Category Archives: Humour

Feb 26 2016

Room 101 - Kids TV that’ll make your ears bleed

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Being a lazy parent, children’s television is an essential part of my children’s day. I do ensure they get a thrice daily airing in rural suburbia, and there are regular breaks to scoff grapes & crudely-made sandwiches or blunt a felt tip into some some coloured card, but other than that, television is my savior.

I try to keep their schedule varied. Team Umizoomi, Mister Maker’s Arty Party and the Twirlywoos are all fab for teaching your child about perspective, numeracy and the like, but there are some real no-nos as far as children’s television goes…

Bing Bunny

Bing-Bunny

Flop and his whiny protege Bing are part of the daily CBeebies line-up, and nothing brings me closer to dunking my face into a burning vat of oil. Lasting a torturous 15 minutes ish, our darlings are treated to two consecutive stories from this most dysfunctional duo, twice daily.

The premise? Bing is a preschool bunny who has some sort of delayed speech thing going on, and therefore speaks with the cadence and limited vocabulary of an 18 month old. Flop, his creepy minder, is some sort of alien / dog hybrid and obviously no relation. In fact, this whole disproportionate child to “adult” size thing is a common theme throughout the show. Yet the two appear to live together with Bing having a bed in his flat.

Anyhow, Flop & Bing explore a new theme each episode. It’s guaranteed that Bing will either cry, diva strop or moan throughout the programme, and Flop will calmly nanny him into submission. Perhaps it irritates me so much as Flop’s clearly got this parenting thing nailed. There’s no naughty step, shouting, or even any admonishment on Flop’s part, rather Bing just accepts he’s being a little s*it and the programme rolls on to its saccharine conclusion.

At the end of each episode, Bing will sum up his decidedly boring day in an epilogue to camera. Flop always has the last word though, like all abusers. He’ll helpfully interrupt his bunny friend stating “Going to the toilet… It’s a Bing thing”, “Eating… It’s a Bing thing”, “Burping… It’s a Bing thing”… {Insert any mundane daily activity}… except of course, these aren’t Bing things at all, are they? They’re normal everyday occurrences.

Bore off Bing Bunny.

Max and Ruby

Max & Ruby

Don’t have Netlfix? Lucky you. Sadly my son is obsessed with this brother and sister coupling.

This time we have Ruby (unspecified age, but clearly under 14) as the apparent sole carer of mute preschooler, Max. Granny does put in the odd appearance but I’m sensing some sort of mental illness on her part. To be fair to Ruby, she does appear to have an endless supply of pocket money she spends responsibly on everyday essentials, but the thought of these two wandering about unchaperoned is enough to make me want to call social services.

The most irritating thing about these two? Well other than the fact Max is a sinister little thing with his evil winks to camera, Ruby is the real threat to your sanity. Her voice will set your teeth on edge and she’s a bossy cow too. No wonder Max challenges her authority, life under totalitarian Ruby would be enough to coax anarchic tendencies out of the most coolheaded youngster.

Old Jack’s Boat

SaltyDog

I *almost* feel bad about putting this one on the list, I mean poor Old Jack isn’t likely to score another gig if this venture gets taken off air, but my God it’s irritating.

In this case we have Old Jack - a man living seemingly hand-to-mouth, poaching cupcakes, ice-creams and other wares for himself and his mangy mutt. He appears to have taken seaside living to the extreme, and lives on a cluttered “boat” - gutted out to accommodate his hoarding problem.

Elsewhere, we have a demented old bat who runs a stall by the harbour (despite us not ever seeing a paying customer) and a cake shop owner / prostitute / mermaid (yep!) / walking ad for Wonderbra who’ll coquettishly wink and flirt at your youngster as she fusses over the down-and-out Old Jack.

Each episode he’ll regale us with some made-up nonsense about his dog. These tall tales are helpfully animated so Salty Dog can hold his breath underwater to have an adventure with sharks, crabs and other sealife pertinent to his story. It’s testament to how naff this is, that it’s then your child is most likely thrust the TiVo remote in your face.

Most people explore the world in retirement, or else become a cantankerous nuisance in their children’s/grandchildren’s lives. Personally, I think Old Jack needs to volunteer at Battersea, or find a family willing to adopt him. It’s very sad watching some old soul being humoured by oddballs within his community.

Any more to add? Leave me a comment and I’ll check it out.

Jan 27 2016

7 sure-fire signs that you’re sleep deprived

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Heidi is a nightmare with her sleeping. A complicated mix of night terrors, separation anxiety and plain old tantrums mean we’re often up with her every two hours in the night. Sometimes we can placate her with a bottle, a quick stroke of her hair, or a rendition of In the Night Garden that would make most human ears bleed. However, more often than not, we’re met with persistent screaming and thrashing that can really test your patience at 2am, 3am, 4am…

bed

Owing to a tickly cough, recently this has become even more unbearable. Despite giving her our combined body weight in pillows to raise her head, applying generous scoops of vaporub to her feet and burning concoctions of lavender, lemon and peppermint all night - this bloody cough won’t budge. Worst still, it often gets the better of her and she vomits all over herself, her bedclothes and, you guessed it, us. Last night alone, we had to give her two emergency baths in the dead of the night to wash half-digested fish and chips out of her hair and eyebrows.

It shouldn’t come as any big surprise then that I’m sleep-deprived. Yet aside from the inevitable nodding off mid meal and bad temper, I’m now questioning my sanity.

I fed the cat Heidi’s bottle

Yep, I recently left a crying baby on the rug in the middle of the floor, fetched a bottle from the kitchen and proceeded to shove the teat of the bottle into the cat’s mouth rather than Heidi’s. Needless to say the cat was traumatised and Heidi was even more put out.

Milk & blackcurrant squash anyone?

Most of us that sleepwalk throughout the day will have experienced frustrations making up bottles. We all know that formula feeding requires a basic sense of mathematics, adding x scoops to x pre-boiled water for example. It’s therefore entirely logical that a sleep-derived mum will forget the number of scoops she’s added to the bottle as she’s doing it. She’ll then be forced to throw away said bottle and waste an entire 250ml of pre-prepared water. Sounds like a minor problem, but when you’re frantically boiling more water at 4am it’s enough to force several new grey hairs from your scalp.

When your baby switches to cow’s milk, you’d think this would be the end of wasted mixes. However, I’ve recently proved this is not the case, having made (and actually fed) my child curdled concoctions of blackcurrant squash and milk in a sleep-deprived haze.

SleepingKids

There’s my mum, dad, my brother… (… shit, what’s his name again?)

A hedonistic youth has already seen large swathes of my grey matter turn to mush, so toss in some sleepless nights and my memory is verging on Alzheimer territory. I forget family member’s names, put baby wipes in the fridge and leave taps running frequently.

I invite in Jehovah’s Witnesses to keep me awake

This extends to gasmen, postmen, windows & door salesmen. This despite the fact I’m a stanch atheist, couldn’t tell you where my gas meter is and live in private rented accommodation so have no say whatsoever on major renovations.

Let’s be clear from the start, I respect everyone’s decision to worship any deity of their choosing. I just quite like the thought of nothingness after the stress of life and am totally not bothered whether I receive riches in death. The thing is, you invite a Jehovah’s Witness in, and they’ll pop you on a register somewhere for frequent intervention. Don’t get me wrong, the people that come to see me really are very lovely people, but I struggle to hold a conversation with Craig about Eastenders, yet alone follow any of their guidance on my supposedly hell-bound soul. Poor Craig is forever coming home and finding Watchtower magazines shoved down the sides of the sofa where I’m too shattered to think of a cleverer hiding place.

Stick and stones may break my bones

So it’s all been lighthearted so far right? No harm done. Funny even.

However, there is a more serious side to sleep-deprivation and that is the very real danger you pose to yourself. Fortunately I don’t drive or operate heavy machinery in my day to day life. I’m also crap in the kitchen so have little cause to handle knives. This hasn’t stopped me tripping over toys, children and my own feet however and I’m now nursing my third ankle fracture in 6 months.

The tears. Oh the tears

I cry at everything!

You might think this is entirely normal for a frazzled mum. When Hero has to say goodbye to Baymax, it’s a really big deal for most of us, right?

Yet when you’re literally sobbing for half an hour as the music in the new Activia yoghurt advert somehow communicates with your tear ducts, you know you have a sleep-derivation problem.

You showcase some seriously questionable parenting skills

When you’re tired even reaching for the tv remote requires careful deliberation. Yes, the episode of Teen Mom you were watching on TiVo might have ended and the television might have switched back to terrestrial telly and a headache-inducing episode of Bargain Hunt, but it’s so much effort to get up and search for a remote that your children have no doubt found a creative hiding place for.

In fact, getting off the sofa to do anything whatsoever is hard work. You can see you daughter’s nappy bulging, but can’t smell faeces - that’s got to be a 5 minute reprieve, right? You can see your son rummaging through your handbag and getting overexcited by the black pencil in your make-up bag, but until he actually marks your wall, it’s okay right? You get the picture.

Bad parent? Oh most definitely. Excusable? Let me grab five minutes sleep and come back to you on this one - I’m too tired to remember what I’ve just admitted to…

Sep 20 2015

My greatest schoolgirl errors

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LV

I was actually a bright pupil - voted “most likely to succeed” and achieved pretty much straight As throughout secondary school (I know right… what happened?). For 4 years I also dated the most popular guy in school and was *probably* the envy of most of my classmates. Yet as cool as I thought I was, looking back I made some monumental schoolgirl errors - all whilst sporting a skirt that barely covered my bum, lips coated in Rimmel’s Heather Shimmer and dangerously overplucked eyebrows.

With Dex now one step closer to entering the acne-ridden world of school himself, I’ve been reliving some of my most mortifying school memories. Sit back and get ready to cringe…

The remote control incident

Nothing made you happier as 90s schoolkid than walking into a classroom and seeing that one of these monstrosities had been wheeled in:

classtv

Yep, the TV and VCR combo meant an easy lesson and a distracted teacher for at least an hour. It didn’t matter if we were being played a BBC production of Romeo & Juliet or a documentary on China’s one-child policy - TV lessons were just about the coolest things to happen to you at school.

Being the rebel I was, upon discovering the school had the same model VCR as we did at home, I pinched my parent’s remote control in what was to be perhaps the most long-awaited prank in school history. I was to wait until the next time our teacher was sporting a hangover and needed a darkened classroom full of silent children and technology to do her job for her.

After months of waiting, finally my moment came and Miss Mercer informed us we’d be watching a documentary on where babies come from. Before pressing play she went to great lengths to tell us that she wouldn’t tolerate any giggling and we were to wait until the end to ask questions. Perfect time to whip out the remote!

The video was full of the usual drivel adults feed you about sex - “When a man and woman love each other very much” etc - but there was a cartoon of a couple copulating under the bedsheets that was probably the most risque thing we’d been exposed to at aged 11. As this bit inevitably got the most giggles, it was this bit I rewound and replayed… over and over again.

Every time, Miss Mercer would get up, eject the cassette and give it a shake before putting it back on again. The video would resume playing and I’d rewind right on back to the sexy bit. The same dance went on for some 10 glorious minutes and I gained some serious admiration from my mates. I’d have totally got away with it too, had it not been for one child who proceeded to grass me up after an argument over boyfriends one lunch-time.

A letter home and 2 weeks of detentions for that little stunt.

Lost in translation

I clench a little every time I think of this.

At school, you understand, your vocabulary swells and inflates quickly. You end up using these words either eloquently or apathetically for the rest of your life - let’s face it many of us have winced over a colleague’s improper use of their, they’re or there. Yet fortunately for me, English was one of my stronger subjects, and good grades came easily enough. Essays on Return of the Native or King Lear were laden with commentary on catharsis, pathetic-fallacy and nods to the socio-economic context in which they were written. In short, I knew my stuff.

Yet for all the grandiose words Mrs Archer taught us, I was also learning new words from my classmates - the sort you’re more likely to hear from me today (and the sort I seriously hope my own kids use a little less publicly).

Me

So one day, when outrageously flirting with my maths teacher (despite his New Balance trainers, he rode a motorbike which elevated him to James Dean-like status) in front of the entire class I playfully hit him with the C Bomb. I remember clearly his eyebrows narrowed and his whole demeanor changed.

In fairness, I hadn’t actually meant to disgrace myself or insult him. In my mind, cu$t was playful, inoffensive and U-rated, like prat. When it was obvious to him that the severity of what I had said was lost on me, he asked me to both repeat it and tell the class what it meant. After stumbling my way through a pretty ineffectual explanation, he proceeded to tell me its more anatomical meaning. It seemed I’d effectively called the sexiest teacher in school a walking vagina.

I might have hoped that his anger would dilute down to bemusement, but it didn’t. I got a week’s worth of detentions for that one.

A first kiss made public

Despite being pretty popular, my first proper kiss came later for me than it did for most of mates. Not that they knew this of course. If you had asked them back then, they’d have told you I’d been snogging my hot slightly older neighbour for years. In fact, I was so into this make-believe boyfriend, it gave me the perfect excuse to avoid Spin the Bottle with my classmates.

By aged 12 though, after having a few sips of some lager a group of us had stolen from our dads, curiosity got the better of me. Early evening we crawled under my garden fence and onto our school field. There were real advantages to living so close to school as football pitches were marked out all year round and the teachers generally overlooked us using it if we didn’t leave litter.

maxresdefault

And so, sitting in the middle of a tennis pitch of Little Heath Secondary School, an empty bottle of Budweiser decided who I was share my first French kiss with. Wonderfully, it was to be Aaron, a shy but beautiful-looking boy that I’d written the odd poem about in my diary that summer- despite my nerves I leaned in and let him take the lead. What followed was your typical sloppy, mechanical and somewhat frightening first kiss we all end up having at some point in our teens - but to me it was perfect.

So perfect in fact, you might have thought I’d been delighted to discover it had actually been captured, for prosperity’s sake, by the school’s new CCTV system. It seemed our school might have turned a blind eye to children playing the odd game of 5-a-side on school property after the bell had gone, but they weren’t so amenable to drinking on school premises and lewd behaviour.

Some 7 of us were then invited into our Head of Year’s office and had the embarrassing job of assuring her we were only kissing and weren’t regularly exploring each others bodies behind the bike sheds. We might have managed to convince her that she was not going to have to deal with any teen pregnancies that summer, but she wasn’t willing to let us get away with the fact our choice of refreshment that evening had come in 440ml cans. Letters duly went home to our parents and most of us got grounded for a good few weeks.

So there it is - my three most abiding school memories. Technology, bad language and sex - all re-imagined for an adult audience. Come on then, dare you to tell me yours…

This is my entry into the #LVSchoolboyErrors comp via LV=

 

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