it's about time that i came clean...

Yes, it is me who is waging an antisocial war against the people who live in the street behind us. Let me tell you the whole story before you leap to judge me. We live in a part of town where parking is hard to come by. Even though we are fortunate to have a big house, by local standards, we still do not have any off-street parking. Lucky for us there is a cul-de-sac behind our street where there is always somewhere to park, and to make things even more convenient, there is a little path joining the two streets. Parking is so bad that sometimes we have to park up on the grass verge. It doesn't do any harm, but clearly it bothered some of the busy-body people who live there, because someone decided to stick the ugliest, and I mean ugly, wooden barriers across the verge to prevent people parking. My confession is that every time I pass them I knock them down. They always put them back though, which means that I have to knock them down again the next time I am passing. Last night, in the pouring rain, I know how bad this has become, I jumped on them smashing them to bits. I wanted to go to see if they had put them back up today, but Mrs McMuffin warned me against it. I know this is terrible behaviour from a mature, responsible, adult, but I can't help myself.

he reasonable, she nutter

So apparently it's ok to get all het up about a few bits of wood, but you're a crazed madwoman if you get pissed off with dirty gits chucking glass, cans and a bit of everything else on the path in front of your house and filling your bin with half empty cans of extra strength lager (classy lot) and rotting kebab meat. It's hard to understand exactly why one is a legitimate gripe and the other isn't, but I think I've worked out that it's got something to do with how many X chromosomes you have. One and you're a sensible fellow, finding other's unreasonableness rather difficult to take and two and you're a hysterical hag with nothing better to think about!

Actually I do support Mr McMuffin in his dislike of the actions taken by members of our neighbourhood. After all, we live in an area of Victorian housing and the Victorians weren't massively preoccupied with building double garages and driveways, so most of the parking has to be on road. In any case, what these people have done is really ugly and needs to be removed. My choice would have been to discuss this eyesore and come to a compromise, but I can see that Mr McMuffin's direct action is giving him a sneaky thrill and a little spring in his step at his audacity and daring, so long may they continue to rebuild the eyesores!

more iphone

The BBC have just made their podcasts available for the iPhone, or rather they have optimised the site for the iPhone. It's great. I have now discovered that the iPhone speaker makes a perfectly respectable little tranny radio. Nothing great, mind you, but certainly good enough to listen to Melvyn Bragg in the bath. The podcasts also stream quite nicely over Edge too, which is nice.

testing

emo goth rock boy

Babycake is besotted by Fall Out Boy, a band that bore me to the point where I begin to think that branding my own flesh with a potato masher might make up for the stimulation they fail to provide. Mr McMuffin, however, likes them and this is how Babycake came to be watching them on Kerrang with his father and twirled with joy to their music, playing his little air guitar. He love guitars so much, that we have got him a toy one for Christmas (he can have the ukelele next) and expect him to be overjoyed with this gift.

He has also begun to get a little bit obsessed with the contents of my makeup bag. Now they don't amount to much, but all the essentials are there, including long lasting, only removed by sand blasting lipstick. This of course was the lipstick Babycake chose to smear on his mouth and neck in the five seconds before I snatched the wand out of his hands. It dried instantly, leaving him looking like a tiny victim of a brutal vampire attack and we couldn't get the poxy stuff off him. I think he rather enjoyed the attention the slashes of scarlet brought him and this with his love of guitar based rock has now convinced me that we have a miniscule emo goth rock boy under our roof. I blame the parents.

one down

I am on annual leave today and working on an assignment for my course. I've already finished one on 'Leading Change', am trying to finish the 'Quality and Systems Management' one and this should leave me with just the 'Human resources Planning and Development' and a reflective piece on my learning (assuming none of the work is referred). None of these assignments are more than 2,500 words, the level of research required is not that high, it's not that boring and yet it's so hard to write.

Today, I've written 325 words and each of those has been a struggle. I think the problem is that I don't have time to really enjoy getting to grips with the subject area (which is probably an advantage when you think about how little I need to write) so it's become just another thing that I have to do behind being some kind of parent to Babycake, partner to Mr McMuffin, paid employee and behind all that, friend and relative. It's times like this that I want to win big on the lottery and consider maybe even buying a ticket. To be honest, life isn't really bad at all, but wouldn't the freedom that money can bring make it even better? If you're listening, mysterious benefactor, this might be a good time to put in an appearance!

a small life

Since Babycake arrived on the scene I have given up on fantasies about travelling the world, or having an exciting, or even mildly interesting, job, for now anyway. I didn't quite realise how small my life had become until today while talking to Babycake about what we would be doing. I told him that we would go to Costa Coffee for lunch and then go to the new, opens today, M&S Simply Food, supermarket to do some shopping. That sounds fine until I realised that I felt excited about going to M&S. Just a little bit sad.

Of course the return of M&S to our little post-industrial wasteland of a town, decimated by two huge shopping centres, Lakeside and Bluewater, within easy driving distance, is something to be celebrated...I guess.

word count

1176

babycake conducting business

Babycake loves telephones. He loves the Carphone Warehouse shop next to Costa Coffee and goes in there to look at the phones every time we go there, which is practically every day. They are very nice to him in there and he has acquired a collection of dummy phones from them over the months. Today he was very animated and seemed to be having a big business type conversation. I'm not sure what it was about, but it sounded important.

Oh, and I took these with my iPhone.

two seconds later they were broken

the golden compass

Ms Ginger Cake looked after Babycake while Mrs McMuffin and I went to see The Golden Compass. What can I say, but, WOW! The best fantasy film I've seen for ages, and probably as good as the first LOR film, although on a slightly smaller scale. Nicole Kidman, as Mrs Coulter, and Dakota Blue Richards, as Lyra, were both excellent. Nicole Kidman manages to be menacing and beautiful, while Dakota Blue Richards, stupid name for a British child, is rarely annoying and carries off the role of Lyra just as I imagined her. A great film that I recommend you go see immediately. Don't wait for the DVD, this must be seen on the big screen.

not such a stupid name after all

Little Dakota's mum is from the US, so not such a crap choice after all.

We've finally got round to watching Paul Verhoeven's Black Book and 1 hour and 20 minutes into it, it's excellent. Could we really be so lucky as to see two good films in one day? I can't remember the last time I had the stamina to watch two, let alone enjoy them both.

more iphone...

I was very nearly contemplating taking my phone back to Apple because I thought it was broken. Since I got the phone I get 'call failed' messages on a fairly regular basis. It's not really much of a problem usually but when I am working I don't want to have to deal with the frustration of not being able to get through to clients. Anyway, after a thorough trawl of the wide world web intranetty thingy, I have discovered that Apple in their wisdom have decided to use the call failed message when the line is engaged. Very odd indeed. Although I am not entirely convinced that this is what is going on because I have noticed that it seems to happen when I make calls to a particular area, and this has got me wondering whether the signal is weak in some way. I suppose that kinda makes more sense.

preoccupations

While Mr McMuffin is 'iphone this' and 'iphone that', I find myself getting obsessed with finding the perfect tandem buggy. While I am happy to carry the 'new one' (we're not quite sure how to refer to the baby to be) in a sling and push Babycake in the buggy, if he needs it Mr McMuffin isn't keen on the Hugabub or Ergo or any other sling. He was content to carry Babycake in a little pouch that looked like a very strange shoulder bag, but when the boy got too heavy for that, he couldn't take to carrying him on his front.

So I have been searching for the perfect buggy. We both loved the totally exorbitant 'Phil and Ted's', but sadly it is too unstable for Babycake, who is fast approaching the size of a three year old. To further my research I've been looking at some US brands and am sickened. What is wrong with you people? Running strollers...what sickness is this? For goodness sake, the only time in your life you're allowed to wear ratty trousers and a baggy top and not get your hair cut and some people choose to go running with small children. Bloody madness. I despair for your nation.

i so want one of these...

I have forgotten to mention that I have been following the development of a very cool, and very cheap, little computer. The Asus eeePC is perfect for me because I would like a really cheap machine to run Windows natively, rather than through Parallels or Fusion, both of which work fine but are just a little bit irritating. Maybe Mrs McMuffin will take the hint, after all Christmas is coming, although I imagine she still remembers that it is only a month ago that I got my lovely iPhone.

great customer service

I phoned O2 this evening because I am having a small problem with the iPhone. For some reason I get the 'call failed' error message on a regular basis. The person I spoke to was very circumspect about it all. He told me to take the phone back to the shop and they would replace it. When I asked him if this was a common problem, he said, "oh no, this is the first time that I have heard of this happening." The best bit came at the beginning when I couldn't remember my password. He wanted me to give him the answer to my security question. I asked him to tell me the question, but he refused, saying that he couldn't for security reasons. I tried to point out that I couldn't give an answer if he didn't ask me the the question, but he just wouldn't ask me the question. Clearly someone wasn't paying attention during his training.

sweet child o' mine / devil in disguise

The evidence against Babycake:

Some sweet old lady bumped into the boy and Mr McMuffin. She then apologised, saying she was very sorry. 'No you're not' shot back the snake tongued one. This is the child who can hardly bring himself to utter 'Mummy' or 'Daddy', yet has paid enough attention to the language to fluently insult an adult's integrity.

He desperately wanted a Bart Simpson figure as a toy. Not so bad really (even though he's never seen 'The Simpsons') but this version of Bart is dressed as a demon with a forked tail, a trident and a very wicked expression on its face. Babycake likes to pull its head off and put a nappy on it.

He demands 24 hour attention from his exhausted parents and rewards their devotion by deliberately weeing on the rug, tortures Slinky when he can, has knackered his mother's back, good looks and figure and almost two years on, still kicks up a fuss and yells when we have to change his nappy.

He is determined to be a wild man of rock and has now taken to strumming milk pans like a guitar.

The evidence for:

Just look at any photo, he's gorgeous.

little rock god

Babycake got a new "binng" today. He hasn't put it down since we gave it to him. Not satisfied with that, he then got into Mrs McMuffin's makeup and scribbled some symbol or other on his cheek. He still needs a bit of practice with the makeup before he reaches Marilyn Manson's dizzy heights, but I have high hopes of a luxurious old age supported by my son, the rock god.

dear visitor

You are very welcome to the home of the McMuffins. We are a family of three presently, with number four on the way and a part time pet cat, Slinky. We have kept this blog going for the last four years and somehow managed to run parallel to originality and wit, occasionally getting near, but never quite touching. Despite this, we have made some wonderful virtual friends and although our whole blog needs redesigning and updating, some of the links will still reach them. We have only met three fellow bloggers and they are in alphabetical order, Mr D, Iowahawk and his lovely wife and Kirsty. They were all clever, nice and funny and did not appear to be the psychopathic stalking killers we had been warned about, although that Iowhawk did have a murderous look in his eyes and an unusual amount of froth coming from his mouth...

Apparently there is a Mrs.McMuffin (note the US full stop to denote the abbreviation) on facebook, but pretty (and young) as she is, she's not me. We have discovered that writing about mail order husbands, cheesy bugs, andouillette and Nadine Baggott generates a fair few comments and a couple of Wikipedia links. I would have been a bit embarassed if someone had told me that after four years of blogging, they were the things that visitor were most interested in, but right now I'm actually quite proud.

Anyway, come in, have some refreshments and a wander round. We'll be busy getting ready to go to Berlin on Monday and making sure Babycake is well enough to travel -you can probably see that he looks a bit rough in the photo below- but you're very welcome to use the facilities.

berlin berlin so glad they named you twice etc

After a short hop, skip and a jump, we have all arrived safely in Berlin. First thing we did after leaving Mrs McMuffin in our lovely hotel room, more on that later, with the Bairn, was head out to find a beer. It's a civilised country were you can buy a beer at midnight. Looking forward to exploring this fine city.

christmas in Berlin

Imagine our surprise to find not one but two Santas singing Fairytale of NewYork.

Berlin is great

But very, very cold. We have spent the day wandering around accompanied by that font of knowledge, Mr Rock Cake. Whatever he reads he seems to remember. Saw Checkpoint Charlie and wondered what it must have been like living in East Germany while a few feet away they were living it up in West Germany. Had the most fantastic lunch of little sausages, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. Went down very easily I can tell you. Babycake has been suffering from the cold, but we were able to ignore him and push on with the day, at least until his screams began to bother other people. At that point I began to question the wisdom of having another baby.

By the way, Mr Rock Cake picked a fantastic hotel. It's the Park Inn on Alexanderplatz. It's one of those modern tower block places and doesn't look too inviting, but good design is everything. The room is no bigger than the usual hotel room, but it has been really well designed. Huge windows, glass walled bathroom and tons of storage makes it a delight to stay in. I would certainly recommend it. Oh, and it was cheap. Three nights for £200. Can't say fairer than that.

Mrs McMuffin has taken Babycake upstairs. I am sitting in the hotel bar drinking a beer and posting on my iPhone. Have I mentioned recently how much I love my iPhone?

i forgot mention...

As a little tribute to Germany I decided to change the language on my iPhone to German. I don't understand a word of it but fortunately I have more or less memorised where everything is.

babycake's new toy

For some reason Babycake has decided that my willy is his new toy. He has made a grab for it a couple of times as I was getting dressed. It gets better. As I was brushing my teeth I suddenly felt his little hands, with their baby talons, starting to dig into my bum and then he started kneading it. Very unpleasant I can tell you. A bit like I imagine being flailed with barbed wire might feel. I hope he doesn't make a habit of this.

auf wiedersehen, berlin...see you in summer

Berlin was really too cold to be hospitable and even though the Christmas markets and the wonderful tree in KaDaWe made the icy wind feel almost festive, we just weren't really prepared for it. After we spent the first day freezing, we got the hang of putting on about twenty extra layers and stopped for coffee more regularly. Rock Cake and Gypsy Tart coped a lot better, but I just seemed to be unable to warm up properly.

Anyway, I liked what I saw of Berlin and will definitely go back...in the summer. Babycake seemed to enjoy himself, despite starting off the holiday a little unwell with hand, foot and mouth disease (which I then caught). However, he didn't quite grasp that the ratio of adults responding to his little toddler charms was lower in Germany than every other country we've visited and including the UK. The warmth of response was the same, but Babycake seemed a little puzzled by his poor hit rate.

We got back in the small hours of Friday and I just about managed to get to a meeting at work, my Babycake alarm clock having failed to go off at the usual time. I've rushed around frantically since then and I've only got to shop for Mr McMuffin and then I'm done with Christmas. I just cannot be arsed to do any more than I have and that includes sending Christmas cards. I think I'll make a donation to World Vision of the amount I would have spent and feel virtuous rather than lazy. Bone idle and smug with it!

spots

Babycake has now developed red spots on his trunk and they're beginning to creep onto his legs and face. He seems perfectly happy and healthy other than this, but I'm a bit worried that he might have chickenpox and spread the lurgy to the rest of the Christmas celebrants. I was fortunate enough to have had chickenpox so mildly as a child, that my Mum swore blind I'd never had it until the results of my pregnancy blood tests confirmed that I had had the virus, so I suspect it doesn't follow that the boy will be sick with it.

Anyway, it's quite exciting bathing him at the moment, as we're not sure what new blemishes and rashes we might find. Babycake seems to find our interest quite flattering and this evening he proudly held his top up for Ms Ginger Cake to inspect his spots. She thought they were chickenpox like, so I suppose time will tell if the poor lad is going to get another illness so soon after the last.

still more spots

Our GP surgery is pretty good and we got an appointment straight away for Babycake this morning. It turns out that he does have chickenpox and as both my parents are quite elderly and my poor Mum had shingles only two years ago, they and Babycake can't be together for the next fortnight. This rather spoils our family Christmas and we're still trying to work out how to salvage some of our plans.

Babycake is still very chirpy and energetic, but we've stocked up on calamine lotion and the essential drugs, just in case. We know that he needs to be isolated and Mr McMuffin is having a panic attack over the idea of not being able to go out shopping or for coffee during the day. I think we should make the boy wear a little NBC suit, but I can't imagine he'd put on such an item willingly, when he has screaming fits over putting his socks on. So there it is, Merry Christmas to one and all...

merry christmas everyone

I thought I would take a moment out of my busy day to wish you all a merry Christmas. I was going to post a picture of the glorious sunrise from McMuffin Mansions this morning, but the weather and the view is sh*t. Here is a pretty picture of a Scottish sunrise instead. Hope you all have a lovely day.

he can be so determined

We thought we would wander around London today, just like tourists do. Babycake has fallen asleep slumped over the pram. He fought us every time we tried to settle him back into the seat. London is great, by the way. We have been to Covent Garden Market and wandered down Regents Street. Very nice.