evolved.  Iggle Piggle lacks depth.  He carries that blanket around as a substitute for a personality, but I’m not fooled. Also his song is a bit of a half-arsed riff on the theme tune. C

Upsy-Daisy

I confess, I wasn’t much of a fan of Upsy-Daisy to begin with.  Too much singing and skirt-inflation, not enough… well, anything else.  But a few episodes recently have changed my mind.  She couldn’t decide if she wanted to sing or play with the ball, to ride the Pinky-Ponk or the Ninky-Nonk!  It was a masterful performance, and totally switched me round.  Her song is a pretty solid composition, too, and I frequently find myself singing it to my daughter.  B

The Pontipines/Wottingers

Oh, I really don’t get on with the Pontipines.  They’re kind of difficult.  Wooden, for a start, and so simply animated that it is hard to get any personality from them.  What do we have to go on?  They’re terrible parents and make odd millinery choices.  Mr Pontipine has a large moustache, like a retired colonel, and one can’t help but think the Pontipine children keep running away because he is a terrible authoritarian.  You don’t get that feeling from the Wottingers, who are definitely the happier family.  No moustache clinches it, also Mr Wottinger doesn’t have a hat which looks like a clothes peg.  But you see them about once every fifteen episodes, and those bloody Pontipines turn up all the time C-

The Tombliboos

Now you’re talking.  The Tombliboos live in a hedge, but not in a tramp way.  Their platform-filled, black-as-night house will no doubt be the setting for many a childhood dream, leading some people to wonder if they only dreamed it, did it ever exist?  But, you know, also they lose their trousers.  A lot.  The episode where they kept putting on each other’s trousers, then losing them on the Ninky-Nonk, then having to change behind a rock… I was in tears of laughter.  Genuine comic genius.  Trousers.  And Derek Jacobi’s delivery is perfect – “Tombliboos, are you wearing the right trousers?”  They are also excellent toothbrush advocates/propogandists, with some cracking rhymes (Tombliboos, form a line/Brush your teeth and make them shine)  Okay, not quite a full A because their Pinky-Ponk Juice antics are a bit dull. A-

Makka Pakka

Makka Pakka,
Akka Wakka,
Mikka Makka moo!

Makka Pakka,
Appa yakka,
Ikka akka, ooo

Hum dum,
Agga pang,
Ing, ang, ooo

Makka Pakka,
Akka wakka,
Mikka Makka moo
A+

The Ninky-Nonk/Pinky-Ponk

Clearly, the Ninky-Nonk rules.  The Pinky Ponk is just so slow and ponderous, it takes forever for anything to happen and if the Tombliboos get on they’re just going to arse about with Pinky-Ponk Juice.  I do like the Ponk Alarm, though.  Good to have a safety device that goes parp.  The Ninky-Nonk is anarchic, has a lot of attitude for what is basically a bus shaped like a TARDIS being towed by a banana, and can climb trees.  What’s not to love?  Especially the trippy scale-factors.  Is it knee-high?  Is it truck-sized?  Is it small enough to go along a little branch?  It’s all of this!  Okay, Derek is a bit wary of it (“Oh no!  It’s the Ninky-Nonk!”), but he’s an old man, he’s probably worried about whether it’ll accept his Freedom Pass Oyster. Ninky-Nonk B+/Pinky-Ponk C+

Baby

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So here’s the zoo stuff I promised.

It’s great!  It’s a long walk from Warren Street tube, mind – anyone know any easier way to get there from, say Liverpool Street?  By the time we’d walked up and through Regent’s Park we were quite ready for breakfast, which we got from the GOUGERS at the Zoo’s coffee shop.  This is a recurrent theme.  Paid £20 to get in?  Yes, but what about a photo of you on this MAGICAL day, that’ll be £x?  Raffle ticket?  Donation to the gorilla fund?  £4 for a guide?  £16 for a couple of panini and some coffees?  £5.50 for a frankly YUCK burger?  Okay, you’re a charity, I get it, but it just feels so relentless.

So, yeah.  But fuck it, it’s the ZOO, you’re there for the animals.  And it has them..  I mean, I was expecting a serious scaling-down of zooly ambition, what with people not wanting animals stuffed in tiny cages any more, but no.  Lions, tigers, camels, little hippos (so cute), giraffes, gorillas… yeah, no bears or heffalumps, but they’re all at Whipsnade and when you get zoo membership it’s for both sites.. and we have membership.

The real stars were always going to be the lions, for our daughter.  Her first animal noise was “Rarr!” at pictures of lions, so I was itching for her to get her first glimpse of a real live… oh, they’re asleep.  Apparently they sleep pretty much all the time.  So a no-show, but we noticed in the gougy guide that there was some sort of presentation at about 2.30pm.  Just after E woke up.  So we trundled over, tried to get a good view (impossible, totally packed, so anise took the pushchair and hung back while I pushed through the crown with baby in arms).  Of course, to start with they were still asleep so I just had a slightly restless baby in my arms.  Until the keeper started talking through a PA and a lion raised its head.  A lioness first, at which interest was piqued.

Then the male raised his maned head.  Well, I’ve not seen her react like that before.  A look of pure wonder on her face, her jaw fell open.  Then she started pointing and growling “Rarr!  RARR! RARR!“.  I hoisted her up onto my shoulders, to her immeasurable glee.  She giggled madly as the lion (name: LUCIFER) prowled lazily around his enclosure.  Enraptured the whole time, I think she might be more in love with Lucifer than her parents (which seems a tad ungrateful).  And then he went back to sleep, and we drifted away.

LATER THAT DAY, in the gift shop, what should she spot but a plush lion. “RARR!” she cries, plucking him off the shelves.  Well, we were planning to buy her a gift to commemorate her first zoo visit.  She just made the decision for us.  She instantly bonded to her lion, like glue.  It was even traumatic to hand him over to the cashier for barcode scanning.  This was, what?  Three weeks ago?  More?  She still loves that lion, and it was the first toy she gave a name to (Well, that we took a name from her babbling and gave to the lion, but she was pointing at him and saying the word over and over).

His name?  This mini-Lucifer?

Bobo.

Big Brother, Blether, Meta

Hello

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I am still here. Although apparently I have some random crazy Twitter accounts which turn up in the feed over there ->

I will update properly soon, I promise. DON’T LEAVE ME!

God, my post about the start of Big Brother is at the bottom of the page still. That was months ago! Eep.

I have lots to say, actually. THE ZOO! We went to the zoo. My daughter loves lions. Rarr! ZOOOO!

Consider this a holding page. Rarr.

Blether

I am not a customer

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I am a passenger, I am a patient, I am a guest. I do not need you to have a charter, I just need you to treat me like a fucking human, treat me like you know you’re supposed to. You know it without a charter. Just do it.

Silly to be annoyed by this, really, but there you go. Sometimes you have to let the details get to you, let them under your skin. Wonder – why does this bother me? What is it symptomatic of?

Meta

Oh, you pointless fucks

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Comment spam has gone mental.  I just deleted 155 comments, and that was from two days.   What’s the point?  I have a readership in single figures!  I probably don’t even have that, considering the paucity of updates these days.  Who is your market?  Plus, I’ve gone moderation-mad, so your comment will never ever appear on the site!  Why are you doing this?  I guess I’ll have to stop comments entirely if this carries on.  Not that any real people comment any more (because of no readers, as mentioned), so what the hell?  I guess I am only doing this for my own amusement.

Like everything.

There are other ways to contact me, I suppose.  Email, Twitter, tracking me down to my place of work.  The usual things people do when they want a word.

Baby, Blether

non-sequitur

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“I used to bathe you in that sink”, in my head I turn this phrase over, and I’m saying it to my teenage daughter.  She looks at me as if to say “I didn’t ask, and I don’t care”, exasperation, anger and confusion in one. This hasn’t happened yet and probably never will.  But I understand the person who says this, now.

You used to be this tiny, helpless thing. You needed us to do everything for you, and it just so happens that we would do anything for you. You were ours, we made you. Everything you were was us. And there you are now, my future daughter, the sum of your years, a product of everything else. Sure, we are in there, strongly, but we are voices among many.

But it wasn’t always like that. Once we were everything to you. I used to bathe you in the sink.

Baby, Blether, Sickness

Sorry, sorry

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Bloody hell, been a while.

So anyway, I had a cough for the longest time.  Like, May. And I vomited a bit, quite violently.  This gave me a pain in me ribs, like bruising.  Not unusual, so I thought little of it.  But it didn’t go away as it should.  Hmm.  Not cool, but still not something to be hugely worried about.  Bruising!  Okay, it hurt when I coughed.  Or sneezed.  Or laughed.  Or, um, breathed.  Or stood up.  Right, right, maybe I’ll see a doctor.  Perhaps it’s a chest infection.

The doctor listened to my chest for a while (much longer than usual! Concerning?), before declaring that my left lung was filling normally, but there were “reduced breath sounds” in my right lung.  It could be an infection, she said, but it is more likely to be a part of the lung having collapsed in on itself.  Go for an X-Ray tomorrow.

Meep.

Now, a mild bit of the old pneumothorax is actually not massively troubling.  But still, being told you have a partially collapsed lung is kind of startling to a person, you know?  It may be due to blebs, as well, which is a very amusing word to have in your life (though not so much in your lungs).

So, X-Ray.  Not done this before.  Went to Whipp’s Cross, very convenient for me, and dropped in to the open X-Ray clinic.  Seen relatively quickly, like after about half an hour, but then I got there early.  I was expecting to at least have to take my shirt off but no, just turn the collar up.  So I’m stood there with my chin on the top of the plate, my shoulders hunched forward and my collar up like a pound-shop Cantona.  I feel utterly ridiculous and I actually have to stop myself laughing, fighting back giggles because surely that will mess up the picture?  Who knows.  Done and dusted in seconds, I’m back at work before lunch.

On top of all this, baby is sick again.  Sick sick sick.  Since Saturday night, she’s barely eaten or drunk.  We cracked and phoned NHS Direct last night and as ever I felt like a fucking timewaster.  But she was so horribly sleepy and listless.  Not cool.  In fact very worrying, though she seems to be improving.    She has eaten Oatibix, which may be the most disgusting breakfast cereal yet devised by the hellspawn at Kellogg’s.  And held it down!  She’s not vomited for 24 hours.  This is good.  I look forward to tomorrow, when I get to go back to work.

I also get my X-Ray results.

Blether

Support

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This is verbatim, apart from the snarky commentary.

From: MrMoth Sent: 14 June 2010 12:44 To: IT Guy Subject: RE: Test Account
 
You’re going to love this (I know I do).  Access denied!  I don’t have permission to do that.  Which is very sensible, but no help.  It’s just plausible that it isn’t possible to do this remotely on my machine. (Seriously, is there a grown up down there who can help you with this?)
 
From: IT Guy Sent: 14 June 2010 12:34 To: MrMoth Subject: RE: Test Account
 
OK, can you try going to start, then run and pasting the following into the run dialog box:
 
{Link}
 
Copy and paste the test 2 2007 desktop icon to your desktop.  In addition to this, you will need to log off and then back on again to apply the correct group membership settings for your test account.

From: MrMoth Sent: 14 June 2010 12:17 To: IT Guy Subject: RE: Test Account

“Outlook blocked access to the following potentially unsafe attachments: Test2 2007 Desktop.lnk.”

 Don’t you just love technology?

From: IT Guy Sent: 14 June 2010 12:15 To: MrMoth Subject: RE: Test Account

OK, let try this. If you copy the attached shortcut to the your desktop that should do the trick.

From: MrMoth Sent: 14 June 2010 12:07 To: IT Guy Subject: RE: Test Account

I very much doubt it, but then I didn’t actually set it up so couldn’t say for 100% certain. But 99% – no, it’s not. (At this point I was tempted to reply “With respect, you are the IT guy.  Your people set this computer up, can’t you just ask someone?”)

From: IT Guy Sent: 14 June 2010 12:00 To: MrMoth Subject: RE: Test Account

Hi  I am still unable to connect to your machine. Is Windows Firewall running on it? Regards

From: MrMoth Sent: 14 June 2010 11:46 To: IT Guy Subject: RE: Test Account

It is and I am – it’s a proper box rather than a terminal, though. Does that make a difference?

From: IT Guy Sent: 14 June 2010 11:44 To: MrMoth Subject: RE: Test Account

Hi again I am unable to connect to the machine name below. Can you confirm that it is correct, and that you are on the network. Regards

From: MrMoth Sent: 14 June 2010 11:38 To: IT Guy Subject: RE: Test Account

Hi, My machine is {blah} and I am frankly amazed at the coincidence which has assigned me the word “password” for my password!

From: IT Guy Sent: 14 June 2010 11:36 To: MrMoth Subject: Test Account

Hi there I have set up your requested account in test. All I need now is your machine name in order for me to add the required shortcuts to your desktop. Your new test account credentials are as follows:

Username: {blah}

Password: password

Baby, Big Brother, Pop culture

Crikey

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Look how long it’s been!  Eep.

Okay, so what’s happened?  Well, E has had her first birthday!  Yes, it has been a year since she was born, and she’s been lovely ever since.  Just lovely.  Okay, a pain from time to time, but not to the point where she is anything less than adorable.  One year gone, though.  Flown past.  A year of all our lives has gone, never to return.  And she’s a person, you know?  She’s become who she is, this year.  Not who she will always be, you can never know that until you’re looking back, but who she is right now.  She’s funny, and cheeky.  I like her.  She knows what she likes, what she hates, she has taste.  She is fun to spend time with… except when she’s making you read Spot for the fifty billionth time… (I never said she had good taste).

Also: Big Brother has started.  I’ll talk about it from time to time. Maybe I’ll create a post category for it.  You know what?  I just did.  Too early to call so far, but I love the fairground shit.  And I’m sad it’s the last one.  Frowny face.

Uncategorized

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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