RoysWorld

Following my previous post about ambigrams I stumbled upon ambigram.matic, a site that generates ambigrams from two words. I think it did a reasonable job with Annie and Billy:

Billy got one of these remote control UFO’s from his grannie a few weeks back. When I saw it in its box my immediate thought was that it would never work.

How wrong was I.

This is the toy I always wanted as a kid. It really flies – AND you can control it. OK it takes a bit of getting used to, the initial tendency is to ram it into the ceiling and then ram it into the carpet, but soon you will be hovering like a pro and crying like a girl when the batteries run out. The good news is that with about 5 minutes of charging it’s ready to fly again. As you can see, Billy has hardly had a look in!

If the man in your life doesn’t get one of these for Christmas then you don’t love them.

Here are the kids jack-o-lantern’s.
First Billy’s (called Pointee)

And Annies (sorry about the blurred image)

Happy Halloween!

I don’t know whether to blame myself or her mother.

Annie has decided to name her feet. She has called the left one Shi-Shi and the right one Norman. When putting on shoes she asks whether the shoe should go on Shi-Shi or Norman, and I have to say goodnight to them at bedtime. Bonkers.

Today Billy is six years old. We had a brilliant morning opening his presents and he then had to go to school. So far the things that made the most impact were a magic set, an anatomy figure (you know with lungs that drop out) and some spiderman stuff.

Last Saturday he had a joint birthday party with the twins James and Steven. We hired out a local pavillion and a childrens entertainer called Esther. She got all the kids dancing, and they had a brilliant time doing the hokey-cokey. He got loads of presents from his friends, went to bed late, and thoroughly enjoyed himself. Annie got chicken pox (but enjoyed the party anyway).

Billy’s Favourite Things:
Spiderman, Star Wars, Badminton, Water-Pistols, Duck-Dodgers, Riding on his taggie, Doctor Who.

Interesting Recent Events:
Live8 (on party day), Scientists fired some stuff at a comet (Deep Impact), ID Cards still being discussed, G8 Protests happening.

Last week was highly eventful.
Annie did her first poo in her potty, and Billy’s got his first couple of wobbly teeth.

It was my birthday on Sunday, and I got some brilliant gifts.

Billy bought me Spider-man 2 for the PS2. I think he had an ulterior motive on this one, but the game is fantastic fun none-the-less. As our friendly neighbourhood spider-man you get to swing and climb around the whole of NY, yes you really get the freedom of the City. One of Billy’s favourite things to do is to climb right to the top of the point of the Empire State Building then dive off into the air ensuring a webswing occurs before he becomes spidey-mush on the pavement.

I also got a brilliant book on Ray Harryhausen. If the name rings a bell, it could be because of the name of the sushi bar in Monsters Inc, or hopefully it’s because like me you loved the movies that this guy made. Ray is in my mind the master of stop animation, and was responsible for some of my favourite films when I was a kid. I have loved the movie Jason and the Argonauts for as long as I can remember, and the scene when the giant bronze statue Talos turns his rusty head around still sends shivers up my spine. Every Christmas and Bank Holiday I used to pray for a repeat of it. Seems weird now we all have videos and dvds, I guess my kids are spoilt. The book features stacks of images and sketches of all the creatures he has ever created on the small screen, and even some that never made it. It tells the story of Ray’s inspiration from the work of Willis O’Brian (who animated Kong) and how he set up his own studio at home to create some of his masterpieces.

I also finally got a copy of The War Magician to read, so I’ll post a review after I’ve read it, and Annie bought me a lovely hand-painted recorder from Peru. What she was doing there I’ll never know.

Today my little girl is 2 years old.
Happy Birthday to you.
She’s really enjoyed it so far – she loves her babies new crib and the doll Billy got her (it has real hair – as Billy keeps reminding us). Both sets of Grandparents are set to join us later – so the day should prove busy.

Things that happened on 19 November:

1600: Charles I, who believed the king ruled by divine right, but lost his head after the Civil War, was born in Fife.
1620: The Mayflower arrived off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with the first pioneer settlers.
1828: Franz Schubert, Austrian composer, died in Vienna of typhus, aged 31. His last words were: �Here, here is my end.�
1863: Abraham Lincoln made his famous Gettysburg address, with his freedom cry: �Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.�
1942: The Russians counter-attacked at Stalingrad and surrounded the German army.
1949: Prince Rainier III was sworn in as the 30th ruling Prince of Monaco.
1960: The first vertical take-off aircraft (VTOL) made by the British Hawker Siddeley company was flown for the first time.
1984: More than 500 people died and 10,000 homes were destroyed in an explosion at a chemicals factory in Mexico City.
1988: �Poor little rich girl� Christina Onassis, daughter of the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle, died from a heart attack, aged just 37.
1990: Nato and Warsaw Pact members ended the �Cold War� by signing a weapons treaty in Paris.

At the weekend we had a Dads and Kids weekend away camping. Me and four other Dads plus kids headed down to Swanage and found a campsite near the Herston Halt railway station. This meant that after we had put up the tents, we could catch a steam train down to the beach. We had brilliant weather and a great time building sandcastles, catching crabs (well one actually), having fish chips and beer in a licensed chipshop and winning Shrek2 toys out of those ‘grabber’ arcade machines that are meant to be impossible but for some reason I always manage to win. Billy thought it was great and he slept like a log snuggled up in his sleeping bag. I had a less comfortable nights sleep when I realised that not being able to move any limbs in a ‘mummy’ type sleeping bag is only acceptable when you are in a drunken stupor (as I would have been last time I slept in it). I must get a more rectangle sleeping bag before next time. As always cooking bacon and sausages for breakfast was a winner, they always test fantastic when outside, so much so that Billy reckons I am the ‘best cooker in the World’. Roll on the next camping expedition, we’re trying to decide if Annie is old enough to rough it yet.