On twinkletoes.

The Star has discovered dancing. You can’t think where he’s picked this up from. You don’t have a habit of leaping round the living room when a really good song comes on the radio at all.
Anyway, the Star will bop around in his high chair while listening to his portable radio. But it’s when he’s got a [...]

Read Full Post »

On Bratya Grim

This is your favourite band. Has been for a while now, so you have decided to come out of the closet.
You only really became aware of them after you left Russia, so you can’t blame it on nostalgia.
They are a Post Soviet group so entirely lack the extra cool that surviving as a rock band under communism [...]

Read Full Post »

On pedantry.

Incidently?
Left arm up, right arm down.
Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

Read Full Post »

On health and safety.

Your shoulder hurts. Mostly it aches. Occasionally it feels as though someone has replaces whatever nerve connects the base of your neck to the base of your shoulder-blade with a ribbon of white-hot metal.
Clearly spending two hours on a rowing machine, lifting weights and contorting yourself into improbable yoga positions was a mistake when you had woken up [...]

Read Full Post »

On another day in another place.

The gray sky hangs low, pressing you into the ground, opening out the horizon and forcing everything else to admit its insignificance.
Yet on this unpreposing canvas the reds and yellows of the trees glow. Green grass seems brighter. Buildings are whiter, and every little scrap of litter on the ground shines out in lurid [...]

Read Full Post »

On watching your language.

The Star likes music, especially when people are singing.
Unfortunately, you suffer from a complete disinterest in the lyrics of songs.
So although you’d like to entertain the Star by warbling along with the radio, you have been forced to find a station which has more of an emphasis on instrumentals than on words. Classic rock stations [...]

Read Full Post »

On giant shagging bunny rabbits.

You really should have been paying more attention, but when someone said, ‘Proms‘, you said ‘How high?’ without really enquiring too much further into the matter.
You did manage to glean that it was a Purcell concert, but you failed even to find out what was being played.
Which was probably a good thing. You have recently [...]

Read Full Post »

On Eminem.

 
When you crawl through the door,
It is clear to Mummy,
You’re the one she adores,
The one she wants to see.
(Rock) Star, Mummy really loves you.
(Rock) Star, Papa loves you too.
We’re the ones who made you.

Read Full Post »

On Eurovision 2009.

About halfway through the results marathon for the Eurovision contest, Graham Norton, the UK’s new host for the event after Terry Wogan flounced off the show in disgust at the way that in 2008 the UK had come bottom again whilst the Eastern Europeans (and Finland) were having a run of good luck, mistily declared [...]

Read Full Post »

On growing pains.

The Star disgraced himself at the library singing group this week.
He didn’t projectile vomit all over the carpet while you were slightly too energetically flinging him back and forth during a spirited rendition of ‘Row row row your boat’. He did that aged 4 months.
He didn’t make a beeline for the nearest person with interesting [...]

Read Full Post »