Santa Cometh

Having young children really adds an extra dimension to Christmas and without them, I would probably despise the festive season.  Unwanted gifts, family truces, false smiles and desperately trying to enjoy JC's birthday combine to make the month of December probably the most stressful month of the year.  The only miracle I encountered this year was getting a parking space at the shopping mall on Boxing Day!  Children give you at least a little magic on Christmas morning, if for only a few brief moments.

Now I don't know about you lot, but I have a very well rehearsed routine on Christmas morning which has been passed down through generations of my family.  The day begins at around 4.30 am.  Three children of differing shapes and sizes decide that Christmas should be celebrated by dancing on the heads of their parents as they sleep.  After ten minutes of domestic brutality, I stumble out of my bed after a full and refreshing 3 hours sleep and stumble around the bedroom, hopping as I put my wife's socks on.  I then toy with the emotions of the three excitable kids jumping for joy at the top stairs by declaring I feel like a shower and the unwrapping of gifts will be delayed by 30 minutes.  The first time I tried this with my kids, they pleaded, punched and kicked, demonstrating their extreme displeasure at my sudden need for hygiene.  After four years of this however, they have gotten wise and laugh at my attempts to wind them up - this will not deter me in future years!

Three kids sit on the stairs as I make my way down to the lounge and peek through the half opened door to check if "he's been."   Who is "he" you might ask....Santa of course!  I carefully scan the room, turn to the kids, pause then calmly and succinctly declare, "he's been!"  All niceties and festive protocol are then forgotten as three borderline angry kids charge down the stairs, push me to one side and begin ripping into a mountain of gifts. 

Shrieks of joy fill the crisp Christmas morn....

"XBox Kinect!" 

"Yes!"

"Harry Potter Lego!"

"Yes!"

"Season 1 of Glee!"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

Discarded gift wrap now begins to swamp the whole house and the rate of gift opening increases as my three children begin to fit with excitement.  The odd jealous glance at siblings' gifts ensues as the three gift mountains begin to diminish.  My wife and I look on nervously as each child begins to count gifts opened and gifts remaining.  Will there be a confrontation?  Should we have bought Elliot that Harry Potter lego and not Hollie? 

Gifts unwrapped, kids happy, parents exhausted and still it's dark.  I cast a triumphant glance at my wife and congratulate myself on another successful visit from Santa Claus.  My eldest son, carrying his new remote control red Ferrari with working headlights, then asks me the fateful question....

"Are there any batteries?"

Shit!

Getting Older

There is something about being in your thirties that people of all other age groups don't connect with.  When you're mid thirties, you are young enough to remember being young whilst not being old enough to realise that you are out of the young person loop.  It is a very humiliating age, an age where you are not young, not middle aged and not old.  Us thirtysomethings make fools out of ourselves with the opposite sex, embarrass our children and experiment with fashion.  Unfortunately I tend to do all three!

I recently went on a lads night out.  This was agreed by the aforementioned lads to be a vodka soaked, beer swigging, breast fondling, police evading monster of a night where we would act like savages and quench our thirst for the old days.  Now to any of the age groups I mentioned earlier(and that is basically every age group other than our own), this would have been the saddest, most pathetic bunch of middle class, nearly middle aged manboys on the face of this rock.  We, however, knew we were insanely attractive to the opposite sex and terrifying to potential love rivals!

Towards the end of the night, I experienced a life changing moment - a moment I wanted to put into verse.




It's good to arrive, now im thirty five,
At places of lust, cologne is a must.
A flick of the brow, I point to the ceiling
A deafening crack and I lose all feeling.

To bury my shame, to prove I'm not lame,
I crawl to the bar, it's just so damn far.
A climb on a stool, I order a beer,
My audience laughs and give out a cheer.

A drink drank with haste, a horrible taste,
I look like a lout, I might just pass out.
The time is upon me, the exit is clear,
But maybe there's time for just one more beer.

My brain is now lazy, my eyes seem so hazy,
When out of the night, appears such a sight.
A sexy young woman, gives me the eye,
My luck may be changing, I straighten my tie.

A furtive side glance, I'm now in a trance,
I shuffle close by and give it a try.
She takes just one look, moves where she sits,
"I'm sorry old man, I don't like your tits!"

Christmas Gifts

Something happened at work today and I thought I would jump on a steal some clandestine time on my blog to tell all.

A lot is said about Christmas and it's worsening commercialisation - for any Americans reading, that's how it's spelt in English English!  The shops stock a vast array of Christmas banality and tat from mid October and there seems to be a zombie like operation in every town and city to 'get the shopping done.'  Now to me, this seems like a ridiculous paradox.  The whole point of buying a gift is that it shows someone you have spared a thought for them and taken time out of your busy schedule to select a present that will touch that person and make them feel loved.  My experience paints a completely different picture of the 'intimate' relationship between a gift and it's purchaser.  The vast majority of people treat the buying of gifts as a duty and a task that must be gotten out of the way. 

I'm a catering manager and decided to purchase my supervisors a nice bottle of wine each.  Great care was taken to discover what their preferred colour, brand, grape was.  I'm a beer drinker so I need a lot of guidance!  Now it just so happened that one bottle cost me £6 and the other cost me £20.  I bought nice gift wrap, carefully selected greetings cards and even included a small personal verse to thank them for the work they have done over the past year.  We gather for drinks, maybe the odd mince pie or three and I proudly bestow my gifts on my trusty subordinates.  After genuine shrieks of approval and surprise, the bottles of vino were freed from their gift wrap prisons and observed.  They were observed by one person a little more studiously than the other.  After some serious observation, one of my colleagues observed that her bottle of wine was considerably cheaper than that of her peer.  This observation was shared with the group in a very matter of fact way and we hurried to finish our coffees and escape the tension.  Some observations should be kept to one's self!

This really upset me as I had spent a reasonable amount of time researching wines and getting what I thought to be the correct one.  Next year, they'll get a kiss and my best wishes!

False Joy

Imagine my excitement when I checked my stats on found that 26 people had viewed my blog during the first day!!!  Visions of awards, accolades and interweb notoriety began to engulf my every thought.  Perhaps by this time next year, the traffic at my blog will provide an income that will allow me to quit my shitty job and live a lifestyle that would be the envy of both Keith Richards and Russell Brand.  Just think of the cars, the boats, the women!!  Then I realised the stats include my own views of the blog.

Big fat hairy bollocks!!

An Observation

Now I'm new to this blogging lark and have been checking out the competition.  To my total horror, most of the blogs I have checked out are laden with different fonts, interesting photos, fantastic backgrounds and funny stories.  The pressure to create an attractive and interesting blog for no one to read is unbearable.  Now given that I have no idea how to create such wonders of the modern blogging world, all I have left is my funny story...and here it is.

I recently went to Butlins in Skegness for a 60's revivial weekend.  Now for a 34 year old guy,  such a weekend holds little opportunity for frivolity, excitement or even mild amusement.  However my younger brother, my cousin and I decided to play some drinking games.  Of course, we are all hugely gifted intellects and playing your average drinking game is not going to satisfy our thirst for knowledge.  My brother decides that after 12 double vodka and cokes, he has suddenly gained a general knowledge that would put Stephen Fry to shame.  For the first round of questions, I decide to invoke the unwriiten superiority of age rule and become quizmaster.  

The vodka is flowing and the competitive juices are erupting.  Several acts of mockery and questioning of the venerable quizmaster nearly induce violence but the pace of events continues unabated.  It's question 13 and the scores are six, six.  We have developed a system of a slap of the hand on the table to ascertain who has 'buzzed' in first.  This rule was introduced after threats of violence directed to the quizmaster following a question regarding the meaning of the word, 'testator."  I for one will never forget the meaning of the word, 'testator.' 

Quizmaster: Fingers on buzzers....How would you address the pope?

Thus followed a long and considered pause from both contestants.  With a flash of excitement, the younger brother proudly slaps the table and delivers his answer.........

"Kiss his ring!"

MY PS3

I have to say, my PS3 is my third arm at the moment.  I just realised that you can now watch ITVPlayer and 4oD as well as BBC iplayer.  I am now part of a very exclusive online community of FIFA 11 players and can play in online leagues!  People take their gaming seriously and are always assured of a win when they take me on!

I am halfway through putting my whole CD collection onto my PS3 and already have my entire photo collection on there.  I'm now a social lepor as my photo slideshows put together with music are enough to keep ebven the most ardent dinner guest away - perhaps that's my plan!!

The most exciting aspect of my PS3 however is the ability to download movies!  All this time I have owned this technological wonder, I never realised I could rent some of the most recent movies around on the comfort of my own couch!!  No more schlepping around to Blockbuster's in the snow!!!!

I've owned both an xbox360 and a PS3 and I have to say with the extra features, better graphics and blu-ray drive, PS3 wins hands down!!


I just bought Gran Turismo 5 so will need to have a go on that before I let you all know great it is.

A Warm Welcome

Well this is my first forray into the world of blogging and I write this with absolutely no followers and little idea what on earth I'm doing!  At this point, this is more of a thought process as I assume that the very definition of a blog would require there to be occasional viewers of the content I am writing.  However, I foresee a time when I have many thousands of followers and this first blog will provide hilarity to thousands of my disciples.

This blog will be a melting pot of everything in my life that even mildy interests me including sport, books, movies, tv and current affairs.  I hope that over time this blog will develop a life and momentum all of it's own.  Perhaps if it's a success I will double my current Twitter followers total to four!  A big ask I know!