images from the New Zealand way of doing things.....

hey everyone


well, Gillian finally gets around to sending me some new pictures of how all is going over in New Zealand, and i take over a week to get around to putting up some highlights! sorry!

first off Katie and Daniel have been going for some swimming lessons. this is a good thing indeed, but rather puzzling is the fact that they went to a swimming pool to have the lessons. my understanding is that New Zealand consists mostly of water and sheep, so why one would build a swimming pool there has me at a loss in the way of explaining. maybe they build the pools indoors so that the sheep don't swim in them?





now, i am assured that this really is Katie and Daniel having swimming lessons. the "mist" effect is, according to Gillian, due to the type of chlorine they use to clean the pools there. now, there are a number of reasons why i would one day like to visit the land / waters of New Zealand, but added to this can be the fact that i can create mist at will simply by cleaning a pool!

other than swimming, Katie has been pefecting her photography skills, it seems. well, we let James play with our camera, so why not? in particular if Katie is going to take splendid pictures such as this one.





that's a colouring in picture i posted them a little while ago! nice to know they had fun with it, and indeed wanted to show me how they had tackled it!

and here's a pic of the rest of Katie's family!





yes, it is rather strange to see Grant sat without any accounting memorabillia, isn't it? perhaps it was taken on a non-accounting day, if such a thing happens to exist.

returning briefly to reasons to visit New Zealand, here is Daniel with a magnificent cake that his Mummy made for him.





the reason this cake was made was for reasons of excellence - Daniel went to the toilet all by himself! as i am pretty good at going to the bathroom all by myself, and seldom make all that much of a mess, can you imagine how many cakes my sister will be making for me when i go over there?

as i, more often that not, return from the bathroom with my underwear in a similar position to Daniel, the cakes shall be mine. oh yes, the cakes shall be mine!





many thanks for the pics, Gillian! good luck with this whole "power ball" thingie!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rolling Stone tries the impossible.....

hey everyone


well, it seems Rolling Stone magazine, one of the few truly dedicated and reliable music publications about, are having a go at what most music lovers would consider an all but impossible task. that would be trying to give a list of the top 100 songs by The Beatles.





here is what they have as the top ten :


1. "A Day in the Life"
2. "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
3. "Strawberry Fields Forever"
4. "Yesterday"
5. "In My Life"
6. "Something"
7. "Hey Jude"
8. "Let It Be"
9. "Come Together"
10. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"


thoughts? mine would be that this is a pretty good go. the number one choice is spot on, really. from a personal preference i would probably drop In My Life and Something in favour of Penny Lane and Helter Skelter, and might very well consider something like Love Me Do instead of I Want To Hold Your Hand.

very impressive try, well done for having a go! many thanks to Gillian for alerting me to the list and publication!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

9 songs that were not number 1

hey everyone


well, with the Manic Street Preachers, or at the least Nicky Wire of the Manics, making it clear that they want to sell lots and lots of records with their imminent new single and album, i thought it would be a good time to cast our minds back to when actual record sales counted for something.

sometimes the tales of records that were "nearly" hits can be just as interesting as massive sellers and huge flops. here, then, are nine singles which sold well enough to get to number two in the charts (well, number three in the case of one), but not quite well enough to be at the top of the chart. not even for a week. some of the titles may very well surprise you, and i promise i will explain why there are 9 instead of a traditional "top ten" at the end.



Oasis - Wonderwall. Ok, let's start this off with a biggie. the biggest selling single in the history of the band Oasis didn't make it to number one, whereas others by them (Don't Look Back In Anger, Some Might Say) did. how so? lots and lots of people bought it, but not in the same week as each other. the single stayed in the top 40 for something close to 6 (six!) months, but never got higher than the number two spot. a combination of "spread buying" and people buying the album, Morning Glory, instead of just the single, meant that it could never claim to be number one, although it did wonders for the bank accounts of Liam and Noel.


what kept it from the top spot?


something called I Believe by some chaps called Robson & Jerome. i think they were in some sort of TV show about firemen or something like that. i can't say that i have ever heard this song, and quite frankly i would suspect i am better off not hearing it. the cover screams "buy this for your Mum / Aunt / Gran", doesn't it? whoever they were, they must have been rather popular for a brief time to hold on to the top spot in the face of the Oasis juggernaught at the time.



Oasis were once upon a time denied a number one by Blur, so in the interests of being fair, it's interesting to note that Song #2 by Blur was also denied a number one position, stalling at the second spot. a shameless rip off of a number of Nirvana guitar rifts it may very well be, Song #2 has developed into an anthem for going absolutely mental, as well as frequently used in adverts, sports reports and what have you. instantly recognizable ("wooo hoooo" and all that), utter gibberish lyrically, but music lovers everywhere tend to think of it as a great single.


who denied a chant of wooo hoo number one?


erm, I Believe I Can Fly by R Kelly. an unapologetic, mushy middle of the road quasi-balance that was recorded for the less than spectacular mixed animated & live action film Space Jam. the film, as i recall, was about some sort of intergalactic basketball match between animated cartoon characters and people. a jazzed up Bedknobs & Broomsticks, if you will. very few people remember the film; a very good many recall the song. it's not an awful a song as, say, Everything I Do or My Heart Will Go On, but it's still an eye opener that more record buying people at the time bought this over the Blur single.



Radio Ga Ga by Queen stands up as one of the all time great songs. it featured lyrics celebrating the joys of radio, and thus DJs played it relentlessly, and everyone who heard the infectious beat of the song, not to mention some of Freddie's finest ever vocals, took a shine to it immediately. at a time when Queen needed a serious career boost (this was before their celebrated Live Aid performance and after the calls to boycott the band due to them playing in Apartheid-era South Africa), this was the absolute best song to deliver. and let us not forget the dazzling video, featuring one of the greatest "clap alongs" of all time. amazing, then, that it was kept from the number one spot by a song you couldn't hear on the radio which had a video you couldn't see....


who stopped Queen from doing it all the way to number one?


Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood ensured that Queen did not score a number one with this song. you won't get me saying a word against Frankie, of course. Relax reamins one of the most controversial singles of all time. legend has it that it was banned by the BBC on air, although no one has a recording of a DJ (supposedly Mike Read) pulling the record. the infamous video rarely saw TV time back in the 80s, and it's a wonder that it gets screened today, quite frankly. as brilliant as the Queen single was, there is no beating the publicity generated by a blanket ban of a record, which saw Frankie just keep on selling and selling. the fact that Relax is such a great song helps, of course!



Frankie themselves got blocked from a record breaking 4th straight number one when their fourth single, Welcome To The Pleasuredome, stalled at number two. quite honestly, it's a wonder it got that high. it's not that it isn't a great song (for it is), it's just that by the time this single was released, some 4,000,000 (four million) copies of the album which features the song had been sold in the UK, according to estimates. there was also some dubious reporting about the band at the time, due to their non-involvement with Band Aid and the fact that they were about to scarper for a year as tax exiles, something the tabloids love to nail people for. still, enough people wanted to hear more and more Frankie to see it get almost to the top.


and just what record could have stopped Frankie?


erm, Easy Lover. the hardly fondly remembered duet between Phillip Bailey and Phil Collins prevented Frankie from the incredible feat of having their first four singles all make it to the top of the chart. a good deal of my argument that the 80s was the best decade for music ever is undermined by the fact that Phil Collins sold several billion records during the decade. in fairness, this is one of his better offerings, but still, the record buying public of the time chose this over making history with Frankie? i bought three copies of Welcome To The Pleasuredome at the time - lads, i did my bit and my best for you!



perhaps the most infamous single never to make number one was the double-A side single of Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane by The Beatles. at the time, the band had locked themselves in their studio and spent weeks, months even slaving away over the album that would be Sgt Pepper. under immense pressure to get a product out from the record label, producer George Martin pulled these two songs from the album and agreed to let the label release them as a single instead. George Martin has since described this as being "the worst decision [I] ever made". two very much loved and cherished songs that, alas, had to be excluded from The Beatles' Number One compilation album.


and which release blocked The Beatles?


Please Release Me by the fascinatingly named Engelbert Humperdink. people of the 60s, just what were you thinking? in the midst of the flower power, psychedelic revolution of the late 60s, the record buying public somehow contrived to buy more copies of a 50s crooner throwback record than a mindblowing, life altering record by the fab four! in fairness, it's not all that bad a song, but better than Penny Lane? not really, no. and if you ever tried to compare it to Strawberry Fields Forever, i doubt you would get to finish the sentence before you were informed as to which was the better song.



Love Spreads by The Stone Roses isn't a particularly spectacular single (and this is from a loyal Roses fan), but the circumstances around the single make it rather odd that it didn't claim the top spot. the band had never had any particularly big chart success with their amazing debut album, by the mythology and legend around the band just grew and grew in their absence. their return single was effectively hyped by the music press, the NME in particular, for close to five years. their odd, quasi-Led Zeppelin sounding tune with classic Ian Brown vocals was expected to smash into the charts in the top spot, but didn't.


and just what stopped The Stone Roses from having a number one?


it was someone or quite possibly a band called Baby D with something called Let Me Be Your Fantasy. i have never heard it, or of the artist responsible for it. it did in effect destory the greatest, most anticipated "comebacks" since the return of Frankie Goes To Hollywood in 1986, though. as i said, i am not sure who or what Baby D are, but their legacy would seem to be the act that started the beginning of the end of The Stone Roses. it's acceptable to dislike them, then.


this is a bit of a cheat for this list, as Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush only got as far as number three in the charts. it seems to be the case that, perhaps because she takes so long between records, every time Kate Bush releases a record it is hailed as a "comeback". as her singles go, this is one of the greatest, possibly the one to rival her much celebrated Wuthering Heights as her best of all. still, despite generous airplay and broadcasts of the video on TV at the time, and the fact that later on the hugely popular TV show E.R. would adpot it as its theme, it just didn't sell well enough to even be a number two.


so what stopped Kate's run on the charts?


whereas Madonna's Into The Groove held on to the number two spot, it was I Got You Babe by UB40 and Chrissie Hynde that stood at the top of the chart hill for Ms Bush. for reasons beyond me, the whiny, nasal vocals and tinny, honky reggae sound of UB40 always managed to sell well; throwing in a very popular vocalist as a sort of duet meant massive sales were inevitable i guess. i would like to think that Kate Bush's single is the one most fondly remembered, but i dare say there are a few reading this (possibly my sister included) that balk at my dismissal of UB40!


showing that a controversial, banned or edited video doesn't always do what it did for Frankie Goes To Hollywood, China Girl by David Bowie is another great 80s single which just missed out on the top spot. when Bowie set out to record the Let's Dance album, the mandate he gave producer Nile Rodgers was "I want hits, lots and lots of hits". Thus the album and the lead single of the same name were recorded so, and both the single & album of the name sold really, really well. the follow up singles, however (this one and Modern Love) both stalled at number two. China Girl is highlighted here mostly due to the controversy around the video (in which you could see Bowie's bottom!) leading many to believe it was a sure fire number one.


and who made a mess of it for Bowie, leaving him stumbling into number two?


step forward possibly one of the most misunderstood singles of all time, Every Breath You Take by The Police. thanks to a brooding, soothing backing piece of music the world at large took this one to be a love song, despite the sinister, evil sounding "stalking" nature of the lyrics. as a consequence, it sold by the bucket load, giving The Police their biggest, if not quite their best, hit. as Sting didn't get his bottom out on the video (instead he looked all broody in black and white), David Bowie can i suppose feel well and truly hard done by for missing out here.



finally, since it is they who sort of inspired this post, we have the Manic Street Preachers with A Design For Life. comebacks have been a bit of a common theme here, but few could rival the one made by the Manics. after the disappearance of their celebrated lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards, no one had a clue what they would do next, with more than one question being asked about if they could even carry on. the answer was impressive - first a contribution to a charity album with a cover of Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head, then the release of this awesome record. an anthem for a generation and a song to fill stadiums with, this had huge number one single written all over it.


so what stopped the Manics designs on the number one spot?


Return Of The Mack by Mark Morrison has the distinction of being one of the worst records of all time, and thus is guilty of being the second worst number one blocker after The Beatles incident. if i remember the single correctly, it features an unimaginative, uninspired sampled monotonous beat with Mr Morrison just more or less mumbling "you're lying" over it, for either no given reason or reason you couldn't care less for. why exactly anyone would buy this record, let alone buy so many copies of it to push it to the number one spot, is quite the mystery. the Manics have had a number of number two singles since this, but this is one one they can feel truly hard done by in regards of missing out on the top spot.



so, why only 9 instead of 10? because, frankly, there are so many great and important singles that failed to make it to the top spot trying to pass off a "top ten" is impossible. these nine stand out for being songs that should have got to the top spot, i leave it to you to think of a tenth if you are so inclined to.

for your consideration, though, here are some (in)famous number two singles. Kayleigh by Marillion, an amazing looking back lamenting love song, didn't quite make the top spot. My Generation by The Who, a single which arguably gave birth to hard rock and heavy metal in terms of attitude and sound, was also bought only in volumes enough to get it to the second spot. Pulp's Common People, as much of an anthem for the mid-90's as the Manics Design was, also only made number two. finally, and perhaps most surprisingly of all, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, a song many people would argue set the tone and indeed defined the decade that was the 90s, only made it as far as number 7 (seven) in the chart.


i guess all of this proves that whilst the quality of a song shouldn't be measured by the number of sales alone, the days where you rushed off to buy a single and then listened out to see where it got in the charts were immense fun and created a whole range of talking points. apologies for sounding like an old moaner again, but in this day and age when you simply download music and listen to it on your own an awful lot of fun has gone out of it all.

if i've missed any obvious classics, feel very free to post a comment!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

some movie reviews

hey everyone


well, Sun City usually provides me with the time and chance to catch up with a few movies. i didn't have the time or the energy to watch too many of the DVDs i took with me, mind, but i did see a couple of films - one at the cinema there, no less!

starting with the big screen, and as there were a couple of cold and windy days whilst we were there (meaning we couldn't take William out and about much for fear of an infection), i took James to the cinema one afternoon to see what i think is called Shrek Forever After, but also seems to have the name Shrek The Final Chapter or sometimes just plain old Shrek 4. i am sure by the time the DVD release rolls around they will have thought of a few new other names for it!





first off, James loved it! unlike our experiences with Ice Age, James happily sat in the cinema and watched it all, quite happily chomping away at popcorn through the film. OK, so a large part of the target market is covered.....

sadly, i think i have to say that this is a cheap and cheerful cash-in on the Shrek films - ill thought out, poorly developed and delivered and really worse than some of those animated "direct to DVD" sequels you get from time to time. for some reason they all but leave out the fun characters you really want to see more of, those being the baby Shreks and indeed the "mutant baby donkey dragons".

as for the plot, well, something about Shrek having a mid-life crisis, and no less than Rumplestiltskin appears to trick him into signing away his existance to become a young, carefree ogre once again, this in turn allowing Rumplestiltskin to take control of Far Away Land. the rest of the film is then Shrek undoing this deal.





it might not be as bad as i implied, but it certainly isn't as great as the first three were. in-joke references to somewhat older films (Gladiator and Troy in particular) suggest the makers have run out of ideas, but nonetheless there remain one or two really funny moments to make you laugh out loud.

unless you insist on wasting money on this whole "3D experience" rubbish, you are all the same advised to wait until the inevitable Christmas release of the DVD before you see this.


on the subject of DVDs, however, one i made sure that i watched was Doomsday. having been impressed by the first two films from Neil Marshall; the frenetic Dog Soldiers and the absolutely terrifying The Descent, i was looking forward to seeing what he did next, although i had heard one or two ho hum reviews of this.






i have and indeed hate to admit that the ho hum reviews are mostly right. for such a clever, original director this film is really little more than 28 Days/Weeks Later mixed with Mad Max 2. however, as it is a fast paced, well made homage to those films, it's not too bad a thing.

if i was given a film crew, a pile of cash and a free hand, right, i too would probably decide that the best thing to do with it is to recreate the car chase scene from Mad Max 2, only making the deaths more visible and putting Two Tribes by Frankie Goes To Hollywood on the soundtrack. as this is exactly what Neil Marshall does, i cannot and will not have too much said against the film.





i raised an eyebrow when i got the DVD of Doomsday for i noticed that it had an "18" certificate awarded to it. now, whereas in the UK the threshold for giving the highest age restriction to a film tends to be a gent tipping his hat to a lady without permission, here it is rare than anything short of the more (um) artistic, disrobed type of adult entertainment that gets this certificate. it is thoroughly well deserved, it has to be said, as it is laced and loaded with mindless, senseless violence. i am not sure when i last saw so many decapitations in one film, let alone such a wide variety of how they were done.





Doomsday is certainly not for everyone to watch (although as my Mum sat through Law Abiding Citizen she may enjoy this), but for those who like mostly brainless all out action once in a while, this is a winner!

right then, that'll do for films for now. i will try and watch one or two things in the near future! i see that The Expendables is on the way at last, fingers crossed i get to see it soon!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fun with balls

hey everyone

well, as William is getting ever more mobile - he can sit upright, and has just about got the hang of crawling - Michele decided it was time to try him out with one of the things James loved to do. well, James and just about everyone else on earth. what would that be? why, sitting in an inflatable pool full of plastic balls, of course!





we kept the flash switched off on the camera, and unfortunately it seems that has led to most of the pics we took being somewhat blurry! oh well, i am sure you can get the idea of what he's up to with it!

whereas William rather liked sitting in the pool and throwing the balls around, he also quite liked the idea of trying to climb out of it too! we really do have to keep an eye on him at all times - if he's not trying to eat it, then he's trying to climb on or over it!





James might be a bit too young to sit and remember the good old days of when he sat in his ball pool, but he's certainly not old enough to want to jump in and play with William!





James has been a bit ill of late, a rather nasty gastro infection. at the risk of evoking memories of celebrated comedy routines by Billy Connolly and indeed the great The Mary Whitehouse Experience, the doctors do all seem to agree that "there's a bug going round"; a bug which presumably took a shine to James' digestive system.

oh well, a few days of medicine and he seems to be over the worst if not all of it!!





we shall do our best to aim for less blurry pictures next time!!!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a fine, if incomplete, read....

hey everyone

whilst on holiday i treated myself to the, for want of a better term, latest Michael Crichton novel, Pirate Latitudes. the term "latest" is used with some caution; Mr Crichton sadly passed away (see previous posts) and the manuscript for this novel was "found" by his assistant whilst they were tidying up his estate.

first off, before what might be perceived as criticism comes in, let me say that this is a damned fine, entertaining read. i struggled to put it down, quite frankly, and it has been a long while since i had a novel like that. anyone looking for a fun, furious, fast paced entertaining novel full of adventure and humour should get this book as soon as possible.





what's it about? well, the name of the book should kind of tell you what you need to know. it follows the adventures of some privateers (effectively "legal pirates") who embark on a near-impossible raid on a Spanish fortress in the Caribbean, followed by a thrilling and daring journey back. i am loathe to give any more details, i really don't like the idea of spoiling the fun. the most likely description i would imagine as being out there is of it being "like Pirates Of The Caribbean for adults", and this is not far off being the case - it certainly is an adults only affair.

there is a problem with the book, though. it is patently and clearly an incomplete Michael Crichton novel, despite the fact that it flows fluidly and is a "complete story", if you get what i mean. those in the know about Mr Crichton say that this is a book he has been tinkering with since the early 80s. there are clearly sections of the book where he intended to come back and add some substance and flesh; an example would be one chapter in particular where a substantial amount of events and action are compressed into a four page chapter. you get the feeling that he was going to expand on the events in it "later".

the fact that it clearly isn't a finished novel is a little sad, but doesn't stop the sheer entertainment of what goes on in the book. as i said, it reads as a complete story, if not a full Michael Crichton novel. a semi-done, structured Michael Crichton novel is all that we can get, unfortunately, and thus i encourage you to grab it and enjoy!





actually, an initial reaction i had to the book was that it was perhaps intended more as a "film treatment"(a la his novel The Lost World) than it was a full blown novel. this perhaps isn't the case, but i am led to believe that Steven Spielberg is currently getting ready to make the film version of Pirate Latitudes. considering the outstanding job he did of filming Crichton's Jurassic Park, this is no bad thing whatsoever.

on a more literal front, it seems that another posthumous novel will be published, possibly in 2012. i have no more information than that, sadly. if it's true, great, if not, well, i have to say that Pirate Latitudes would serve as a fitting, excellent final novel from this great entertaining writer than the disappointing Next would have been.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh dear

well, i knew i had at least one more picture from Sun City to post, so here it is.

as we were going to the Valley Of The Waves i was rather taken with this sign that they had put up at the entrance.





exactly how many people had taken the time, trouble and imagination to decide to take a bong with them for relaxation between slides and swimming that they felt the need to put up a sign discouraging people from doing so? oh well, one can only presume if not hope that the numerous bong enthusiasts found somewhere else to light up!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!! no smoking and swimming!!!!!!!!!!!!!

holiday pictures

hey everyone

as promised with the post showing off James eating a cheeseburger for breakfast (nice one son!), here are some more photos from our usual week away in Sun City!

there are many, many things to do at Sun City, it has to be said. there are also things you can do there that the owners or managers of the place didn't quite have in mind. like, for instance, reconstruct the play areas in your own vision. this is what James did.





whilst we were having breakfast the one morning James went off to the play area and was, by his standards, being a bit too quiet. when i went to investigate, i found him moving the massive soft blocks from one side of the area to the other. his reason for doing this? because he believed they would make a most excellent ramp and slide sort of thing on the steps in and out of the place.

he seems to have been quite right with this architectural masterpiece!





on the subject of breakfast, here are the two boys eagerly awaiting breakfast time, if for somewhat different reasons.





whereas William believes food to be the best thing ever and cannot get enough of it, James sees eating as a nuisance and a distraction. he is eager for breakfast to land because he knows once it has been and gone he can get on to better things!

and for James, for the most part, better things tends to be spending time with his brother.





Sun City is of course famous for a certain event every December. here is James thrilled at the idea of a massive sandpit for him to play in, just before some hopefuls for that event in December came along and asked if we would mind terribly if we let them get on with their game!





swimming is also a fairly big activity at Sun City. the most excellent childrens adventure island pool remains, alas, unheated, and thus James lasted precisely three minutes in it. never mind, we soon found some heated pools. heated or not, William is not quite ready for the water as of yet, but he is happy to sit by the pool, licking some of Mummy's ice cream!





James, meanwhile, hasn't quite got the hang of swimming as of yet, but he is trying his best to listen and learn how to do it. he's having far too much fun sitting in the shallow areas and splashing away to pay too much attention, though!




and here's James stood in front of the impressive monkey fountain near the Valley Of The Waves. he was complaining bitterly about the noise from the fountain, but agreed to stand in front of it for a picture because he knows that Auntie Susan likes monkeys. Susan, this one, then, is for you!





whereas he isn't quite ready for swimming, William is having a jolly good go at this crawling business. here he is having a brief go at it - although, if i am honest, he seemed more interested in pulling up some grass and trying to eat it than he was in getting mobile.





for the record, we do in fact feed William; quite a bit really. it just seems never ever to be enough!

as far as feeding goes, well, when we went to see the big massive crocodiles it wasn't their feeding time, but it could well have been time for a snack if James had ventured any closer to them!





actually, James did get rather close to one crocodile, as you can see here!





James was rather impressed that this crocodile could walk around and would wave at him and shake his hand!





James did notice a zip on the back of this crocodile, but i think i did a reasonable job of convincing him that it wasn't a man in a suit, but in fact a special kind of crocodile that is born in such a way.

well, there you have it. i dare say there are one or two other pics here that it will pop in to my mind to post here soon!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a breakfast not fit for a king, but fit for The King...

hey everyone

well, after a break, i am back! we went off on our usual holiday to celebrate our wedding anniversary! there are many, many pictures to post, but for now i thought i'd do a quick update with this one.

James has developed a rather interesting and certainly impressive taste for a particular food item for breakfast. all of you out there who questioned me wanting to name him Elvis, behold as James insists on a cheeseburger for breakfast!





of course, The King, Elvis Presley, wouldn't have just one cheeseburger for breakfast. and nor would he have it without copious amounts of peanut butter, bacon and KFC, i suppose. however, James is only four and a bit, so give him chance!

many more pics to come! soon i hope!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

seven years ago today.....

....i was home alone and watched something called Dark Blue, starring Kurt Russell and Ving Rhames. it was very dull, possibly best described as "rubbish". the film was nothing like the trailer.





rather fortunately, the next day was much, much better.


see you all in a bit!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!