Category: Family

I’ll be your dog

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

Well, following the Emu’s previous blog on The Big Decision On Becoming Dog-Owners, we’ve finally agreed the way forward. As a result, we made the all important call to the breeder a couple of weeks ago, and had a discussion that I suspect we’d find more familiar had we ever tried to wedge one of our kids into Eton. It appears that when you decide to buy a dog from a respectable  breeder, the interview kind of goes in the opposite direction to the one you’d expect, and it’s really up to you to pass the interview on whether you’re really qualified to own a dog. I’m not sure that we had the equivalent of this qualification when we first contemplated bringing kids into our world, but that may say something about the society we live in. Anyway, we passed the audition about whether we’d be fit to take on a puppy, and, given that there was a national waiting list and two large litters, we were duly allocated ‘bitch number 7’ and given a 90 minute viewing appointment in February, at which we will be paired with the ‘right’ puppy.

At which point, there was a suitable amount of what Hank Williams might have called ‘a’whooping and a’hollering’. I don’t think I’d realised just how much everyone else in the family actually wanted this puppy, and the sight of four people jumping up and down like they were on individual trampolines will stay with me for some time. And might be referred back to when the dog needs walking at six in the morning when it’s teeing it down with rain.

And that’s when the real challenge of naming the dog started coming in. At our allotted time in February, we’ve received instructions that we need to provide a small snap collar that is marked with the puppy’s name. This means that we not only need to have sorted a name by then that won’t sound ridiculous to the breeder, but also will a) mean something and b) be acceptable as something that can be called out in public and at the vet’s. For example, where we live, if we name a dog Elsie or Ruby and call it in the park, there’s a fair chance that we’ll be mobbed by ten year old girls in floral dresses and T-bar sandals.

And the meaning thing is a big deal as well. My absolute favourite ever name that we’ve come up with (thanks to our chums N&N) is Brilleaux, after the wonderful, wonderful Lee Brilleaux, who I mentioned here earlier and who really deserves some sort of recognition in the Emu home. I carefully worked out a hustings and lobbying plan for this name, and canvassed all members of the family to get them to vote in the right direction, but was eventually worn down by the counter-lobby (which I suspect may have been led by my wife, who has been heard in the past to say that ‘All Doctor Feelgood songs sound the same’). The counter-lobby finally won, with a text from #1, stating firmly that Brilleaux was ‘only suitable for a ‘boy dog”.

We also have a slight problem with other ‘meaning’ names, and my not-so-subtle attempts at calling a dog after my heroes have met similar obstacles. And as a result, Tegla (Loroupe), Grete (Weitz), (Alf) Tupper and Tuppy (Glossop) have been received with a certain amount of sniffiness by the committee.

Fortunately, I work in an industry that prides itself on knowing one end of a data based decision from another. And, if there’s one thing that I’ve learnt from a career in careful  observation of management actions, setting strategic direction and addressing important opportunities for process improvements (and so on), it’s that by turning very important data into attractive red, amber and green colours, you can make the whole exercise of making decisions far easier. So, taking our shortlist of potential names, and taking all feedback into consideration, we arrived at the following table (pls note #2 might not have been taking the exercise entirely seriously):

number 7

Oh, I forgot to also mention that I’ve also learnt from  observing management actions, setting strategic direction and addressing important opportunities for process improvements (and so on), that this is also an excellent way to hide behind the reality of actually having to do anything. And because it’s unlikely that our breeder is actually going to allow us to call our new member of the family ‘Bitch Number 7’, and because the really valid name (Brilleaux) has been outlawed, we’ll do whatever any responsible business leader will do, and make a decision by completely ignoring the management information and going with our gut instinct.

Which is what we’ve done.

 

 

Keeping the woof from the door

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

So, what to worry about this week as I speed my way homewards, courtesy of the fine people on Greater Anglia railways?

A quick poll of my fellow travellers suggest the following key and topical issues that justify the most scrutinous of debates :

– how valid is Romanian/Albanian immigration?

–  how are we going to cope when these waves get even higher in Wales and the South? Or, even worse, the East?

– can we really be living in a country that’s just endured the Mark Duggan verdict?

– is wearing a donkey jacket valid for a 51 year old bloke who works in financial services?

All great topics for debate (although the last one might be a bit of a stretch. Honest, I’ve been looking for a replacement for about 20 years).

So naturally we’ll steer well clear of all of them and talk about whether or not the family Emu ought to get a dog.

This has been an ongoing debate around the kitchen table for about three years, so, as the other Mrs E* said to me the other day, we’ve had something of a cooling off period.

In the red corner stands the pro camp, consisting of all of the kids, and the hearts of myself and the primary Mrs E**. In this camp we have :

– an enthusiasm for another member of the family that will always be pleased to see us (a key factor when also rearing teenagers)

– lots of commitment to healthy walks at least twice a day

– the perception that we’ll always have a companion for running and to keep us from being alone

– every dog owner we know saying they’d never be without one

– the fact that we seem irresistibly drawn to the impossibly handsome Vizsla dogs – friendly, fond of running, and apparently, self cleaning. A bit like our oven. The self cleaning bit, I mean.

In the blue corner, are the agin camp, which contains solely of the heads of me and primary Mrs E, and we talk about:

– the waning enthusiasm of any of our kids to commit to anything

– pretty much any dog owner that I’ve come across as a runner

– the horror of picking up dog poo

– the slight concern that we might be replacing jr Emu #1 with a dog. That in itself is not a problem, but we’re concerned that by the time the fourth one leaves home we might have a bit of a pack

– the frightening thought that we’ll have to get an estate car. And that it might well be a Volvo

– the ties that bind whenever we need to do something spontaneous

– the sheer bloody cost

The last couple of these are particularly interesting. The idea of doing anything spontaneous, ever again, disappeared from view in the summer of 1993, when #1 decided to take over our every waking thought. By the time #4 leaves us to our own devices/house, I fear we’ll be past the ability to do anything spontaneous anyway.

And the sheer bloody cost of these things (by which I mean dogs, not kids. Don’t get me started…)is astonishing. Honestly, they cost a fortune to run, and that’s after you’ve forked out the best part of a grand on getting one into your home in the first place. Yes, I found this fairly hard to believe as well, but have a look at ‘pets4homes’*** next time you’re passing.

So you’d think the case for the defence was pretty solid, no? Well, no. Sometimes you need to go with your heart, and that’s almost certainly where we’ll go. As with most key decisions in our household, the clincher will end up on the most innocuous decision, and the current one is around ‘naming the dog’ which has kept us occupied at most mealtimes and long car journeys for about three weeks solid. As soon as we have the right name, the logic goes, we’ll know that we need to get a dog.

And #2 has played a trump card here, with an absolute stroke of genius. We know we need to get a dog, he says, because then we can call it ‘Reservoir’.

Watch this space, and if you happen across any Viszla puppies with a low hip score, docile parents and, ideally, coming in at less than a month’s rent, let me know.

* Nothing to worry about dear, honest
** Doreen, please do let me know if this gets confusing
*** I think the domain name ‘petsforgullibletwits’ was taken

It was twenty years ago today…

~ kevinrevell ~ 4 Comments

…and I’m sitting on the bottom stair in our old house, and I’m biting onto my knuckles, because, upstairs, our two week old baby boy is crying, and my wife has been taken into hospital with mastitis, septicaemia and God knows what else, and I’m scared witless, and I haven’t got a clue what to do.

Quite a levelling experience, altogether. Fortunately, we muddle through and after a couple of weeks, we’re back to a fragile three again, and we start enjoying the first of a number of small people that are to enter our lives over the next eight years.

So, he starts to respond differently after a couple of weeks, and we get past that point where you’re not sure if he’s smiling or not, and he’s got a face that melts your heart, and everything starts feeling pretty right with the world.

And he starts crawling and talking and walking and it all goes really fast and before you know it he’s holding his baby brother in his arms and tickling him, and they’re both giggling away, and that’s pretty good.
And he toddles off to nursery school and learns songs about crocodiles and parachutes and makes friends that last him right up to now, and all the time he’s getting this really great sense of humour, and he’s naughty without being horrible, and that’s all pretty good too.

And, before we know it, he’s at school, and cutting quite a dash in his grey shorts as he goes off for his first day, and he loves it to bits, and he really likes learning, and all that seems to fall into place. And he starts getting those crazes, and the one that really sticks it the guitar and he starts practising for hours, and he gets really good at it, and I couldn’t be more proud. And we go for hours with me running and him on his bike and he tells me all about the absolute ideal colour for a stratocaster, and I couldn’t be less interested in that as a specific subject, but it’s just great to hear him so excited, and eventually we go to a guitar shop with his birthday and Christmas money and buy an Epiphone Casino that’s almost as tall as he is, and he sits down to play it and, you know, he’s really quite good. So he plays in a few bands and loves it, then he starts playing drums and he’s pretty good at that as well, and we start sharing all those stories about Things That Happen At Gigs, and that’s all good too.

And he does pretty well at school, and takes a few chances, and makes a few mistakes, and goes through those rites of passage as he learns to drive, and (separately) learns to drink, and meets a girl, then stops meeting the girl, and all the time he’s handling it pretty well, and it’s great to have him around, and before you know it he’s the third adult in the relationship, and telling his parents to grow up when they argue, and you can’t help but laugh. And he runs his first half marathon, then runs his first marathon, and we get to see him cross the line, and because we’ve both run marathons we know what that’s like, and there are moments like that where you just want to freeze time because its really not going to get much better than this.

And he gets his place at University, and it’s his absolute first choice, so he’s chuffed to bits, and after a fabulous summer he packs everything he needs into the car and gets deposited into a little room that reminds me of a Cat B prison I once visited, but which he absolutely loves, and we go away from there thinking that actually, these things can sometimes work out quite well.

And then a couple of weeks later, we’ve just come off the phone to him, and we’re talking about him in the kitchen, and his younger brother puts ‘Wish You Were Here’ on the stereo, and there’s that line about ‘two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year’, and I just start crying.

And it’s not because I didn’t want him to grow up and it’s not because I selfishly want to have him around all the time. It’s because we won’t get to see the world through his eyes any more, because over the next few years, we’re going to feel like this a few more times, and because, well, you’re allowed to miss people when they’re not around, aren’t you?

Well, it was about twenty years ago that Mrs E’s mother gave her the fairly mature advice that she should enjoy every minute of being a parent, because you only ever borrow your kids. It’s only taken twenty fairly wonderful years to understand what she meant.

The T Word

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

I was listening to Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago, and heard the sort of comment that you’ll only ever get from a listener to the Today programme, who had written in:

‘I feel it’s a crying shame that the term BBC Trust has turned into an oxymoron’

Please bear with me on this, because your first reaction may be the same as mine, ie  slight irritation at the self-serving sort of twit who thinks they’ve turned into the next Oscar Wilde because they know what oxymoron means, and has to prove it on national radio.

But, that aside, OW#2 does have a valid point, and one that I’d like to get some thoughts written down on, because Trust is a word that feels like it needs a bit of attention.

When I grew up, which, in the scheme of things, really wasn’t that long ago, you couldn’t move for parts of the world that you just naturally trusted. If you believed in an order in society, you’d have a natural trust for government and the police force. If you had a faith, or even if you didn’t, you’d probably trust the natural morality of religion. You trusted the media to tell you the truth, and you pretty much trusted the banks or the building societies to do something honourable with your money, like lend it to other people, who, by definition, you trusted. You trusted that your musical heroes were talented musicians, and it didn’t really strike you that sports stars would by default be pumping themselves full of EPO.

You even trusted the stars of light entertainment, in a way that is really quite hard to explain to today’s Generation Y. Being on the TV was so much of a big deal that you’d naturally be in awe of anyone who’d been anywhere near the lens end of a camera. So Operation Yewtree is actually far more of a big deal to those of us who saw ‘personalities’ on the TV week in week out, than it would ever be if it happened (or continues to happen) in the here and now. It’s interesting when you look at where the fingers have pointed on the whole sorry post-Savile mess here, as most of the people being called out are the ones with what you’d call ‘eccentric’ personalities – that’s what got them onto our screens in the first place. And, lo and behold, in a ‘always thought there was something odd about him’ style, we find that their sexual peccadilloes were, well, a little eccentric as well. And, as a result, we’ll head towards a society where you’ll just never trust anyone who displays any eccentricities, which in some ways is kind of a shame.

Anyway, given the list above, I’m scratching around to think of any body or anybody I can trust. I asked a group of friends about this a couple of months back, and we spent a fairly depressing time ticking people off the list. Politicians, policeman, judges, commentators, doctors, teachers, union and religious leaders, all got the chop, and at the end of the evening all we had left were Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa. And depending on your point of view, you could claim that one of them is a retired terrorist and the other misappropriated funds from, amongst others, Haiti’s hated Duvalier clan.

So far, so depressing, and if its bad from my perspective, then just take a moment to think about it for someone born this side of 1999. Our kids have turned a healthy skepticism into a deep, deep mistrust of anything in power or authority, which you’d do well to understand next time you challenge their choice of role model.* When I ask my own children about this, they’ll fairly politely call out their family as role models that they trust, and then, well, they’re pretty well stuck.

The winners in our future society will be the ones that regain that trust and can use the word in a precious fashion, in the knowledge that trust takes a long time to build, and can take not very much effort (or lack of effort) to lose. The fact that this can happen without us really lifting an eyebrow (last year I’d probably say I had an element of trust in Google and the Co-Op, and I have a different view now), gives the lie to a world where people are completely vindicated by taking a suspicious and negative approach of everything around them.

I’d hope that all is not lost, although in the case of the bigger institutions above, it might take generations to regain credibility. In the meantime, I’m really hoping that one or two companies will be transparent enough to set out a trustworthy stall. If they stay true to their roots, they’ll clear up.

Sorry if this is all a bit downbeat and serious.  Flippant comment on all that is irrelevant will return shortly.

 

 

 

 

* I’m talking to you, Daily Mail reader

Of Mice and Men

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

I’m embarrassed to say that I have something of a fear of mice. This, I think I inherit from my Father, who, fairly early on in their relationship was found by my Mother in the kitchen, standing on a table with his trousers tucked into his socks. He’d just seen a mouse on the floor, although this of course could have been a bizarre cover up for being a Freemason.

I got tapped up to join the masons once. Or at least, I think that’s what happened. I was invited out for a evening of beer and snooker by three of my senior work colleagues. I was rubbish at snooker and I’m not very good at being drunk, and I think I may have misread some of the questions I was being asked. So, if  one of my colleagues said ‘Tell me why family and diligent work is important to you’, I may have misheard it as ‘Tell me why democratic socialism is the only way forward for this country’. Anyway, I didn’t get invited back for another cosy chat, although it puzzled me why certain people managed to get on so well in the company, and it was only after several years that another ex-colleague suggested to me that they might have been ‘looking after each other’ in their own special way.

I don’t ever feel I was missing out on that much, although for years the traditions of the Freemasons have interested me, not least for the way I which they’ve  influenced our behaviour and language. If you say someone is a four-square fellow, for example, it means that they’re the sort of person who will pass the initiation ceremony of running to all four corners of the Freemasonry hall before acceptance. I shall make it my business to call more people four-square fellows I future, and I’d respectfully encourage you to do the same.

Anyway, we’re here in France, and in round three of our thrilling ‘Come
Dine With Me’ challenge, in which the junior Emus are tasked with creating a menu and providing an evening’s entertainment in the vain hope that their parents can get to read their books in peace. As far as that hope has been concerned, it’s been an unqualified disaster, as we’ve been roped in to do the heavy lifting, and indeed the vast majority of the light lifting. And so it was that last night’s lentil and peanut surprise (surprisingly good, thanks for asking), bubbled away happily in a very very heavy dish in our calor gas oven, while Felix put the final touches to his entertainment for the night ahead, which was a free form rap about a rabid cat (surprisingly entertaining, thanks for asking).

The great moment arrived, and I was tasked with removing said dish from the oven. This was a more precarious task than you might imagine. Our oven is about 50 years old, and wouldn’t last terribly long under any Health and Safety inspection. Health wise, it has c50 years worth of hurried meals baked into its very being. Safety wise, it is very probably the most dangerous item we own*, threatening to cough out an explosion from its oven, hob or connecting and slightly perished gas tubes at any moment. And so it is always approached with a degree of caution. And that caution is increased when a very heavy dish, full of bubbling nutrition is eased out against the rusting sides of the oven. Mid way through this delicate exercise, the mouse appeared from underneath the cooker. Looking rather disturbingly well fed, and without any discernible fear, he appeared to be eyeing up my right foot. We both froze in a moment of time, and I remembered the story of my Dad on the table. I continued to delicately wrench the dish from the cooker while my dear wife shouted at the mouse to get lost. Without spilling a drop, the meal moved from kitchen to table (not always an easy exercise, as the blog ‘Mrs Emu Gets Custardy’ will testify).

I had conquered my fears and spent the evening feeling around 2 feet taller as a result. Just don’t ask me to own one as a pet.

*The cooker now takes first place in the most dangerous list,from a previous rating of 3rd. Felix’s window has now been replaced with slightly stronger glass, and, after re-enacting the scarier moments of ‘Speed’  at 75mph with a broken throttle cable, the Mini has finally gone to a better place.

Alf’s magic sponge

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

When I was 11 or 12 years old, in those halcyon days before the world rather took it upon itself to be encouraging my teenage angst, and at a time when the wages from a morning paper round could keep you in sweets, books and regular copies of the Exhange and Mart, my over-riding love was for football. Being born a bit before 1966, I grew up with England being top dogs in world football, and the ’66 world cup squad was so legendary, that when it came to choosing a club to support, I could only ever follow West Ham. After all:

I remember Wemb-er-ly
When West Ham beat West Germany
Martin One and Geoffrey Three
And Bobby Got the OBE¹

Unfortunately, the logistics of getting to Upton Park eluded me for a number of years, and so I ended up following them from some distance, sticking pictures of Trevor Brooking and Billy Bonds on my bedroom wall, and listening out for their results on Saturday teatime with what I thought was the appropriate passion of the die-hard fan. Years later, I finally made it to Upton Park, which I really recommend if you want to see a bizarre building in the middle of the scariest part of London ever…but that’s another story.

Being 11 or 12 and living out in the sticks didn’t leave much option for live football, once I’d readily discounted the prospect of following Watford or Luton Town. Fortunately, help was at hand, in the towering force of Dacorum and District League 2 stalwarts – Little Gaddesden FC. I’ll readily admit that any passion I might have had for following the team was primarily driven by the fact that home games took place on the playing field directly in front of our house, so I could leave the house at 2:55, vault the fence and amble over to the pitch well in time to watch Glen ‘Rise Like A Salmon’ Farney practising his headers, or our trusty goalkeeper Bill Whitman squeeze the last out of his pre-match fag, in the desperate knowledge that he’d not have another for at least 45 minutes.

I could spend a long time here reminiscing about LGFC, and I’m not sure that anyone other than me and my Dad would find it particularly interesting, so I will cut to the character who titles this blog. Alf Sheringham had previously been the village policeman, and still carried with him that air of authority and mild annoyance that village policeman are all blessed with. He would, undoubtedly be called a ‘stalwart of the club’ these days, and operated as Manager, selection committee, line marker, liaison officer and no doubt half a dozen other roles that he was unable or unwilling to foist upon other worthies, such as my Dad.

After Alf had organised someone to run the line (often my Dad, who would occasionally wear tracksuit trousers for just that occasion), and ensured that the invalid carriage that carried his trusty sidekick George Bunting was not actually parked on the pitch, he would monitor the game with a hawk like precision that even Jose Mourinho would envy. Occasionally the odd command would be barked out, often to the complete bemusement of the players, who, I probably should have mentioned, felt that Alf’s role as manager was pretty nominal at best. Alf’s most important role in the game, however, was required for scenes that are not really part of the modern game. Matches were still played with leather balls that laced up (this I remember as our dog had become very unpopular for running on to the field during a game, picking the ball up in her mouth, and running off). These balls got heavier and heavier (and bloody dangerous if you were foolish enough to header one) if it was raining. Which, I seem to remember, it generally was. And the rain made for a muddy pitch. And football then, as it is not now, was very much a full contact sport. Consequently, in each game there were a few crunching tackles which would catapult one of the players several yards into the mud, where occasionally they would let out a single syllable of pain. Or in the case of thundering midfield dynamo Jimmy Alexander, a muttered bid for retribution. If it looked like the player was unlikely to get up (and referees those days liked to be very sure indeed), then the whistle would blow, the ref would click the button on his fancy stopwatch, and, assuming it was a LGFC player motionless in the mud, it was time for Alf’s big moment. With a spring in his step that frankly belied his years, Alf (or ‘Sir Alf’ as he was rather predictably known by the team), would race on to the pitch, carrying his trusty red plastic bucket, containing a few pints of cold water and a sponge.  No matter what the injury, the process was the same – sponge the mud off, slap on a bit more cold water, and the player was mended. There were some exceptions to this, when the player failed to respond completely, and then it was time to race to a house with a phone to call for an ambulance, as there was at least one broken bone to sort out.² But most times, the player would get up, shake themselves off, and prepare for the next challenge (or, in Jimmy Alexander’s case, a well deserved booking for violent conduct).

For several years I marvelled at what magic there must have been in Alf’s sponge. And I mention it now because I have a knee that’s impossible to run on, and I fear I’m about to embark on a whole painful, expensive and time-consuming round of treatment and diagnosis from physios, sports doctors, faith healers, masseurs and no doubt all manner of other witch doctors and snake oil salesmen.

What I need, of course, is someone to deliver an instant solution. If I could just have one go with Alf’s magic sponge…

 

¹If you don’t understand this stuff, look it up. Or, frankly, go away. There’s nothing for you here. Step away now.

² Incidentally, my Dad broke a bone in his foot during the annual ‘Dads v Lads’ match in about 1974, after a late and frankly vicious tackle  from one of the ‘Lads’. He got up, finished the game, went to the pub, came home and took himself to the hospital the next day for an Xray. He probably could have gone on for a couple more days if he hadn’t rather foolishly taken his boot off.

Mrs Emu gets custardy

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment


In many ways, last Saturday night was destined to be a failure from the off. My last night in France before travelling home, and leaving Mrs Emu and all the little Emus for a further week, and we decide to have a dinner party. Why on earth we should do this in France, when we’d never contemplate having people to eat dinner with us at home (where, incidentally, we actually have a kitchen that works), remains a mystery to me.

Anyway, it seemed a good idea at the time, and food was suitably prepared for our five guests, who, gentle reader, I would like to introduce.
Dinner Party Guest 1 – Mrs Emu’s mother, a splendid woman who can speak better French than many natives, and who had prepared for the feast by preparing two desserts, one of which was a massive trifle, a desert apparently unknown to French residents. This was going to be The Evening’s Big Treat.
DPG2 – A good friend who has been kind enough to look after us many times during our various crises in France (and there have been many). Knows everyone in the area, is local mayor for a neighbouring village, and is as impassive a man as I’ve ever met. I think he may think that we’re complete idiots, but he’d never let on.
DPG3 – DPG2’s wife, equally impassive and just as charming.
DPG4 – the lovely, ebullient and lively daughter of DPG2 and DPG3, just returned home that day from doing very good work overseas, bringing with her…
DPG5 – the new boyfriend, who DPG2 and DPG3 had never met before

So, to a certain extent, there was a fair bit to go wrong before we mixed in the following challenging ingredients:
-neither of us were much into cooking, let alone on a broken calor gas cooker…
-so we enlisted the kids to help…
-who don’t have a great track record on personal hygiene or any culinary talent. And finally…
-alcohol was always going to be a factor of the evening, and this is not a substance to be treated lightly where Mrs Emu or her mother are involved. We had a similar event last year which was going swimmingly until DPG1 declared herself to be ‘in her cups’, and lost all grasp of the French (and a fair bit of the English) language. As she had served as the interpreter all evening, this was a distinct disadvantage, and our guests fortunately took this as a sign that the evening was over and left without saying very much more.

So, a fair bit more to go wrong. So it was surprising that we made it through a couple of hours without any sort of a domestic incident. As the drink flowed (rather worryingly, a dizzy combination of Pastis, Amaretto, Port and Wine), and the conversation got livelier, all looked good, and Mrs E was despatched to the far reaches of the house to pick up The Evening’s Big Treat. Suddenly a blood-curdling scream cut through the night. I turned to face the kitchen, and to my surprise, saw what remained of the trifle spread out over the kitchen floor. There was, interestingly, no sign of my wife. Now, I know what I’d do if I dropped a bloody great big trifle on the floor, showering all comers with a mixture of custard and glass. I’d make straight for the outside garden to cover my embarrassment, possibly stopping to pick up some tobacco and papers en route. And I assumed that this is what had happened here, and we all waited for Mrs Emu to come back looking slightly abashed, with a ready apology and possibly a ‘Tsk’ or a ‘Butterfingers’ at the ready.

So we waited. And after a couple of minutes, DPG2, who had been sat facing the kitchen, let go his guard of passivity. As we asked if he’d seen what had happened. “Yes”, he said, ” she fell really badly and cracked her head against the wall”. Which she had indeed done, and I’m not entirely sure why DPG2 hadn’t thought to mention it earlier. Some little while later, I found my injured wife who was indeed in the garden, but only because she didn’t want to scream in front of the guests. She had, apparently actually started her fall in a different room entirely, and had carried the bowl horizontally for several yards before her head met the wall and the trifle came into view on the floor. And, dear reader, that’s where this all ends. She’s got a horrible bump on her head, a massive black eye, a shredded left arm, and a 10 hour drive ahead of her on Friday. She sent me this picture today which makes me feel even more like a guilty husband who’s just skipped the country.

Still, on the positive side, I’m hoping to arrange for trifle for tea on Friday night.

Old Emu’s Almanac

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When I was an impressionable 12 year old, my bible of choice alternated between the Exchange and Mart and Old Moore’s Almanac. I’ve not seen either of them on sale for a while, and I suspect that one has been replaced by a combination of Autotrader, ebay and Free Ads, and the other by a whole range of conspiracy and astrological sites on the internet. For those of you unfamiliar with OMA, it purported to predict the future year ahead, but managed to do so in a very very general way. Not quite ‘this year the Grand National will be won by a horse’, but not far off.

Anyway, the science, or art, of prediction has always been of interest, and where I’ve singularly failed at the blackjack tables in Vegas, or the bookies in the less salubrious parts of Edinburgh, I hope to recover in accurately guessing the future fate of my children.

Number three, for example, has managed to let loose a couple of comments during our current holiday that might hint to his future. And where I say hint, I mean the sort of strong hint that a detective would normally associate with a signed confession, several high quality witnesses, a strong motive, a smoking gun and a suspect wearing a T-shirt saying ‘I did it. Honest Guv. I’m banged to rights. Slap the bracelets on and lead me dahn the nick’.

1. When talking about bands and their riders, he was straight on the case, declaring a need for a daily rider of those chocolates in the shape of shells, a DVD of the Fantastic Four with special close-ups of Sue Storm’s body, fresh orchids, and enough lego to build a full replica of his own face.

2. As part of some extensive re-planning of Emu Towers, he is going to get his own bedroom. He would very much like a star on the door, and a mirror with bulbs around the outside.

3. In a discussion about his ancestors, he asked whether his Great Grandfather had died from smoking. “In the 50’s, everybody smoked and drank”, his mother patiently explained. “I’m not going to smoke or drink”, he responded, “Well, maybe a little Crème de menthe on special occasions”.

4. As part of a new found independence, #3 has taken on the role of cycling down to the local Tabac to pick up the bread every morning. His grasp of French is not quite as good as we’d like, although there’s little danger of problems on the road, as it’s very quiet, and he failed his cycling proficiency test by continually cycling on the right, so France is a far more natural cycling environment. So we went through the basics on his first expedition – trois pain pour notre famille; la meme demain – that sort of thing. He came back half an hour later, happily with the right amount of bread, and change. “How did you get on?”, his mother asked, hoping to glow with pride at his linguistic skills. “Ok”, he replied, “but I didn’t speak much French. As soon as I got through the door, I forgot my lines”.

Next week – number 4 shows all the hallmarks of a future serial killer. And Old Moore predicts people will be disappointed with the British government in 2011.

Teenage Kicks

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

The defining force behind the Marx Brothers was not Groucho, Chico or Harpo (or even Zeppo, or Gummo), but their mother, Minnie. Mrs Marx drove her boys pretty hard, to follow her into a career in Vaudeville, where she’d enjoyed a fairly lively career herself. In fact, trivia fans, her early career is referenced in the excellent ‘Carter Beats the Devil’ book, under the alias of Minnie Palmer. Anyway, I mention her name, as I heard an interesting story about her approach to parenting last week from Jr Emu #1. Apparently, in a bid to save money, Minnie would travel by train with all four (or five) of her boys on child fares. On one such trip, the conductor approached her mid-journey.

‘Madam’, he said, ‘Of your children on this train, one is smoking a cigar in the first class carriage, and another is having a shave in the bathroom’
‘Gosh’, said Minnie, ‘they grow up so fast, don’t they?’
I was reminded of this story, when called upon to give The Talk On Drugs And Sex to Jr Emu#2 earlier this week. TTOD&S doesn’t get made very often in our house, largely as the subject matter is delivered far more successfully by free access to the internet, adolescent boys being adolescent boys, and having a nurse for a mother. But occasionally, fatherly advice needs to be given, and for want of a more qualified person in the family, I’m enlisted to help.
‘So’, I said to #2, after a particularly challenging discussion on why meow meow was essentially a bad thing, is there anything you need to know about sex? Anything bugging you about stuff you don’t understand?’
‘Only one thing’, said #2.
‘Then ask away’, I said, in as much of a man of the world fashion as I could muster.
‘It’s just that I’ve never really understood what felching is’

As Mrs Marx would say, they do grow up so fast.

Oh Boy!

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment


This morning’s Guardian carries a piece titled ‘We get what we want in life’, which is about couples choosing the sex of their baby. For me & Mrs E, this turned out to be an interesting read, and brought back some memories that frankly were probably best consigned to a bucket marked ‘irritations of the past’.

For background, and in rudimentary code, this is how our family arrived:

010 Set ‘children we have’ to zero

020 Mrs E fills a little faint, and several months later adds 1 to ‘children we have’

030 Despite expecting to have a girl, we had a boy. And he was gorgeous and we couldn’t imagine our lives could be more perfect.

040 If ‘children we have’ = 4, go to 060

050 Go to 020

060 Live Happily Ever After

Thus, by the time we got to line 060, we had four fantastic and healthy boys, all of whom were great value and continue to be so. And largely, you’d think, that would be that, and we could look forward to living HEA. Which, of course, we’ve largely done, and only little minor annoyances have distracted us from that course. Especially the early ones, where ‘children we have’ had just equalled 4. Mrs E would find herself stopped in the street by relative strangers, who’d tilt their heads gently to one side and tell her that she mustn’t be so sad at having a boy. While she was pushing him along in the pram. I heard one exchange with a woman at a supermarket till that ended ‘Oh dear; I was lucky of course, I had one of each’. I was asked incredulously at work (in an IT department, indeed) ‘What are the chances of having 4 boys?’, to which, of course, the answer is 16:1, i.e. the same odds as any sequence of 4 children.

Quite apart from the gormless insensitivity shown by people who really should know better, it really teed us off at the time to think that Jr Emu #4 should arrive as a disappointment. He has, incidentally, been a bit of a testing individual since, but that’s not the point. The point is that, by and large, he arrived healthy and happy and has continued to be so.

So, when the Guardian feature quote a woman with four boys as being ‘traumatised by what she hadn’t got’*, it really…feels wrong. Not so much morally, although the middle class outlook on gender selection is of tiny relevance compared to the interest in, say, India or China, but in the context of just being happy with your lot.

For our part, I don’t think any of us could contemplate a different gender mix in the family. Nothing against girls, you understand, just can’t imagine how it would work. For Mrs E, it’s like having two sets of the Kray twins on hand. For Jr Emu #1, he has 3 younger brothers to boss about, and for #4, 3 to copy, wrestle with and torment. And neither #2 or #3 has exclusivity on being a difficult middle child. And if you’re reading this and you have a family, you’ve almost certainly got a similar dynamic going on, because that’s how families work, they just get on with the situation of just being a family. And so, in my humble opinion, it should continue.

*Accompanying pictures to the article: 4 solemn looking boys on p16, the 2 girls born via IVF, post vasectomy sperm extraction then gender selection in Spain** on p17

** Because it’s banned in the UK