gizblog

Bonfire Night

  Fireworks at Cubs 
  Originally uploaded by giz..

It's been very quiet round here, so I'm catching up a bit....

November 5th had all the right ingredients for bonfire night: a full moon, hot soup, an expectant crowd of 200 cubs, scouts and families, and half a dozen dads with crates of fireworks.

And two Canadians who didn''t quite understand why it's ok to be burning life size mannequins on the bonfire. Is it inconsistent to be against capital punishment but encourage your children to build a Guy, strap him to a chair at the top of the fire, and then cheer when he explodes?

They F**k you up!

I've just finished reading an unsettling but fascinating book from Oliver James, named after the Philip Larkin poem.

I don't know much about psychology, but his basic ideas seem well argued and plausible, but also very challenging. The most important influence on the way we develop is the parenting that we get from ages 0 to 6. Everything from our personalities, to our abilities, to our sexual orientation, to whether we get colic or suffer from schizophrenia: they're almost all nurture not nature.

One insight that I found particularly interesting: each child within a family has different parents, because parents relate to each child very differently. Which is why children within the same family can vary so much.

He also lays out how the childhoods of some real monsters can explain who they became. Mother Teresa was right: the most important thing most of us can do for world peace is to go home and love our children.

Whether you end up in agreement or not, new parents should read this book. I wish I had.

Longer elastic....

Our eldest son is off to camp today. Two weeks on remote Canadian lake, sharing adventures with a hundred other boys (including two cousins, one of whom is already having a brilliant time there). He'll thrive, I think, particularly as he's ready to do riskier and 'cooler' things than we'd do with him (however young we think we are), and he'll benefit from knocking around with peers his age and older, rather than his younger siblings.

But it'll be strange not having him around. And strange, too, that he's forging his own friendships and making his own choices. By the time we see him he'll hopefully be bouncing with news, and full of life long memories that we're not part of. And he'll have had the odd wobble with missing us, as we will with him. All part of gradually letting go, even from the age of eight.

Despite all the preparations, investigations and rationalisation over the last few months, there's still a risk that this is the wrong thing to do. I guess we'll know soon enough. And in the meantime we're cranking up a letter writing operation on both sides of the Atlantic....

UPDATE.
We've just had a letter, which must have been posted a couple of days after he arrived. Two phrases stand out: "I'm having an absolute blast, just like you said I would" and "Everyone loves my accent"!

Blue Peter Prom

  IMG_4366 
  Originally uploaded by giz..

A busy weekend which started with a trip to the Blue Peter prom.

Classic BBC stuff: hooks for kids to enjoy and remember (Roald Dahl, Wallace and Grommit, and a mass participation Jungle Book), with some challenges thrown in (Shostakovich and Mozart), and the new Blue Peter theme tune played with dozens of competition winners. Next time we'll bring flags for Land of Hope and Glory.

Lots of very similar, slightly worthy, families there trying to give their kids a taste of classical music. I don't think I started enjoying, and understanding, concerts until my early teens. So I'm not too surprised that the highlight for my two was seeing Matt and Zoe in jungle gear.

Santa's Screwed

Sam asked me today why I curse Chelsea Tractors when I see them driving around. I gave a surprisingly measured response about their ridiculousness in narrow streets, how most people don't need their 4*4'ness, and how they're more likely to kill pedestrians. In other words, that Ken Livingstone was right.

It led on to a conversation about global warming. I asked him what would happen if the North Pole melted. He replied immediately: "Well I suppose that Father Christmas would be in trouble".

Who's lobbying for Santa and Rudolph?

Cologne Adventure

  The Fan Park in Cologne 
  Originally uploaded by giz..

Dozens of great memories from an epic trip to the World Cup.

I was lucky to get tickets, through work, and was able to organise a trip which included Sam.  It was the first England game for both of us. Highlights included being with a Scot, in full kilt, and an England shirt with the graffiti "Shh...dinna tell my granny". And the hot, colourful, crowded, boozy but happy crowds in the narrow streets of Cologne. It wasn't a great game (despite Joe Cole's great goal, and the chants of "He's big, he's big, he's very very big...Peter Crouch"). But it was a great trip. More photos here. 

Michael Morpurgo

  Michael Morpugo Salisbury Festival 
  Originally uploaded by giz..
A weird picture, but I like the colors...

We went to a reading event with Michael Morpurgo in Salisbury. There had been a real effort made to get hundreds of children reading as part of the Festival. Lots of them were there, and had written their own stories for him, and were accompanied by middle class parents most of whom were benignly competitive.

An uplifting talk about how he'd found his vocation as a writer through telling stories to his primary school class.

But the anecdote which caught my imagination was related to his next book: Alone on a Wide Wide Sea. An old friend of his from Australia had been sailing the Pacific, and watching the stars. He emailed his base about an odd light he saw, which turned out to be the international space station. He then contacted NASA who put him in email contact with the astronauts overhead.

That's astonishing, and wonderful, but perhaps only for wide-eyed parents. The kids thought it was unremarkable (or maybe they were just hot and bored). I guess I'm more of a Dad than I think I am.

Elephant in Picadilly

  098 Now It's Time To Head For Trafalgar Square 
  Originally uploaded by Cadigan.

This is by far the best photo of The Sultan's Elephant that I've seen. An epic, whimsical sight at a familiar landmark, surrounded by people who are enjoying the spectacle.

What an event....as the organiser  said it was a chance to dream. Although probably grown ups more than children. Ours are still young enough to believe that an 80 foot elephant wandering around London with a puppet girl is entirely possible. But we had tears in our eyes.

Lloyd had the snappiest description: Mad Max meets Pinocchio. It was both the scale and the attention to detail that amazed me: huge blokes in velvet frock coats pulling the ropes, enormous robotics powering leather, wood and silk, and the delicacy of the girl having her socks changed, or her hair combed, when she stopped for a rest. Wonderful.

Loads more photos on Flickr Let's hope that London has the confidence to keep on doing events like this. A great day, and memories for life.

And I've just found some video of the first day which gives you some idea of what it was like...