February 2006 Entries
Parents today seem increasingly inclined to turn to eastern mysticism for childrearing advice - from Zen to Feng Shui, Yoga to Origami. But in the past few days, it has come to my attention that one aspect of oriental culture that is ripe for adoption in parenting has been woefully underutilised: kung fu.
I am - and I admit it is still in its early days - currently developing a technique inspired by a variety of martial arts, which I'm currently calling baby-judo.
The main objective of baby-judo is to keep both of your opponent's - sorry; to keep both of your...
Look! Baby!
Nathan arrived on Valentine's Day, weighing 4.2 kilos (if you want that in old money, Google can do unit conversions for you, I can't be bothered to. Roughly speaking, it's "a lot"). I took the photo on the right shortly after his delivery, while he was still recovering from the trauma of childbirth. You know what it's like when you meet a bunch of new people for the first time - you can never remember their names, for a start. Well, for Nathan's first few hours, he was not only going through all that, but he was also having...
Real surprise at the Sainsbury's 'fresh' (by which they mean 'freshly defrosted') fish counter the other day: mahi-mahi fillets. First time I've ever seen them for sale in this country, mahi-mahi (sometimes called dolphin fish, and sometimes - rather bizarrely - sold in restaurants as 'dolphin') is a warm water fish, and a really common ingredient in the kind of pacific-rim fusion cookery that seems to be the default cuisine on the US west coast these days. I had to buy some, and really glad I did. Marinated it in teriyaki and grilled it, served with rice and a red...
So it seems the CTU team is finally sick of Kiefer Sutherland getting Emmy nominations but never winning the big prize. Possibly last month's Golden Globes snub was the final straw. Whatever the cause, the evidence that they're taking matters into their own hands is there for all to see - this week, Sky showed the ten minute prequel for the next series of 24, and you can watch it yourself here. If you listen carefully to Chloe's warning to Jack, you'll clearly hear her tell him that she "used a targetted to program to alter the Emmys database". Abusing...