babycake is one

It's Babycake's first birthday today. Somehow we have managed to get through this year with only a beautiful, healthy, baby boy to show for all the effort. The house is still a mess, we are both knackered, but we have grown a lovely child who is full of joy. I just wish he wouldn't wake me in the morning by trying to clamber over my sleeping body to get to the chest of drawers. For some reason he enjoys opening and closing the drawers, but this enjoyment is always short lived because he always ends up in tears after trapping is fingers in the drawer.

We are planning on celebrating the day by having over some friends and family for blinis, cake and fine wine.

Got to go. Babycake is demanding another spoonful of porridge.

nastier

I had no idea about the poppadom comment fom Jade, so I'll retract the bit I said about no overt racism, because there clearly was. However, Shilpa, with her usual grace and dignity has chosen to forgive, but I suspect she'll not forget. This really is the last thing I'll ever write about Big Brother, life is too short to think any more on this.

nasty girl

I have been following Celebrity Big Brother with interest and like many have been appalled by the bullying of Shilpa. While I haven't seen or heard anything overtly racist (I haven't seen all the footage, so may have missed something) I am surprised that none of the discussions in the media reflect that Jade is black, or even begin to consider the power relations in this dynamic.

My biggest surprise was Jermaine Jackson. I assumed he's be a self obsessed nutter, but apart from letting slip that he called one of his sons 'Jermajesty', he seems a very decent chap and one of the few who is able to give Shilpa good advice. Jermaine, you have redeemed the Jackson name for me and that was no easy task.

iphone

Of course I want one of those.

where art thou

I remember the McMuffins. Such darling, lovely, gay young things who used to write witty little posts. I hear they had a baby.

whizzing by

Can it really be a year since Babycake's due day? Yes, it can.

Also, congratulations to Gypsy Tart and Rock Cake, who moved into their new house tonight. We shall really miss them being 5 seconds from our front door, but as they've only moved a 5 minute walk away, it's not so bad.

first must have gadget of the year

Apple have just announce Apple TV. I want one. Mrs McMuffin kindly suggested that I could have it for Christmas.

battlestar galactica

We watched the first episode of the third series last night. Amazing. Easily the best thing on TV at the moment, and possibly a contender for best TV drama ever. I wonder if I will feel the same way in 20 years? I seem to remember that Logan's Run was pretty good too.

babycake speaks

He lifted his head from a deep sleep and said, "Oh dear." He then collapsed back into sleep. He missed all the excitement.

flash, fzzz, blue smoke

I'm sure that external hard drives are not supposed to flash, fzzz and issue forth blue smoke, but mine just did. I have been running it for about three years. I can't make up my mind if that is good value for money or not. I know that I have run hard drives for a lot longer than that before anything went wrong. I guess thems the odds though. Thank god that I have finally woken up to the need to keep my data backed up. I have been running all my music and photos on one disc and making a direct copy to another disc every night, so all is not lost. In fact, nothing has been lost...except for the disc, of course. I'm not even sure that there is anything wrong with the disc, it seems to be more to do with the firewire sockets, but who knows for sure, and I guess if I can't get access to the disc then it might as well be so much scrap metal and plastic. The only problem I have now, of course, is that I have nothing to back-up to. I had sworn off buying any new technology for a few months, but I think I am going to have to buy a new disc. Fortunately they can be picked up relatively cheaply. I'm off eBaying for a new disc. I might get one of those fancy smancy NAS discs. That would certainly make life easier now that we are a two Mac family.

new year, old news

Mr McMuffin is sitting with Babycake, so I've had a chance to read yesterday's papers and find out a little bit about the world outside McMuffin Mansions. I was interested to learn that at midnight last night, we finally paid off the loan made to us by the US after the war in 1946. Mortgaged to the Yanks is on BBC4 on Wednesday at 9pm and it looks like an interesting financial analysis of just how much our 'special relationship' was worth back then.

I was also shocked to learn that 900 children have been killed in the Israel/Palestine conflict. The number of Palestinian children killed by the actions of the IDF is 771 and the number of Israeli children killed by Palestinian acts of violence is 119. The number of US soldiers killed in the Iraq mess is 3000. Children in a settlement camp in Zimbabwe, one of the most fertile countries in Africa are being helped to eat two meals a day rather than one. Darfur, Burma, I shan't go on, but I am sick of hearing about it all and I intend to do something this year. I'm not sure what, but I can't keep doing nothing and then explain to Babycake when he asks the inevitable questions about my part in it all, that I was just too busy to do anything and it wasn't my fault anyway. I think if I want him to be the kind of man who gives a toss about others, I'm going to have to care a bit myself. That's my resolution sorted out then, world peace and an end to hunger in 12 months.

happy new year

All here at McMuffin mansions wish all of you out there a Happy New Year. We hope it is filled with wonder and joy. We also hope that you had a more exciting New Year's Eve than we did. We had plans to got to Ms Victoria Sponge's house to celebrate, but Babycake has been unwell and then Mrs McMuffin came down with the same lurgy so we had to cancel at the very last moment. We kept putting it off becaue we wanted to go, but finally made the decision not to. We had a very sad evening. One bottle of beer, a movie, the very, very brilliant, Shaolin Soccer, and then to bed. We were in bed before midnight, but were woken by the fireworks and general joviality when the bells struck. Hope the rest of the year is a bit more exciting.