• The food scene. Silly but fun and still decent dialogue. The Scottish line was fab and custard and fish fingers emphasises the alien aspect of The Doctor.
• “I don’t have anybody, isn’t that GREAT!” There were a bunch of lines like this, which completely sum up how a kid sees the world. Adults think of all the adulty stuff if there were no relatives about. Kids just think it would be a land of adventure and staying up all the time. This line and a few others nailed that idea.
• The swimming pool in the library. There’s never been enough done with ideas like that. Similarly, climbing out and jumping into the TARDIS. Great little touches that remind you what the ship is.
• The self-parody. Stuff like ‘Who da man?… Never again” were nice touches.
• The idea that most – well some – of the villagers knew who the Doctor was. Purely down to Amy or will we see some eps with the Doc in the village’s past?
• Patrick Moore being a good sport.
• The whole hero moment at the end as he becomes The 11th Doctor ending in “Basically…run.”
• Amy Pond. Loved the opening shot of her as an adult. That’s what you call a Dadshot I think
• The music was decent. The little repeating rift was OK and I like choral type incidental music, so winner here.
• A lot of Smith’s acting was in his eyes – though Doctorvision was bloody awful – he’s a very expressive actor.

It was just nailed well. For what a Doctor Who ep is meant to be, this did it (even if the CGI was bloody awful). Some Nice Grant Morrison-esque ideas (“if you pull the wall down, the crack would still be there”) and nice touches of horror with the idea of something you can only see out the corner of your eye.

But one thing stuck out: that kid who runs by with the toy helicopter. He was too vivid, the colours too bright for it not to be a hint or a tease of something. It just seemed…odd.

But I now hear it’s been pulled because the BBC think it will get complaints. Fair enough, but if that’s the case why has it seen fit to allow pops at the Catholic/Christian faiths? Are Lodge members more easily upset? Does the BBC care more about their feelings?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The sketch in question is one where the Burnistoun branch of the lodge decides to undergo a rebranding exercise – Orange is now too associated with the phone company and Order sounds too militant – with hilarious results. I hear that the sketch was the highlight of the preview night where the Burnistoun team carried out preview screenings, so I was looking forward to it.

Robert, Kirsty and the gang had already shown that they could easily shoot down some sacred cows – their gags with Jesus/God and Jesus as a DJ and the Virgin Mary in a drug sketch had shown they could be really funny.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now I’m as lapsed a Catholic as they come (and now well in Agnostic territory), so I found the above hilarious, and I was looking forward to the Lodge sketch as well (I’ve got mates in the Lodge. It’s not my thing, but if they want to do it, fair play) because if you start poking fun at one set of sacred cows, all of them have to be fair play. And the Burnistoun team are funny.

Except BBC Scotland seems to think it’s OK to poke fun at Catholics (and other Christian religions) but you don’t want to offend the Orange Lodge because they said the gag should be pulled to avoid offence.

Which begs the question then: who was the member of the Orange Lodge at the BBC that pulled the gag on the grounds of being too controversial? And if they aren’t a lodge member, why did they approve the gags on religion but not the lodge? Is it OK to offend Catholics and Christians but not Lodge members?

We can only hope that it sneaks its way into the DVD…

Censorship and sensitivities. Pure shite. And you can quote me on that.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The other main issue is that if writers need to provide extra multimedia material then they are hosed. Most writers are good at one thing: writing. Not taking video, adding audio or anything like that. Writing. The clue is in the name.

So for writers to succeed in this brave new world they have three options:

• Work with other people to do the extra material – which will cost money (which will come from the author’s advance or be deducted as part of the book costs – but still, less money for writer).
• Do the extra material themselves – which takes them away from writing and delays publication
• The publisher brings in others – but again that means either less money to the writer or the book costs go up (what? You think the publisher is going to take less money?)

I’m not knocking writers, but speaking from experience (and I believe Charlie Stross made a similar point recently – writers are good at writing).

Also, if you can only get on the iPad/iBook by dealing with an Apple-approved publisher, boy are those companies in for a chunk more submissions for the slush pile…

Of course, it’s also a very decent digital input device for approx £400, so it could give many authors a reason to type a novel from bed…

Having said that, I wonder if you’re doing morse code and asking your mum to change the channel on TV because – even though you’ve only existed for five or so months – you’re hearing all the same jokes from the constant reruns of Friends on E4 that your mum has on as background noise kinda constantly. (Not that the show is on much but the six characters are pretty much screenburnt into the TV now. Kinda strange watching Troy and wondering why the ghosts of Chandler and Joey are flanking Brad Pitt into battle.)

I swear if your first words are “he was on a break” there’s going to be issues…

After writing about your love of your inflatable Disney High School Musical bed your mum and I were concerned about you sleeping in it every night – and you certainly didn’t like me reminding you that it was for travel or guests. But at bedtime you pulled out a classic line that guarantees you a trip to the bear-making shop soon (or perhaps even a trying to arrange at least one of the holidays you want this year*): “Can’t get cuddles off Dadda in Disney bed. Go into big bed to get cuddles from Dadda as Dadda cuddles best.”

You even managed to sound sincere.

Sleep tight.

* Madam’s 2010 holiday requests: Back to Florida to DisneyWorld and Universal (if I could squeeze in the last NASA Space Shuttle launch I wonder if this could count as educational?), Portaventura again too and weekends at Alton Towers and Blackpool. Not asking much…

The bed had stayed in the box for the simple reason that you haven’t had any sleepovers yet, but you wanted to try it – and it would need tested before going anywhere or having someone stay on/in it – so that seemed fair enough. I didn’t realise you would take to it as if it was surgically grafted to you, sitting on it for watching TV, taking it upstairs and then wanting to sleep in it every night.

The one good thing about it is that when you’re in it, you’re sleeping all night. No cries for a 3am cuddle off me, so perhaps it’s laced with Calpol or something. But I can’t work out why you like it so much? Is it that comfy or are you being a little High School Musical brand fanatic?

I just hope you aren’t going into school and telling everyone that you have a travelbed and it’s the best thing you’ve slept on. God knows what the school would make of that. I can just see parents’ night now: “oh yes, we’re very progressive parents. When she’s well behaved we feed her. And if she’s really good, we even let her sleep on an inflatable bed. When she’s naughty? Oh, we have an Iron Maiden for that.”

A bed. I can’t believe it.

It might sound unlikely – and I really hope so – because I’ve had two really vivid dreams where I (appear to) die (and I really hope they aren’t bad cases of Deju Vu) and in one of them, my last word was ‘Abigail’ (crazy imagery beforehand – buildings all rising up and falling, being pushed forward by a wall of whiteness. Was like something from a Grant Morrison book) as I took shelter behind a wall.

But waking up made me realise something: she may be five but she would be useless at looking after herself. Would she know how to get to another house? What if her grandparent’s house was down too? What if her friends couldn’t or wouldn’t take her? Would she have the savvy to break a window to get shelter? Could she work out a tin opener? Could she work out how to dial some one that might be able to help her? Could she keep herself warm or would she just hit Channel 71 and watch Cbeebies until something happened. What’s her school’s policy for apocalyptic scenarios? Does even asking them that question get you marked as a mentalist?

And that’s the big one – what about bump? It won’t even be able to look after itself for five years minimum.

Some people on Dan’s blog say “Don’t worry about it,” but it’s one of those things that once it’s in your head it just doesn’t shift.

(and yes I know the whole point is moot because if I’m dead there’s nothing I can do about it, but no-one told me when I was signing up for the world of parenting that I would sit and lose hours worrying about my children if I wasn’t here to look after them.)

I ordered the Zi8 in black (but it’s also available in raspberry and aqua blue, though I would imagine the black is the most popular) and I’ll spare you the usual unboxing nonsense – you get the cables for hooking up to HDMI (HD) and normal TVs, a little strap, a manual that’s straight from the Apple book of minimal decent content and that’s pretty much it, which is what you want to be honest – packaging out the road, jump in and play!

The phone itself is about the size and width of a Blackberry or thicker/wee bit shorter than an iPhone 3GS.

(The main reason for getting a Zi8 was that I was impressed by it having an external mike socket. Having played with Flips, I thought the sound was the weak issue, so the Zi8 lets that be addressed.)

But you won’t get to play for long – the battery’s pretty run down, so it needs a charge, so add two hours to the “I just wanna play with it” moment. And then make sure you have a SD card for it as the internal memory is good for about 5 seconds of footage (get Class 4 or higher for best video recording). Oh and then, you might notice that your machine doesn’t have the latest version of the firmware installed (way to go Kodak!) as they appear to have shipped 10 billion models with the 1.03 firmware (1.06 is the latest and, judging by online reaction, is considerably better).

This is where the Mac/PC difference comes in: there’s a bunch of software preinstalled for the PC, nothing for the Mac. Also, go here and you’ll see that the Mac upgrade installations – which include buying a memory card reader – are far more of a pain in the backside than the PC version.

However, that’s a load of nonsense, here’s the simple guide to upgrading Kodak zi8 firmware on a mac:

1. Attach camera to Mac
2. Turn it on, backup anything on your card
3. Create a folder called SYSTEM onto memory card on Zi8
4. Copy firmware download files over to SYSTEM on card
5. Turn Zi8 off, disconnect
6. Turn Zi8 on and you’ll be prompted to upgrade – basically go with the green tick each time
7. Once done, reformat your card

After all that, you can get going and it’s ACTION!

I’ll let you watch the clips (all of which are available in HD) and then I’ll post my thoughts. Each of them was filmed at 720p/60fps as that appears to be the best setting, especially for YouTube videos. Apart from the last video, the microphone used is the internal one. No tripods were used in any of these shots – it’s all handheld with Kodak’s Image Stabilisation software, EIS, turned on.

Kodak Zi8 in test at night

The first chance I had to play was at 2am in the morning. Now the Zi8 has no flash or lighting aid – either built-in or attached. Apart from the car at the end, there’s little movement. I had been told that the Zi8 – due to the small lens – would be rotten at night so this held no surprises for me.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kodak Zi8 in recording a panto

(oh no it doesn’t! Oh yes it… oh shut up)

Junior received a play puppet theatre kit and has been putting on ad lib shows at every opportunity, including this gathering at the inlaws on Jan 1. Now the lighting is low in this (just one corner lamp) but it gave me a chance to play with the zoom. What surprised me was how much the colour dipped when zooming in. The zoom is also a bit jittery, but as with all digital zooms, you really shouldn’t use it anyway.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kodak Zi8 in average light test

Heading kind of says it all. Average living room light (basically one halogen corner lamp about 6 foot)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kodak Zi8 in bright light test

Heading kind of says it all again. The aforementioned light with also the main overhead living room light on.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kodak Zi8 and motion 1

Five year old girl doing five year old things.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kodak Zi8 and motion 2

Five year old girl doing five year old things, will be mortified when she hits 12.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kodak Zi8 tested with external mike

The start and end of the segments have the internal mike being used but from 0:50 to 2:20 a clip-on lapel mike (£25 from Maplins) was used. I thought the sound from the internal mike was decent and was disappointed by the Maplins’ external mike. However, it may well be that it will work better for one-on-one interviews (which throws it back into the realm of work related stuff) and I’ll cover that over at Contently Managed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kodak Zi8 as a camera

In all honesty, it’s as decent a camera as you find on the likes of the N95 and slightly better than the iPhone 3GS, both of which were trumped by the 4 megapixel Canon ixus I have from about six years ago.

Other points and notes:

1. Uploading HD to YouTube takes forever and a day. Well, longer than normal anyway. The panto clip here took 30 mins to upload (the one at the end took 40 mins). I’m dreading a longer video (I may even try and get a physical broadband connection again instead of wifi to see if that speeds stuff up)
2. This is a dinky little camera
3. Suggestions for the Zi9 would be: external earphones socket (for checking levels but also watching long videos) and some form of lighting. However both would boost the price probably. A larger lens would be a real winner, but again, that’s me being greedy (probably).
4. Raspberry and aqua blue? WTF?
5. As this just deals with .MOV files – that’s what it creates – I wonder if it could also be a movie player if you added a film in that format to it. Makes it a rather cheap movie player for trips (You could load it up with about 64-80GB of movies for the same price as an iPod Touch)
6. Getting the HDMI socket open is a nightmare, well a pain and hassle, if you don’t have nails.
7. The USB port looks well dodgy (see pic). It’s very short, rubbery and unless you have the computer and USB connector on a flat table, you’ll be paranoid that the connector is going to fall/break. If there is such a thing, an extension cable might be handy.
8. Having to upgrade the firmware out the box is ridiculous.
9. The more bright light you an give this camera, the happier it will be.

Is it worth a buy? I don’t regret it, put it that way, but I will probably end up using it more for work than personal stuff. But I will have it in my pocket when possible to catch some moments because it’s far better than the iPhone 3GS (which, to me, is a far poorer video camera than even the Nokia N95 from a few years ago). I also like the idea of carrying around a few memory cards instead of tapes for a big video recorder.

If you want to see some comparison videos, here’s some more video links:

Kodak Zi8 Review

Click here to view the embedded video.

Flip Mino Killer: Kodak Zi8 Review

Click here to view the embedded video.

Flip UltraHD vs. Kodak Zi8 – Review by HighTechDad

Click here to view the embedded video.

GizmoDuck Review : Kodak Zi8 vs Creative Vado HD

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of course, being five, you are also totally obsessed with death (what is it with five year olds and death? Does the Scottish teaching curriculum have lessons on gothery or something?).

Anyway, there was some mirth the other day when you told me that you thought you had worked out what had happened to Jesus.

“Daaaaaad, you know you said that Jesus was killed on the cross because he annoyed some people? Was he put on the naughty cross? And they forgot to bring him down so he could say sorry so he dead?”*

(*if you aren’t a parent, you won’t get this. It’s a play on the naughty step concept devised by Supernanny)

And I tell you, if nothing else, it’s given me some thoughts for how to do a new take on a kid’s version of the bible…

So, as I mention in the cult podcast (with a very liberal dash of swearing) that you recently had a school play for Christmas and you were a tad dejected about being a reindeer (Cupid) and not part of the nativity.

Until you pulled together the words to the popular tune of “I’d rather be a XXXX than a XXXX” except your version was “Oh, I’d rather be a reindeer than a Jesus, Oh, I’d rather be a reindeer than a Jesus, yes I’d rather be a reindeer, rather be a reindeer, rather be a reindeer than a Jesus.” And then you went off into a second verse with different words but I couldn’t hear you as I was on the floor howling with laughter.

You’ll have all sorts of issues with religion as you grow up (the joys of living in the West Coast of Scotland) but if you keep your sense of humour about you, I think you might just do OK. Of course what you said the next day, was almost as blasphemous.

ps – sorry Jesus

Becoming More Emotional

Boy, no kidding on that one – and this totally took me by surprise. At first, for guys, when a baby comes along, it’s pretty much business as usual. There’s a wee person about the house that you have to get up at all hours to feed but that’s really it. They cry a lot when you pick them up and they are just… there. And you know you have to look after them.

But somewhere along the line some gene in you flips. Now for everyone it’s different but for me, anything that involves a father and daughter now cracks me up. This first became obvious after rewatching one of my favourite fun films Armageddon and as it approached the end, I was in a flood of tears, totally uncontrollable. Fricking Armageddon! Since then, I’ve noticed it in other things – The Time Traveller’s Wife for example. God knows what The Road will do to me…

I used to joke with Graham Lindsay at the Scottish Daily Mirror about this as he told me that parenthood made him unable to read tales about child cruelty. I thought he was talking bollocks until junior came along. I can still read those stories, but dear God they get my blood boiling more.

Much amusement for the wife and friends. Much embarassment for me.

Child(ren) Come First

This is a bit of a combo of Tara’s points 2 and 3. But yeah, I’ve seen every part of my life ’suffer’/benefit from having a kid. I don’t go out as much as I used to and if I do, I go out after the little one has had her two bedtime stories and cuddle for falling asleep. I’ve seen me walk out the door at clocking off time (knowing I’ll have chunks to do in the early hours of the morning) so I can get home and play tig or princesses or something like monster hunting down the woods with my wee best pal. I’ve gone without things I’ve really wanted because I saw a nice top or toy for junior. I’ve taken her and her pals out when someone else was equally happy to do it.

It’s also probably made me more selfish because if I get the option of anything to do, playing with junior is the first call (though I am going off the swimming lessons at 8am on a Saturday morning after two years of taking her).

(three things that have surprised me though: how little sleep I actually need at times when dealing with the wee one – though I’m sure that’s taking its toll in its own way . Also, how much I always hear madam moving about or talking in her sleep, even if I have been sleeping (again, sure that’s talking a toll) and how well I operate with a hangover and children (though the way round that one hasn’t taken a toll – less drinking or nights out!)

Made Me More Intolerant

My personal politics used to be fairly left-leaning (that’s not a statement of political party alignment but my own personal politics) and I’d like to think they still are, but having a kid does make you less tolerant of other people’s foibles – especially if they are a parent – and it’s practically a full-time job to haud one’s wheesht as they would say in Scotland.

Things like the woman who let her children die in a dirty nappy? In the past I may have moaned about the system and so on. Now? I’d kill her and sack every social worker involved in that case, making sure the world knew why they were sacked. Come in home from work tired and don’t want to play with your child? Tough. You have a child, relax later (though why you wouldn’t find playing with your child fun and relaxing I don’t know). Want to watch a TV show/surf the web/do something solo while your child is awake and not doing anything else? Get to hell. That child’s a gift to you and never asked to be born to you, so you owe it your time while it’s awake. Farmville, Smallville and Coronation Street can all wait until your child/ren are in bed.

(See what I mean about intolerant?)

What about the other parents who read this? Has parenthood made any changes to you that surprised you?

Cake Excellence in Scotland

That was made by the slightly wonderful Anne McLuckie of Edinburgh PR firm Holyrood Partnership where I spent some time consulting on digital media matters with Contently Managed – but one thing Anne would never reveal was the recipe behind the sugar rush that was her great cakes.

Buuuuut, her boss Scott Douglas is a great believer in the power of social media, so perhaps if we all send them an email asking for the Cookie Monster Sesame Street Cake recipe, he’ll put the recipe up on his blog. If you want the recipe to the best legal sugar rush you’ll have this year (or want to talk about his new podcast or need some PR and don’t fancy using the Contently Managed team) then drop him an email here or use this contact form.

Anyway, you’re still sitting at least 5ft from the TV from now on – and watching it less too.

Anyway, I need to go and find your school socks. I never realised that the sock monster preyed on whole families (of course I beat the odds there by getting you to just buy me 21 pairs of the same black socks on a bi-annual basis), so I’m off to sock-hunting (and while I’m doing it I’ll change the lyrics of ‘Going on a Bear Hunt‘ to Sock Hunt.)

ps, sorry about crashing in beside you, but you always say you want more cuddles. And besides, blame your sidekick-to-be. Permission to bully has been granted.

* wonder if this gag will work in RSS readers…

For this, you’re getting called Zanzibar. Or couch, ‘cos that’s certainly what I associate you with mostly at the moment.

On page 1, the twin, Elspeth, dies and then stays away until page 63 out of a 387 page novel. This is not a fast paced book. In fact, if you think Defying Gravity moves slowly, this book will torture you. But I’m assuming it’s meant to be a character study, and if so it’s an interesting one because there isn’t a likeable character in the book. In fact, only the OCD chap has any real degree of sympathy.

Elspeth eventually comes back – partially – and appears to be quite the friendly ghost and the reactions to there being a ghost are fairly decent, with the obvious worry over ‘is she watching us all the time?’ and the book plods on with the ex falling for one of the new twins, the twins growing apart and OCD man trying to conquer his OCD.

There’s little bits of incident hung together under the guise of plot, but nothing that would get the pulse racing – even the first of the so-called twists that has been mentioned everyone online – is fairly easily guessed, the second is too and the third should be straight as well if you’ve noticed the title and twin behaviours.

The last 100 or so pages have more meat to them bones (har!) and it comes together decently but not spectacularly with a slight bit of open-endedness left for the reader (or rather a guessing ending).

It’s an overlong book and could easily have had 50-100 pages chopped out without loss, but I wonder if – due to the success of the TT Wife – that an editor would be afraid to chop anything and upset the writer?

Is it worth buying? I’d say get the paperback or put it on the Xmas list for someone to get you. It’s a decent read, it’s just not worth the hardback price. I don’t grudge it though as I bought the TT Wife in paperback and would happily have paid more for that one, so to me this is karma balancing things out.

NOTE: if anyone else who has read this wants to post spoilers in the comments section, feel free. I’m going to do that in the first post with a thought or two about what happened to the character on the last page and some just desserts…

• There’s concern over your eyesight after your mum spotted you squinting at reading materials. If your eyesight is throwing in the towel, expect war over how close you sit to the TV and how much of it you watch

ALSO EXPECT ALL BLOG POSTS TO BE THIS SIZE SO YOU CAN READ THEM FURTHER AWAY FROM THE SCREEN

• And I know you think glasses and contact lenses are cool/fun. They’re not and bad eyesight can seriously screw up your life: did you see who your mum married?
• Halloween was a hoot with you, though I stress to add that a) if you go out as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz ever again, you carry Toto. If I had to look after that mutt for one more minute I was reporting you to the RSPCA for (fake) dog neglect and b) on Halloween you can take sweets from people, it’s the one night ‘no thank you I haven’t had my dinner’ is not the appropriate response.
• And don’t start me on you getting to wear mascara and lipstick – even if Dorothy did have them on in the film. You don’t see me dropping houses on the witches that you know “just because it happened in the film” do you?

Apart from one thing – and if you knew morse code I would pass this on – you won’t be called Poppy. I quite liked it when the name popped into my head – I still do – but it’s been pointed out that it’s more of a kid’s name than an adult name. I dunno, I think it sounds quite quirky and happy, eccentric and bohemian, things I would love you to be.

But it’s not to be. One thing is for sure though: would really suck for your name if you’re a boy (and more on the bets over that issue another night).

Of course, at least we haven’t gone down the path of what we did with your big sister…not yet anyway.

Well you’ve just no luck have you? Most girls – IIRC – get to the age of 16 before going to a bash or a party and discovering they have the same outfit as someone else.

You? Age 5. Place: School Halloween Disco.

Not one, not two, but THREE Dorothies from the Wizard of Oz (and two of you with the same outfit from the same shop). I mean what do you call the plural of a Dorothy? Dorotheees? Dorothi? Bunch of table cloth dresses? Actually what’s the collective noun as well? An Ozful of Dorothies? (next year you can all go as munchkins or the crazy monkeys – you’re all the right height for that and it doesn’t matter if you match).

Of course it wasn’t until you came back that I discovered you had mascara and lipstick on – and got a tattoo when out. I think all that was missing was you having a hangover and a boy’s phone number…That reminds me I didn’t actually check your wee Toto basket…

The double whammy was that we had a beast of a spider on the bathroom wall and you missed that as well. But I took a pic for you as I know you like these things.

Pictures as always taken with the iPhone 3GS

And another pic I noticed after you had gone to bed was what you had posted outside your mum’s room:

I know you aren’t meant to put stickers on the wall (and in fact I think this is the first time you ever have) but you can get a pass for that one. Don’t think you’re getting the iPod Touch that you’ve started asking everyone for though. You can play the games on mine.

And no, you can’t have driving lessons either.

You’ve been quiet the last few days and your mum has even managed to keep the last few meals down (God bless pasta bakes) though the bedroom windows remain open, freezing me to death (still at least it gets me off the couch).

But I hope you’re looking your best tomorrow and you’ve combed your genes and forming veins to look good because you’re getting your second scan complete with pic and so on. I think your sis had four pics taken off her (I always said I was shocked her first words weren’t ‘”bloody papparazzi” or that along with the afterbirth there was a note for the Press Complaints Commission moaning about intrusion) so let’s see if we can beat that.

In the meantime just keep doing that cell dividing and growing thing. And hope you’re enjoying the pasta.

And yes, even though it’s way too early, I know for a fact I’ll ask “do you know what sex it is?” because Dads do that. And it’s never too early to start scaring boys away.

For that have an extra gulp of amniotic fluid or whatever it is you do in there to chill when you aren’t too busy dividing cells and stuff.

(or perhaps I’m just a damn good cook. Anyway, like your big sister, mum can now expect pasta bake non-stop for months.)

On the other hand, well done on finally eating a full meal that didn’t involve chips, sausages, beans or mashed potato. Expect pasta bake every night for the rest of your life now…

Chef McGill

And here’s a pic.

Anyway, let’s see if you can sleep through the whole night for a change.

*notwithstanding the fact that you couldn’t tell the time three months ago.

Two things are also quite apparent from this: your dad certainly won’t be fit and you may get called Arthur as in arthuritis (or the more common spelling of arthritis) from the spinal damage I’m getting sleeping on spare beds, couches and your big sister’s bed because you’re playing havoc with your mum’s body temperature.

Anyway, goodnight Arthur.

* I don’t think that means watching all the Saw films.

Oh yeah and another one told a journalist that the Venus landing was faked/covered-up.

So not a lot happened then and there wasn’t a lot that would have had long term ramifications for the show. For a show that started off slowly (so some said), it was a stormer. The odds are against it surviving (the sets have been pulled down) are as slim as some plots from Star Trek: Enterprise, but I liked it and I hope it gets the ratings abroad to justify being picked up on a cheaper scale (greenscreen sets perhaps?)

Anyway put me down for buying the DVD boxset. It was  a type of show that deserved to be encouraged. A semi-realistic and serious look (with the usual dramatic conceits for fiction) at space travel with some good acting.

And now, I’m off to Contently Managed to write about how I would have done the PR for the show/PR a relaunch.

The simple answer is: nothing. I read and enjoy quite a few mum bloggers and tweeters (being raised by females makes it quite interesting as I can read stuff and see similarities/differences to my upbringing), but the mum blog scene – even in the UK – is fairly well established. The dad scene is a lot more fresh (and also, dads tend to blog about their children while also blogging about other stuff. This site is proof of that as is a site like Budgie’s Sqwawks). Also – and this goes against what 99% of online people do – why replicate what someone else is doing elsewhere? There’s lots of links to mummy bloggers out there.

But for those of you wondering where the best mum blogs are (or you’re a PR on the hunt for some) or you’re just too damn lazy to do your own legwork I direct you to this list with the usual caveats (you may not like them, may not be your thing, yadda yadda): Sally Whittal and her list of the UK’s top 100 parenting blogs. (and yes, there are dad blogs in there too but only about 4 or 5).

Warning: you may lose hours if you start at the top and decide to just dip in to a few of them. Some excellent writing and reading in there.

(And well done on tip-toeing upstairs to avoid us hearing you dodging the naughty step. You forgot though that you keep needing to tip toe once in your room.)

And would you please start putting a filling on your sandwich for school? Bread and butter are not the two main food groups. Honestly, doing that in Carntyne would have had the social work out in the 80s, so god knows what others make of it.

Anyway, it’s Friday now, so no lunchbox today. It’s ‘homie’ day as you kids call it now.