While my efforts to catalogue every movie with even the most tenuous links to Christmas in the form of an annual Advent calendar might seem a tad pointless, I am occasionally rewarded for my endeavours. For were it not for this yearly exercise in futility I would not have chanced upon a film called Happy New Year Colin Burstead. But I’m glad I did. Because it’s really good.
Loosely based on Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, it plays out as a modern-day dysfunctional family d
While my efforts to catalogue every movie with even the most tenuous links to Christmas in the form of an annual Advent calendar might seem a tad pointless, I am occasionally rewarded for my endeavours. For were it not for this yearly exercise in futility I would not have chanced upon a film called Happy New Year Colin Burstead. But I’m glad I did. Because it’s really good.
Loosely based on Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, it plays out as a modern-day dysfunctional family drama, interspersed with some genuinely laugh-out loud moments.
Score for Christmasishness
I suppose the clue is in the title. New Year’s Eve counts as part of Christmas right? There are certainly plenty of Christmas decorations in sight and the dysfunctional family gathering is a staple of many a Christmas movie. Indeed, the film would work pretty well had the action been set on Christmas day, although there are elements of a New Year celebration, specifically the build-up to midnight, which probably make more sense for this particular narrative. It’s far from a typical festive film, but it’s one I intend to revisit in Christmases future.
2006’s Starter For Ten is a relatively undemanding coming-of-age comedy that is as quintessentially British as they come. It’s not massively original and a little too content to indulge in clichés throughout. Also, the cast playing the supposedly first-year university students are all, quite evidently, in their mid-twenties.
However, the notion of basing the plot around the long-running TV show, University Challenge, does render the film a little more interesting. S
2006’s Starter For Ten is a relatively undemanding coming-of-age comedy that is as quintessentially British as they come. It’s not massively original and a little too content to indulge in clichés throughout. Also, the cast playing the supposedly first-year university students are all, quite evidently, in their mid-twenties.
However, the notion of basing the plot around the long-running TV show, University Challenge, does render the film a little more interesting. Strong performances from a very decent cast, and jokes which are, for the most part, pretty funny, also elevate the movie to something greater than it might otherwise have been.
Score for Christmasishness
Like many movies which make the cut in my annual festive countdown, Starter For Ten is not explicitly a Christmas movie, but the Christmas period does feature fairly heavily in the narrative and takes up a reasonable percentage of the running time. This is definitely a film which embraces its Christmasishness.
2008’s Step Brothers is very much the kind of movie you might expect a late 2000’s movie starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly to be. If you watch the trailer then you really don’t need to watch the rest of the movie unless you really like that kind of thing. Which sadly I don’t.
The premise of two Step Brothers, in their forties, acting like ten-year olds is exactly as compelling as it sounds. If I was thirteen when this came out, I’d probably have fo
2008’s Step Brothers is very much the kind of movie you might expect a late 2000’s movie starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly to be. If you watch the trailer then you really don’t need to watch the rest of the movie unless you really like that kind of thing. Which sadly I don’t.
The premise of two Step Brothers, in their forties, acting like ten-year olds is exactly as compelling as it sounds. If I was thirteen when this came out, I’d probably have found it hilarious. I wasn’t though so this wasn’t really for me.
I didn’t completely hate it, and parts of it did make me laugh. I will never watch it again though.
Score for Christmasishness
As with many-a-movie depicting a dysfunctional family, Christmas does manage to sneak into the plot. Twice in the case of Step Brothers. Insofar as there is a coherent narrative to this movie (and I’m not sure that there is really), the two Christmases do juxtapose the progression from a complete family breakdown to a reconciliation of sorts so the film is (very slightly) better for it’s Christmasishness and thus the movieearns it’s place in my annual festive countdown (if not in my heart).
I don’t know if 1990’s Home Alone is a good film or not. I honestly can’t be objective about it at all. I’m not sure when I first saw it, but I do know I rented (or got my parents to rent it) from our local video shop at some point in the early 90s and I was instantly smitten.
I watched that rental tape repeatedly until it sadly had to be returned (which would likely have been 48 hours after it came into my possession). Shortly after that I purchased my own cop
I don’t know if 1990’s Home Alone is a good film or not. I honestly can’t be objective about it at all. I’m not sure when I first saw it, but I do know I rented (or got my parents to rent it) from our local video shop at some point in the early 90s and I was instantly smitten.
I watched that rental tape repeatedly until it sadly had to be returned (which would likely have been 48 hours after it came into my possession). Shortly after that I purchased my own copy with saved up pocket money and continued to watch it ad nauseum.
I still enjoy it today. I don’t know how much of this is nostalgia and how much of that enjoyment can be attributed to the fact that it is actually a good movie. I have to imagine, though, that even if it were the greatest film ever made, my enjoyment these days is pure sentimentality.
Irrespective of its merits, it’s surely hard to argue that Macauley Culkin is not one of the finest child actors ever to grace the silver screen. And although Joe Pesci is renowned for more prestigious acting credits, his collaboration with Daniel Stern as the inept Harry and Marv, must be among the great comic double acts in cinema.
Score for Christmasishness
Home Alone very nearly made the inaugural version of this ridiculous annual countdown. But I left it out on the grounds that it has, over the years, become pretty established in my head as an ‘actual Christmas film’ as opposed to one, which is a bit Christmas(ish). But I’ve reviewed that position this year on the basis that a terrestrial UK TV channel elected to show it in April. April is definitely not Christmas. And it occurred to me that as a child I watched Home Alone all year round and never really considered it a movie solely to be consumed at Christmas. And,while if you took Christmas away from the narrative you would definitely lose something, there is the potential for the story to work at a different time of year. But it is set at Christmas, and it is very very Christmassy throughout. So irrespective of whether there is an argument to be made about it not being a bona fide Christmas movie, it is certainly Christmas(ish) in the extreme.
It’s Christmas Eve once more and so once again the folly of my annual advent calendar of movies that are a bit Christmas(ish) must draw to a close.
And what better way to go out than 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home? That is a clearly a rhetorical question for there is no better way.
As big a fan as I am of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and of superhero films in general, they are now so ubiquitous that it’s not often that they live up to the hype. But I genuinely
It’s Christmas Eve once more and so once again the folly of my annual advent calendar of movies that are a bit Christmas(ish) must draw to a close.
And what better way to go out than 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home? That is a clearly a rhetorical question for there is no better way.
As big a fan as I am of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and of superhero films in general, they are now so ubiquitous that it’s not often that they live up to the hype. But I genuinely loved this movie. Spider-Man was always my favourite superhero as a kid, which is a pretty high accolade from a kid who really liked superheroes. As a child I was mainly a fan of Spider-Man cartoons, what with there not actually being a live-action cinematic version of the Web-Slinger until 2002 (I know that may not be factually accurate and but it’s reasonable to state that anything ‘live action’ relating to Spider-Man pre-2002 was not widely known or particularly good). I’ve enjoyed the highs and lows of all the cinematic iterations of Peter Parker and his alter ego since the 2002 movie (some are clearly better than others) but, just when I thought the world didn’t need a new version of Spider-Man, Tom Holland made the part his own in the MCU, first through a cameo in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War and then in subsequent stand-alone Spider-Man movies alongside the brilliant third and fourth installments of the Avengers movies. Sometimes the MCU can be hard to keep up with, but the addition of Spider-Man was genuinely wonderful.
The bar was pretty high for No Way Home, and on paper it seemed like it might be biting off more than it could chew by incorporating several villains from both the Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions of the franchise, as well as uniting Holland with Maguire and Garfield (in one of the worst kept secrets in Hollywood) to have three iterations of Spider-Man in one movie. Incorporating all five non-MCU Spider-Man films into the already fairly bloated MCU might have been disastrous. It was, instead, a triumph.
I have no idea if this film is remotely appealing to anyone that isn’t a well-established Spidey-fan because I am so far down that particular rabbit-hole that I can’t even understand the concept of not being a Spidey fan.
This is definitely a movie that was made for my inner child and my inner child will forever be grateful.
Score for Christmasishness
As if a movie containing three versions of Spider-Man were not reward enough, imagine my delight when I realised that the end of the movie is explicitly set at Christmas time. It isn’t clear exactly when the rest of the movie is set beyond the fact that it is established quite early on that we’re into a period that is post-Halloween. There is one subtle reference that Christmas is coming shortly after that, but as it involves a department store and as department stores are quite heavily invested in promoting Christmas for much of November and December, there is no conclusive proof that we’re into ‘the season’ prior to the final scenes of the movie. But those scenes are very Christmassy and would be enough for me to include a much lesser film in this annual countdown. So for a movie as great as No Way Home those scenes make it a shoe-in for the Christmas Eve slot.
As I write this, some potatoes are roasting in my oven. They are basking contently in olive oil, garlic and rosemary. I’m quietly confident they will be delicious in about 45 minutes from now. At various points I will need to pop a few vegetables into the oven to keep them company on their journey to the plates of the Proclaims family. Oh and a massive side of salmon that could feed about 8 large people but will only need to feed one large person and three small people. Mrs Proclai
As I write this, some potatoes are roasting in my oven. They are basking contently in olive oil, garlic and rosemary. I’m quietly confident they will be delicious in about 45 minutes from now. At various points I will need to pop a few vegetables into the oven to keep them company on their journey to the plates of the Proclaims family. Oh and a massive side of salmon that could feed about 8 large people but will only need to feed one large person and three small people. Mrs Proclaims is fairly diminutive in stature and my daughters are still very much small children.
The all like a roast potato though.
And they all like salmon.
Which is good, because there will be quite a lot of both.
I could have purchased a smaller portion of salmon, but such are the supermarket deals in the festive build-up that it was more economical to buy too much fish than an appropriate amount. Fortunately I’m a big fan of festive leftovers so the excess will form the basis of a fair few sandwiches over the coming days.
Little Proclaims has already stated that she will not eat sprouts. Mini Proclaims has not voiced any objections but will be rather more physical in her protestations towards unwanted vegetables when faced with them on her plate and may hurl them directly at my head if I misjudge her requirements.
There is no turkey because Mrs Proclaims is the kind of strange vegetarian that refuses to eat meat but will happily eat fish. A pescatarian some might say. A pesky-tarian if you have to cater for her though.
I don’t mind this state of affairs. We’ve been together so long that having salmon for Christmas dinner is now as much of a tradition for me as turkey ever was. It’s a bonus that both of my children like it too. I think they would be open to turkey but they really do seem to like salmon and, given the tendency of small children to reject healthy food, if they are prepared to eat salmon, I am happy to provide it.
Prior to lunch, the day has mainly been devoted to the unwrapping of presents. Little Proclaims is quite good at this, and once she’d raced through her own selection of plastic unicorns, she was quite happy (and indeed quite insistent on) helping other family members to unwrap their presents. In our early days of parenthood, we used to try and eke out the present unwrapping, but Little Proclaims finds the idea of an un-unwrapped present offensive to her personal beliefs. And she can be quite loud and annoying so like all good parents, we bow to her demands and commercialist sensibilities on Christmas morning.
Mini Proclaims seems quite pleased with her gifts, but is more circumspect about the whole thing, and is frankly just as happy with the wrapping paper as the toys contained therein.
Mini Proclaims is now napping. Little Proclaims is watching TV. Mrs Proclaims is pretending to work on her PhD while actually browsing the post-Christmas sales online and I am cooking dinner.
I like cooking Christmas dinner, but I am not doing it for altruistic reasons. I’m mainly doing it because I really like eating Christmas dinner and I’m quite good at cooking. I’m not sure if I’m good at cooking because I like eating. It could be a chicken and an egg situation but as I’m cooking neither chicken nor eggs I wouldn’t wish to speculate.
I have not yet consumed any alcohol, but there is a bottle of sparkling wine chilling in the fridge and I plan to be mildly inebriated for most of the rest of the day.
We may attempt some kind of post-lunch walk. It sounds quite pleasant in principle but a combination of uncooperative children and indigestion may make it less than joyful.
I expect there will be chocolates at some point. Indeed there have already been quite a lot of chocolates.
As a parent I do think it’s important to teach my children the true meaning of Christmas. Which I’m quite sure is over-indulgence and rampant commercialism.
So wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas and planning to be slightly fatter tomorrow.
‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through the house, Not a calorie was burning, no-one would espouse, Any kind of activity, except watching telly, For more had been consumed than a bowl full of jelly
And just before resolutions of New Year we make, (The ones that we keep for days and then break), The post Christmas fallout increases their need, As on festive treats we continue to feed
On chocolates, on peanuts, on stollen we nibble, On whiskey, on lager, on mulled wine we
‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through the house, Not a calorie was burning, no-one would espouse, Any kind of activity, except watching telly, For more had been consumed than a bowl full of jelly
And just before resolutions of New Year we make, (The ones that we keep for days and then break), The post Christmas fallout increases their need, As on festive treats we continue to feed
On chocolates, on peanuts, on stollen we nibble, On whiskey, on lager, on mulled wine we tipple, From the top of the fridge to the cupboard so tall, We stashed away, stashed away stashed away all
But now is the time to consume all this fare, Without second thought, or even a care, And as bellies bulge, and trousers get tight, Have a great Boxing Day and a better Boxing Night!
Sirens blareAre you listeningIn the lanesDrivers bristlingA depressing sightIt’s crappy tonightSulking in a Christmas traffic jam
Gone away is all hope nowHere to stay is a new lowThe queue looks so longAs we don’t go alongSulking in a Christmas traffic jam
At the junction we can try a new routeAnd pretend that it will some how commuteThe time that we tarriedThough we know thatWe’ll just rejoin the gridlock Further down
Later onWe’ll still be hereAs our d
Sirens blare Are you listening In the lanes Drivers bristling A depressing sight It’s crappy tonight Sulking in a Christmas traffic jam
Gone away is all hope now Here to stay is a new low The queue looks so long As we don’t go along Sulking in a Christmas traffic jam
At the junction we can try a new route And pretend that it will some how commute The time that we tarried Though we know that We’ll just rejoin the gridlock Further down
Later on We’ll still be here As our dreams disappear And we have to delay All the plans that we’ve made Sulking in a Christmas traffic jam
Have yourself a calorific Christmas,Take another biteFrom now on,Our slippers will be out of sightHave yourself a lazy little Christmas,Eat the Yule-tide log,From now on,We’ll resolve not to ever jog
Here we gorge on unhealthy food,Full of sugar we adoreChocolate boxes so near to usThat we need to have one more.
At New Year we’ll resolve to be better If our will allowsHang onto that goal without a plan of howAnd don’t regret the bad decisions you make now.
Have yourself a calorific Christmas, Take another bite From now on, Our slippers will be out of sight Have yourself a lazy little Christmas, Eat the Yule-tide log, From now on, We’ll resolve not to ever jog
Here we gorge on unhealthy food, Full of sugar we adore Chocolate boxes so near to us That we need to have one more.
At New Year we’ll resolve to be better If our will allows Hang onto that goal without a plan of how And don’t regret the bad decisions you make now.
I’m not dreaming of a white ChristmasJust like the ones I’ve never knownWith my gas bill risingThere’s no disguisingThe last thing that I need is snow.
I’m not dreaming of a white ChristmasThe Christmas cards I sent were lateBut I’m still quite full of good cheerBecause all my Christmases have beer
I’m not dreaming of a white Christmas Just like the ones I’ve never known With my gas bill rising There’s no disguising The last thing that I need is snow.
I’m not dreaming of a white Christmas The Christmas cards I sent were late But I’m still quite full of good cheer Because all my Christmases have beer
Old Christmas tree, Old Christmas tree!How are thy leaves so plastic!Old Christmas tree, Old Christmas tree,I’m not being sarcastic
In the loft in the summertime,I get thee down at ChristmastimeOld Christmas tree, Old Christmas tree,I think thou art quite broken
Old Christmas tree, Old Christmas tree,Much pleasure did thou bring me!Old Christmas tree, Old Christmas tree,But now thou art quite sad to see
Year on year this Christmas tree,Becomes less than it used to beOld Ch
According to my understanding of the Gregorian calendar, today is the last day of the year that I have mainly been referring to as ‘2023’. And if that is the case, then I must abide by my own rules and produce some kind of a review of the year. Because I do it every year. Or I have done it every year since 2015, which is, in truth, not every year at all. Just the years I have been an active blogger.
Whether I deserve to refer to myself as an ‘active blogger’, w
According to my understanding of the Gregorian calendar, today is the last day of the year that I have mainly been referring to as ‘2023’. And if that is the case, then I must abide by my own rules and produce some kind of a review of the year. Because I do it every year. Or I have done it every year since 2015, which is, in truth, not every year at all. Just the years I have been an active blogger.
Whether I deserve to refer to myself as an ‘active blogger’, when I have spent very little of 2023 maintaining this blog is possibly debateable. A quick look back at what I wrote for the 2022 equivalent of this ‘end of year’ effort, would suggest I didn’t do much blogging in 2022 either. I did, as I recall, write a fair bit in the preceding two years, but I think that was mainly as a reaction to a certain pandemic. I’d like to get back to being a proper blogger and updating these little-read pages with my unsolicited observations of the world, but I’m not in a hurry to see another contagious disease sweeping the world, so I’m going to have to find a different kind of motivation in 2024.
That sounds like something I might want to address in my obligatory New Year’s Resolution post and consequently a problem I can defer until tomorrow. Which is the best way to deal with all problems in my experience.
It is, nonetheless, quite hard for me to review 2023, because I’m not sure I really took part in it. I wasn’t just avoiding blogging for most of the past year, I was avoiding any kind of meaningful existence.
That is because my life is now entirely devoted to my two daughters. I’m not sure this is because I’m an especially good parent and more because I’m not really sure how not to devote my entire existence to them. Small children, as it turns out, are quite demanding.
What little I have seen of the news in 2023, suggests that world events have not, on the whole, been especially positive. Perhaps my frequent trips to the play park and/or soft play have been as good as anything anyone else has been up to.
I went on holiday in August. It was a UK-based holiday but I did spend a week in a static caravan somewhere that I don’t live. The children were with me for all of that week though so it was really not that different to not being on holiday. Except I was in a caravan rather than a house. Which isn’t necessarily an improvement. I think I enjoyed the holiday though. I’m certain my children did anyway, which is apparently all that counts.
I’m not sure I’ve evolved all that much as a person in 2023. Possibly I have though. A new Indiana Jones film came out and I haven’t seen it yet. It’s available to stream on a service I subscribe to, I’m a massive fan of Indiana Jones and I haven’t seen it. But I have seen the latest Paw Patrol movie. Twice.
I’ve also started listening to audiobooks. Quite obsessively. I used to read books obsessively once upon a time, but that is something that necessitates ‘finding time to do stuff’ and having two kids means that I’m more likely to find miscellaneous plastic toys in my shoes than ‘time to do stuff’. But audiobooks can be consumed while doing other stuff, like driving, or wandering around the supermarket or picking up miscellaneous plastic toys, so I’m very much a fan of the medium.
My daughters both have evolved. This is to be expected. They are children. Most experiences are new and exciting to small children. Little Proclaims is now in her second year of compulsory education and seems to be fairly enthusiastic about this. She is fairly enthusiastic about a lot things a lot of the time and school, for the most part, seems to suit her. She can now read and write a bit. She is more motivated by the former than the latter and regularly reads even the most mundane of billboards aloud as we navigate through the various commutes life throws our way. Mini Proclaims is still attempting to master speech but has started to develop a few key words to communicate her wants and needs. Her favourite word is ‘chocolate’.
Mrs Proclaims continues to work on a PhD that has seemingly taken up most of her adult life. If all goes well, I might be able to report the successful end of that endeavour this time next year. But she won’t thank me for attempting to count metaphorical chickens on that subject. I’m not sure what she’ll do with herself when she has completed her studies though. Maybe she can start a blog.
In summary then, 2023 was a year in which I was mainly a dad. I like being a dad, but I have no idea what else happened in 2023.
I expect something did though. Maybe other people have written about it.
But I’m not remotely qualified to offer any insight.
Other than to say that 2023 was definitely a year that did happen and in that sense, it achieved its main purpose.
If you are planning to stay up and see the New Year in, then raise a glass for me. I’m pretty sure I’ll have passed out on the sofa several hours beforehand. And I won’t have touched a drop of alcohol.
Like most of its predecessors, 2024 is a year. Whether it is a good year or a bad year (or a blameless measurement of time passing) is yet to be determined but it has now made a start. And when a year starts, it is important that we all take some time to reflect on just how disappointing we are as people and make some kind of pledge to be better in the future. It’s a very narrow window in which to commit to self-improvement. You can’t just wake up on January 2nd and decide to
Like most of its predecessors, 2024 is a year. Whether it is a good year or a bad year (or a blameless measurement of time passing) is yet to be determined but it has now made a start. And when a year starts, it is important that we all take some time to reflect on just how disappointing we are as people and make some kind of pledge to be better in the future. It’s a very narrow window in which to commit to self-improvement. You can’t just wake up on January 2nd and decide to make positive life changes – that would never work. It must be done on the first day of the year, or not at all. I don’t make the rules, but I damn well will abide by them!
In previous years I perhaps haven’t taken the concept of the New Year’s Resolution as seriously as I should, and you could accuse me of having set some rather insincere targets on my New Year’s Day post. Regular readers may recall that one year I became a little fixated with the 1996 film Space Jam despite having never seen it. In 2023 I did manage to right this wrong and watched not only the original Space Jam movie, but the 2021 sequel, Space Jam: A New Legacy. I neither loved nor hated them.
Last year I made the somewhat strange decision to make some real New Year’s Resolutions, which seems very out of character. Having reviewed them prior to writing this post, I can see that I absolutely failed to hit all but one of them. They were as follows:
Lose some weight
Write more
Keep fit
Spend less money
Enjoy the moment
The only one I did achieve was the goal of ‘keeping fit’. Which was fairly easy seeing as I had already managed to get quite fit during the pandemic. Keeping fit is much more manageable than getting fit in the first place. Plus regular exercise always seems like a legitimate escape from my children a few times a week. I love my children but sometimes I need a break from them. Running around a field might seem like a strange way of getting some ‘me time’ but there’s only so much Paw Patrol anyone can endure.
Unfortunately I also use exercise as a way of legitimising my poor dietary choices so it’s not surprising that I didn’t achieve the ‘losing weight’ goal.
The lack of posts on this blog is a fair indication that I didn’t maintain any kind of writing commitment, and I’m quite certain that I did nothing to reduce my spending, although a hike in the cost of living possibly made that all but impossible anyway.
I did, arguably ‘enjoy some moments’ of 2023, but I don’t think I achieved anything like the sentiment of that resolution and still spent far too much time worrying about stuff outside of my control.
It would be reasonable to just ‘roll over’ last years resolutions to this year, but I’m not going to do that on the basis that:
It’s not especially nice to fail at stuff
I didn’t actually remember making any of the resolutions until I started writing this post, so any success would have been more down to the fact that I wanted to achieve those things anyway, rather than because I made New Year’s Resolutions.
I think, therefore, an insincere list of stupid goals is probably more ‘me’. So these are my resolutions for 2024:
Wear odd shoes to work. Ultimately very similar but slightly different shoes on each foot. Just to see if anyone notices.
Start watching a sport I previously had no interest in. And then become boringly knowledgeable about the sport, including historic fixtures which predate my interest in said sport. Then annoy people who really are fans of the sport by constantly sharing my insights with them.
Coin a new phrase and then use it relentlessly until it is adopted by at least one other person. I don’t wish to let the sock out of the laundry basket, but I may even attempt that on this blog at some point.
Give up a foodstuff which has no negative health implications and then brag about the fact to anyone who will listen, in the hope of influencing other people to make similarly pointless lifestyle changes.
Read the chapters of a novel in random order to see if I can still make sense of the plot. And then make the spurious claim that I enjoyed it more than if I’d read the novel in the correct order and see if I can turn ‘reading stuff in the wrong order’ into a social media fad.
There we go. Some pointless resolutions for 2024. I think we all feel better about the future now.
Assuming that I finish writing this post and deem it worthy of publication (and the quality control on my blog is such that if I finish writing something I instantly deem it worthy of publication on these pages, irrespective of whether it’s actually any good), then it will be my 33rd post in as many consecutive days. I’ve achieved longer blogging streaks than this, but I always see a 30+ daily blogging streak as a pretty good indication that I’ve got my blogging mojo ba
Assuming that I finish writing this post and deem it worthy of publication (and the quality control on my blog is such that if I finish writing something I instantly deem it worthy of publication on these pages, irrespective of whether it’s actually any good), then it will be my 33rd post in as many consecutive days. I’ve achieved longer blogging streaks than this, but I always see a 30+ daily blogging streak as a pretty good indication that I’ve got my blogging mojo back, particularly after a lengthy period of not writing much at all.
It’s slightly disingenuous on this occasion because the first 24 posts of the 33 were my annual advent calendar of Christmas films and I wrote most of those in 2021. But while those posts were appearing on the blog, I was secretly working on watching and writing about other films for future versions of my Christmas countdown. 2024 and 2025 are already in the bag, and 2026 is taking shape too, so the blogosphere can relax in the knowledge that, irrespective of whatever else I might write, the statistically least popular section of my blog will continue for years to come.
The next eight posts all had a Christmas theme too, what with that being the time of year, and traditionally, even during my most fallow blogging periods, I’ve always been quite prolific at Christmas.
But I do feel like I might like to start writing at other times of the year again. This does need to be tempered with the reality that time is rarely a commodity I have much of, even when I seemingly do have quite a lot of it, because my children do occupy a lot of the time I used to regard as mine. They do provide quite a lot of blogworthy material in that time, but I’m generally too exhausted to commit to writing any of it down.
This post, for example, is being produced on New Year’s Day, when Mini Proclaims is taking a nap and Little Proclaims is doing a fairly good impression of a zombie in front of the TV. This window will last a maximum of an hour and is largely only available because it’s cold outside and lots of places we’d normally go are closed for the holiday. Tomorrow, when this post is ‘live’ we’ll be on the motorway en route to visit my parents and the following day has already been mainly put aside for haircuts and shoe purchasing (because hair and feet continue to grow, irrespective of the pressures that such inconsiderate growth places on my wallet). A few more days of soft-play and park visits will ensue, and might yield the odd window of blogging time, before the end of the school holidays will oblige me to try and fit in a full-time job alongside my eldest daughters’ various extra-curricular activities.
Still it does feel like I could do a bit better than I have managed in the last two years and the way to achieve this is to possibly lower my ambitions with regards to quality and quantity. I’ve never strived for both quality and quantity on this blog – generally when I’ve been prolific, it has been at the expense of any kind of quality control, but when I post less regularly, I always think that I should strive to produce something that is quite good. But two years of hardly posting anything is testament to the fact that the threshold has shifted. And so I either need to let this blog die a dignified death, or start consciously producing dross on a semi-regular basis. Even at its worst, I like to think that my blog is far from being the least worthy thing on the internet so I’m loath to make a dignified exit. Instead, I’m going to try and be a more regular blogger from here on in, by adopting a filter-free approach to posting. This may mean several weeks at a time of nothing but bad haikus but I’m not planning on plumbing those depths in the foreseeable future.
I expect there will be quite a lot of poetry though. I’d like to think my poetry will hold a mirror up to society, but some of it will be about such era-defining issues as ‘an old towel’, ‘those biscuits that I quite like’ and ‘that weird mark on the wall’. Perhaps because I have absolutely no understanding of what makes for a good poem, I find poetry quite easy to write. I prefer writing prose but this generally takes more time, even when inspiration is everywhere. There has been a lot of great source material for prose over the past two years, but very little has made it onto the blog. This has to change because if I don’t owe it to myself, then I certainly owe it to my children to ensure that all of their most embarrassing adventures are recorded on here for me to torture them with as they get older.
Both sisters combined on New Year’s Eve, for example, to give me some fantastic material that mainly focuses on their bowel movements. Surely neither of my daughters would forgive me if I don’t manage to record that story for the sake of posterity.
And so this post serves as both an indication that I am now well and truly back in the blogosphere and also as proof that I am quite happy to post any old crap. And that very soon I will be posting a story that is quite literally about crap.
I’m waiting in for a man Who can fix my roofBecause I can’t fix my roofI’m rather lacking in that skillThe man is now 45 minutes lateOf his revised ETAAn ETA he only told me aboutWhen he was already 30 minutes lateFor the original appointmentWhich was at a time he suggestedAnd which, to accommodate himI rearranged existing plans
I really need not to have a broken roofAt any time of yearBut especially duringWhat has thus farBeen a fairly wet JanuaryAlbeit we’re
I’m waiting in for a man Who can fix my roof Because I can’t fix my roof I’m rather lacking in that skill The man is now 45 minutes late Of his revised ETA An ETA he only told me about When he was already 30 minutes late For the original appointment Which was at a time he suggested And which, to accommodate him I rearranged existing plans
I really need not to have a broken roof At any time of year But especially during What has thus far Been a fairly wet January Albeit we’re only five days in
At this point I might be inclined to suggest That I’ll take my business elsewhere But after frantically calling several roofers All of whom profess to offer An emergency 24/7 service He was the only person who returned my call With any kind of offer to come out
After a similar experience with plumbers Over the years I have turned my hand To amateur plumbing With varying degrees of success And not too many spectacular failures But I don’t think I possess the skills Nor indeed the ladders Required to fix a roof
And while one might question The wisdom Of my trial and error Approach to plumbing The worst that ever happened Was a wet floor Which required a lot of subsequent mopping
Were I to attempt to fix my roof I would be unlikely to need Any kind of mop As I would more likely Be the mess that would need cleaning up
So as annoying as it is To sit around waiting for a roofer I think on this occasion That patience might be more than a virtue
It is Sunday afternoon as I write this. Mini Proclaims is napping, having recently covered herself and much of the dining table in my home-made sweet potato soup. She does enjoy a bowl of soup. Not to eat seemingly, more to ‘accessorise’. ‘Soup’ is a word she does occasionally use in conversation, and her vocabulary is still fairly limited, so I assume she has positive feelings about the stuff. Not all soups presumably – at this point it may be helpful
But she is now asleep, which remains a necessity, both for her and the rest of the Proclaims family. When my youngest daughter finally decides that an afternoon nap is no longer something she is on board with, I fear for the mental health of the rest of the family. Mini Proclaims is not always naughty, but she is a particular kind of naughty.
Little Proclaims, is currently sat opposite me as I write this and busy ‘creating’. Creating largely consists of sticking pieces of paper together with sellotape and then claiming that they are something that they bear no resemblance to. She enjoys creating. Little Proclaims is never ‘knowingly naughty’. This is not to say that she is never badly behaved. Little Proclaims frequently behaves in ways that make her parents lives more difficult, but this behaviour stems from misunderstandings, tiredness, hunger and general frustrations that the world is not exactly as she thinks it should be. She doesn’t ever intend to upset anyone but she sees life through the lens of a five year old and sometimes that causes problems.
Mini Proclaims is four months shy of her second birthday. She is a smiley toddler who likes to cuddle. But sometimes she is naughty because she thinks it’s funny to be naughty. She will literally do things to get a reaction and then laugh when she gets that reaction. Often she will wait until she has managed to attract your attention before she even starts to do the thing that she knows she shouldn’t be doing. Like if we accidently leave the stair gate open, she will literally sit on the bottom step until she sees me looking and then race up the stairs laughing as soon as I make some kind of effort to rectify the situation. Or she will ask for food and then once said food is provided, will tip it on the floor with genuine glee. Or mid change, as you reach for the fresh nappy, you’ll suddenly note the absence of a recipient and a small bare bottom racing away accompanied by giggles.
Little Proclaims enjoys singing. She is too young for us to know whether this is something she is going to be good at, but we have already established that she is enthusiastic. Tuneful or not, nothing warms my heart like hearing her sing. One of her favourite songs to sing is from Matilda the Musical. It’s called ‘Naughty’ and the main recurring line in the song is “sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty’. But even when she is at her most challenging, I don’t think Little Proclaims believes that sentiment.
Recently Mini Proclaims has started joining in with the singing. She doesn’t sing many of the lyrics but the general tune is broadly accurate in the context of her being under-two. When she sings along to ‘Naughty’, I believe her emphatically.
Every Saturday, during term time, I take Little Proclaims to French School. In spite of the fact that I, as a child, hated every second I spent in school, I am nothing if not hypocritical, and I make sure my eldest child not only attends compulsory education, but also has to give up at least some of her evenings and weekends to enjoy (or endure) additional learning opportunities.
Actually it’s Mrs Proclaims who is the driving force behind most of these activities. Except that Mr
Every Saturday, during term time, I take Little Proclaims to French School. In spite of the fact that I, as a child, hated every second I spent in school, I am nothing if not hypocritical, and I make sure my eldest child not only attends compulsory education, but also has to give up at least some of her evenings and weekends to enjoy (or endure) additional learning opportunities.
Actually it’s Mrs Proclaims who is the driving force behind most of these activities. Except that Mrs Proclaims doesn’t drive. So after Little Proclaims has been signed up for an activity, it sometimes becomes my job to actually get her there. In that sense we are both the driving force, Mrs Proclaims metaphorically and me rather more literally.
As I have revealed on these pages before, Little Proclaims is pretty much bilingual. This is mainly due to the efforts of my wife, who is no slouch at French and is currently working towards a PhD in French Literature. I, too, can speak French, but not as well as my wife and now not as well as my five year old daughter. I still have the edge on Mini Proclaims, but I fear this will not be for too much longer.
Anyway, most Saturday mornings I drive Little Proclaims to French school, which is in a different town to the one we live in. And because my wife is not stupid, I also take Mini Proclaims with me. Mrs Proclaims reasons that if my weekend is going to be curtailed by taking my eldest daughter to an activity then it won’t be made worse by taking the little one along for the ride. That Mrs Proclaims then has the house entirely to herself for three hours every Saturday is just a happy by-product of her organising additional academic input for our child and was never part of some dastardly masterplan.
Or so she claims.
Most of the time it goes fairly smoothly on the way there. Getting two small children into the car with sufficient time to drive the 30 or so minutes it takes to get to the school is not without challenges but we usually manage it. Because the venue is an actual school site, complete with playing fields, various sporting clubs also play their Saturday morning fixtures there so the car park can be a little hit and miss, but for the most part Little Proclaims makes it to the lesson on time and Mini Proclaims and I kill the ensuing 90 minutes either by frequenting a local supermarket for groceries, or going for a walk. Well I walk. Mini Proclaims sits in a pushchair and sings. Before she got as big as she is, I used to walk her around in what might be described as a ‘papoose’. But she’s a bit on the heavy side for that now, so it’s a pushchair all the way.
On occasion Mini Proclaims has thrown a spanner in the works of this mundane but not unpleasant Saturday morning routine. For Mini Proclaims sometimes likes to experiment with being car sick. Not always. Indeed it’s a relatively rare occurrence. Rare enough to catch me unprepared. And therefore disastrous when it happens, because vomit does not, on the whole, smell very nice. And, particularly during the ‘papoose’ days, being stuck with a child who smells of vomit for 90 minutes could be quite challenging on the nostrils.
We hadn’t had an incident for a while, so I should have expected the backseat explosion we had this Saturday.
Fortunately Mini Proclaims had had, amongst other things, strawberries for breakfast. And while, if I’m honest, the carbon footprint of said strawberries was probably shameful, it turns out that strawberry flavoured vomit smells mainly of strawberries.
Which is not at all unpleasant.
I’m not sure if strawberries always offer this level of mitigation when it comes to vomit. I have no idea if other fruit can be substituted to achieve a similar effect. I’m not sure I care to carry out additional research if it can, in any way, be avoided.
Still, I think that Saturday morning strawberries might need to be a staple for my youngest child for the foreseeable future.
I’ve written meta poems beforeThough I’ve never met this one I’m sureFor if this poem were a personMeeting it could only worsenMy antipathy towards this verseAlthough I’ve probably written worsePersonification of a rhymeAs bad as this might be a crimeSo I’ll never meet my poetryWhy I write it is a mystery
I’ve written meta poems before Though I’ve never met this one I’m sure For if this poem were a person Meeting it could only worsen My antipathy towards this verse Although I’ve probably written worse Personification of a rhyme As bad as this might be a crime So I’ll never meet my poetry Why I write it is a mystery
Prior to becoming a parent, I had no idea what ‘soft play’ was. Indeed for quite some time after becoming a parent I was only really notionally aware of ‘soft play’. I knew it was a thing but mainly it was a thing that happened to other parents. Occasionally Mrs Proclaims mentioned taking Little Proclaims to a soft play centre, but my interest was rarely piqued beyond a perfunctory level of curiosity, which was pitched at the level required to fulfil marital oblig
Prior to becoming a parent, I had no idea what ‘soft play’ was. Indeed for quite some time after becoming a parent I was only really notionally aware of ‘soft play’. I knew it was a thing but mainly it was a thing that happened to other parents. Occasionally Mrs Proclaims mentioned taking Little Proclaims to a soft play centre, but my interest was rarely piqued beyond a perfunctory level of curiosity, which was pitched at the level required to fulfil marital obligations but was never at a high enough level for me to glean any meaningful knowledge about the activity itself.
When I was a father of one child, I mainly fulfilled my paternal duties by taking Little Proclaims to activities that Mrs Proclaims had little to no interest in, such as swimming, to the play park or to outdoor spaces where Little Proclaims could run around uninhibited.
Being a parent of two children, with a nearly 4-year age gap, has changed things a little, particularly since Mini Proclaims has become mobile. Keeping one child safe in a large outdoor space is very much within my skillset, but keeping two children safe, particularly when they operate at different speeds is more challenging.
And so in October 2023 I tentatively experimented with soft play. And I haven’t looked back. It’s not especially cheap, but as a way of entertaining and (crucially) exhausting my offspring, it really does provide a one-size-fits-all solution. Over the Christmas holidays, I took my daughters to our local soft-play centre no less than six times in a fortnight. And while I generally found it excruciatingly dull, neither Little nor Mini Proclaims showed any signs that they were becoming bored of the experience.
Post Christmas it has been harder to find the time, because I work during the week and Little Proclaims is not lacking in other activities on the weekends (see last week’s post for example). But this weekend we were away, in Eastbourne, celebrating a milestone birthday with our extended family. It was a fun-filled but fairly intense weekend – when Little Proclaims gets together with her cousins, a very real chaos ensues. Mini Proclaims rather does her own thing, but generally makes the most of being the centre of attention of her adoring relatives. By the time Sunday morning rolled around, a lot of energy had been expended, but it seemed like there was still plenty left in the tank. For the kids. The adults, to a person, while all in agreement that it had been a delightful weekend, were quite ready to return to normality and basque in pleasant memories.
It was felt that the young’uns could do with one last hurrah. A local soft-play centre was mooted. Along with extensive cushioned child-friendly fun it purported to offer a parent friendly cafe. And so to soft play we headed. And as far as that went, it was a success. All children burned off their post-party highs in an hour of brightly coloured foamy fun and accompanying adults enjoyed a much needed caffeine injection. But Eastbourne soft play was different to Reading soft play in that the car park was not free. This is perfectly reasonable. Our local Reading soft play is in a leisure centre with adequate parking and no other nearby attractions. Eastbourne soft play is on the sea front. It’s fairly customary to expect to pay for parking if you park along the sea front in a coastal town. And in fairness, the car park charges were pretty reasonable.
So far so good. I had no complaints.
Until I tried to pay for parking.
Because in 2024 I generally operate in a fairly ‘cashless’ existence. Most things can be paid for by card these days, and it’s generally more convenient to do so. I can even buy a coffee in work on my debit card and I work in a state-maintained secondary school, which are hardly institutions renowned for their cutting edge approach to anything.
Most car parks I use on a regular basis offer the facility to pay via credit or debit card. Indeed many offer a ‘contactless’ approach to such payments. But occasionally one does come across a car park which insists on payment using cash. And not just cash, in fact, but specifically coins. I never have coins on my person so this is always a problem. However, such places do often offer an alternative of sorts.
Which is the ‘parking app’.
I don’t mind an ‘app’. I was not exactly an early adopter of the smart phone but the technology has insinuated its way into my life over the years and now, like many people, I am a slave to my devices. But the parking app seems a fairly unnecessary invention. I wouldn’t object to the concept in itself, but as I am able to use a multitude of parking facilities without ever having to resort to the app, it’s hard to see it as anything other than an inconvenience. And when I do find myself needing to download a parking app, it never seems to be the same app. I’m all for open and fair competition in the market place but there seems to be a veritable plethora of companies operating in this field. Which generally means that when I do need to avail myself of their services, I find myself needing to set up a new account every time. Which makes the whole process rather time-consuming. Assuming I can even get a signal on my phone to download the app in the first place. Which I often can’t as the issue only ever seems to crop up in remote coastal towns where mobile phone signals are often a rare commodity.
Eastbourne, however, though coastal, did offer a fairly robust signal so I was able to download the app. And go through the lengthy process of setting up a new account. Only to find out (once I’d entered the ‘verification’ code that had to be sent to me in order to complete the set-up) that I apparently had used this app at least once in my life before and therefore was directed to log in to my existing account. I attempted to do this, guessing my previously used password far too easily (I am a fraudster’s dream when it comes to account passwords, if only I had an identity worth stealing). Once I’d entered my second verification code of the morning, it transpired that when I had last used the app I had done so with a different car. Which dates my last usage to over two years ago, but it could have been longer. Anyway the app did not like my current car’s registration number and so suggested that I could not proceed further but could, if I wished to pay for parking that day, delete my old account and set up a new one, much as I had attempted to do at the outset. A third attempt (and verification code) later, I finally had paid for parking. It was not, as advertised, a more convenient way of doing things. The whole process took ten minutes, which I think is at least nine minutes longer than it should take to pay for parking. It was cold. I had soft-play bound children with me who were not entirely understanding about why daddy was taking so long to get them inside to the joys of ball pits, slides and squishy things. And for the privilege of using the parking app, I also had to pay 30p more than if I’d had cash on my person.
I think it’s fair to say I was not an ‘appy customer.
This poemIs not that poem
It’s a different verseNeither better nor worseIt’s just not the sameAnd it doesn’t claimTo be that poem
To be exactIt is in factThis poem
Which is fineIt’s not a signOf things amissTo be thisAnd not thatOr a catOr a hatOr a bat
It’s this poemWhich is not that poem
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