Apparently Yorkshire is getting broadband. They’ll be getting electricity next…

Fed up of receiving stupid emails from stupid people who MUST forward any chain email they receive? Just send them back this flash animation. You never know, they might just get the message.

Billy is learning words at a seemingly incredible speed - so much so that he appears to pick up what you are saying subconsciously and will then use the phrase himself later.
This can be a problem.
He overheard Paula dropping something on her foot - and now everytime something bad happens to him he mutters “Oh balls” under his breath. We were in B&Q at the weekend and Billy had been ‘altering’ the front wheel on Annies 3-wheeler pram. As I lifted it up off the ground the wheel went rolling off into the paint section - speedily followed by Billy shouting “…oh balls, come here silly wheel, oh balls”.
I’m only glad he didn’t overhear me, as I think the language would be a bit stronger.

Derren Brown plays Russian Roulette live! On October 26 world television history will be made. Derren Brown will play Russian Roulette live on Channel 4. He will pull the trigger. Who will load the gun? For your chance to be that person visit the Russian Roulette website

[Via Derren Brown]

The weekend was hot. Damn hot. In fact it was record breakingly hot as temperatures reached 38.1C (100.6F). The kids found it difficult to sleep, and so did we. So we basically spent the weekend hunting out air-conditioned areas (the car, ELC, John Lewis) and tried to avoid the direct heat as much as possible. I hate complaining about sunny days, but when you have tired, hot and bothered kids not to mention us, everything becomes difficult.

Annie is now into everything and can crawl from one end of our front room to the other in a few seconds. She of course is obsessed with the VCR; why do kids find them so fascinating? She also learned to clap, putting it to good effect congratulating herself on blowing enormous raspberries.

We did however make it to the Lookout discovery centre and it was fantastic. We took a picnic that we ate in a really nice spot by the side of the childrens play area. Inside the discovery centre are numerous hands on science experiments and as you can imagine this was right up Billy’s street. It comes with our seal of approval - and I guarantee that we’ll go back soon.

Congratulations to Alan and Sue who are now the proud parents of twins born on 4th August.
Matthew Nathan was born at 13:43 weighing 7lb 9oz and Rachel Zoe was born two minutes later weighing 5lb 1oz.
I shan’t drone on the usual stuff about sleepless nights and nappies, just have a quiet wry smile to myself.

Billy got his lego out on Saturday and started constructing things.

He’s quite imaginative and it’s always quite interesting discovering what he has built. He finished what he was doing (some kind of vehicle) and so Paula asked him what he’d made.

“What have you made Billy?”
“A skidoo. It has three wheels and a steering wheel.”
“…and what are those white bits on the back?”
“They are for knocking down ginormous hills. They are called ginormous knockers”

As you can imagine, myself and Paula fell about laughing, but the funniest bit was the serious look on Billy’s face as he had no idea what we were laughing at.