Category: Family

Good Technology

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment
(For the article on ‘Whatever happened to the Red Guitars’, check back later. They’ll be filed next to ‘Kissing The Pink’ in an article on ‘Why The 1980s Was Actually Quite A Good Time For One Hit Wonders Now I Think About It’. Or something like that….)
I’ve worked in technology, or somewhere near it, for pretty much all of my adult life. And, insofar that you can love something that’s essentially a terribly complex twist of cable and metal and silicon, I absolutely love it.
My first job involved coding on mainframes, and my finest hour was the completion of a project that delivered two green screens to process car insurance changes for Foreign Use. Without a trace of irony, the screens were called FU1 and FU2. It was really neat because we produced something that automated a really painful process, and the process of pulling these screens together was considered something of a dark art, which made us feel pretty special.
Later on I progressed to networks (computers could talk to one another – awesome!), then applications like word processors (no more Tipp-Ex!) and email systems (which, on reflection, may have been where it all went wrong).  More of this another time, but, suffice to say, it was a fabulous period in technology, and some of us were lucky enough to be riding a pretty big wave.
Or so we thought, until a really big wave came along and we found ourselves talking about third generation languages, relational databases and smart ways of delivering business solutions. Suddenly we could start plugging in technology that looked and felt cool and didn’t have to take two years to deliver. What a wave!, we thought, as we tried to ride it.
Then another couple of really big waves came along, one called personal computing, and another called the Internet. And suddenly technology was everybody’s friend, and it was ok to come out of the closet and say that you loved this stuff, without sounding like too much of a nerd.
Then we got apps that everyone could write, complete interconnection, cloud services, mobile applications, (relatively) safe payment systems, online music and a glorious jumble of technologies that made you excited and proud to line up with. Technology is now both good and cool.
But, you’re no doubt be asking, is the coolest and best use of technology that the Emu has ever seen during this glorious 30 year relationship. Well, I’ll tell you…
Last weekend included a Saturday night that neither Mrs E nor myself were particularly looking forward to. We had given in to Jr Emu#3’s longstanding request for a 17th birthday party, and, worse even, had conceded that there’d be no better place to hold it than at our house. Frankly, Mrs E and I both needed our heads examined.
Anyway, it wasn’t toooo bad. They were all lovely kids when they arrived, and even after a couple of illicit hooches they were all quite charming, with a couple of notable exceptions. I (& I hope #3) will remember for some time his parents unblocking a vomit filled sink with one of the guests permanently attached to the toilet. Delightfully, when one of the more sober party goers asked if our guest was ill because he hadn’t had anything to eat, Mrs E was able to describe his last meal in some detail, including specifics on both pasta and sauce type.
But I haven’t told you the best bit. I’d asked #3 to pull together a Spotify playlist on his phone, which he did, and I’d provide the amplification, which I did. And we plugged in for a quick trial and all was well. His tunes were, as the youngsters say these days, bangin’. All was well, albeit a little annoying when his chums found the volume button, as the party ramped up.
Meanwhile, #3’s two older brothers, currently 6,500 miles away, almost on the other side of the world, were enjoying a quiet coffee in a cafe in Buenos Aires, as you do. And this cafe had wifi. Did I mention that we all use the same Spotify account? Well, we do. And because we do, and because it did and because they were, they were able to not only see what was playing, but to take over the phone and play their own choice of, well perhaps, less bangin’ tunes.
And so it was, with the party in full swing and some sort of ridiculous dubstep/trance/ rap nonsense making its noisy way down to our kitchen (where Mrs E and I were sat, largely occupied with directing pissed up 17 year olds to the toilet), that we heard the unmistakeable first few bars of ‘Fun Fun Fun’, certainly one of the high points of ‘The Cat In The Hat’ film soundtrack.
Separated by hemisphere and ocean and connected by unknown servers, satellites, undersea cabling and networking applications that are too cool to even describe, four of us are cracking up like you wouldn’t believe. Admittedly, it’s a return to a low form to basically point and laugh at #3 on his birthday party, but, all the same, it made us very very happy. Good technology? I should cocoa.

Our Marrakech Express

~ kevinrevell ~ 4 Comments

Mrs E and me decided to go to Marrakech because it was somewhere we’d never been, somewhere completely different and because we ‘needed a break’. Funny expression that, when you think about it. Not many of our ancestors downed tools and nipped off to a different continent for a few days because they needed to think about something other than the daily grind, I’m pretty sure my parents never did and I’m absolutely sure their parents didn’t. But it seems to be all the rage for us lot.

And so we set off at 2am on Friday morning, leaving the smaller kids and the dog in the charge of the larger kid, who, rather worryingly at that time still hadn’t returned from a night out, but we tried to put this to the back of our minds because we ‘needed a break’. And things would be ok at home. They’re always pretty ok at home; when something does go wrong, like an exam, or someone’s ill, or we run out of dog food, we just go and get it fixed. And then, on the way to the airport, we get a message from #1 son and he’s home, and he’s sorry he was late but he had a great night out and we should have a great time away for a few days because he knows we need a break.

Stansted at 0400 on a Friday is a lot busier than we thought it would be. A frightening number of stag parties, all bright and breezy, waiting for a few days of outrage to fuel their lad stories for years to come. Most have matching T-shirts with an embarrassing picture of the groom-to-be on the front, and occasionally full instructions for the stag party on the back (all drinking to be done with left hand only, your beermat must be used at all times, fines will be issued without exception at the 8pm meeting) which suggests that whoever is organising the event may well have appeared in scout uniform at some earlier part of their lives.

Mrs E lives in fear of Ryanair flights with stag parties on board, after some very long journeys in the past, the lowlight of which was twenty grown men singing to their fellow Budapest-bound passenger, Beryl, to whom the captain had just wished a very happy 70th birthday. No doubt wanting to surprise Beryl, our friends eschewed the obvious choice of ‘Happy Birthday, Dear Beryl’, and went for the more modern ‘Beryl, Beryl, Beryl, Takes it up the ar**, takes it up the…’, and so on. More disappointing was that this was their full repertoire for a four hour flight.

Anyway, one of the advantages of travelling to a devout Muslim country is that you’re not really going to mix it with too many stag weekends, at least, not those organised with any Baden-Powell like precision. And we didn’t, really. We chatted and dozed and thought guilty thoughts about leaving the kids behind while we jetted off and enjoyed ourselves, which is exactly the sort of thing that you should think about on this sort of adventure.

And I read a great book by Anharanand Finn on Japanese running, and in it he talks about needing to travel to Japan by rail (with his wife and three small children) so that they could all get a sense of the size of the planet. My immediate thought on this was that he could have saved himself a lot of bother by just buying a globe and teaching his kids the difference between small and far away, but before I’d really thought this through we’d landed, and I realised that he was pretty spot on. Because you do all of this without thinking – you drop your bags off, show some people some documents, hop on a plane, and three hours later you’re on a different continent, with no sense of any transitional space, where it’s 42 degrees in the morning, where not only the language but the alphabet is different, where people are still sleeping eight to a room without power, water, or plumbing, and where over 99% of the population share a common religion.

And we have three days of beautiful scenery, people who are far too polite than they have cause to be, and ways of living that we just can’t get our heads around. We secretly hide ourselves away to eat or drink during the day, because it’s Ramadan, and then when we mention it, we’re told not to be so silly. And we ask about how the fasting works, and while we’re there it’s about halfway through the 30 days, and the temperature is in the 40s and you not only can’t have anything to eat but nothing at all to drink between 0500 and 2000. And, possibly because we’re gormless westerners we say things like ‘isn’t that really hard in this weather?’, and we’re told, no, because it’s the best month of the year, because it purifies the body, and because it celebrates their feelings. So we stand outside a mosque at prayer time one evening and there are thousands of people being called to prayer, and each one as they cross the road looks relaxed and serene and just incredibly happy.

On our last day we travel up to the Atlas mountains and we talk to the guide about different cultures, and how he’s able to manage, practically, to pray five times a day. And he asks how many times a day people pray in England. And I fumble around for an answer, which eventually turns up as an apologetic mumble, and if you were to believe some of the press at home, this is the point at which he’d be muttering about western infidels, but that doesn’t happen. A bit of confusion, and perhaps a bit of sympathy and that’s all.

And before we know it, it’s time to travel back, and we hop on the same plane back to Stansted. And in the seats in front is a family of six who, at 0900 in the morning, are ordering the Ryanair hot dog special, the cheese and ham paninis and the chocolate croissants, and across from us are a couple who are incessantly complaining about someone having taken ‘their’ luggage rack, while they take it in turns to take their e-cigarette into the toilets. Behind me, someone is tucking into fries and a hot chocolate. Someone else tells us that their hotel was ‘supposed to be five star, but fell a little short in some areas’. It’s a three hour flight, and we appear to have got back to Britain two hours early.

We needed a break, and we got one. We hardly talked about work, or the minute problems of our near-perfect lives. We parachuted into North Africa, spent some money that, in relative terms, had come fairly easy to us, and which may, or may not, help the development of a beautiful country full of fabulous people. At the moment, that doesn’t feel like a very fair swap.

Pregnant Paws

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

Well, it’s been a busy week at Emu towers, and, for once, the focus has been away from the challenges of the unreasonableness of the two-legged population and onto the animal kingdom. The week started with Luna behaving…well, strangely. I mentioned the symptoms to a couple of friends, and without missing a beat, each one said : “Phantom pregnancy” I don’t know about you, but this was very much a new term for me, and it does strike me that I’m learning a whole new vocabulary since the dog came onto our lives. Only last week I found that the ugly yellow circles on our lawn were caused by something called ‘urine burn’. I’d never heard of urine burn before, although it sounds like something where a bit of cranberry juice and yoghurt wouldn’t go amiss, but apparently it’s all the rage where female dogs wee on lawns, and completely untreatable, unless you follow said dog about with a watering can every time they need a pee. Any way, onto the phantom pregnancy, which sounds like it might involve ectoplasm and Doris Stokes (or Dynamo, for our younger readers) but is a proper physical and mental condition experienced by dogs a few weeks after their first season. I found this out, as everyone else does these days, by logging on to the internet, via the pet insurance details to check cover (alas no), and established the following symptoms:

  • Behavioral changes.
  • Mothering activity, nesting, and self-nursing.
  • Restlessness.
  • Abdominal distention.
  • Enlargement of mammary glands.
  • Depression.
  • Loss of appetite (anorexia)

Which was a bit like when you look into a medical dictionary and finding that you have all the symptoms for cholera, or athlete’s foot, or glaucoma (or possibly all three). Because Luna, bless her, seemed to be showing most of these signs in spades. Which was all a bit weird (or wared, as they say in these parts), probably as we’re so used to her behaving in a certain way. So, for example, she’d take a couple of her toys around everywhere with her, making sure they were tucked under her when she was sleeping. She started ‘nesting’, unfortunately choosing to do so in our bed. Then she went off her food, then she started talking to us. Really.  Not barking, you understand, but the sort of talking that dogs do when they want to have an urgent chat. Of course, this led to quite a bit of localised hi-jinks, with lots of ‘What’s that Luna, there’s two small children trapped in an abandoned mine?’ or ‘What’s that Luna, you heard Mummy telling Daddy that #3 was adopted?’ Although the fun to be had from this faded a bit when she decided to have an urgent chat at 4 in the morning. Reading the list above, Mrs E was concerned that there might be a conversation she was missing about depression, anorexia or perhaps self-harming, so elected to sleep downstairs, a level of devotion that had been denied to any of her human children.

Fortunately help was at hand for the abdominal inflammation aspect of the illness, as Luna was booked into be spayed on Friday. Not for her the pitter patter of little Hungarian paws across the kitchen floor in the future, instead she’ll be resigned to a barren life ahead, wondering what might have been. Even 72 hours post-op there’s something of Miss Haversham about the way she looks at us. On the plus side, she was weighed at the vets after the op, and declared to be the perfect weight for a dog her age. #1 helpfully pointed out that her reproductive organs would have pushed her well over the ideal point, thereby yet again showing the sensitivity that the medical profession is expecting from him in the future.

All of which has resulted in a different dog at the end of the week to the one we started with. She’s still enjoying her phantom pregnancy symptoms, but is coming down from an anaesthetic which involved a healthy dose of methadone (yes, methadone). She’s shaved across her tummy and sporting a pretty impressive dressing which she’s trying to lick off, so to prevent this, Mrs E has taken to fitting her out in a pink running T-shirt. So, just to recap, we have a dog dressed up in a pink shirt, coming down from methadone, who thinks she’s pregnant, and possibly suffering from depression and anorexia. She’s restless but not allowed off the lead for a week. Yet again, we have a glimpse into what happens when teenage girls go wrong.

A pair of embarrassing running shorts (part 2)

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

Well, gentle reader, sadly it’s tights weather yet again. For running, you understand. I’ve long since moved away from the old school style of running that insists on wearing shorts at all costs, and, if it gets really cold, just tells you to run a bit faster. I run a bit up in Newcastle, where I believe tights are considered a bit, well southern, and I’m sure some of the people that I bump into running round Town Moor  at -2C in a hailstorm think that wearing a shirt is a bit of an unnecessary luxury as well. But I’m afraid these days, not freezing my nuts off of an evening has become something of a priority.

The other deviation that I’ve made away from old school running has been a sad reliance on needing company on my runs. By company, I mean needing to be plugged in to music or a podcast or a radio, and I justify this based on the fact that I’ve been running pretty much every day now for about twenty years, and so I’ve kind of got bored with the wonders of nature and the beauty of foot mechanics and being alone with my thoughts. Friends of mine who are proper runners are very sniffy about this, and warble on about junk miles not really being worth anything, and that I’ll only ever run slowly if I don’t fully focus on the run itself, but, sometimes I’m past caring, and I just need to hear the latest from Dan Carlin, or No Such Thing As A Fish, or This American Life, and the whole experience turns into a bit more fun. And these days, I have the added joy of an iPhone that I can strap to my arm, which also allows me to, as they say, stay connected.

So, off I go last week, out of the office in Newcastle, and away for a brisk run across Town Moor, with 3x two miles hard to tick off on the training plan, and all is well with the world. And the ‘well with the world’ status lasted well into the changing room, where I realise that I’d left that clever little armstrap for my phone several hundred miles away. As I saw it, I had three options – leave the phone in the changing room and have a good run but with no entertainment; carry the phone in my hand and Not Look Like A Proper Runner; or tuck the phone into my tights. Naturally, and helped by the fact that these were compression tights, which I suspect may have featured in an early draft of 50 Shades of Grey, I squeezed the phone into the waistband and set off.

An easy mile one, and I’m moving at a nice pace, with my eyes on the first 2 mile effort on the moor. History Extra podcast is my choice of entertainment, this one featuring things you didn’t know about Hitler’s cocaine habit (really). Get to the moor, and all is well, except for the fact that I have to knock out a 2 mile effort in the dark. But knock it out I do, get my statutory 2 minutes rest, then go for effort #2. This time, things do not go quite so well. For some reason, my phone starts slipping. At first, it’s just a bit irritating, but after mile one of the two miles it starts working its way, well, downwards. Possibly lubricated by sweat, which is pretty unpleasant, and heading downward at a steady rate, which is even more unpleasant. About a half a mile to go, and I find myself effectively sitting on my phone while running. In order to halt further progress, I naturally alter my running style to what I like to call ‘1950’s PE teacher’ – head back, back straight, high knees, and all the time trying to complete the effort.

Statutory two minute rest while I try to decide what to do. Sadly, it never entered my head to carry the bloody thing, instead, I went for the extra tightness option of tucking my phone into my pants, with added security from the compression tights. You may well be ahead of me here. I got another mile and a half around the final effort before disaster struck. The phone didn’t travel so far south this time, but unfortunately it did adopt a more, ahem, central position. So I’m running along in the dark, trying to keep a 6:30 pace up, with a running style owing a bit too much to John Wayne after a long day in the saddle, just having heard that he had a bad case of rickets, but needing to get to the Last Chance Saloon before closing time. Anyway, just about managed the last half mile and I’m about 50 yards from the end when History Extra (now focussing specifically on the amphetamines in use by the Fuhrer during the siege of Stalingrad), is disrupted by an incoming call. Given that it might be important, or my wife (teehee), I elect to press the little button and gasp ‘hang on’ while I get to the stopping point. It’s my wife.

“I can’t hear you very well” she says “I don’t think the reception’s very good at your end”

If only she knew…

More fun in tights to follow on this Sunday’s long run. But first, a word about fashion. When setting off for a winter run, it’s more than likely you’ll wear tights (black), gloves (black) hat (black), and, if you’re not careful, your favourite long sleeved top (black). Black clothing is of course, very practical and, I understand from too many copies of Grazia, very slimming. But unfortunately you end up looking, at best, like the Milk Tray man. Or, potentially, Andy McNab, and neither of these things count as A Good Look. Unusually, I looked in the mirror before I left the house, and saw a complete idiot looking back, and so went for my second favourite  shirt, a charming, and quite frankly, gleaming, long sleeved white number.

Off I trotted,  thinking that I looked slightly less twit-like, and maybe bordering on the mildly athletic. On reflection, this might have been a bit optimistic, given that I’d carbo-loaded the previous night with two pints of Wherry, one of Amstel, and a double whisky.

A couple of miles into the run, and I found myself a) running off road and b) running very slowly. Got to a stile across a very muddy field, and thought I’d better pick the pace up a bit.  Did I mention it was very muddy? It was very, very muddy indeed, and as I tried to speed up, I was rather held back by my right foot getting completely stuck.

Or not. In fact, it was my right shoe that was stuck, and my right foot was released into thin air, leaving the shoe sinking into the mud. As I had a reasonable amount of momentum built up, I didn’t have a lot of time to think, but I tried to effect a Jonathan Edwards-type hop with my left foot, which, given the circumstances, was reasonably successful. Unfortunately one successful hop was not quite enough for any sort of recovery, and the momentum of the hop quickly turned into a trip, and the trip turned into a full-on face plant. I got up very slowly, and for some reason I don’t really understand, because my right foot was completely coated in mud, I hopped, on my left foot, back to my shoe. And, again, for reasons I can’t really explain, picked up my shoe, walked back to the stile, took off my right sock and, standing one legged tried to knock the mud off by banging it, Basil Fawlty style, against the gate.

Now, muddy foot encased in muddy sock inside a muddy shoe, I tried to prepare myself for the next part of the run. I had no idea what I looked like, but if my previously white shirt was anything to go by, my face would have looked like Brutus in the Green Mile, just after the moon pie episode:

And that’s when the dog walker came into view.

“That was really funny” he said, “I really enjoyed seeing that”.

I spent the next 15 miles trying to think of what I should have said back to him. I’m not sure whether I managed anything better than what I actually replied:

“Grrrr”

 

 

Privates on Parade

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

Revealing fact of the week – despite what we all learnt at school, dog years are not exactly one seventh of human years. Apparently they start off much less than that, then level off. So after six months, they’re about the equivalent of a ten year old child, and after a year, they’re about 15 years old, then reach full adulthood after a couple of years. So now you know.

And that ‘after a year’ thing, is important to this week’s update of bringing up Luna, because, as of the fifth of January, we were celebrating her first birthday. This in itself was quite a big deal, as Mrs E was anxious to make sure that Christmas was well out of the way before we got to Luna’s big day. Something about it being important that she didn’t get her presents muddled up. Seriously.

So, Luna was given her morning walk, some birthday tripe, and unwrapped a couple of presents from Mrs E. She’s got quite good at this unwrapping game, partly through significant amounts of practice (she had her own slot on the advent calendar) and unwraps her presents using both feet and her mouth. That’s Luna, not Mrs E, in case there’s any confusion there. Anyway, Luna got to unwrap her main present (seriously), and out of the wrapping paper emerged a large green rubber tube.

“Brilliant!” said junior emu #4, excited beyond his twelve years, “It’s a d**do!”.

which was a cue for one of his parents to give him a Very Disapproving Look, and for the other to muffle her laughter into her sleeve. At this point, #2, keen as ever to hone his own parenting skills, helpfully stepped in:

“Yep, he’s right – it looks exactly like a d**do”

At which point, a reasonably grown up family discussion takes place, at which we all agreed that a) we would not be using that word for the rest of the day and that b) henceforth Luna’s new toy would be called ‘The D’. Note that the grown up discussion was taking place separately to my wife, who still appeared to be cackling into her elbow.

So, anyway, Me and Mrs E went to work for the day, leaving Luna in the care of four doting boys. After a couple of hours, the first text arrived from Junior Emu #1, displaying a matter of fact communication approach that will stand him well in his chosen career in the medical profession:

“Luna’s had a bleed”

Which was kind of what we were expecting, as you’ll know if you read the last blog. This update was followed by an update from #3, who sees the whole dog ageing story slightly differently:

“Luna’s been bleeding. Finally a woman!”

Frantic calls made back home to agree that our fifth charge had indeed joined the boys in confirmed adolescence. Fortunately Mrs E, with the kindness of a doting mother, had arranged for old towels and wet wipes to be available at all times, and had drilled in the instructions for Luna’s arrival into womanhood with a military precision. And so it was that, with both of us still at work, Luna was taken out for her second walk of the day with a full escort of all four boys, who I imagine took charge of a paw-point each, a bit like the secret service running alongside a presidential limousine. They all returned home to deliver a further update from #1:

“Luna walk fine. Not jumped by any dogs at the lake.”

Since when, the dog walks have all been taken in ever more remote areas, or under the cover of darkness (not too difficult in Norfolk at this time of the year). And, instead of the cheery ‘good morning’, fellow dog walkers are asked immediately what sex their dog is, and if it’s a boy, whether he’s been ‘done’. And if it’s a ‘whole’ boy, my wife’s eyes narrow as she imagines a future suitor, and, more importantly, what the children will look like. I imagine something similar happened in the McGee household, when young Debbee brought Paul Daniels home for tea for the first time.

Meanwhile, Luna seems to be pretty relaxed about the whole process of ‘putting it about’. Mrs E returned from a walk today to describe Luna’s behaviour as ‘cocquettish’, which has made me both proud and ashamed at the same time. Apart from a slightly wider gait on her back legs, there’s really nothing different about the way that our dog actually looks, from three out of four angles. But when you look at her from the back, she’s not only looking for trouble, but she’s also broadcasting her enthusiasm for it at a level that I’ve not seen since that last embarrassing trip to Amsterdam, when (honestly) I took a wrong turn and found a completely different category of window dressing.

Having spent many years now perhaps overcompensating with other people, so that I always look ‘above the neck’,  and so I could never be accused of objectifying any woman or man, I now end up catching myself when eyeing up my own dog’s genitals. Consequently, I look at any dog who does the same with an air of disdain. Have they no manners? Mrs E takes a more practical approach, and tells me that she spent some time in the park yesterday standing with one leg behind Luna, effectively blocking the view for an enthusiastic black lab. “Nothing to see here”, she no doubt said, a bit like the fireman with the megaphone in front of the blazing firework factory.

Anyway, we have about another week of this to look forward to, at which point apparently our dog becomes as fertile as a rabbit on IVF being coached by Peter Stringfellow. By all accounts, enthusiastic dogs have been known to break down fences in order to get to, ahem, Luna’s back door.

So wish us luck. Or, if you’re in the market for a cute puppy in a few week’s time, wish that we don’t have the canine equivalent of Paul Daniels roaming our streets.

Father of the Bride

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

For twenty of the last twenty one years, there’s been a pretty strong male dominance at emu towers. When Mrs E first popped out her first son, all thoughts of bringing up a little curly haired angel girl got pushed to one side, and I imagined fatherly conversations, perhaps involving a pipe and a fireplace, as I helped the little tyke on his way to being a regular bloke, and potential drinking partner.

Over the following years, with Mrs E almost constantly ‘in foal’, a series of other small boys arrived into the family, culminating in in a 5:1 advantage for the XY chromosomes. Another time, I’ll tell you about the patience that Mrs E has displayed over the years when responding to people who tell her that she must have been so disappointed not to have had a girl. But while she was busy maintaining her self control with the assorted nomarks that were helpfully talking at her, I was (and continue to be) whooping for joy. Because when I imagine having a daughter, a worrisome chill comes over me. I know full well that I’d be one of those awful fathers who’d be appalling news for any spotty youth that appeared on my door wanting to take her out. And I’m no less certain of that having spent the last few years with a few spotty youths of my own, who have been appearing at similar doorsteps across this postcode region for some years now.

And I’m pretty sure that bringing up boys is easier anyway. A friend of mine has a similar ratio of 5:1 but in favour of girls, and half jokes about having had all his interior doors strengthened for slamming purposes. I’m pretty sure that the idea that menstrual cycles synchronise when women are in close proximity to one another is an urban myth, but my friend does seem to spend an awfully long time working away from home.

But, just as soon as I start thinking about getting settled into manly family things, waxing moustaches, playing billiards and having fatherly conservations while leaning on a convenient mantelpiece, along comes disruption into Emu Towers. First, the arrival of Mrs Gibbs the hamster, taking the ratio to 2:5. Then, the disappearance of #1 to seek his fortune in the grim North, taking us to 2:4. Then, the arrival of the dog, bringing us to 3:4. And with #3’s continued obsession with musical theatre dominating every one of his mincing ways, we’re now generally about evens.

And it’s the dog that has given me most insight into the horrors of having to bring up a girl. I was alerted to this a few months ago, while half listening to my wife. The half-listen bit was a bit unfortunate, as I can normally get away with not really listening, making the right noises at the right time and asking for a summary at the end. I know some people at work who have managed entire careers like this, and I’m sure plenty of marriages thrive on it, but every now and again you get caught out:

Mrs E : ramble ramble ramble, challenging kids, need to get some food in, worried about my mother, need to walk the dog etc etc…

Me : hmm, yes, hmm, probably, yes

Mrs E : …and I think she might be going through some sort of change, because she’s really excitable and her genitals are really engorged…

And unfortunately, that’s the bit I heard. And in a ‘please don’t let me screw about with my own marriage’ style, I had to rapidly track back to what on earth she might be talking about.

Me: sorry, are you talking about your mother?

Unfortunately (or, fortunately) not. Had to recover from that one fairly rapidly, and established that we were actually talking about the dog. And apparently, the dog, being almost a year old, is moving rapidly out of childhood and coming into her fully fledged adolescent years. Which is, apparently called a ‘season’. And, apparently, with the season comes all sorts of teenage behaviour, including spontaneous bleeding, moodiness and disobedience, and a general enthusiasm for ‘it’. Some or all of which may be recognisable to those of you who are dog owners. Or possibly parents to the XX set.

But it’s not familiar territory to me, by any stretch. I’m not used to the idea of waiting up for Luna to come back from a walk. I’m extremely worried that Mrs E might well be looking to invest in some dog nappies. And, most of all, I fear for her going after just any old dog in the park. I keep telling her that I want her first time to be special, but all I get for my troubles is an enthusiastic lick of the face, and I’m not sure that’s the answer I want. Mrs E is putting a bit more faith in the process of keeping Luna on the lead for four weeks, and giving any inquisitive suitor the cold shoulder, but I’m not so sure. After all, attractive young female teenagers who really want to have sex normally manage to get their way, don’t they? As for Mrs E’s fallback plan, words almost fail me. Apparently, for a mere £75, you can buy a canine ‘morning after pill’ which is almost 100% guaranteed successful. I mentioned this to #1 last night, and he said we might have to use it after a one-walk stand. Indeed.

So I’m sorry to all my friends who’ve had to go through this in the past, if I’ve not been entirely sympathetic. If this is the sort of worry we have with Luna, it must be almost as bad with a human daughter.

Having said which, I need to walk the dog. And I need to have a word with her first. She’s asking for trouble, going out looking like that.

Bullets for my baby

~ kevinrevell ~ 2 Comments

As with last week’s posting, this is a blog I’ve written for work, but as it’s not going to be published until December, and as it’s about something that’s going to happen this weekend, I thought I’d bung it up here now, with a few tactical edits…

I’d like to start, if I may, with three pieces of paper fixed to the wall next to my desk.

The first is a picture of Steve Prefontaine, probably the greatest American distance runner that never was, and the first ever rock star athlete. He had proper All-American good looks, he was incredibly gifted as a runner, he pretty much inspired Bill Bowerman to invent Nike, and just before his life could get to be in the least bit ordinary, he turned his sports car over after a party, and created an even bigger legend. Any footage you see of him running not only show a mop of shaggy blond hair bouncing up and down as he effortlessly leads from the front, but also a full moustache. It’s very rare that you see anyone these days who looks good with a moustache, as you’ll witness if you spend any time in any office building in the last week of November, but Steve Prefontaine was always something of an exception. Anyway, his picture is on my wall to remind me that the best runners don’t bother to look behind them.

Next to that is a copy of a cartoon from the Eagle, showing Alf Tupper, the ‘Tough of the Track’. The Eagle was a comic that celebrated all things British, in that post-war period when Britain was pretty much on top of its game, and you couldn’t get much more fantastical than the fictional story of Alf Tupper. Born on the wrong side of the tracks, Alf’s natural athletic ability ran into bad luck on a weekly basis, often because he was running against cheating ‘toffs’ or evil German milers. Deprived of any decent training conditions, Alf had to work sixty hours a week as a welder to make ends meet, and lived entirely on a diet of fish suppers. One of these days, I’m going to start a running club called the ‘Alf Tupper Harriers’. For full membership, you’ll have be a fully qualified welder, be capable of running under four minutes for an imperial mile, and prove to the admissions secretary evidence of a chips only diet for a given four week period. Unfortunately, I’ll be ineligible to join on all but one of the entrance criteria, so will have to settle for bronze membership.

And the third piece of paper is an email to my wife from a couple of months ago. The domestic arrangements in the Emu household are such that we end up emailing and texting each other quite a bit, in lieu of ever being in the same place at the same time. It’s an interesting challenge this, as I spend so much of my life writing emails at work, that it’s easy to mix up your styles. For example, Mrs R has never really forgiven me for sending her a link with a message of ‘FYI’. And I’m pretty sure I once sent an email to my boss with three x’s after my name, although it’s never actually been mentioned.

Anyway, this is an email that I sent in May, just off the back of yet another marathon that really could have gone a bit better. If I’d sent it to someone at work, it would have had four distinct, direct and punchy bullets, and, possibly due to the confusions above, it had four distinct, direct and punchy bullets:

“Dear Natasha*
– I’d like to take you to Budapest in October
– this is the hotel we’re going to stay at (link to expensive hotel)
– and on the Sunday afternoon we can go to Margetsziget and watch the well heeled Hungarians walk their Vizsla puppies**
– the only catch is that I’d like to run the Budapest marathon on the Sunday morning
What do you think?
K x”

Well, to my surprise, I got a reply within about half an hour:

“Yes. Do it!”

To be honest, I was expecting a little more negotiation. Mrs E/Natasha is tolerant of most of the whining and moaning that’s associated with marathon running, but tends to draw the line where it impinges on any child-free weekends. But, always one to follow a direct instruction from my little Soviet double agent, I booked the flights and hotel that evening.

When I got home a few days later, I mentioned how chuffed I was that she’d agreed to the weekend. She seemed a little surprised that I was surprised, and after a bit of skirting around the issue, asked what bloody marathon I was blathering on about. Switching seamlessly from doting and grateful husband into full defensive mode, I tried the obvious line:

“Didn’t you read the email?”

“Yes, but not after the bit about the dogs. I lost interest after that.”

So, the email is next to my desk, for two reasons. Firstly to remind me to get a bit of a wiggle on with some training, otherwise I’ll have another embarrassing, cramp ridden marathon, albeit one with a nice walk watching some little Hungarian puppies afterwards.

And secondly to remind me how to communicate with people. If I can’t hold my wife’s attention after three points on reasonably interesting subject matter, it’s fairly unlikely I’m going to do more with some of the slightly, err, drier, topics that I might have to cover at work, for example.

So my top tips are:
– never have more than three points
– make it interesting to the reader
– make it direct and to the point
– feel free to ignore this one

I’m off now. Got a plane to catch with Natasha. TTFN.

* Not her real name, but I’m trying some options out. Gives her a bit of cold-war glamour, no?
** This is not a euphemism. But appreciate it might need a bit of explanation some time.

My left foot

~ kevinrevell ~ 3 Comments

You might have seen the film ‘My Left Foot’, if you haven’t, it tells the harrowing and heroic story of Christy Brown, born with cerebral palsy, who learns to paint with his left foot. If you have seen it, then a key piece of trivia for you is that many of the scenes with Daniel Day-Lewis playing the lead role, were shot using a mirror, as DD-L was unable to manipulate his left foot adequately enough for the part. Which sounds, given the context, that he wasn’t really trying hard enough on the old acting front, but I may being overly critical.

But, with apologies to the throngs of Daniel Day-Lewis fans who flick to this blog on a regular basis (ahem), what follows is solely thoughts on my left foot, rather than the more accomplished work of Christy Brown’s one.

Because, if you really want to know something about someone, take a look at their feet. Alright, I just made that bit up, but in the unlikely event that you really wanted to know something about me, that’s where to look. And if you don’t, or if you’re of a particularly nervous disposition, you might want to stop reading now.

Still with me? Still not got anything else to do with your time? Then I’m snuggling up to you with a virtual embrace that’s warmer than Sir Terry Wogan, but stops just shy of the Hairy Cornflake. Apologies to the many international subscribers to the Emu who are shaking their heads at this point.

In an ideal world, I might show you a picture of my left foot as illustration. However, I’ve been strongly advised against this by my wife, who has been unfortunate enough to share most of her life and marital bed in the company of this foot and considers it something that really ought to be covered up at all times. Which is fair enough I suppose. After all, if I’m to be her trophy husband, I may as well cover up the ugly bits. (And that’s why I’m currently modelling the UK’s first male burqa, tee hee.)

Do let me know if I start rambling, won’t you. Anyway, back to the foot, and reading left to right…

We’ll start with the little toe. The one that bizarrley turns in on itself like it’s pointing to the right. That’s Joe Strummer’s fault. Just as my sister’s chums had to align themselves to either David Cassidy or the Osmonds, so my choices were either the Clash or the Jam. And, although I only really properly appreciated how wonderful London Calling was as an album years later, the style of the Clash would always win out. Paul Weller had some brilliant things to say, but Joe Strummer, who’d been around a bit longer, and probably long enough to realise that punks were really just hippies with attitude and short hair, was talking about the exotic worlds of Brigade Rosse and the Sandinistas. He also said what, to young teenage ears, were impossibly cool and meaningful things, like ‘The future is unwritten’ and ‘Being honest with yourself, that’s much tougher than beating someone up. That’s what I call tough.’

But, just as important was Strummer replying to a reporter asking him why he wore pointed shoes.

“You’ve got to wear pointy shoes to know which way you’re going”

Which is amongst the most meaningless quotes in rock and roll history, but because he meant something to me I made it my business to wear pointy shoes (and, wherever possible, George Cox flats with the DM sole and the teddy boy uppers seeing that you’re asking) for as long as I could get away with it. Which turned out to be as long as it took to point my little toe in the wrong direction.

Next one along, and the toenail is missing. That’s as a direct result of a hockey ball hitting it head on during an indoor game some time in the 1980s. After the toe went an unpleasant black colour for several months, I went to the doctor, who gravely announced that he would have to operate. And as far as operations were concerned, the removal of a second toenail was pretty minor, they even let me watch as they cut the toe back and then went about hacking away at the nail to get rid of it. A couple of days later I went on holiday with my student nurse girlfriend to America, where she dutifully dressed the toe every day and exercised far more than I deserved in the tender loving care department. I can’t help feeling that if the nail had come off the other side of four childbirths then she might have delivered a bit less TLC, but our love, as Joe Strummer never said, was blind to the future.

Third one along, and you can see the start of a really horrible blister. This is because I’ve just gone for a long run in new running shoes that I bought recently which are almost certainly the wrong size. But I’ll keep wearing them because I can’t abide waste, or because I’m tight. Or both. Which means that I’ll probably have that, or a similar reminder blister, for years to come.

Fourth one along, and a very unpleasant black toenail indeed. This one is going to fall off very soon, and as it does so, I’ll be quite rightly chastised by my own family for letting something so gross happen in the same room as them. This toe (and no other one) will always go black straight after a marathon. A few weeks later it will fall off, then a new one will start growing back. This, for me, is a bit like one of those weather machines where the woman comes out with the umbrella when it’s about to start raining. So when my toenail grows back with a normal colour, it’s time to do another marathon.

And so to the big toe, which, because I’m a runner, is almost always down with some sort of infection which turns it yellow. Again, this is a bit of a signal, and if it’s horribly yellow and infected then it’s time to have a rest from the running lark. Looking at it now, it looks relatively healthy, which can only mean one thing…it’s time to go for a run.

Hunter S Thompson, a man who managed to be impossibly cool not just during his life but at his own funeral, once wrote that:

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”

Too bloody right. Just ask my left foot.

Abbatoir Blues (part one)

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

I’m not absolutely sure why #4 wanted to know the french for slaughterhouse this morning, but he did.

“Maison de slaughter”, suggested #3, his recent GCSE French burning a trou in his poche.

“No”, said his mother, “I think we all know the word for slaughterhouse in French, don’t we? It’s abbatoir”.

And, as a family, in our limited french vocabulary, A will always be for abbatoir, and this blog is going to tell you why.

It is a story of sickness and accidents, of disaster and horror, of a slaughterhouse and a mysterious bar, and of the ghastly realisation of parental responsibilities, the like of which hope never to experience again. In short, it is the story of our summer holiday in the year 2000.

We’d decided that, as the three boys were, at 6, 4 and 2, that much more mature, that we ought to all jump in the car and head 700 miles south of where we lived. Honestly, that’s how our minds worked back then. We booked two fabulous looking places to stay, and come the exciting departure day, lined up three car seats in the back of the car, loaded up with travel sweets and Early Learning Centre cassettes of popular singalong classics, and headed for Dover.

Dover is quite a way from Norwich, and it didn’t take too long to find out that #3 hadn’t quite resolved his problems with car sickness. The first and second projections were skilfully fielded from the front passenger seat, with Mrs E at silly mid on, but, unusually, with her back to the wicket. We weren’t so lucky with the third one though, and the back of the car ended up being lined with a bilious film that stank beyond belief.

Fortunately, this seemed to get #3 into a slightly better place, and he felt able to nod along feebly to a couple of choruses of ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, but by the time we got to the ferry terminal, never the sweetest smelling place in its own right, we were all feeling a little bit sick ourselves.

Onto the ferry, and #3 is still feeling a bit dodgy, so Mrs E takes him to the first aid room, where he spends the rest of the crossing. We agreed the duties for the voyage. Mrs E to take charge of first aid. Me to look after the older two and deliver car maintenance, ie making the next 500 miles a tolerable experience.

Armed with the only tools I had at my disposal (half a packet of wet wipes), I made my way onto the lurching car deck, and did my very best to clean up. I did a reasonable job under the circs, but was very conscious that my work wouldn’t pass much of a sniff test, and the practicalities of driving all day with all the windows fully open wasn’t too attractive. So I made it my business to improvise. Thinking back, I really should have improvised by finding a cleaner on board, who, presumably would have cleaning up other people’s sick as a key part of their job description. However, unfortunately I ended up trying to improvise at the Stena Line gift shop.

Had I been in desperate need for some Stena branded playing cards, a scale model of the ferry that we were travelling on, or even an oversized toblerone, I would have been in luck. But cleaning materials and things to make your car smell like it hadn’t been used as a student’s toilet were in short supply.

“Cleaning materials are in short supply here”, I brightly suggested to the assistant.

“Je ne comprend pas” was the reply, a phrase I was to hear very frequently on this and future visits to France, so much so that it became our stock in trade response to almost all questions asked of us. Sometimes it becomes a competition to see who can get the first “ne comprend pas” into any conversation.

I had another look round the shop, a exercise that really didn’t take very long, and, just as I was about to give up, found the one thing that could have saved our holiday. There, on a back shelf, was a can of deodorant, by the not very well known cosmetics manufacturer Joe Bloggs. At a bargain 15 francs, it would have to do. The label on the can said ‘Jus de Femme’, which suggested that they’d had an intern for the day in the Joe Bloggs marketing department (can you ever see Boots marketing a male deodorant labelled ‘Female Juices’?) but at the time, I just thought that it was something that Mrs E might find amusing.

I retuned to the car and liberally sprayed ‘Jus de Femme’ around the back seats. It seemed to do the job, and I stuffed the can into my jacket pocket.

Little did I know that I’d come to rue the day that I’d bought a can of Jus de Femme…

(To be continued)

Bringing up baby

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

Some years ago, me and Mrs E came under a certain amount of pressure around the kitchen table, particularly from numbers 1 & 2, to get a pet. After a number of months of resistance, we finally agreed that we could increase the headcount in the family with a hamster, an ideal pet that doesn’t actually do very much, is almost entirely nocturnal, and enjoys biting humans. So we trawled off to the pet shop, and the boys, after being encouraged away from the snakes and spiders, selected their new best friend. (The NBF, by the way, maintained the BF element for about 5 minutes after arrival, which might have been predicted, and ‘Brains’ maintained a hermit like existence for his entire life, doing what hamsters do, which, from my experience, is as little as possible.)

Anyway, we had a fairly memorable exchange with the shop assistant, who gave us a light/medium grilling on the importance of being prepared in the art and science of hamster rearing. Would we, for example, like to read up on the subject, just to make sure that we were completely ready to manage a new pet in the house? Perhaps we could take away a £6.99 book and check the safety features in our home, then return when we were absolutely certain we could cope with the upheaval.

I remember this meeting quite clearly, partly because Mrs E, who doesn’t raise her voice in public terribly often, raised her voice in public.

“Look”, she said, and I remember, all around us, people began to do just that.

“I’ve raised four children without a manual, I think I can manage a hamster”.

And so she could.

I mention the story of Brains (RIP) entering our lives in this way because we’ve just welcomed in a small puppy which has taken over our lives far more forcibly than the hamster, or indeed, any of the children ever did.

Just to give you some context here, I work away most weeks, returning on a Thursday evening to help with the telling off duties, so I end up speaking on the phone to my wife a couple of times a day. And for the last three weeks, almost every phone call between the two of us has focused on bringing up the new baby.

“Whatever did we talk about before we had Luna?”, Mrs E said at the end of a call last week, as I imagined the children looking longingly at their mother, desperately keen to tell me about achievements at school, new girlfriends, enthusiasms for improving readings, exercise routines and what they wanted to do when they grow up. (As if.)

In truth, having children has just about prepared us for the challenges of bringing up Luna, and so here’s a bit of a brain dump on how:

We are, for example, the only people who have ever owned a dog, just as in our own self-centred ways we were the only people to have ever had children, and thereby we reserved the right to bring every conversation around to how beautiful they were, whether they were eating/pooing in the right direction, what they’d learnt to do, and so on. Twenty years on, I can just about face talking about how boring we must have been to those around us, and only really justify it in that I’ve seen every other new parent I’ve met since behave in exactly the same way.

We’re ‘socialising’ the puppy in the same way as we took the kids to the park, and we look at her in that sort of benevolent angst that all the other dog owners do. Isn’t it great, we think, when they’re playing nicely together. But if your puppy starts getting above itself, we’ll take ours away before you can say obsessivemiddleclassttwit.

And, in the same way as we spent hours poring over the early learning centre catalogue to get yet another worthy toy, we’ve filled Luna’s living space (which started off as a bed in the corner of the kitchen and has now spread to pretty much the whole of the house), with dog toys, balls, chews and goodness knows what else. And, just like the children, she dutifully ignores all the toys and contents herself with a cardboard box. Most of the children have grown out of chewing table legs, but #4 still gives it a go now and again, and it’s quite sweet to see them side by side, munching on bits of furniture.

Already, Mrs E has trained her to have a better sense of personal hygiene than #3, although to be fair that’s not too high a hurdle to jump. Luna does catch you out though – when you’re home from a run, for example, she greets you by licking you as a makeshift salt lick – delightful at first, but a bit off putting when you realise she’s just had same tongue inserted in her own bum, and before that it was licking bird crap up off the pavement.

There’s a fundamental difference though, in the whole bringing up puppies and children thing. When our kids were born, obviously we loved them to bits, but their faces all looked like something between Winston Churchill and The Hood from Thunderbirds.

the hood winston

 

 

 

 

So, looking down into the pram, you might be forgiven for the odd shuddering recoil.

Thankfully they’ve all grown out of this look, although #3 does give a passable ‘Never Surrender’ look in a certain light – God knows what he’d be like with a big cigar and a homburg. In contrast, showing someone a picture of Luna always gets the same reaction. Altogether now…aaaah:

 

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