Room 101

I used to quite like Room 101 when Paul Merton presented it. That’s because he’s really flippant and sarcastic, like me. Paul Merton definitely wouldn’t be in my Room 101, apart from that time he did that programme about China, because that was a bit rubbish.

Anyhoo, now they’ve changed the format of the programme so that it’s some kind of competition. Three celebrities(ish) plead their case for each of a few things and Frank Skinner decides which of them gets their things shoved in the Room of Doom.

If I went on the programme (which I will, obviously, once I’m a (sort of) celebrity) I’d choose Frank Skinner as my thing to put in the room. Every time.

Still, the bastardised version of Room 101 being peddled by the BBC isn’t really in keeping with Orwell’s original idea; a sort of torture therapy designed to break your resistance to the suggestion that you should submit to the totalitarian state in the novel 1984.

This meme I’ve been tagged in, by Body Pump addict Lara from over here and here, wants me to tell you what would be in my Room 101. I'll be honest, I've struggled with this. There is so much in the world which fills me with rage, or upsets me, or causes me to think that humans are a hopeless cause, that I could fill Room 101 and then spill into rooms 102, 103 and 104.

So I've decided I'll be flippant and sarcastic in my answers, because I don't want it to get too heavy...

1.  Stubbing your toe - you know that moment, when you misjudge a step, or don't see something in the way of your foot, and smash your big toe into it? When suddenly it seems the force you are able to exert on an object via your toe is practically infinite? When you scatter expletives like the seeds of a dandelion clock, filling the air with phrases which would have your grandmother reaching for a bar of soap to ram into your mouth? That. That can go in Room 101. 

2.  Football pundits - Imagine being locked in a room where everyone was a football pundit. A room where everyone said "good" when they meant "well", as well as other assorted linguistic nightmares. I don't like football, and I really struggle with people wot don't talk good. So, Room 101 for you.

3.  Food waste recycling bins - Harbourers of maggots, reservoirs of juices from the decomposing cells of unwanted foodstuffs, a constant reminder of how bad we are at not wasting things. Food waste recycling bins are horrible things. Also, they smell bad.

Now, since I'm already prattling on, how about my personal hell. My Room 101 as Orwell intended? It's small. A ten foot square box. The walls are smooth and unadorned. The floor and ceiling are the same. It's just me, and no-one else. Nothing else. It's light, but there's no visible source. It is silent, odourless, textureless and deeply, deeply boring. If I lick the walls they don't taste of anything. What could be worse, mentally, than a room full of nothing? That's my idea of Room 101.

Thanks for reading, and if you'd like me to tag you to take part, let me know and I'll happily oblige (unless I've just stubbed my toe).

Olympic

London, a hot summer day. Hoards of people, raucous and excited. Shouting, cheering, running. Lots and lots of athletic clothing. A feeling of a community pulling together in a shared experience. Some spectacular prizes for the most successful participants. A televised spectacle watched by millions.

Yes, the riots last summer were pretty awesome. But enough about them.

This year, the world's top athletes will converge on the British capital and do some sport stuff. I'm quite looking forward to it. 

There is, of course, a meme about it, and that well known tagger of people in memes @Motherventing has tagged me to take part. She also called me irresistably manly, which is weird, because we've met so she knows that's not true.

The meme has questions on an Olympic theme, here they are, along with my answers:

If everyday tasks were Olympic events, what would you get gold medal in?

I don't know that it's a task as such, but Mrs L reckons I am very good at making crumbs. So, that. I'm also pretty shit-hot at buggy pushing these days.

As a child (or even now) did you excel at a particular sport and if so, which one? 

I used to be reasonably handy at triple jumping. Until I went and competed at a regional athletics meet and found out that I was actually completely rubbish at it. I pretty much gave up on being good at anything there and then.

Michael Phelps (a swimmer) or Michael Johnson (a runner): which sport appeals to you more? 

I hate swimming. I can't co-ordinate my arms and legs into anything resembling a stroke, and my brain won't let me breathe out while my face is underwater. So I sort of look like I'm drowning most of the time.

I don't like watching people being good at swimming, because it just serves to remind me how bad I am at it.

I don't like running. But I have had to run to catch buses on occasion. So I can identify with it a bit more. 

How fast can you get out of bed and ready to go out of the door if you miss the alarm and sleep in? 

Faster than Usain Bolt. Seriously. But I never need to, thank goodness for flexitime.

What fantasy sport would you like to see made into an Olympic event?

Fantasy sport? Like competitive threesomes or something? Is that what you mean? I'm not sure, I'll have to read 50 Shades of Grey and get back to you. I can see there being issues with televising it.

Claim to fame time: have you ever met an Olympian and who was it? 

Yes. Three actually. Two whose names I can't remember, possibly one of them was Roger Black, and one called Oli Beckingsale who does mountain biking and comes from the same town as me.

What event in past Olympics can you remember most vividly?

During the 1988 Olympics my infant school had us all keeping tabs on the Olympics in Seoul. I drew a picture of Ben Johnson winning the 100m sprint in record breaking fashion. I actually found it really exciting at the time and briefly wanted to be a sprinter. Ben Johnson SMASHED MY DREAMS by using drugs. Prick. Also, it meant my teacher defacing my picture with red pen: "BEN JOHNSON LATER HAD HIS MEDAL TAKEN AWAY FOR USING DRUGS"

Tuning in at home, or tickets clamped ready in sweaty palms?

I'll be at work, so neither. I expect I'll watch the basketball if I can find it on iPlayer.

Who do you think most deserves a gold medal (any walk of life, not just Olympians)? 

Oh I dunno. There's a lot of people out there putting up with a lot of shit all day every day. Would a gold medal make any difference to them? Probably not.

I'm going to be all non-committal and say everyone deserves one. Which is the same as saying no-one does.

There we go then. Sorry if it's horribly evident that I've written this with a bit of a hangover and while my baby is screaming his face off six feet away. By way of an apology (and in tribute to MoVo) I'm not going to tag anyone else to take part.

But, y'know, if you WANT to, just go ahead and do it, I'm sure no-one will be around to tell you off.

#ISpy: I Spy with my little eye, something beginning with R

A strange feeling of deja vu came over me when I was told that this week's I Spy was the letter R. I'm not quite sure why...

Anyway, I'm going to make it dead simple this week. This is a photo I took to go in a frame in The Creature's room:

If you can't see the R in there, I fear there is no hope for you.

Click the multicoloured badge below to visit @jbmumofone and see more R-rated (not like that) pictures

Memeology - The Ten Things I Tell Myself Every Day

This meme's not been around for very long, it comes from @angoewright78's lovely blog mumofthreeboys and I was tagged by @mummyglitzer who you can find over at Mummyglitzer.  

I suppose I'm coming at this from a bit of a different angle to the other examples I've read, firstly because I'm a man, and secondly because I don't have my baby yet!  Hopefully that will make it interesting in a different way to others I've seen, I'm sure some of you will remember feeling some of these before your littl'uns made their debut.

Here we go then:

1.  That no matter how early 6:45am feels now, I must cherish it; soon it will be a lie-in.

2.  That one day I will find the job that I want to keep doing, and doing well.

3.  That I can and will cope with whatever fatherhood throws at me.

4.  That my continuing addiction to RIDICULOUS and TIME CONSUMING games on Facebook must come to an end.

5.  That, although I'm about to gain a massive amount of responsibility, I'll still going to find a way to do some of the things I like doing.

6.  That I will do everything I can to help Mrs L do the same.

7.  That the risk of the Terminator films coming true really is rather minimal (but we SHOULD still be wary...)

8.  That I could lose loads of weight if I really had to, but that cheese isn't going to eat itself.

9.  That I will be a good dad.

10.  That I WILL be a good dad.

I probably could have put that last point for every one of these, but that wouldn't have been very good would it?

Now, with the usual disclaimer (no obligation, I know it's a hassle, etc etc.) I now tag a few other dads whose own tellings I would like to read:

@theJdaddy

@slightlysubdad

@SAHDandproud

@_firsttimedaddy

@TomBriggs79 (though I appreciate this may be far from his list of priorities just now, congrats on the new arrival!)

If anyone else has done it already, and wants to point me in the direction of their answers, I'll pop along and read them!

Memeology - Versatile Liebster

One of the rather fun things about this blogging game is all the nice meme-y things that are floating around.  I'm always dead pleased when I get tagged in one, because it means at least one person has noticed I'm writing stuff.  When there's a whole internet of stuff to read, I'm regularly astounded that there are people reading my bit of it.

Massive thanks are therefore in order, to the lovely and photographically talented @HPMcQ - If you like pretty photographs and nicely crafted words I suggest you pay her blog a visit, it's ace - she has tagged me with not one, but TWO of the aforementioned memes.  Generosity, thy name is @HPMcQ!

First up; the Versatile Blogger Award.

Versatile blogger rules:

1. Thank the blogger who has awarded you and link back to them – done!

2. Share seven things about yourself – should be easy, thankfully it doesn't stipulate that they should be interesting.

3. Pass the award along to 15 other newly discovered blogs - erm, yeah, I'm grateful and everything, but FIFTEEN?  Come on now.  I'll think of some and add them at the bottom. 

SEVEN THINGS ABOUT ME:

1.  I have seven bikes in my garage.  Five of them are mine.  I love them all.

2.  I am a basketball player, despite not being freakishly tall, particularly fit, or being American.

3. I am a ridiculous perfectionist when it comes to making sandwiches.  Almost everything else I do is slapdash.

4.  I once beat someone at Streetfighter 2 using my feet to control the game.  Also I was very drunk.

5.  I still live in the town I was born in, and in which my family can be traced back over three hundred years.

6.  I am finding this harder than it ought to be, because it's late and I should be in bed.

7.  I have an uncle who is a catwalk make-up artist.  That's not really about me is it?  Well, it'll have to do.

Next!

The Liebster Award, which looks like this: 

The liebster award rules:

1. Thank your liebster blog award presenter on your blog – Yep. 

2. Link back to the blogger who awarded you - Yep.

3. Copy & paste the award onto your blog - Yep.

4. Nominate 5 blogs to receive the award – That's more reasonable.  Five I can do.

5. Inform them of their nomination – never fear, I shall.

Okay then, just the nice bit now, wherein I big up some other bloggers:

@mummyglitzer - she's applying for jobs, which is boring, so now she can have a break.

@alwaysamummy - she's not even twenty-one yet.  Makes me sick.  Youth, honestly.

@_firsttimedaddy - because he is always telling me I'm funny, and the ASW in me laps that shit up.

@bishopstonmum - she's a new blogger, like me.  New bloggers need love.

@mcmurphycuckoo - she's even newer, a couple of days of blogging under her belt.

Memeology - My Birthday Meme - 14th July

Last time I did a meme I got more visitors to my blog in a day than I ever had before.  It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like an inverted teddy bear which had been microwaved for a bit.  So, when I saw that I had been tagged in another one by Mr @SAHDandproud my heart fair jumped for joy at the prospect.  It’s quite obvious I’m still new to this blogging lark isn’t it?

So here’s the basis of this meme:  Kate, of The Five Fs Blog, is compiling a list of birthday related information for each day of the year.  This is dead good, because not only do I not have to think of a topic for a proper post but I also get to learn stuff about what happened on days.

I’ve known of one event that had the audacity to be on the same day as my birth for some time.  But now, thanks to my in depth and time consuming research* I have learnt that the day of my birth has, historically, been quite eventful.  Without further ado then, I present to you “The My Birthday Meme”:

When is your birthday?

I made my earthly debut on the 14^th of July 1982. 

Pick three people who share your birthday and share what you know about them.

Former US President Gerald Ford (1913) – The only US president to achieve his place in office without being elected, he replaced Richard Nixon (who was ahead of the phone hacking curve, should have been a NOTW reporter) and subsequently didn’t do anything all that noteworthy.

Billy McCool (1944) – I have included Billy McCool because of his name.  He definitely has the best name of anyone born on the same day as me.  Had he been a good example of nominative determinism he could have been as awesome as James Dean (or a refrigerator salesman).  But actually, he was a fairly mediocre baseball player.  What a wasted opportunity.

David Mitchell (1974) – English comedian and writer of funny columns in the Observer.  Star of popular sitcom Peep Show, as well as numerous other lol-worthy productions.  David is half Welsh, has a hairstyle disconcertingly close to Hitler’s and currently sports a beard which is a little bit dodgier than mine.

Is anyone listed as being born on the same day as you (ie the same year). If so, what do you know about them?

Outrageously, yes.  Dmitry Chaplin, a Russian born American dancer.  He was a finalist in “So You Think You Can Dance”.  Does this explain why I can’t dance?  Did Dmitry get all the dance skills that day?  Perhaps.

List three people who died on your birthday and tell us what you know about them?

Billy the Kid (1881) – A frontier outlaw in America’s “Old West”.  He killed people, somewhere between four and twenty-six depending on who you believe, and was killed himself after a bounty of $500 was placed on his head. 

Richard McDonald (1998) – Co-founder of the McDonald’s fast food empire, purveyors of dirty cardboard burgers which aren’t very nice but do a good job of dissipating a raging hangover.  Didn’t die sat on a toilet eating a Big Mac.

Octave Lapize (1917) – French cyclist from the days when cyclists were proper hardcore, not espresso sipping, leg shaving, EPO doping prima donnas.  Won the Tour de France in 1910, on a bike with one gear and racing on unsealed roads.  Accused some of the tour officials of being murderers while doing battle with the Col du Tourmalet, though in fact he actually died seven years later after being shot down while he was a fighter pilot in WW1.

List three notable events that took place on your birthday.

1789 – The rising of the French proletariat!  Storming of the Bastille in Paris is the flashpoint for the French Revolution.  They were mostly after gunpowder to put in their muskets, but I expect the seven prisoners held there were pretty pleased.  France is now well known for making tasty cheese and wine, and for that we should all be glad.

1933 – The Nazi Party passes a law which makes all other political parties illegal.  No flippant remarks on this one, as we all know what this (and other things) led to.

1965 – Mariner 4, an American space probe, takes the first close up photographs of another planet in the solar system.  Largely dispelling the idea of life on Mars, which probably made a lot of people sad.  Still, pretty cool.

Tell us about a holiday that falls on your birthday.

It’s a flag day in Sweden, what with it being the birthday of  Victoria, the Crown Princess of that fair nation.  How nice.  Maybe I’ll move there so I can have the day off.

There we go, meme memed.  It just remains for me to tag five fortunates to further the fun.  Here they are:

@_firsttimedaddy – because revenge is a dish best served via the medium of meme ;-)

@mycuntrymanor – because I have no doubt she will just tell me to fuck off and I respect her candour.

@thecrumbymummy – because she put the theme song to the Poddington Peas in my head yesterday with this blog post and…oh, dear, this is revenge again isn’t it?  Seriously though, lovely bloggage over there, you should read it.

@bodfortea – because I didn’t tag her in the other meme and then felt bad about it.  Which is probably the direct opposite of how she felt about it. 

@OneDad3Girls – he took a picture of a tiger which made me smile.  Also I think he’s just tagged me in something…

*Looking on Wikipedia for a bit.

Memeology - 11 Questions for 11 "Lucky" People

Ooh, check it out, my first meme!  @_firsttimedaddy has tagged me, so here goes.

First off, the rules:

• You must post these rules.
• Each person must post 11 things about him/herself on their blog.
• Answer the questions the “tagger” listed for you in her post, and create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
• Choose 11 people to tag and link to them in the post.
• Let each blogger know that you have tagged them

The 11 questions are....

1. If you were to have a meal with 3 other people alive or dead, who would it be. (Anybody famous or not) - I'm actually answering this one last, it's really difficult.  Subject to change - Margaret Atwood, Tim Minchin and Bill Bailey.
2. If you could have chosen your name, what would it have been and why? - It's really boring to say it, but I've always liked my name, so I think I'll keep it.  No, wait: Xavier.  Because it's cool, and will suit me even more when I finish going bald.
3. If you could make one return trip in a time machine, where would you go and why? - It would be AMAZING to go back and see dinosaurs, or massive battles, or whether all that Jesus lark happened, or something else in the past.  But if I only get one, I'll go for today's date 2082 please, to see how my boy's getting on and whether I've ended up with grandkids/great-grandkids that I don't (won't?) know about.
4. If you were a darts player, what would be your nickname? - Something to do with how badly I suck at darts I should imagine.
5. If it became possible to live in space and travel to any planet in a matter of hours. Where would you live? - Earth, because it'll probably be quite nice once everyone else has fucked off elsewhere.
6. If you could make any film storyline true, which would it be. - Films I like are often rather dystopian, and I'm not sure that's the kind of thing I should want coming true.  So... How about Amelie, that's nice.
7. If a film was made of you life, what would it be called and who would star as you? - Average Joe: A Tale of Normality starring Jason Lee
8. If you won the lottery (Lets say £50 million), whats the FIRST thing you buy? - First would probably be something really mundane, like I'd realise I needed petrol for the car to go and inspect the island I'm planning to buy.  But that's probably not what you're after, and the first BIG thing I'd buy would be a mahoosive party for all my favourite people.  That's still not one thing.  Damn.
9. What would be you super power of choice? - I'll just be Wolverine please.  *Snicksnicksnoin*
10. Which animal would you be and why? - A Peregrine Falcon; fast, flying, cool.
11. What did you want to be when you were 7, 13 and 16? - 7: a Dalek, 13: professional mountain biker, 16: Journalist (failed on all three, I rule!)

Well, I quite enjoyed that, but I suppose it was my first time.  Losing my meme virginity has been largely pleasurable.  Here are my questions:


1.  What is your favourite language?
2.  If you had to leave your house, right now, and never return, what three things would you take with you?
3.  Do you have a particularly amazing skill which makes you superawesome?  What is it please?
4.  If you could be any age, but had to be that age forever, what age would you choose and why?
5.  Do you love TK Maxx, or think it's full of last season's unsold shit?
6.  What is the most impressive gymnastic feat you are capable of (and I'll just take your word for it, no evidence required)?
7.  Whose books do you wish you'd written?
8.  If there's an aeroplane on a conveyor belt and it tries to take off, do you think that will work?
9.  Honestly, have you at any point during this ordeal thought "fuck it, I'd rather be eating [snack of choice]" but then felt guilty and carried on?
10.  Pints or shots?
11.  Better to be too hot, or too cold?


I'll be honest, I don't expect anyone to entertain the notion of completing this, but here are the eleven people whose answers I would genuinely find interesting, if they can be bothered:


@MinistryofMum
@SunnivaAnne
@Rachellwilliams
@TomBriggs79
@thefooltweets
@SAHDandproud
@motherventing
@Expatmammy
@TheBoyandMe
@mummyglitzer
@tricky_customer


Wow, I'm going to feel like a right nuisance when I tweet all you lot...