The detritus of my childhood

It's not an interesting story but I was having a rummage round my parents house yesterday for some old Sega Saturn games I had when I was younger. A couple of them are worth around the £100 mark and the clarion call of ebay was loud in my ear.

I didn't find them- they are lost forever in the ether (or more likely in landfill or some lucky charity shop frequenters collection) but I did find a lot of lost memories from when I was little.

I found a box of Britain's Space toys like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/philgyford/

I used to have hours of fun with these when I was younger. When you're younger and have few cares in the world, get a good nights kip and have the time, your imagination is so fertile you can spend forever playing and reading.

And the books! So many books put away 20+ years ago for grandchildren. It's funny, there is a complete set of Famous Five books, which have recently been rewritten to remove all the "old fashioned" language. Personally, I want M'laddo to grow up exclaiming "Wizard!" and "Jolly good!", so these will get read rather than the revised versions. There are loads of Rupert annuals full of Gollywogs which we'll probably have to censor too.

It's funny what you remember and what you forget. I remember the Action Man stuff and I found that but I didn't manage to locate the Action Force stuff. That's got to be somewhere I suppose.

I have to admit it made me very nostalgic. When I look at the excess of toys our kids have and the actual paltry amount of Britain's space stuff I had yet enjoyed so much, I can't help but think less is sometimes more.

Restoring your faith in people

I've read a large number of posts in the last week about bullying. It's not a subject I want to get involved in discussing because it has a whiff of bandwagon jumping and most online communities have issues with it when they're in their infancy. Depressing really but something happened to me yesterday that restored my faith people a bit.

I do the site design and management for Mummy Reviews, a review aggregation site. It's a hobby site that gives people a chance to plonk their reviews on a site that's full of other reviews. Most of them are posted on the writers own blog first. We pay for the hosting and domain name (currently about £70 a year but likely to go up as the traffic is heading upwards all the time). It's run as a hobby, not a business because I like fiddling around with CMS systems and making stuff. There's not even any advertising on it at the moment.

Recently I updated the theme to a magazine layout. There were one or two issues with the formatting that seemed common to a lot of users judging by the authors support forum. In fact one commenter, Mr Natural posted exactly the same issue I had a couple of weeks past. There wasn't a reply to his query but on a whim I clicked on the link to his site to have a look. Good job I did because the issue had been fixed!

I dropped him an email via his comments form and less than a few hours later I had a detailed thoughtful reply with a link to an updated theme for the site. This from a bloke who doesn't know me from Adam, comes from a different continent, and was asked something by someone that had nothing to do with his website or his interests.

There are great people out there and I think its all too easy to dwell on the negative and ignore the good. Cheers Mr Natural :D

Bit of Gardening

We had a bit of fun out in the garden while wifey was cleaning the kitchen and bathroom on Saturday afternoon (go us!). Our sunflower is now in official triffid category as you can see:

We also did a bit of a snail hunt (you can see they little blighters climbed 7ft to nibble my sunflower leaves), and M'laddo was extraordinarily excited when one of them did a poo:

It's always comforting to know that alongside jumping in puddles, poo is great when you're little isn't it. 

British Weather Photographer of the year (Sponsored post)

Sponsored Post

I've always been a fan of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I love Rime of the Ancient Mariner to pieces, it's one of the very best poems I've ever had the chance to study at university and I'm also a bit partial to Iron Maiden's rather epic metal interpretation of it. But it was a particular quote about the British weather that is attributed to Coleridge that forever holds him high in my esteem: "Summer has set in with its usual severity." Never ceases to raise a chuckle with me, even when its pelting it down and I'm walking home in a decidedly soggy pair of trousers.

This seems to have been very apt over the last couple of years. With the exception of a couple of months from May to June this year, where Mother Nature lulled us into a false sense of security, summers have been pretty wet and pretty awful. We've had epic snow, wind, rain, hail, sleet, and the rest. If I were an Eskimo I'd insert another 40 odd words for snow, its been that rubbish. Lloyds TSB are interested in our rubbish weather. Interested to the point where they are running a competition called British Weather Photographer of the Year. I'm not the sharpest tool in the box but even I could have a pretty accurate guess at the subject matter of this one. 

 

So this is my entry:

Cooking on gas in the snow

Feel free to vote for it here its in the ice & snow category, as the first prize is £10,000. In fact you can enter yourself as the competition runs from April 13th – September 30^th 2010 at the competition website. There are some fabulous entries, but I wouldn't vote for those, vote for me, this isn't a meritocracy after all!

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Sponsored post- Axa Respect on the Roads Campaign

Sponsored Post

I used to drive 20,000 or more miles a year. Then my job switched to desk based and we moved two miles from the office. It dropped dramatically and I still only tend to drive once or twice a week now, mostly at weekends. As a part time motorist (as it where) with almost a quarter of a million miles under my belt, I've seen pretty much everything that can happen. I've had people threaten to kill me because their #60,000 SUV can't compensate for them being in the wrong lane, I've been run over on a pedestrian crossing by a motorist with spittle flying from her mouth at my temerity to cross on a green man, so Axa's Respect on the Road Campaign is something I can fully get my not inconsiderable frame behind.

Always thinking big, Axa are looking to get courtesy back on the British roads. You know the sort of thing, letting someone out at a junction because its a nice thing to do, not a sign of weakness, and not screaming down the outside lane in the approach to roadworks and cutting in at the last possible moment before the traffic cones remove your lane. If you would like to get involved, the campaign website is a good place to start, and their Facebook page is a better place to continue.

The video below shows the kind of scene that likely happens on a road a mile from you on a daily basis, acted out by kids. Makes you think hearing it come from the mouth of babes as it where doesn't it?



I have to admit to being exposed to that kind of behaviour when I was a nipper by my Dad who wasn't above teaching us a few new choice phrases when he was running late.

Fortunately with kids we're never on time for anything so that removes the sense of urgency to get from A to B that seems to enrage so many people. Axa have also been out on the streets of London in a black cab and the result is the "cab cam" video.


You can see more vides on the You Tube channel Respect on the Road.

I respect the road

AXA Respect On The Road

AXA Car Insurance
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Legoland: a review with under 4's in mind

We went to Legoland Windsor today. Our family has 4 members, me, wifey, the wee lass (18 months) and M'laddo (3 and a bit). If we had paid on the door, our day out would have cost us £105, which includes a jaw dropping £29 for our 3 year old. Rather astoundingly on top of this you have to pay 2 for standard parking. There are no family discount tickets. You can get a discount if you book online before visiting which would have dropped our cost to about £75.

That isn't the end of the story though, because on days like today, at the height of the summer holidays, the queues for most of the attractions are the wrong side of 45 minutes. This included the queue for the helicopters that are accessible to all over 90cm. Try telling a child under a metre high that they can't go on the ride they've set their heart on for an hour without tears.

Fortunately there is a device called a Q-Bot, which is essential in peak periods. Otherwise an 8 hour visit could see you having lunch and going on 4 or 5 rides once. These cost an extra £15 but are basically a must unless you want to spend most of your day standing in line gnashing your teeth at how much it's cost you to stand in line. I've no clear idea how they work but they're like a mini PDA thing that allow you to book a ride and miss the queue. Presumably they work on some sort of standardised wait for the ride because booking the Dragons Apprentice (the mini rollercoaster for littler ones), as soon as we got in gave us an hour wait. As most of the other rides had a wait of a similar time if we actually queued, I was a little confused about what we could do other than wander around aimlessly until it was time to go on. As it turns out, there was little we could do other than wander around aimlessly for about an hour.

Fortunately some other more toddler specific rides like the Chopper Squadron and the Fairy Tale Brook have a near zero lead time with the Q-Bot. We were able to go on both 4 times before the 45 minute queue had run its course.

The rides are pretty ace when you can get on them, outside of Butlins there is precious little else aimed at this age group that works as well. As a day out its no more expensive than a trip to Whipsnade or London Zoo. And no more than any of the other big theme parks. The food is typical theme park fayre, expensive and not very pleasant. I saw a Dad and boy fill up their water bottles from the coke dispenser in the Pitstop cafe and stroll out at one point. Given that two kids meals, two colas and two bowls of chips cost almost £20, I wasn't about to dob them in it either.

As with most places there is the option of an annual pass that provides a cheaper entry option if you intend to go more than once. A word of warning though, avoid the basic pass (£49.50) and plump for the full annual pass (£67.50) if you ever want to go in the school holidays as these are specifically excluded from the basic. As a comparison, against the #105 for the day trip, it would have cost £205 for an annual pass for the 3 of us.

It's difficult to wholeheartedly recommend Legoland, mostly due to the cost. Our two little ones had the absolute time of their lives and on the back of my trip with M'laddo to see Toy Story 3 at a grand cost of £25, it wasn't too extortionate. Given how full it was, the cost doesn't seem an issue for most families either.

Because that's how much things cost!

I took the boy to see Toy Story 3 at the weekend. We went to a 11am showing in Garston (Watford). The cinema was pretty much empty, there were about 20 people in there all told. A stark contrast to the kids club showing of Astroboy we went to a few weeks earlier that was rammed to capacity. Mind you, it cost us £3.70 to see Astroboy, and it cost us about £16 to see Toy Story 3. That's right, a 3 year old had to buy a ticket for almost £7 to see a film at 11am. Bonkers. My ticket was a shade under £9 itself. Lord knows what it would have cost us if we'd gone to a 3D showing, the member of staff who robbed me sold me the tickets cheerfully explained there was a huge premium on those.

It's been a few years since I've been to the cinema regularly due to children and other stuff but most of the opinions I held 3 years ago still seem to hold true now. What's the point of showing a film to 11 people when you could show it to a packed house if you charged less?  Since when did a regular popcorn cost nearly six quid? It should be an either/or, a premium on the tickets or a premium on the snacks, both is greedy.

I've always thought blurays were expensive but in light of this, I'm beginning to reconsider. Having said that, I'm now fully behind Disney who won their game of brinkmanship with a particular cinema chain who initially refused to show Alice in Wonderland because the studio wanted a 12 week to DVD/bluray timeframe. Personally, I think they should dual release them if the cinemas aren't going to change their pricing structure.

Shouting Toddlers

We had reason to dig out Toddler Taming the other night. It's the boy you see. He's tricksy. For the last 5 or 6 nights we've put him to bed and he's gone down perfectly okay. There's been a kiss and night night and everything has seemed in order.

We then have what I like to think of as the Phoney War- a period of about half an hour to an hour where he's quiet. After that, all hell breaks loose. There is shouting, ("Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad", "Mummmmmmmmmmmy!" and so on), there is drumming of feet, etcetera etcetera, so on and so forth. We have now tried all the possible permutations of dealing with this, from intervention, to ignoring it. If we ignore it, he eventually stops, hoarse of voice at about 10pm. If we intervene, he ends up in our bed until he's asleep and I transport him back to his bed.

The odd thing is, he seems fine in the morning. In fact this morning as I was popping into the bathroom for a shave at about 7am after a couple of hours up with Fifi, I caught him sneaking downstairs with a lightsabre over one shoulder and bunny in the other hand.

Your own domain name and email explained

I've seen a few posts recently from people suggesting they'd like to buy their own domain name and have their blog pointing to it- for example they'd rather have www.fabbymummyblog.com than www.fabbymummyblog.blogspot.com- but they don't really know where to start.

This is actually surprisingly easy, especially if you buy your domain through blogger. It's still not difficult if you buy it through a domain name registrar like 123-reg.co.uk but it is more involved. For the sake of this how to, I've just dealt with purchases through blogger (and that your blog is hosted with blogger, not wordpress or typepad, both of which are fine products).

Once you've set your blog up, click on the settings tab, and then on the publishing sub menu. You will then see a link that says "switch to custom domain". Click on that and follow the instructions detailed (click on the image to the left for a larger version if you're unsure).

And that is pretty much that. Blogger automaps your new domain to your blog so you don't have to do anything else. Easier than you thought?

The next bit is very clever- once you own your own domain, you can get yourself an associated email account for free. So you could be claire@fabbymummyblog.com, rather than using a hotmail, yahoo or aol email address. This is a little more complicated but bear with me and I'll try and explain it...

Point your browser over to Google Apps. When you ordered your custom domain through Blogger you should have had an email with login details for your Google Apps accounts. Login using the admin settings and you should be greeting with a screen like this:

Click on the activate email button and follow the simple instructions and you should be sorted.

As a certain meercat says, "Simples" eh?

Daddy Radar

I only go out on my own once a month. I go to a book group on the second Tuesday of the month. When I leave after bed time, I don't shut the inner front door as it makes an audible click, and I gently shut the actual front door. I make no sound leaving.

But M'laddo knows. Even though he's usually asleep by the time I go, he's somehow knows and I always come back to find him in bed with Wifey. It must be some sort of telepathy and if it is, when he's older I'm taking up Bridge with him as my partner. We'll make a mint.

Wandering around Mayfair

Yesterday while Wifey and co were at the Tinkerbell screening, I had a spare couple of hours to wander round Mayfair with the wee lass. It was a lovely day and rather than spend too long in shops looking at things I couldn't afford, I decided to explore a bit. Mayfair isn't an area of London I know that well so I thought it would be a good opportunity.

There were some nice parks, Grovesnor Square had one which kept Fifi happy for well over an hour. She was chasing pigeons around and generally running amok in the summer sun.

I must admit I gave up counting the flashy cars that were parked on street (a garage round that way is the only thing rarer than rocking horse poo I imagine), I saw a few Ferraris, a limited edition white Lamborghini, lots of Aston Martins, rather too many Bentleys for them to be exclusive and I gave up counting the top end Jags after about 5 minutes.

The architecture is pretty interesting too, especially so if you duck down some of the side streets and mews. I'll end the post with a few pictures...

Review: John Crane First Bike

One of the things I hate about larger toys, sit ons and bikes for the under 4’s is the sheer amount of tools you need to dig out. Much like how IKEA now needs both a flat head and a Philips head screwdriver, a hammer and an inordinate amount of patience to assemble a chest of drawers (MALM, I’m looking at you), we’ve got a trike from a very reputable manufacturer that required half an hour of assemblage on top of the 15 minutes it took me to find my screwdrivers and a replacement screw for the missing one. All this was on the boys birthday, while he sat in the sitting room enjoying all his other presents, I sat out in the hallway cursing under my breath. Bah and indeed humbug.

That was one of the first things that struck me about the John Crane First Bike; once I’d opened the box and removed everything from the tidy packaging, I was left with some nuts and bolts and a couple of alum keys, which was all I needed to assemble the thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d kidnapped the head designer of IKEA and forced him to work in a shed for months on ends until he could come up with a durable design that could be put together with the application of bolts and two simple alum keys. It’s that well designed.

This was initial impression was borne out by the actual assembling of the John Crane. I finished it in under ten minutes, there was no blood on the carpet and we’d not had an argument about who had the screwdrivers last (“last” doesn’t include picking them up and moving/hiding them apparently). The design is well thought out, I particularly like how accessible the tyre valves are to a bicycle pump, something the makers of our pushchair could learn a thing or two about.

The saddle itself has an adjustable height setting and it’s here that we encountered the only problem we had with the bike. The box says for 3+ years, our little fella had turned three in April and isn’t short for his age. Even at the lowest setting, there was no way he could get the bike upright with even one foot on the ground. So after a little bit of cursing under my breath, we distracted him with some Playmobil and shoved it in the garage for a couple of months.

Not my boy. 

It came out a few times in the next couple of months, primarily to see if stumpy legs had got a little bit longer but also to show his friends. The extremely solid built quality was evidenced by the dads of one of our boys friends. As you can see he scooted around the garden on it happily. Nothing was even remotely loosened by this brazen abuse of bike.

Finally though in the last month or so the boy is now big enough to scoot properly and he is doing so in spades. He’s enjoying it enough that he has put his scooter down and since a bike is much more suitable for the garden/off road, he’s had plenty of use out of it over the summer.

In a world thats full of plastic tat, it's nice to have a well thought out quality wooden toy that is also well designed and well made.

Nice one John Crane!

Film Review: Marmaduke

When I was a nipper growing up, there was only one Great Dane on the telly thanks to Hanna Barbera. Ironically there was another Great Dane that predated him, and he was called Marmaduke. I remember reading the comic strip when I was really little and when I got a bit older, there was a cartoon called Heathcliff and Marmaduke.

And now, with the vocal talents of Owen Wilson, Marmaduke has come to the big screen.

 We were lucky enough to get a couple of tickets to Sundays preview screening at the Vue Cinema Leicester Square. There was face painting, goody bags and popcorn but most of all their was a huge dog.

In a summer thats been full of animal films (we've seen cats, dogs, foxes, the works), Marmaduke has plenty going for him. It balances the adult (for adult, read juvenile) humour that appeals to parents and the slapstick that appeals to kids with the usual moral backbone thats essential in kids films nowadays. Lets face it, any film that sees the esteemed actor William H Macy catapulted into the air twice in as many minutes obviously has something going for it.

The family that Marmaduke owns are pretty pencil thin in terms of characterisation but they are there to do a job and they do it fine. The real stars of the show are the dogs. Marmaduke is the best and Owen Wilson does the job brilliantly but Keifer Sutherland(!) and Fergie also do great jobs too.

The plot is an intertwining story of trying to fit in and being true to yourself that covers both the humans and the dogs. Marmaduke tries to reinvent himself from the hapless clumsy pup into a cool dude when his owners move to the O.C. In the process he makes some friends, betrays his friends, hangs out with the trendy set and realises that he's been a naughty boy.

I enjoyed it but the real litmus test was the Boy, who as a three year old is a lot more discerning than me. I had a few pats on the hand during the film to show his appreciation but his eyes were welded on the screen for the entire duration. Once more I had a monologue of "But I want a doggie!" on the way out, and this filled me with fear as a Great Dane is rather epically huge. If he was as ace as Marmaduke though, I'd be half tempted!

Don't take my word for it though, have a look at the trailer:

McDonalds- I'm loving it?

Its not often I get the right arse when we're out, Wifey will agree I'm the worlds most easy goiing bloke but this evening I almost exploded in a fit of pure and unadulterated rage at the McDonalds on the corner of Regent St and Little Portland Street

View Larger Map

We got there with 3 under fours at ten past 6 in the evening. Little did I realise the golden arches would be the scene of such aggravation. I made the mistake of queuing behind a man who decided to individually order 8 milkshakes and 6 fish burgers. And then haggle. That was my fault, the other queues went quicker but as the place got busier, the member of staff behind the counter advised me to join another queue as it would take a while. So I did. Within a minute he'd cleared the milkshake mans order, and got onto serving the four people behind me, whilst refusing to make eye contact with me and do the decent thing and correct his bad advice. I now had 7 people in front of me and had already being queuing over ten minutes.

Ten minutes later, I almost had to shout to make myself heard over the wails of hunger from family and friends, I was told (told curtly, not apologetically) that there were no fish fingers, officially making M'laddos dinner an Unhappy Meal TM. I was more than a little gobsmacked that a fast food restuarant could actually run out of fast food. I was offered the chance of a cut up fillet of fish and had little choice but to accept it.

The drama didn't end there though, our friend Garden Mum took her daughter to the toilet and had to act hastily to avoid being swept away in a tidal wave of toilet water as a member of stuff flushed the blocked toilet in the next cubicle in an attempt to clear it. Awesome stuff.

We weren't even safe after we'd left the restaurant, walking down Little Portland Street, one of the staff flung the side door open whilst pushing a wheelie bin and almost sent two of the kids flying.

Personally I would have walked out after the queuing farrago but there aren't a huge number of places in the West End to get children something to eat in a hurry at gone six on a Sunday. Fortunately their are other places and in future I'll try them and I'd advise you to do the same, steer clear of this branch. The fact it gets one out of 5 on review sites like Yelp! shows I'm far from the only person that's had piss poor service from this branch.

In which my friend buys an Apple iPad

an iPad, earlier

I strolled up to our local premium Apple reseller with our IT guy after work yesterday. He'd had poor service from them earlier in the day so had been on live chat with the head office when he got back to complain about it. The end result was rather amusing; they couriered a 16gig Wifi iPad to the store  and held it under an entertaining name for pick up.

We walked into the store and the manager looked straight at him and said "Are you the 'Evil Prince of Darkness'?"

He said yes and proceeded to spend £460 on an iPad and a case. That's the benefit of not having children.

They are lovely, the screen is exceptionally clear, the interface intuitive and the whole thing wouldn't look out of place on the console deck of the Starship Enterprise but at over 400 quid for the basic model, it is just too much for me. I initially thought they were very expensive but I've come to realise with a capactive screen that size and all the tech in there, its actually a fairly competitive price- you can spend more than that on a 3inch screened mobile phone that's contract free. I imagine in a house full of small children an iPad would be a godsend, as there's no moving parts for a one year old to maul.If you're iPadded up and have a small child, let me know your experiences!

The Perils of Rocket Lollies

For two nights on the trot (Sunday and Monday), the boy has been absolutely hyper and unable to settle down enough to go to sleep until well past my bedtime. Normally he goes out like a light, so obviously this wasn't normal.

In the end we traced it down to a packet of Morrison's own brand Rocket ice lollies. There must be some flavouring or colouring in there that simply doesn't agree with him. We don't normally shop at Morrisons as its on the other side of town but we'd acquired £30 worth of vouchers so thought we'd trek there. Most of the own brand stuff has its own Tesco or Sainsbury equivalent and since M'laddo likes his rocket/spaceship lollies, we duly obliged and bought a packet.

We won't be doing that again in a hurry!

Problem solved, or so we thought until an briefed Nanna gave him one yesterday. He was actually sitting in our bed bouncing around like a loon saying, "Me no sleep, spaceship lollopop keep me awake!!!" It wasn't her fault but tonight I shall be devouring the rest of the packet :)

Give Me Strength

One of the things I never anticipated about having children was the sheer physical strength it would require. Whilst I'm no gym honed Adonis, I do have a fair degree of strength. I have no trouble lugging large amounts of flat pack furniture around, moving immovable objects or slinging wifey over a shoulder should the occasion demand it. Standing there with a six month old cradled in my arms for protracted periods of time though, was another form of strength and I was pretty crap at it. I mean, a small baby can't weigh that much can it? Apparently so and after about ten minutes my arms used to ache like mad.

Nowadays though I can march through central London at speed with our three year old attached and supported via one arm (he can sense weakness, and when he senses it, he refuses to ride on my shoulders, the little tyke). He's not light either, he has a certain density to him that I'm sure will cause letters from the NHS telling us he is obese in the future but he's hardly got an ounce of fat on him. He is the personification of distilled and concentrated boy  and that's bound to be denser than the run of the mill ordinary children.

Aside from my walk to and from work, lugging the pair of them around is about the only exercise I get at the moment. There have been rare occasions where I've had M'laddo on the back in a baby rucsack and Fifi strapped on at the front in a baby sling whilst strolling around a RSPB reserve (note to self: don't get RSPB confused with RSPCA, they Protect birds, not Prevent them) and that's been a great workout, even if I've felt the need to wear a silly hat.

Intense training

I don't often commute to London. We have an office in the BMA building and I go up there perhaps 3 or 4 times a month. I tend to watch a film or some TV on my iPhone to lessen the burden of the commute.

However on Sunday I took M'laddo for what was only his third of fourth trip on a train (4 if you include the ill fated Walsingham Light Railway Disaster). As it was Sunday the train wasn't the usual cattle truck, there were actually seats and we could sit next to one another. Hurray! The boy was pretty chatty and kept looking out of the window and asking me what he could see and I was more than happy to oblige. We had a grand old time but I did notice we were getting askance looks from all the other train dwellers by the time we pulled into St Pancreas.

I think this might be down the the fact we were having a conversation and there are still a lot of people that think whilst it's okay for them to shout down their mobile phone to someone, kids should be seen and not heard in public. Or maybe it was because I was in what I mentally think of as my "Mr Tumble" persona. Not that I dress up and act like a moron (Justin is very good at that), but I do like to engage our son at a level he can connect with. So if he asks me what that is, pointing at a crane, I'll tell him it's a crane, ask him what colour it is and then if he can remember any stories we've read with a crane in. I've come to the conclusion that most parents are happy to do this at home but don't tend to in public places that aren't specifically child designated areas.

So I ignored the looks and we carried on having a grand old time. Even when we got on the tube and some miserable middle aged man dived past us for the only remaining seat and we had to squat down for 5 stops, we were still having fun. In fact when M'laddo asked me why we couldn't sit down, I was honest and told him the man had taken the last seat so we had to stand up. It must have been the most comfortable seat in the world because even hearing me say that loudly didn't convince him to free up the seat for a 3 year old.

Review: Cats and Dogs2: the revenge of kitty galore

It's been 9 years since I sat on a plane to Australia watching Cats & Dogs because there was nothing else on. Yesterday I was watching the sequel with the boy because we'd been invited to the UK Gala opening of it at Holland Park's Open Air Theatre.

The experience was certainly one we'll not forget in a while either, to make up for the lack of celebs attending, we all got to walk down the red carpet (getting stuck behind some dogs being interviewed for a minute or so) and enjoy all sorts of activities before the screening. There was face painting, balloon animals, dog petting and goody bags to enjoy before the familiar stampede for seats that's part of the cinema experience.

The event was so buzzing that I didn't manage to grab that many photos or video clips unfortunately- I had to ensure the wee lad didn't wander off or get savaged by a chihuahua.

Judging by the photos, we were sitting fairly close to Violet Posybut since I've never met her, I was none the wiser!

Before the film itself started we were blessed with a new Loony Tunes short. A Roadrunner cartoon in fact. It was decidedly odd seeing Wile E Coyote getting it in the neck in entirely new ways but very enjoyable. I understand Warner Bros are showing a series of these shorts before their films this summer, keep at watch out for them as they're really in the spirit of the old cartoons.

As for the film itself, it certainly had the boy jumping up and down in excitement. At 3 and a bit he's old enough for feature films but sometimes gets turned off by overly wordy kids films. Cats & Dogs 2 pips G-Force in the talking animal stakes on this front, there is more action and the dialogue is simpler. Whether the guinea pigs are aimed at a slightly older demographic (how old do you have to get before talking animals are silly?) I don't know, but I thought Cats and Dogs 2 was better pitched for our lad.

The film couldn't be more like a Bond film without actually having a character in it called Bond. Right from the title credits, which are a fabulous Bond parody with a cover version of Pink's Get the Party Started in a very Shirley Bassey Bond style. In fact, looking at Wikipedia, it might actually be the one and only Dame herself doing it!

Of course, all this is lost on the little ones but it does help keep the attention of us older viewers while the cats and dogs go at it like, well, cats and dogs. It certainly works as a kids film, because despite being pretty scared of dogs up until the screening, all I had from the boy for the rest of the day was an endless litany of "me want doggy". He had to make do with the memory and a Cats and Dogs frisbee, and until we get the film on blu ray that will have to suffice!

You can catch the trailer here: