This years official loony.
As mad as a mad thing, and then some. As for his cracks about the Irish, he can go fuck himself, TBH. Robert Kilroy-Silk, you’re a dangerous fuckwit.
‘Veritas’ be screwed. Any time you see a politician wrapping himself up in the flag of ‘truth’, you know they’re a charlatan, and this fraud deserves to be defrocked very, very quickly.
A loaf of bread, the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed– Now if you’re ready, Oysters, dear, We can begin to feed!
Luke’s self inflicted hunger strike continues, we’re heading into day 4 and he hasn’t eaten a morsel. What to do? Is it the terrible twos, as some people tell us? Is it the fear of vomiting, as he did Sunday morning when he was unwell? Is it us being bad parents?
Who the hell knows. I just know that our lovely little boy is gone and has been replaced by a screaming, crying, troublesome, irritating, argumentative little sod. Jude is on her last legs with him and I’ll have to go away to Rome next month so I can look forward to tearful phone calls about how bad he’s been each day.
Some days I realise that I’m not cracked up to be a dad, I just don’t possess the right skills. Others can do it, but I now realise I can’t, and TBH, that’s pretty depressing since we now have two.
Update: 24th Jan 20:30:
Luke was discharged from the Royal Berks today after the nice people there watched him closely for a while. They got his temperature down to something reasonable so the risk of it happening again is minimal. There’s a chance he’ll have another one the next time he gets anything viral that pushes his temperature up, but there’s very little chance that any long term damage has been done or would be done (except to the two parents, I felt like saying!)
Both of his recent misfortunes have taught me something important though. I’m really crap in a crisis. On the phone yesterday to the operator, they wanted to know our postcode - could I remember it? Not a chance. “RG8, no..sorry,…The Cold Ash, new house drive…bollocks…JUDY!!! WHAT’S OUR FUCKING POSTCODE” I always thought that I would be calm and collected under pressure and I can be, certainly at work I’ve managed to speak for an hour to 500 people on some weird technical subject at 20 minutes notice, but when it comes to my kids and suffering I just can’t seem to get my act together. Maybe it’s time to buy a book, I’ve been winging it too long and the cracks in my act are showing badly now.
Poor Luke.
For the second time in a month, the little lad was in A&E, this time closer to home than Walsall. He picked up a cold yesterday, and overnight came down with a high temperature, funny dreams and the full snotty nose experience. Today, however, things took a turn for the worse. After vomiting several times, he had a full on febrile convulsion that scared the bejaysus out of Jude and myself. It didn’t last long, but we called 999 to see what we should do - never having seen one before we were a bit clueless about the whole business. If you’d told me he was dying, I would have believed you.
Anyway, he got carted off to the Royal Berks hospital in Reading, and he’s still there tonight being observed. His temperature is still pretty high, but I’m sure that’ll sort itself out in a day or two. Poor Judy is sleeping (maybe) on a bed next to him, so she’ll be as knackered tomorrow as she was when I was leaving tonight.
So, that’s twice in under a month that we’ve had to impose ourselves on the NHS. He managed to get through 2.5 years with nothing major and then…
Just like buses.
Confession: I’m a bit of a Star Trek fan, sad to say, and I have been for a good few years. Back when the original series (or TOS, as it’s unfortunately known to the Trekkerati) was being broadcast I would record the audio on my Dad’s cassete tape machine then play it back every chance I got for the rest of the week, seeing the video in my head.
This thing must be a forerunner of the replicator - The VersaLaser. I would love to be able to afford one just to see what you could do with some 3D software, a decent idea or two and the time to make something useful. I’ve heard of things like this before, but nothing so flexible. Sad to say it costs $10,000 or so, but give it 5 years and I reckon you’ll see them in either PC World or B&Q, depending on which category they’ll fall into by then.
Printer? Pah! Old hat….
I used to think that New Years Eve was a big night - lots of drink, go out somewhere good and countdown to midnight, thinking of some suitable resolutions. It’s still big(ish), but I’ve been to quite a few fairly dissapointing NYE parties/happenings/nights out and these days with the kids…..well, you get the picture.
I thought that Cliff’s description of his NYE to be sounded dreadful and that since I wasn’t working, therefore my night would be one of cheer, bonhomie, a few drinks with good friends and some witty comments about the year that has been. What a twat I was. We had the worst trip in the short history of this little family. Driving up to Widnes, we stopped at the services at Hilton Park just outside Birmingham, where Luke, following on from a dreadful lunch experience (which is normal), split his head open on the TV cabinet in the ‘kiddie-safe’ play area. Not just a small cut, but a one inch long gash on the forehead that bled and bled and bled. Off to hospital we went, where he had some superglue applied and some steristrips slapped on it to hold it together. With luck, he’ll only have a large scar that his hair will cover.
The prize for ‘Selfish Parent of the Year’ must go to the woman who wanted the play area cleared of bleeding toddlers so her angels could do their colouring. ‘Is he hurt’, enquired doting mother after gazing on Luke’s prone body, blood pouring down his face and also covering Judy who was holding him still while waiting for the ambulance. ‘Yes’, came my witty riposte. ‘Will you be long, it’s just my girls want to play’ was her reply….
I could have said lots of things, I could have railed to her that when my son’s head had stopped bleeding and the area was sterilised then her darlings could play, but Dave from Runcorn (the duty manager and first aider on the scene) summed it up better than I could. ‘It’ll be open when we’re finished, and not before. Now stand back and let the nice ambulance men work’
Bless him.
After we got Luke stitched up, we carried on to Widnes. Only for Mark to get a cold of biblical proportions from the kid we were visiting. One that made him snuffle, snort, and produce snot like it was going out of fashion. One that would keep him awake for hours on NYE, long enough for him to keep Luke awake until the fireworks started. Luke doesn’t like fireworks at all. They scare him so much he can wet himself with fear and cause him to whimper, weep, cry and get out of bed looking for reassurance. We tried giving it, but he wasn’t having it and in the end our hosts (pragmatic to the end, as befits parents of a child of a certain age that doesn’t fear fireworks) got ratty with us and began the cold-shoulder treatment. By 12:15 we were both in bed, but it was a long time before we both slept. Plans had been ruined, the big NYE meal was reduced to a sit on the floor jobbie with little interest from our hosts.
We were glad to get home, as were both boys. One went to his bed to sleep the sleep of the innocent, the other ran around for an hour just to make sure he was home, then collapsed in a heap. We won’t be travelling to Widnes again for a long, long time, just to avoid the shit we were given, but I expect that that won’t cause any loss of sleep on the part of either us or the lads.
You live and learn, and when you have kids you realise just how some people can’t see beyond their own agendas. We saw a few examples of just how selfish people can be, one while watching Luke bleed, one by just having their plans disturbed. Both are pretty ugly, whether from a stranger or a so-called friend.
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