The Daddacool Show Ep1

Shell V-Power Quiz- £250 fuel voucher up for grabs!

Those lovely people at Shell have given me a £250 Shell fuel voucher for one lucky reader. Given that I read a survey only yesterday that said parents are willing drive up to 200 miles each week for their children’s after-school activities whilst at the same time having to make cut back due to the significant rise in motoring costs, I reckon you'd have to be earning around £15,000 an hour to make it not worth your time spending a minute entering this competition.

There are 3 multiple choice questions, a spot the Ferrari contest really. All the cars are in the official Ferrari Museum in Maranello. If you get a bit stuck, you might find browsing their website helpful.

If you want to find out a bit more about Shell and Ferrari, you could do worse than read one of my thoughtful and insightful blog posts on the subject:

• NNnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr *fingers in ears*
• Ferrari 458 Italia vs Vauxhall Zafira- Road Test
• Shell V-Power, Ferrari, NASA and our Vauxhall Zafira
• Shell V-Power Unleaded and Diesel- a trip to the Research Labs

But in the mean time I'm sure you're eager to win win win, so without further ado, the 3 questions are below. Competition closes at midday on 10th October, multiple entries will be entirely disqualified, and last of all, good luck!

Name this car *

• Ferrari Enzo
• Ferrari Testarossa
• Ferrari 355

Name this car *

• Ferrari 125 S
• Ferrari F40
• Ferrari 250 GTO

Name this car *

• Dino 206 GT
• Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer
• Ferrari California

Name *

Email address *

*Required

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Doing what you're told

Like most small children, our two regularly push the boundaries of what is and isn't acceptable and they seem to think doing what they're told is sort of optional. Explaining to them that they'll get hurt if they don't do what mummy or daddy says is all very well but I'm not mean enough to withhold a cuddle when one of them falls off the swing I've told them a hundred times not to stand up on.

Suggestions of particular preferred ways of behaviour are often met with replies like, "Go away you naughty daddy." or "I don't like you, I like mummy." or even, "If you say that again I will cut your head off and put it in the rubbish bin."

I don't think either of our children are particularly naughty though, the boy is often pointed out as a really caring and thoughtful child and Fifi is only two after all.

Still, it sometimes grates when we hear that the boy often just blindly does what other little boys tell him to do at school without a moments hesitation. In the post mortem afterwards, we often ask him exactly why he did something and his reply is usually "well, xxxx told me to of course."

a pair of scissors, yesterday

This week he really bested himself though. School has been a gradual two weeks of induction and ever lengthening days, with yesterday being the first actual full day. So the boys first full day coincided with his first trip to the headmistresses office. One of the other little boys suggested they took themselves off to the craft corner and cut their school jumpers up with scissors.

Evidently we need to invite this small child round for disciplinary tasks since the boy followed his instructions to the letter. Obviously if we had suggested something similar we would have been met with a look of disgust...

NNnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr *fingers in ears*

When it comes to trying to show me how rather splendid Shell V-Power fuel is, Shell have certainly had their work cut out.

Blinding me with science is a bit tricky, I scraped a C at A level Chemistry back when anything above a D was still considered meritorious ( you know before they had to come up with various different levels of "A" grade). Putting me behind the wheel of a super car was definitely a step in the right direction, it did let me do a direct car vs car comparison test. I think they've finally hit pay dirt by letting me come along to free practice at the Belgium GP at Spa-Francorchamps. They also kindly allowed me and my fellow SVP Champs to purchase tickets at a discounted rate for the actual weekend of qualifying and the race.

It's raining. Even in the
shrubbery

If I'd have bothered to read the Wikipedia entry about the circuit, I'd have noticed that "At one stage in its history it had rained at the Belgian Grand Prix for twenty years in a row." This sort of knowledge would have helped my chum Simon out dramatically had he known before he set for Belgium. He spent most of Saturday in a bush trackside getting rather wet. At least I had a waterproof coat with me..

Shell take a mobile fuel lab to each of the European GP. It's teeny tiny but packed with techie stuff. It looks like they have Apple Mac's in there, so they must be cutting edge. The whole lab sort of flat packs in an area I'd be hard pushed to fit our holiday packing. Track side they do complicated fuel and oil analysis. When the F1 cars oil is drained, they can do some astonishing analysis that actually picks up tiny bits of metal that are worn from the engine and float around in the oil. Far too small to see but analysis picks them up. People were asking technical questions but the best I could come up with was, "Do you recruit small scientists to work in the mobile lab? Space is at a premium." For the record they don't.

F1 is really really high tech and I've probably forgotten enough about the science behind F1 to fill several technical manuals but what I have taken from all this is the Shell boffins are incredibly clever. Given how similar (99 point something very high percent) Shells V Power fuels are to the F1 fuels, I'm more than happy shoving the fuel in my tank.

In a way, buying cheaper fuel is a bit like the false economy of driving out of your way to save money on filling up. According to XKCD, every mile you go out of your way to save a penny on a gallon of fuel is negated by the fuel you use to get there. And from spending my own hard owned cash on Shell V Power for our Zafira, I'm coming to the conclusion that often supermarket fuels are a false economy too.




Disclosure: I've done loads of really cool stuff courtesy of Shell. However they have never paid for petrol for either of our family cars. They've told us stuff and let us come to our own conclusions.

Putting the knife in

I've been a bit busy recently and haven't spent much quality time with the children. By quality, I mean not i) telling them off; ii) bathing them; iii) getting cross in the middle of the night when they wake me up with screams of "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaddy".

I've spent most of the last three weekends doing DIY, I've re-guttered the back of the house and done a fair amount of shed-work. What I haven't spent the last three weeks doing is playing with the kids. This has caused a fair bit of resentment with both the boy and the wee lass. The boy has followed me around dogmatically demanding I play football with him and Fifi has been crying and demanding cuddles when I'm 3 metres up a ladder. It's made the DIY a lot slower for sure.

Heartbreaker

Still, yesterday I had a free morning so I decided to take the kids to softplay and win myself some brownie points. We did have to start the day with a trip to the health centre for Fifi's two and a half year check but soon the two of them we're running around like loonies. I even managed to supply them with a Fruit Shoot AND a chocolate bar.

So when I put the wee lass into her PJ's last night and asked her if she had a nice day, I'd say I was pretty crushed when she replied, "No, you go to work tomorrow, I play with Mummy instead."

A discussion on witchcraft

you've got a lot to answer for boys

The boy likes Tom and Jerry. The boy likes Winnie the Witch and Meg & Mog. There was a new animated film out recently called Tom & Jerry meet the Wizard of Oz. Ding! A match made in heaven!

Well apparently not. After seeing the Tom & Jerry film at the weekend, the boy decided to mull it over for a few days before coming to the conclusion that witches were now definitely very scary. So scary in fact that he can no longer counternance going to sleep in his own bedroom for fear of some sort of Witch intervention.

I had a long discussion about witches with the boy last night, lying on his bed and trying not to fall asleep with his arms clutched round my neck in mild terror. Yes, witches do exist, although maybe not quite in the waving a magic wand and shouting Abracadabra sort of way that Winnie does, but no, they're not going to hunt you down and eat you. Witchcraft is too engrained into too many cultures for me to lie to the boy and tell him there are no such things as witches you see. He certainly knows his onions anyway, witches are prevalent in jungles, Norfolk and quite possibly St Albans too.

I explained that when we had our double glazing done 5 years ago we paid a little extra to have a ten year witch-proof coating put on that meant any witch would just bounce off the window if she came sniffing around at night for small boys to eat. This seemed to do the trick and I was able to go downstairs and eat the lovingly handcrafted piri piri chicken my wife had made.

Seemed turned out to be the operative word though as when I went upstairs later on, I found him asleep in our bed, with 4 bunnies, a toy dog and a teddy bear.


(this isn't a sponsored post, I bought the damn film myself!)

meningitis blogger forum questionnaire

Tidy tidy tidy

It turns out that the boys room does actually have carpet and not just a patchwork of toys and errant pages from the Argos catalogue.

I'd like to claim credit for this but it would be beyond disingenuous and into the area of an outright lie. I was screwing panels of ply board to the interior of the summer house whilst wifey undertook the gargantuan task of sorting out the lads demesne.

Fifi's room wasn't the tidiest room in the house by any stretch but there is a certain special law that applies to small boys.

Is naked voyeurism normal?

So there are naked pictures of Scarlett Johansson out there. I've not searched for the uncensored ones, she's scantily clad in most films she's in and frankly, do I really need to see a nipple? I'm married and have theoretical access to nipples other than my on, if not on demand, then pretty regularly.

This might be my bottom. I don't remember it
 being taken but it is in our online photo storage.
 I'm not an exhibitionist!

Ms Johansson is pretty well know as a party animal and apparently is sexually active enough to regularly get herself tested for all sorts of STD's but the appearance of these photo's, along with the threat of other celebs having nudie pictures of themselves exposed in public did set me wondering whether it was a form of exhibitionism that was perculiar to celebs or if everyone in the street has stashes of homemade porn and naked photos of their girlfriend/wife laying about.

My enormously unscientific poll of blokes I know revealed quite a few either have "friends", or "friends of a friend" (wink wink) who have snaps of their (ex) girlfriend, usually on their phone.

I'm no Victorian type prude, as the photo to the right shows but I was more than a little bit shocked. I respect my lovely lady wife enough to not want naked pictures of her about, in any sort of format that could be found or stolen. It's not that wifey isn't completely and utterly gorgeous of course but I think it's about respect. Am I wrong?

WIN TICKETS TO SEE KEVIN MCCLOUD AT GRAND DESIGNS LIVE BIRMINGHAM 2011

I don't think I've ever run a competition on my blog but this was one of the many offers I've had that I simply couldn't turn down. Kevin McCloud is a god. All right, he wasn't in Highlander but he might as well have been.

Grand Designs Live, returns to Birmingham for its 6th year at the NEC from Friday 7th until Sunday 9th October 2011. With over 500 exhibitors showcasing the latest interior products, and FREE expert consultations on offer for every visitor, Grand Designs Live is the ultimate consumer home show, boasting everything needed to build and furnish a home – all under one roof.

This year’s Birmingham show will be spread over six different sections: Grand Build sponsored by VELUX, Grand Interiors sponsored by Dulux, Grand Kitchens sponsored by Miele, Grand Bathrooms and Grand Gardens which this year will feature a spectacular night garden display in the heart of the NEC. The highly anticipated House of the Future, brought to you by Virgin Media, also makes its return to the Grand Technology section sponsored by Virgin Media, showcasing the latest – and soon to be available – domestic gadgets and gizmos. Kevin McCloud and an array of guest speakers will take to the public Grand Seminar Theatre stage to discuss the hottest industry topics and debates with visitors in the Grand Village which will also be packed full of live demos of sustainable build and green technology.

Grand Designs Live and Daddacool are offering one lucky reader a pair of tickets to this year’s show which is hosted by Kevin McCloud.

To be in with a chance to WIN, simply answer the question below:

Question: How many exhibitors will Grand Designs Live Birmingham have?

email your answer to competition@daddacool.co.uk

*Terms and conditions
1. This offer is only open to UK residents. The prize is 2 x Grand Designs Live tickets per winner. One winner will be selected only.
2. Competition winners’ tickets are valid for any one day of the show between the 7th and the 9th October 2011, to Grand Designs Live at the NEC, Birmingham.
3. Tickets are non-transferable.
4. Complimentary tickets obtained through this offer may not be duplicated.
5. All tickets will be scanned on entry to the show.

Starting school, nostalgic? Me?

Last week the boy started school. The summer (with all it's inclement weather) had taken it's toll and he was moderately looking forward to getting back there.

Seeing the boy in his school uniform did bring memories of the early 1980's crashing back into my mind though. And me being me, they weren't the popular sanitised for regurgitation on prime time television memories that most people seem to have.

I remember short trousers and high socks, pudding basin haircuts, a school tie that was a proper tie (even from the age of 5), that people could attempt to throttle you with if they were so inclined. I remember being scared of teachers, to the point where being told off used to make me cry and a school room with a timetable of activities that confused the hell out of me. I remember being unceremoniously dragged from our brief sojourn in Suffolk back to Hertfordshire and a school where the incumbents kindly nicknamed me "Goofy-teeth-posho" and even used to chant it at me as I stood sobbing and sucking my thumb.

I think from that point on I was always the tall awkward different kid. I never had many friends but did used to love being out doors and reading books. Before libraries got all new fangled and computerised, ours used to have a 6 book limit but they could only enforce it to 6 books checked out at one time. One glorious half term I managed to take out every single Tintin and Asterix book without returning a single one of them. In my own way I was happy. I remember the day my mum joined me up to the Famous 5 book club. Once every indeterminate (to me at the age of 6 anyway) period of time they would send a book club hardback edition of two of the Famous 5 stories. I'd stay up late and read at least one of the stories that very day, wishing I was older like Julian so adults would take me seriously.

I remember being obsessed with Transformers (is it genetic?) to the point where I got thrown out of the toy shop in Harlow once for spending too long looking at the boxes. I remember not belonging to any clubs or groups and hardly mixing with kids outside school and I think, well we're not doing so badly in this parenting lark. The boy might fight about going to school but he enjoys it when he's there, even if Mrs Sheppard is apparently a bit scary. And he is a socialable lad too, in ways I never was.

But most importantly, we don't make him listen to or watch stuff like this:

A spot of "'wimming" and some spiders (eek!)

The start of the boys first term at reception has come, and not a moment too soon either. I think both him and wifey were getting fed up with the long summer holidays. The start of term also means the resumption of the swimming lessons that the children caught the last 3 of before school broke for the holidays.

These classes aren't cheap, we had to write a cheque for £168 for the term for both kids but they do have an advantage on the lessons I previously took the boy to. They take kids from 2, so Fifi can join in and so far, touch wood) the pool hasn't suffered a failure that saw around one in 3 of the previous places lessons cancelled.

We had the usual "fun" getting there, the Boy had to be bodily dragged from the house wailing about wanting to stay at home and so on, whilst Fifi spent the whole trip there telling him off and saying he wouldn't get the inducement of McDonalds for lunch if he didn't buck his ideas up. I had to tuck him under one arm to get him changed into his trunks and wifey informs me that she was trying to talk to the teacher pool side while I was changing the kids but couldn't hear what the teacher was saying over the boys shrieks.

Still, he sat mostly still while I went in with all the other dad's for the toddler lesson. Fifi had a great big grin plastered over her chops for the whole lesson. She even managed to swim unaided (by me, she had armbands and a woggle on) at the end. The pool is warm, almost bath warm, which is good for kids. I don't know if it's possible to sweat in the water but while I was in with Fifi, it felt like I was. The only bit of drama was caused by a big spider floating past. I picked it out and flung it to the pool side before too much drama could ensue. It dried out and climbed the walls...

Wifey got Fifi changed and as I went to put the boy in the pool with his teacher, I saw a woman appear to whack a child in the face. The woman was almost hysterical, a large black spider had dropped off the roof onto the girls face. Fortunately her mum brushed it off before the girl noticed but flipping heck!

We watched the boy frown his way through a swimming lesson but at least he took part and did what he was told to, which was something. As soon as he was out the demands for McDonalds started, and it was only 10am! As we were getting changed, the third and final spider incident happened- I went to pick his shoes up and had to shake a big black house spider off them! Yuck, I'm itching as I write this, I hate spiders.

So there you have it, spider appreciation lessons for free with swimming.

I did warn you, honestly I did...(music video)

Schools started. Ish.

On his way to school

Despite the Back to School promotions starting in the final week of July, it's only now that most schools are actually getting kids back in. It's past the time that the boy needs to be back at school, this time reception and not nursery. He's had enough of the endless summer and so have we. I've read on twitter some families have had 9 week summer holidays, some less, some more. I was even speaking to someone who's kid is just starting reception that has had to get an au pair in because they do such a gentle easing in of the children that it's 5 full weeks before the children actually do a 9am-3.30pm. If you're a working parent, and increasingly a lot are, that's incredibly hard to deal with.

software for school timetabling???

Whilst it's not quite a 5 week marathon at the boys school, it is complicated enough to have us in complete knots. 9.30 this morning; 9 tomorrow morning, up to lunch; mum stays for lunch; kids only for lunch then home; kids do the full day, all spread over a couple of weeks that are sure to make the boy not know whether he's coming or going.

Typically the school are doing a staggered intake and typically they are doing it alphabetically. That means his friends with "B" surnames went in yesterday and know what they're doing today, increasing the sense of confusion as he comes in to a different classroom with different teachers. All I can think of is I ended up sitting next to Chris Worrall in most classes at secondary school as the teachers sat us alphabetically. And that made no sense.

The boy likes to know what he's doing. At bed on a Sunday he always quizzes me on what the week ahead has in store. This weekend just gone I had to say some school of an indeterminate length. I can't be more precise than that. I think the sentiment is good, but in reality teachers aren't giving kids enough credit. They're tough little buggers and herd mentality should keep them in line if all else fails but above all, they like routine and like to know what they're doing.

Still, he seemed very excited this morning from what wifey has said, which is just as well because at 5 months pregnant, she's not really in any condition to sprint after him if he legs it again!

Silly Naked Daddy

Don't worry, this is one blog post that doesn't come with an accompanying video.

I was chatting to someone at a parenting group about the language little boys use last night. She was lamenting that her dad had taught her 3 year old son to add phrases like "...and make it sharpish!" to the end of sentences, so when he asks for a biscuit, he now says, "I want a biscuit and make it sharpish Mummy!" Granddad obviously thinks this is hilarious but mum is at her wits end.

I wish the boy was as straightforward as this when it comes to irritating verbal antics but no, he has to go his own way. I think it started off with his calling his little sister a "silly naked baby" when she was little (she's now only a shoe size behind him and catching up fast), partly to tell her off but partly to assert himself as the oldest. That progressed to calling me silly naked Daddy and it's gone downhill from there.

At least I assume it's gone downhill from there, if it hasn't he's never gone to nursery but been recruited by some odd sort of cult because on occasion he's adamant he's had a great day playing, reading stories and "everyone was naked, all day Daddy". Well I'm fairly sure that isn't part of the Early Years programme but you can't be sure.

Occasionally I'm sitting on the sofa surreptitiously eating something that the kids would love, and the boy waltzes into the room and says "You're naked!" and then just walks out. This is usually followed by Fifi saying, "And you've got a willy!" before she follows him out. I don't tend to wander around the house or watch Antiques Roadshow in the nude, it's not really my style, so I am a bit baffled. Perhaps the boy is developing Superman like powers to see through peoples clothing. If he is I can sadly say it isn't hereditary.

So if you ever meet our 4 year old, don't let him convince you our house is some sort of nudist colony, it isn't and it's unlikely to ever become so.

So what did you do today?

It's always interesting to grill our two about what they've been up to. It's as illuminating as it is baffling. Illuminating in as much as it gives an interesting insight in to what they find interesting and memorable.

Our discussions usually start with me saying something along the lines of "Hello children, what did you get up to today?"

This is mostly met with proclamations of "Not anyfink" and "Don't remember." It's obvious that they're not giving anything away for nothing. It requires a bit more subtle probing. I tend to turn it into a competition: "Quick, who can tell me first what they did today?"

Even so, this doesn't always work, as the now legendary (in our household at any rate) school news letter showed. A tedious week at pre-school had passed for the boy, a lot of "not anyfinks" had been uttered under cross examination, when the school newsletter landed in our inbox. The news letter was full of pictures of a local building firms trip to the school to show the children all their diggers. That's right, in the centre of every photo was the boy in his fluffy coat, staring lovingly at all the bright yellow scoops on the end of the bright yellow machines. He was a huge Bob the Builder fan at the time, just to add insult to injury too.

Faced with this sort of situation, I did what every self respecting Dad would do, I gave up before they rubbed my nose in it even more.

Is it funny because it's true?

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/family_decals.png

Courtesy of XKCD, a webcomic I've read for years. More often aimed at geeks, it sometimes comes up with the odd truism that's applicable to us all :)