So, we’re having dinner, on the day before #2’s birthday. Naturally, the boys manage to ignore number 2 and concentrate on birthdays further ahead.

“What are you going to do on your birthday, Dad?”, says #3

“Well, son 3”, I say, “It’s a big birthday this year, so I’m thinking about running a mile for each year that I’ve been alive. And I’m going to ask lots of my friends if they want to run part of it with me”

“Wow, can I run it too?”

“Yes, but  you’ll have to run your age too, you know”

“Hmmm, 13 miles…not really sure I fancy that”

A pause

“Not going to be very fair on Grandad, is it?”

There’s something about a city and its relationship with football that is hard to articulate, but reasonably easy to feel. I found myself in Newcastle a few weeks ago, Newcastle United had just got their new Virgin Money sponsorship, and went on that night to beat Man United – the next day people were forever opening doors for one another, tipping their hats and patting small children on the head. In contrast, in Norwich a couple of year ago, when the Canaries slipped into what old gits like me still call the Third Division, there was a level of grumpiness that had barely been seen since the great sugar beet crisis of 1953.

And it’s about Norwich, a city dear to my heart, that I write today, dear reader. And to get the drift of this, you need to know a bit about the city, or, more importantly, the people in it. So let’s imagine the city as a person (bear with me). When I go to London, it feels like the default face position is a marked furrowing of the brow. When I go to Edinburgh, there’s a bit of creasing around the eyes. When I’m in Newcastle, everyone seems to have turned these creases into laugh lines. And when I’m in Norwich…well, the face is completely relaxed, but there’s something very suspicious about the eyes and the way that they look at you. By suspicious, I mean worried in the bad times about what’s going wrong, and worried in the good times about what might go wrong. Which is kind of the mood of the moment in Norwich – there’s a good feeling about the place, in no small part linked to the football club, but also a deep, and very British, suspicion, that any minute now, we’re all going to be found out and we’ll, well, drop down a couple of divisions. Really, it’s about a sense that we’ve never had it so good, but we shouldn’t be boasting about it just yet, as something could go horribly wrong.

And nowhere is that more evident than at Norwich City every week, when Grant Holt takes to the pitch. Everybody (with the exception of opposition defenders, who claim he falls over a bit too easily) loves Grant Holt. If your not familiar with him, he often gets referred to in the press as an ‘old fashioned centre forward’. Which effectively means that he’s a big bloke who makes trouble up front. There’s probably a bit more to him than that, for all I know he may be a connoisseur of vintage wines, an enthusiastic opera fan or a keen gardener, but around 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, all Norwich really wants from him is to be a big bloke making trouble up front.

Which is largely what they get, but in a manner that reflects the mentality that I was struggling to describe earlier. Let’s take an example, from when Norwich played West Brom in January. Lambert decides to play Holt as a left winger, and at 1-1, with 11 minutes to go, he’s released to run on to a ball down the line. Actually, I’m simplifying that one a bit. The ball’s played past Holt with his back to goal. You know those clips of George Best turning on a sixpence and wrong-footing defences? Well, Grant Holt doesn’t do that. He actually has something of a turning circle, in that in order to face in the other direction he runs forward for a bit, then starts indicating right. After this manoeuvre, he’s finally facing in the right direction, and, like all the best heavy vehicles, starts gathering some momentum. After about 20 yards, you really wouldn’t want to get in his way. He catches up with the ball and clips in an absolutely perfect cross, which Steve Morison heads home like a bullet. And then, really, we get the best bit of all. Because that’s when he turns around to celebrate. Actually, this takes a couple of seconds, as he has to extricate himself out of the advertising hoarding and then negotiate another 180 degree turn, which as we’ve already noted, can take a little while. But when he does, it’s all worth it. Because he’s got a smile on his face that’s about 9 yards wide, as he waits for Morison to make his way over. When you’re Grant Holt and you’ve made that sort of effort, it’s important that the celebrations come to you after all.

And Grant Holt’s huge daft smile says (to me) a really long sentence. It says:

“I really can’t believe it because I just managed to make another goal and it’s in the Premier league and only a couple of years ago I was playing non league football and before that I was fitting tyres and now I’m in this fantastic position that I’m not sure I actually deserve but sod it it seems to be working out all right because we’ve won another game and even though we thought at the start of the season that we might be going straight down for some reason we seem to be knocking them in and we’re having exactly the kind of fun that we all thought we might have when we started off playing football when we were kids, even though our entire squad cost less that the cheapest Chelsea player but who cares because this is all just too good to be true so we’d better bloody celebrate because who knows when the bubble might burst…”.

Well, that’s what I think he’s thinking anyway. And if he is, then he ought to know that it’s pretty much what the rest of the Fine City think too.

So, yesterday, I get a phone call at work from Jr Emu #1.*

“Dad, You’ll never guess what’s just happened”, he said.

A short worried pause while I considered my options. If you’ve got teenage kids in your house, perhaps ones who’ve just learnt to drive, got a charming and attractive new girlfriend and just discovered  how much fun beer can be, then you’ll know that the number of things that might have ‘just happened’ is quite long and potentially of concern. I played it safe and asked if he’d crashed the car. Thankfully he hadn’t. I was very relieved, as I really like the car.

This is what happened.

#1 was revising upstairs in the house when he heard a knock on the door. He went downstairs to answer, and opened the door to a middle aged bloke in glasses, who he’d never seen before.

MABIG: “Hello, is Kevin there?”

#1: “No, he’s at work”

MABIG: “Err, ok, will he be back later?”

#1: “Well, probably about 7”

MABIG “Ok…by the way, are those your drums in the front room”

#1 “Err…yes”

MABIG “So you’re a drummer then”

#1 “Err…yes”

MABIG “I’m a drummer too. I’m the drummer in Blur”

To which #1 said what any self-respecting 18 year old would say in those circs:

#1: “Yeah, right”

There followed a period of some scrutiny, where #1 established the credentials of his mystery guest and, through a series of well placed and detailed questions, established  that it was in fact Dave Rowntree at the door, and that, yes, he was calling to speak to #1’s Dad.

Probably the best exchange was:

#1: “I’ve just finished reading ‘A Bit Of A Blur’

MABIG: “Oh, well that’s Alex’s book. I’m not in that very much”

I think the best bands are always the ones where the bass player ignores the drummer, don’t you ?

Anyway, it transpires that Dave Rowntree is aiming to be the Labour candidate for Norwich South, and was canvassing a few party votes, which is a bit less exciting that my hope that he was trying to muscle in on the recent 4D Jones revival.

The mood in the house became slightly more tense after Mr R’s departure, having wished #1 good luck for that night’s gig and no doubt having enjoyed a hearty exchange on how best to configure your floor tom for a knock dead paradiddle**. For at that point, #1 went upstairs, and was met by #2, a boy who has never voluntarily answered phone, door or any of the first two questions put to him, but who is an absolute obsessive on all things musical, with particular interest in the indie and Brit-Pop scene of the early 90’s.

#2: “Who was that at the door?”

#1: “Oh, that was the drummer from Blur, wanting to speak to Dad”

It’s only so often that #1 is going to score such an emphatic goal, and I like to think he celebrated accordingly, possibly by running around the house with his shirt over his head.

So***, I mentioned #1’s gig, and at 1030pm that night I was despatched to the venue to pick up not him, or any member of the band, but his cymbals and snare drum, so that he could go off clubbing. Can’t really see my own Dad ever having gone for that as a worthwhile task, but I guess me and the Missus just want to curry favour with the future Dave Rowntrees of this world. Anyway, I picked up the gear, and drove home. Worth mentioning at this point that it was very dark, and very wet, so it was with some surprise that, after parking the car in the drive, I heard a knock on the passenger door window. I’d taken off my glasses at this point, thereby rendering myself almost blind, but I could just about make out the face of a woman in her twenties, staring at me through the window.

And so**** I had the second worried pause of the day. I’m really not a very good driver, so for all I know, I might have run over her foot as I was parking. Or, given that these days, with my advancing years, I can actually forget a face as soon as I’m introduced to it, it may well have been someone I knew.

Got out of the car, and as I walked round, noticed a large bloke sheltering under the tree outside our house. Walked round to the passenger door.

Mystery Woman: “Hello, could you possibly help me?”

To be fair, what she actually said was “Helloo, codd yoo poshhibly help moie”. She was, as the vernacular has it, completely off her tits.

Me: “Err, yes, what’s the problem?”

MW: “I wash wundering if yoo woold be sho kindharharharted to shpare shome change”

Me “I’m really sorry, I don’t have a penny on me.” Which was true.

As often is the case, the dialogue went back to and fro, as I justified to her and myself that I couldn’t/wouldn’t help, and she made absolutely no attempt to justify what she was doing in my front garden trying to tap me up for loose change. We eventually both concluded that no loose change was available.

At which point she smiled at me, quite sweetly, and said:

“Do you want anything elsh then?”

Time for the day’s third worried pause.

There is, let’s face it, only one service that’s offered late at night in this way while a large minder (who I noticed was now taking a keen interest in the discussion) looks on benevolently. I’d not heard of a door to door service before, but maybe I need to get with the times.

Anyway, as the NotW might have said a few years back, I made my excuses and left. Well, actually, asked her to leave, given that it was that way about. And went into the house to Mrs E, to explain that we appear to have become the target of a travelling red light service.

Still, when I next hook up with Mr Rowntree it should give us some subject matter for election pledges. “No mobile hookers in NR2!”. The T-shirts are already at the printers.

 

 

*Have you noticed the habit of people starting sentences with the word “So”? Do you find it annoying? I know I do…

** Drummer talk, I should think

*** See above

****Almost as bad

Few people ‘in the know’ can have missed the recent return to the public eye of the massive punk/blues/off key karaoke phenomenon that is 4D Jones. If you did, then more fool you, because last Friday’s barnstormer of a gig will be spoken of in future years in hushed and revered tones by those that were there, in the same manner as those that claim to have seen the Beatles at the Star Club, 1961, the Pistols at the 100 club in 1976, or Roger de Courcey in West Runton Pavilion in 1983. Probably. And we raised a bit of cash for the wonderful institution that is Future Radio, so everybody was happy, unless you had particularly sensitive senses of smell. Very hot and sweaty those basement clubs, you know, and since those health Nazis banned smoking in our pubs and clubs, they do rather tend to smell of people, which is Not Always A Good Thing.

Anyhow, having been away from the singing in front of people game for a few years, I thought it might be an idea to share some thoughts with our adoring* fans between numbers**. So, I did a bit of digging around to find some appalling lyrics that have been foisted on the general public over the last few years. This is my resulting top ten:

Lucky that my breasts
Are small and humble
So you don’t confuse
Them with mountains
Shakira – Whenever, Wherever
 
I’m as serious as cancer, 
When I say Rhythm is a Dancer.
Snap – Rhythm Is A Dancer
 
Before he leaves the camp he stops,
He scans the world outside,
And where there used to be some shops,
Is where the snipers sometimes hide.
Human League – The Lebanon

I don’t want to see a ghost
It’s the sight that I fear most
I’d rather have a piece of toast
Watch the evening news
Des’ree – Life
 
And when their eloquence escapes me
Their logic ties me up and rapes me
De do do do, de da da da
The Police – De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
 
“I am,” I said
To no one there,
And no one heard at all,
Not even the chair.
Neil Diamond – I am I said.
 
More sacrifices than an Aztec priest
Standing here straining at that leash
All fall down
Can’t complain, mustn’t grumble
Help yourself to another piece of apple crumble
ABC – That Was Then
 
You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye on the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
You’re So Vain – Carly Simon

I drive my Mini Cooper,
And I’m feeling super-dooper.
American Life – Madonna
 
You’re the crop to my rotation,
You’re the sum of my equation.
Brand New Day, Sting

Note that Sting gets two mentions here. No less than he deserves.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really get to use the list at the gig, as my advancing years, a stage being lit by three 60 watt red bulbs and my decision to use a 10 point font to save paper, rather worked against me being able to read what I’d printed. Anyway, I reflected afterwards, that these were really obvious choices. In fact, if you google ‘crap lyrics’, chances are that these’ll be amongst the ones that everyone else has targetted. The real hidden gems are in the heart of some otherwise fabulous songs, where the writer has quite obviously, erm, dropped the ball in the third verse. Here are a few examples where I can’t help feeling that the song really needed to be finished before last orders in the nearby pub:

1. Speaking of which…
“I wish you’d listen to me
No I don’t want a cup of tea”
Jimmy Pursey wasn’t probably the most eloquent of lyricists, but he did rather plumb the depths with this one – other than trite lines like this, ‘Hurry Up Harry’ is just the best bit of energetic post punk nonsense you can imagine, before it all went Oi-wrong…

2. Mike Scott loses the plot
“Laura was my girl, when I first was in a group
I can still see her to this day, stirring chicken soup”
‘Bang on the Ear’ is one of the most infectious and all round fun songs you can imagine, putting the Waterboys into a whole new category of bands, years ahead of young folk wannabes like Mumford & Sons. And it’s all about neat couplets, so he was bound to make a few short cuts…but ‘stirring chicken soup’? Gawd help us.

3. Whisper who dares…our heroes are villains…
Since 1970, the Beatles have established a kind of gentle deity, whereby all that they’ve ever produced is considered masterful. There are exceptions to this way of thinking, for example, my friend N, who still considers them to be something of an average pub-rock group. But he’d probably admit to being in the minority. Anyway, they did write some astonishingly lousy words…
“I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
While my guitar gently weeps”
The thing that intrigues me about this is that George Harrison wrote it in 1968, when the Fab Four were at their absolute peak, so he must have known that every phrase would be picked over for inner meaning…and, umm, this one really, really doesn’t.

It’s a shame, because now I can’t really hear songs like these without thinking of the little flaws. I go from enthusiastic nod to sad and doleful shake of the head in one line. As lots of musos like to say – “third verse, same as the first”. Sounds like a good idea sometimes…

*ahem
**ahem, again

Firstly, many apologies for the long gap since the last episode of The Emu. Did you notice? Well, it’s all been a tad busy round these parts, what with families to worry over, careers to mis-manage, and, most importantly, the plotting of the return to form of the blues tampering monsters of pub rock that are 4D Jones. It’s all been a bit ch-ch-ch-changing, as the less than thin white Duke probably says to himself on a regular basis these days.

I do like a bit of change in life, as it tends to keep you on your toes, and this parenting lark, which in the last few weeks has been like viewing the whole world through parted fingers, is a fine example. Just ask me about #1’s 18th birthday party next time we bump into one another and I’ll tell you tale that would curdle the freshest milk. Still, probably not best to dwell on this too much. It’s not really what you might call broadcastable material.

Anyway, the other reason I’ve not been filling up my bit of the internet with the usual drivel is that, for the last few weeks, I’ve had very little to get cross about. As regular readers* will know, this blog is largely the charting of my steep decline into being a grumpy old man, except without the payment. And, rather delightfully, I’ve found myself in a rather splendid place. I realise this is all a bit insular, what with the global financial crisis, continuing genocide and starvation across the world, and the ecology of the planet being irreversibly damaged by some sensationally stupid actions, but sadly, those things don’t occupy my thoughts as much as they should, and the prospect of a late train, a bad pint or some twit in a nylon shirt trying to provide his own special ‘retail experience’ have far too high a profile. And, by and large, those little irritations have been, well, just that in the last couple of weeks. So much so, in fact, that I decided to not get teed off with the world about the little things and to have a little bet with myself around little ripple effects of positivity.

This all started with the saga around a car that I really shouldn’t have bought, which was desperately unreliable, and which caused something of a rift in the homestead, what with our son and his chums being left stranded at odd hours of the day and night on the hard shoulder of the A11. Anyway, after quite a lot of faffing around, a certain amount of subterfuge, and, frankly, lying through my teeth to my wife, someone I didn’t know did me a massive favour, fixed the car, and wouldn’t accept any payment. I’ve kind of scampered through that bit of the story, but let’s just say for now that, should you ever need an MOT and you happen to be in Norwich, go to DR Laws on Bessemer Road. There you will meet the sort of person who won’t rip you off, have a firm understanding of what customer service is about, and, for all I know, be a potential godfather to your offspring.

Anyway, after this experience I started to think about random acts of kindness, and how seldom seemed to happen these days. Needing to code my life, as we all seem to need to these days, I decided to actively search out the opportunity to perform these acts, and set myself the target of one a day. And, you’ll be unsurprised to hear, spectacularly failed. For the first four weeks I looked for old ladies to help across the road, people with heavy bags of shopping, and children looking lost or frightened. Be warned, gentle reader, because if you start looking too hard for those sort of people, you do get a few odd looks. And comments. There is such a thing as trying too hard, after all. And, other than a chance meeting with a cat and a car on a run home last week, where I managed to diffuse a potentially ugly standoff between the two parties, I’d managed a null score across a whole month.

Last Thursday, however, my luck seemed to turn. I jumped into a cab in London, to find that the cab was turning away a couple of other punters. “Sorry” I said. “But I can give you a lift if you want to go to Liverpool Street.” Which, funnily enough, they did, and after a bit of looking at each other in a sort of ‘should we trust this person who may well be some sort of sociopath’ style, in they jumped.

On the train, my lucky roll continued – the screaming schoolgirls sat next to me were smiled upon gently despite the fact I could barely hear myself think. Off they hopped at Colchester, and all was quiet, until, with the train doors locked, their little heads bobbed up and down at the window, and the slightly muted screaming was heard again. I looked down and noticed that they’d left a set of headphones on the floor. With what I like to think was a cat-like grace, I grabbed the headphones, legged it to the end of the carriage, opened the window, and handed them their headphones. “Thank you soooooo much”, they shrieked. Returning to the carriage, an elderly woman looked up at me. “That was a very nice thing to do” she said, and I reflected that, despite this being the sixth 2-hour train trip I’d taken in four days, it was the first time that anyone had spoken to me.

Cycling home later that evening, I saw a bike locked up with a front light switched on. So I stopped, and switched it off.

So there we are. Three in one Thursday. Which means, with my one a day target, I have to start again tomorrow. So, if you’re reading this, are an elderly lady standing by the road in the NR2 area, then watch out! You’ll be across that road before you know it…

* Hello to both of you

Of all of the senses, I firmly believe that smell is the most over-rated. Some people apparently thrive on the sniff of new mown lawns, of stupidly expensive perfumes, or the cheeky bouquet of a heavy burgundy, but not me. I think it’s down to two things – a habit for snuff that I tried to develop in my early teens, which probably destroyed most of the inside of my nose, a long time before Francis Rossi and that girl from Eastenders jumped on the bandwagon, and an acknowledgement that there are, on balance, more offensive smells in the world than pleasant ones.

If you stop to think about it, we’re bombarded with pretty unpleasant aromas a fair amount of the time, and many of them from our fellow humans. Incidentally, I understand that the average dog has nose sensors about a million times as sensitive as ours, which does rather make me wonder why they spend so much time sniffing each other’s bottoms. Personally, if I was a dog, I’d keep well out of there. I would skip about nose pointed firmly up in the air and never mind whose territory I was on. Kind of a canine Quentin Crisp, in fact. But I digress; for humans, what makes all of this all the more challenging is the taboo around the smell of each other.

And, I was reminded of this last weekend, at a splendid party held by my friends N&N, when I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen for years. Immediately we started chatting on like you do in these situations, getting on like a house on fire, and after a few minutes, we were joined by his wife, who’d brought a plate of food for her husband, and soon all three of us were busily chatting away like our lives depended on it. Until I realised, to my horror, that one of them had farted. Fortunately I had an inner monologue to keep me company; the conversation went something like this:

Bloke I Hadn’t Seen For Years: “I’ve been doing a fair bit of running and cycling in the last year”

Me: “Me too, I’ve never really been sure about triathlons though”

Wife of BIHSFY: “Oh, you should – they’re great fun”

Inner Monologue: “Bloody hell, what’s that smell? Crikey, one of you has just, shall we say, dropped your guts. And there’s two of you. And you might think it was me. Which would just be unfair. And I can’t mention it because that would be just awful, and you might be the sort of couple that doesn’t believe that each other fart, and you’ll have that as your lasting memory of me…”

Me: “So…how do you find the time to train?”

BIHSFY: “Well, we’re quite lucky, really, as we live near a river and can swim for about a mile regularly”

IM “I can’t believe he’s just carrying on as normal. Blimee, so’s she. Maybe they enjoy this sort of thing. Maybe they’re just incredibly polite…”

….and so on…

I excused myself to go an do a bit of light mingling. Started talking to someone else I knew, who also had a plate of food. To my horror, I realised that they’d farted as well, the same putrid milky stench that had made me gag earlier…and that was in fact coming directly from the cheese on their plate…

Al of which made me very glad that the inner monologue had stayed, well…inner. And to all my friends, past, present and future, my apologies for ever doubting your fragrant-ness.

 

Some time ago, I used the offices of this blog (very good phrase that, don’t you think? I should make it clear that this blog does not have it’s own office. That disappeared some time ago when we decided that liberating jr emus #3 and #4 from each other would stop them from squabbling. It didn’t, and as a result we now have children who squabble in two rooms, rather than one. It also explains why I’m writing this blog not in an office, but in the back of a Volvo 740, speeding home from Harwich. But there’s a danger I may be digressing.) Anyway, I used this blog to rattle on about just how civilised cycling in Holland was.

I could quite happily go on at great length again about how wonderful it is to bike round Holland for a few days, although I’d respectfully suggest that if Holland is experiencing severe south westerly winds, it’s rather asking for trouble to travel north east for two days and expect to get back in one and a half. Seeing as you ask though, here are several reasons why you should be oiling up your chain and booking your ferry now:

– proper cycle paths

– when you do have to mix with them, courteous drivers

– people who go out of their way to help you with directions…

– …in perfect English

– apple cake

– dog owners whose charges are perfectly behaved around runners and cyclists

But rather than write all that again, I’ll tell you about an interesting experience crossing the Afsluitdijk bridge. You may well know this from your school geography classes; it’s the bridge that separates the sea from a whole load of reclaimed land that makes up much of northern Holland. It’s 32km long, which makes it a pretty impressive bridge in itself, and has the north sea on one side and what used to be the north sea on the other,so it’s a pretty weird place to be. And with the wind blowing the way it does in Holland, it’s either a very pleasant ride SW to NE, or a complete nightmare. Fortunately for us, we were travelling north, so discussed the right sort of speed to go for.

“About 20mph” said Chuckle brother #1

“And the rest” said CB#2, who, as I may have mentioned before, really does redefine the term ‘alpha male’, and who could probably pick a fight in a phone box.

So we set off, with the wind behind us nicely, and soon got up to a comfortable 20mph. Far too comfortable for CB#2, who was at the front of the four of us.

“He’s cranking it up”, CB#1 said.

And he was. We crept up from 20 to 22 to 25 to 28 and after a couple of miles we were on 30mph. At which point CB#2 thought it would be a great idea to capture the moment on his iPhone video app. Fortunately, not looking at the road ahead proved to be no disadvantage, and we cracked out another 12 miles across the bridge at that pace, our fastest mile being 1:49.

It’s pretty unlikely that any of us will ever go as fast for that sort of distance again, and it’s worth reporting that it was just fantastic, albeit in a ‘this is going to bloody well hurt should I come off’ fashion. And also worth thinking about next time you watch the Tour de France.We’re reasonably fit blokes who had the wind behind us, and managed to maintain that pace for half an hour at close to maximum effort. The tour maintains that pace for 5-6 hours at a time, then sprints for the finish. Mark Cavendish will sprint off the pack at 30mph and get up to 40-45mph in a matter of seconds. Which is just awesome. As Bean remarked to me after day #4 in the saddle, “No wonder they’re all on drugs”.

As it goes, I’m not sure I’m all that bothered. If I was putting that 30 minute effort in for 6 hours a day for three weeks, I might be grateful of a bit of a boost now and again; and some of the substances that result in bans are things that non-sports people tend to have whizzing around in their blood as a matter of course (Vick’s inhaler, anyone?). And some of the testing practices are, well, bizarre. But that’s a whole other debate for another day.

Until next time, from the Emu (in his office), Ta ta.

Sometime I don’t know why I bother. I spend months trying to craft some original words to make people think or laugh, then I realise that I’d be far better off just copying out some words from OK! magazine.

Incidentally, I’m keen to point out at this stage that we don’t actually subscribe to OK! magazine. In fact, I’m loathe to do anything to line the pockets of Richard Desmond, but OK! and Hello! magazines are very much the reading matter of choice in our toilet. These are delivered to the house every week by Mrs Emu, who works on Mondays as a nurse, bringing people back to a state of consciousness. A heroic profession indeed, although slightly marred by knowing that these are the very people that go out and buy OK! and Hello! by choice, so perhaps a kinder choice would be to leave them asleep.

Anyway, onto the interview, billed as a World Exclusive with Katie and Leandro. Here are my favourite extracts:

OK!: How do you handle the language barrier?

Katie: It’s intuitive, like it is with me and Harvey sometinmes. You could talk to Leo and he wouldnt understand you…but we connect. In the car I’ll think, I bet he wants his glasses, just before he asks for his glasses.

Leandro: The connection we have is so intense. Like sometimes I’ll be sitting and moving my head from side to side and she will know I’m looking for the remote control.

OK!: Can you say a sentence in Spanish?

Katie: Like what?

OK!: Maybe something like ‘Could you please pass the toast?’

Katie: No, because I don’t like toast normally

OK!: Katie, have you ever considered dating, rather than going headlong into relationships?

Katie: To me, dating is going to dinner and sleeping with people. I’m not into that.

Honestly, it’s all true. Steal a copy of OK! next time you pass by a Psychiatric ward and see for yourself.

Next week: Fidor Dosteovsky writes about the Ramones. 

* I believe this to be a real headline, around January 2011