Swans, Sherbet and Coathangers

I'm not often given to browsing the personal ads on random websites. No, really. But I was told that the personals on the London Review Of Books website are nothing short of genius, and indeed that is the case. They're personal ads as they should be done! Frank. Honest. Disturbing. Here's a few of my favourites:

This town isn’t big enough for the both of us. Failed urban planner. M, 48. Didsbury. Box no. 20/04.

I got it bad and that ain’t good. Amateur jazz singer (F, 54) seeks glockenspielist/gynocologist for nights of atonal ramblings through both my medicine cabinet and your prescription pad. No crazies. Box no. 20/05.

Safety first. Dignity second. Trousers last. Rubbish wok-cooked foods enthusiast and flammable materials-wearing loon (M) WLTM F to 45 with fire-blanket and no small amount of knowledge regarding the correct batter-frying procedures of tempura. Bicester. Box no. 20/06.

Let’s wipe the slate clean. Lacklustre, melancholic and depressive rock-climbing PhD (M, 29) unable to get a foothold in anything seeks woman with those funny metal things that stab into crevices and stop you from plummeting to a certain death. Or something. Box no. 20/07.

Consult the spirits to measure our compatibility:
YES NO
ABCDEFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Goodbye Box no. 20/09.

At first I was sceptical about writing this ad but slowly the idea won me over. Box no. 20/10.

Love? My eyes will tell you all. My forehead, however, is slightly more reticent. My knees won’t give you a damn word. Paranoid military nutcase and part-time undertaker seeks F to 50. Box no. 20/11.

My back has stopped hurting. Hurrah! This means that I am not an old man after all. Mind you, these days I do have to be very careful not to drink too much before I go to bed, otherwise I will be up in the night...

Anyway, today is part two of my 'off work' break, and I can safely say that over the long weekend I have really pushed the boundaries of laziness and unproductivity as far as they will go.  *proud!*  Get up late Do very little Go to bed. What a simple yet wonderful formula.

The formula was broken on Saturday though, when I went with Fiona to see 'The Devil Wears Prada'. I thought it might be a bit of a challenge to my manhood, but in fact it is an excellent film, merely disguised as a chick flick. Meryl Streep gave a brilliant performance (that will no doubt receive an Oscar nod) as the boss from hell. It's definitely worth seeing, and serves as a sharp reminder never to let your work become your life.

Today so far, I got up late, and have done very little. See how well this works! I did venture forth to the supermarket at one point, where it took four members of staff and nearly fifteen minutes to exchange a box of eggs. That's teamwork in action! Well done Tesco.

Today, for a change, I have been luxuriating in the surroundings of home, enjoying a well earned day off (it is slightly debatable how well earned the day off is, but I maintain that I need it!). Oh how the coffee tastes richer, and the daytime television seems so much more life-affirming, knowing that your work colleagues are slaving away as you put your feet up with a cornish pastie and an episode of Diagnosis Murder.

Radio 1 has been spending today talking about the increasing instances of parking rage in this country. It's not just confined to supermarket car parks any more, oh no, they're taking it to the streets! Fighting, leaving rude notes, blocking off whole sections of kerb, nothing is too much for some people trying to protect their right to park outside their own house. This is assuming you're a filthy commoner like me who has no driveway or garage, by the way. There is nothing in the law that says you have the right to park outside your own home, but round here it gets very busy in the evening and sometimes I'd like nothing more than to be allowed to shove other cars out the way, dodgems style. Sadly, we have someone in our street who already does this - The Worst Parker In The World (TM). We've watched her reverse into many cars in an attempt to parallel park, and there's a big dent in my own car which I'd bet was her too.

One last game this week, then. Can you clear the screen of Green Blobs, using brain-type activity? I know I can't...

The BBC's 'diversity tsar', Mary Fitzpatrick, has said she believes that newsreaders should be allowed to wear whatever they like on air, and "that includes veils". Is that fair enough? Yes of course it is, but still, I must admit I think I would find it quite strange, at least to start with, having a pair of eyes giving me the day's headlines. I guess it wouldn't be too long before I thought nothing of it, but for now it seems a rather bizarre notion. Having said that, I definitely think Jeremy Paxman should wear one... This all comes after an impartiality summit, at which the BBC decided that they were in fact an organisation of left-leaning, liberal, homosexual minorities. Their words, not mine. Meanwhile, here's an interesting solution to the veil debate: Veils with people's faces on them!

Surely I'm too young to be a back pain sufferer? But that's what I have today. My lower back is complaining bitterly about having to support the rest of my torso, and this is making it a little uncomfortable to sit. Or stand. Or lie down. Movement, generally, is a bit unpleasant. I really hope it was just sleeping awqwardly on it that was the problem, and everything will be fine by tomorrow.

Last night's meal at Pica Pica was great! The food was delicious, and Despina got chatted up at the bar by an extremely drunk old man (Opening line: "You're gorgeous!" Next line: "Would you like to borrow my boat?")

Another day, another random timewasting game. It may not quite be christmas yet, but get ready to stamp out those sprouts. 

"We're going to stay the course. No, wait... we're off! See ya." I think that's America's current position on Iraq, anyway. No more sticking with it. Twelve more months, and byebye. "Kill yourselves, have a civil war, whatever you like, just leave us out of it okay? We're going for a pint." They'll definitely need a little bit of a break, if they ever want to go steaming into North Korea. But at least if they want to go to war with the Koreans on the pretext of finding some weapons of mass destruction, they stand a much higher chance of being successful this time! As well as a much higher chance of being blown to crap, of course.

I'm off to Pica Pica tonight, hopefully. It's a tapas restaurant and cocktail bar that does some wonderful food and even more wonderful drinks. It could be that by the time you've had a couple of their wonderful drinks, you're in no fit state to judge their food properly, but never mind. It's all very trendy, with music volumes verging on the "What did you say? WHAT?!" level. Why do they do that in resturants? Is it a cunning ploy to get us to eat in silence, and therefore free up the table sooner?

And finally, if you're bored, give this game a try: Attack of the Funky Disco Zombies! With a name like that, how could you not love it?

Wiiiiiiiiii!!

Yesterday, I made the very important decision that, in early December, I'm going to have a Wii (pronounced Wee). I'm really looking forward to having a Wii. I hope that my Wii will become a talking point for many people. Friends will come round, hoping to play with my Wii. I shall take it home for Christmas, so that my Wii will be the highlight of the festive season. Perhaps I can encourage my parents to become involved with my Wii. I think as many family members as possible should enjoy my Wii, really. I think that my Wii represents excellent value for money. My Wii will look beautiful on the living room floor...

Right, I think that's my childishness quota for the day all spent.
I'm very, very sorry.

I have to go now, to a 'special' lunch with senior management. Lucky me.

How much liquid is contained within a small glass of red wine? Well, it all depends whether you are intending to drink it, or to spill it lavishly everywhere. I was out for Sunday lunch with my friend Pete, and not only did he manage to knock the wine all over his wife, and right across the table, but he also successfully hit the poor woman at the table behind us. This guy has a deadly aim! Needless to say, the section of the dining room we were in emptied pretty quickly, as anyone wearing white hastily asked for the bill and left.

Sunday lunch spillage aside, it was a remarkably quiet weekend for me. My work colleague Dave says he had a head-on encounter with a car going completely the wrong way down the A470 at about 1am  !!! He missed the car by inches, and was on the phone to the police before he'd even come to a stop on the hard shoulder. Quite frankly I can't think of anything that would scare me more! Particularly if the rain is coming down hard, as it always does here in Wales. So, I think he easily wins the prize for Most Exciting Weekend.

In other news, if you're in south Wales and feel like braving the rain, you can go and see (or rather not see) THIS exhibition at the Chapter arts centre. Sounds... terrible, frankly. Enjoy!

Jackanory is returning! I don't know why I should be so excited about this. I never really liked it in the first place. But just the thought that all over the country, children will be settling down for some good old fashioned story telling, gives me a lovely warm glow for some reason. Hang on, did I say old fashioned? Sorry, I'll start again...

Jackanory is returning! And this time, it's going CGI! Oh yes. Look, they've turned it into Shreck! Not like it was in my day, with rudimentary pencil drawings to stimulate the imagination, and not a lot else.

Here in the wonderful world of running charity events, we have encountered a new and terrifying problem. We're calling it Can't Be Arsed Syndrome. This is where a staggering proportion of our audince decides at the last minute that they don't want to leave the house, and would rather stay in with a glass of wine and watch Coronation Street. And this is after they've forked out £6 for a ticket! Last night was the worst ever occurrence of this strange new phenomenon. We had 170 booked in. However, the total number of bums on seats was... wait for it... 45. WHERE DID THEY ALL GO??!! People of Eastbourne, we're very disappointed with you, and somewhat shocked that you managed to waste over £700 between you! All over the office, the sound of a large amount of manure hitting a great number of fans can be heard.

Sasha Baron Cohen as Borat’s portrayal of Kazakhstan as a backward nation is, of course, entirely fictional and the nation’s leaders are right to get upset. In a completely unrelated piece of news, Kazakhstan’s central bank has had to withdraw new banknotes, because they misspelt the word ‘bank’ on them.

It's Wednesday, and I'm completely knackered, stressed and fed up delighted to be alive! Hurrah. So, what went wrong yesterday? Well, we began with a mistake on a batch of our event tickets, which came back from the printers with only half our telephone number on them (If you have any queries, please call 02920 81.) Then, a colleague of mine who thought he'd booked himself and his van onto a ferry crossing in November found he'd actually booked onto a crossing in August, two months ago. Ooops, and byebye £200! Finally, a SatNav obsessed colleague was heading for his hotel, and rang me to say,

"It's not there."
"Well it must be!"
"Nope, I've followed the SatNav directions exactly, and there's nothing here except a few cows and an old tree stump."

It was just across the road behind him. Now, I love my workmates, and usually I love SatNavs too, but don't always put your trust in technology, for sometimes it is evil.

There are plenty of other people having bad weeks, of course. For example there's Simon Curtis, who chalked up the lowest score ever on Mastermind for the specialist subject round - just one point (his chosen topic was the movies of Jim Carrey). He'd previously won £250,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire! This must have been a momentary lapse in intelligence, and is easily topped in the stupidity rankings by the US tycoon who was forced to pull out of a deal to sell a Picasso painting for £74 million... because he put his elbow through it!

Perhaps things aren't so bad after all. Certainly by the end of yesterday I was cheering right up, because I went round to my mate Fiona's house for tea (which, spookily, turned out to be my current housemate's old flat!), and she managed to cook me exactly what I was in the mood for, namely a large slab of meat with melting cheese, and ice cream for afters. Top stuff!

Madonna defends her recent adoption-related actions in Malawi by saying that despite reports to the contrary, her family had begun the proceedings many months ago and their progress would be evaluated by the courts of Malawi over the coming year. Far be it from me to be cynical about such matters, or to consider venturing forth the phrase 'ultimate publicity stunt', but something about Madonna's statement last night raised a question in my head. She said she wished to, and I quote, "open up my home and help one child escape an extreme life of hardship, poverty and in many cases death." Bravo, but... one? one? How much money do you have, Madonna, and how much of a difference could you make if you really tried? The adoption of one child is a drop in the ocean.

At the moment there's a record that's all over the radio like a rash, called 'Put Your Hands Up For Detroit' by Fedde Le Grande. My housemate and I both love tinkering with music (he with his keyboards, me using the fantastic Reason), and we've both come to the conclusion that we're trying too hard. We're there with our twenty layers of brass and extra slap-bass, and Mr. Le Grande has simply stuck one bass line and some nonsensical waffling over a quirky drum beat. If that's the formula for untold riches, then bring it on! Definitely a case of "Oi, I could do that..."

Sometimes, it's not a good idea to wait. Windows of opportunity can be unexpectedly short, and if you feel that it's important to grab a chance while it's there, then perhaps you should! Something I could have done yesterday, I can no longer do today.
*strokes chin in cryptic fashion*
Yes, caution is sometimes advisable, and sometimes not. Oh well.

If you're talking to someone, and all you can see of their face is their eyes, is it harder to communicate with them? Yes, of course it is. I think it is important for this muslim lady, whoever she is, to not wear her veil when she is teaching. If she feels it's proper for her to wear it the rest of the time then fair enough, but I do have some sympathy with people, including Jack Straw, who say that this is a hinderance to communication. What amuses me though is that she didn't actually wear it for her job interview! And now she does want to wear it. Perplexing.

Today is quite a big day in the world of Blogging! The One Day In History campaign is encouraging people all over britain to blog, just for one day. It will become a mass-blog record of the 17th October 2006, and will be kept permenantly in the British Library for future generations to read. Sounds cool! I think I may just end up copying and pasting part of this, but I shall definitely be taking part.

And so, with crushing inevitability, it's Monday.

Cheer up with some Lovely organic food, anyone?

On Saturday night, the Ceilidh (behold I have learned how to spell it) was fantastic. We could have done with a few more people in attendance, because I found myself involved with practically every dance, barely having time to wipe off the sweat before being twirled into a new frenzy of stamping and accordion. Three and a half hours of what is, essentially, skipping in a circle, is more than enough for anyone! It strikes me that a Ceilidh is quite a swinging affair. Partner swapping is rife, and is positively encouraged during many of the dances. One of them even has the name 'Johnny Fetch Your Wife Back'. Lovely. I can't wait for the next one.

"Brush up on your Hyphy (San Francisco) slang", says the Guardian today. Okay then... a quick Hyphy lesson, and then you too can pop ya collar, fo' sheezy! (Love it!)
So, if you were to indulge in some flamboasting, you would in fact be showing off, or partying ostentatiously. Following on from that, if you were to flamboast on the hood while ghost riding the whip, you would have jumped onto your car bonnet and started to dance, while the car is still moving. So far, so fun! It's not all good news though. Sometimes, you may have to merk your wastemen. Dispose of your enemies, in otherwords. And finally, if anyone asks you a question in Hyphy that you don't understand, it's perfectly acceptable to respond with "shaboobalaboopy". "I don't know."

Hope that's been helpful.

Dammit! I lost the cook-off, by one vote. Who could not like my cheesey goodness, I ask you.

Tonight's I'm going to one of those scottish barn dances that I can't spell, so I won't even try. I always prefer these to straightforward discos, becuase it's so much easier when someone's telling you exactly what to do!

It may be nearly 2pm now, but it's time for breakfast! Or possibly some kind of brunch. I'll check in the fridge.

Whatever happens to you today, I'm sure that nothing will be as bad as THIS. Poor lady! Talk about 'thunder bolt and lightning, very very frightening'...

The worst thing that can happen to me today is, I think, total humiliation, in the form of being soundly beaten in a cook-off that's happening tonight. I have a mate who is a bit of a whizz in the kitchen, and in a moment of ego inflated madness I challenged him to cook something better than I could cook it. I hope I manage to salvage victory from the jaws of defeat, but it's no certainty by any means.

This is what passes for entertainment in our lives these days! I may go mad and spike tonight's cooking with Absinthe, just to see what happens. On the way to work this morning, I was chatting to Mel about what constitutes a great night out (or in) now that our student days are far behind us. We were forced to conclude that a DVD and a beer does very nicely! How sad. Mel said, " Don't the students look quite young these days?", and I had to tell her that the latest intake are eight years younger than us.  Noooooooooooooo!

Last night I arrived home, put on my generic mp3 player, and bopped around the kitchen as I got dinner ready. Suddenly, Kung Fu Fighting by Bustop (featuring Carl Douglas!) comes on, and I'm away -  pulling lots of fancy martial arts moves, and generally making a tit of myself. I know all the words too. This is because this is my Shameful Secret Enjoyment Song. If you have such a song in your music collection, feel free to admit it here.

What do you want for christmas?
No, it's not too early to ask apparently, because several of my relatives have.   I don't know! I'm only just coming to terms with the fact that summer has officially ended and the nights are drawing in again. The final straw will be christmas decorations in the shops, which I feel certain must be only just around the corner now.

Following on from the adventure holiday I went to run a couple of weeks ago, there has been a worrying development. One of the attendees rang this morning to say that she has Leptospirosis. That's Weil's Disease, to you and me. It's most commonly contracted by ingesting river water into which rats have done their pee-pee. And of course we all went canoeing on the Thames, so the whole scenario is quite plausible. It's doubly worrying that I'm still within the 20 day incubation period, so there's every possiblity that I may suddenly keel over with renal failure. How exciting! The serious downside, as well as this lady's health, is that we now have to write to everyone who was on the holiday...

" Dear Sir/Madam,
You may have rat's pee disease.
Please book with us again!"

The word 'Bovvered' could be about to enter the Oxford English Dictionary. Part of me thinks this is really funny, but at the same time I'm not sure it should be allowed in, because Bovvered = Bothered, after all. If it does make it in, it'll be joining such revolutionary language as 'chav', 'sudoku' and 'nang'... I'm sorry, what?! I don't know this one. Nang = Cool, I gather.

"That's nang, mate. Nang."

I love a bit of healthy debate first thing in the morning. Check out Lonemum's blog entry for a good example. One of the many nice things about writing a blog is being able to pontificate at length on subjects which, in reality, you might know very little about. You can also join in on other people's blogs, sharing your ignorance with the masses! Everyone has an opinion about everything, or so they say, and here's the perfect place to prove it. You can empty your brain of all the nonsensical waffle that has occurred to you, and that's fine because if everyone had the same thoughts then the world would be an exceptionally dull place. Watch out though, because in the land of blogging people are quite happy to tell you exactly where your arguments are falling down!

Anyway, teenage mother issues aside, the morning has flown by in a flurry of accommodation and biscuits. Booking one, eating the other. I must know this country's Travel Inn network backwards by now. What a depressing thought! Pretty sure I've stayed at most of them, too.

So, it's Round Two in the continuing conflict of North Korea versus the rest of the world. North Korea says, "We will carry out another nuclear test if the US continues to be hostile." The US says, "We will continue being hostile if you  threaten to carry out more tests." That's never going to be resolved, is it! My favourite rational, impartial quote so far, from ITN's John Irvine - "It's a nuclear-sized slap in the face [to President Bush]." Ooh-kay!

Google Domination continues, with their purchase of the fantastic site YouTube. I'm not quite sure why they want to buy it, as they already have their own version, 'Google Video', and at £883 million this isn't coming cheap!

I hope this won't adversely affect the anarchic quality of YouTube. With all the legal hoo-hah surrounding copyright issues, videos are being taken off the site almost as regularly as they're being uploaded, but we're not really going on there to see free episodes of Lost or Family Guy (are we?!). No, we want to see things like Numa Numa, or generally anything that involves someone falling on their arse! Brilliant.

I have seen the future, and it's terrifying. Half the world will be owned by Google, and the other half by Tesco. There will have to be a fight to the death. Who's going to win that one?

I was sorry to hear about the death of snooker genius Paul Hunter yesterday, losing his battle with cancer. He was about my age, which makes it doubly scary. I've always been disappointingly rubbish at snooker. Unlike football, where a) I can't play it and b) I don't care, I really wish I could get to grips with knocking balls round a table. Such ambition! But I'm just not an angles man. 

Anyone read any of the books on the shortlist for this year's Booker Prize? No? Me neither. I'm sure they're all very worthy, but I'm also sure that they could make my eyelids snap shut at twenty paces. I'm STILL struggling my way through this... It's very good - detailed, intellectual, slightly short on plot!

Here we go then, it's time for everyone to have some harsh words with North Korea. And I don't mean a brief ticking off and an instruction to go and sit on the naughty step, this is serious. A big nuclear bomb went off somewhere underground, and we know it's serious because the usually reticent China has declared itself "strongly opposed" to it. Japan said the test explosion was "unpardonable", and South Korea said they would "sternly respond". Ouch! Yeah, North Korea! You've been told! Busted. It will be very interesting to see how the good old US of A responds, considering that North Korea is on their 'Accident of Evil'. Or the 'Can We Bomb Them Parabola' as some like to call it.

It has been, just for a change, a bit of a musical weekend. On Friday I went down to the Jazz Cafe where four cantankerous old men played some suprisingly fantastic blues music, although their name was a bit naff - Talking Blues. They were quality though. For most of Saturday I was preparing for something which I haven't done for donkeys years. I was going to be playing the piano in church! Scary stuff. This forced me to blow the cobwebs off my keyboard and knuckle down to some proper practice. Everything was going well until, disaster, I burnt my finger. On... a parsnip. Damn you, hot root vegetables! This made the finger extremely sore whenever I put pressure on it.

So, the big day came, and I think it's fair to say that we should have rehearsed a bit more. I never seemed to be in time with the drummer, who was in a little rhythmical world of his own!

And finally, it's the leader of the Conservative Party's birthday today! Happy birthday, whoever you are.

Ah, the joys of paper mache! Last night's Kids Club was all about letting them loose on big bowls of runny snot (aka wallpaper paste), and seeing just how much of their clothing they were able to cover in goo before the end of the session. In theory, they were making models of the world from newspaper strips and balloons, but in reality they were causing laundry headaches for their parents. I had a go myself, and immediately regressed to being an eight year old. It was wonderful.

Afterwards, I hot-footed it over to a cafe called Mina, for my friend Pete's birthday party. The cafe did Lebanese food which, if you're not familiar with it, is based on the following principles:

1) See meat.
2) Grill meat.
3) Serve meat.

I had the salad. (Served with lashings of side MEAT!)

It's finally happening, then. Channel 5 is biting the bullet and taking reality television as far as it can. They're going to do 'Birth Night Live'! The Royal College of Obstetricians has expressed concern that this might be 'a little intrusive'.

*slow hand clap*

I think I might tune in, but only so I can hear Gaby Logan say, "She's fully dilated! Lets go now live to Judith's cervix."

I can't remember whose blog I nicked this from, but thank you...

So, the solution to a painless childbirth has finally been found! And it is... 20 cigarettes a day. According to an increasing number of young women, deliberately stunting the growth of your unborn child by dragging on a fag will result in the easier passage of the baby through your... erm... passage. Oh come on!! We're supposed to be the most intelligent mammals on the planet here. Cigarettes contain at least 60 cancer-causing chemicals, not to mention all the other rubbish. What do they all think they're doing?!

In other news on the bizarre logic of our fellow man (or woman), Worcester council is so concerned about being sued over fruit-related injuries that they have cordoned off a couple of pear trees, with a view to possibly cutting them down altogether. Plonker-in-chief Ian Bates said, "There are some sizeable pears and not everyone is going to be passing thinking a pear might fall on them, especially children." Er, yes. I never realised pears were so dangerous. My experience of ripe pears is quite the opposite. It'll be hard hats in all public parks, next. These trees are in, appropriately enough, a park called Cripplegate. Which must be Worcester council's worst nightmare.

Sorry. I'm feeling ranty today.

Ross Noble the comedian could possibly be a genius. When it comes to live performance, he plays a very dangerous game, bounding onto the stage with bucketfuls of energy but virtually no script, relying almost entirely on audience interaction and the random musings of his derranged brain. It's a kind of free-form comedy jazz, and when it works it's absolutely spellbinding. Last night he covered dozens of topics simultaneously, weaving stories around conversations he had with audience members, until eventually they became characters in some barking mad fairytale. We had the guy with the incredibly weak bladder, the squeaky-voiced pixie with the tiny willy ("It may be small, but it is magical..." ), the least talented motorbike rider in the world, another guy who's man-breasts made wonderous music when hit with a mop, the bum-faced child (don't ask...) and many, many more besides. The grand finale was (again, on the suggestions of various audience members) an impression of a cheeky muslim riding Bernie Clifton's ostrich, dodging a squirrel, having an owl fall on his head, playing football with the owl, and finally collapsing with an asthma attack. I appreciate that reading all of this won't make much sense. You had to be there. So next time Mr Noble is in your area, make sure you are there!

In other news, I've just realised that a music rehearsal I promised to go to tomorrow clashes with a birthday meal... that I promised to go to. What to do?! This could be a world first attampt at playing the piano while simultaneously eating mixed Mezze.

It wasn't the best of starts.

Heading down the M4, I was concentrating so hard on getting through the roadworks (best in Europe!) without speeding that I missed my junction and sailed onwards in the general direction of London, instead of Oxford. It was nearly ten minutes before I realised that Matt, who was meant to be following me, wasn't behind me any more.

Eventually I did manage to find my way to the Windmil Farm conference centre, slightly late, where I hurriedly set everything up for the guests. I didn't have to rush, as it turned out, because they were all late too!

Sometimes, I love my job. Being paid to run adventure holidays like this one is just a privilege. Everyone arrives tired and often quite grumpy after a long car journey, but 99% of them leave with huge grins on their faces.  My personal highlight of this trip involved a young girl, Bethany, who's now known as the 'Kamikaze Canoe Kid'. Paddling along the Thames, we stopped off in a small lagoon to play a game of Canoe Quidditch (complete with a rubber duck acting as the golden snitch). My canoe was one of the goals, so naturally anyone coming anywhere near me got a serious splashing. Bethany wasn't liking this too much, so she turned to her Dad and said " Daddy, can I get out please?", and promptly dived out of the canoe and started swimming away! The look on her dad's face was priceless. And then he fell in, trying to pull his daughter out of the water. I nearly wet myself laughing.

These weekends are all about encourging families to spend quality time together. That's the idea, anyway. To that end, we have a questionnaire we give to all parents, which quizzes them on how well they know their children. One of the questions is, 'What's the best gift your child has ever received from you?' One dad, convinced he knew the answer, wrote down 'His new iPod'. He'd given it to his son only the other week, and it had been the best present ever. When it came to checking his questionnaire answers, the Dad was extremely shocked to discover that the answer was not an iPod at all, but the fact that finally, after a lifetime of disappointments,  his son was getting to spend a weekend with his Dad. He may have been quite a large, tough looking man, but he completely broke down.