My Blog Posts

Just back from visiting the family in the hospital and picking up JFGP from his evening visit to the Family Whiston (thanks guys). All is looking good and we’re off to pick up SWMBO and the littlest Todd tomorrow morning. The car seat is down from the loft and the bassinet is ready for some serious snoozing. It’s pleasing to hear that everyone quite likes the littlest boy’s name, and it won’t lead to any confusion as far as I can tell. I took the slightly larger boy to an organised enjoyment session yesterday and got a little confused myself. They have bibs with the kid’s names on them and I thought I was seeing double because there were two inscribed with “Luca”. Which isn’t a bad name except one of them was a boy and the other a girl. It’s not quite an entry into my child abuse with stupid names series but I think on the available evidence it must be a contender for the perfect androgynous name.

Here’s JFGP this afternoon in the kitchen. I’ve been getting some good pictures with my new lens and a willing subject. I think the credit for this one goes to a small boy though, not least for being very photogenic.

You may have noticed that I’m using flickr to store my photographs. They let you apply tags to photos to classify them, and I’m doing exactly that. With the ankle biters I’m using their names. Here are a selection of my tags; Oliver Alexander SWMBO For the technically challenged, and if I remember after I’ve caught up on my sleep, I’ll put these links on the side of this page.

Say hello and welcome to Oliver John Todd. Born at 12:50am on Wednesday the 20th of July, 2005. For the curious he weighed 3.63kg at birth and measured 52cm. In old money that’s 8lbs and about 20 inches. Mother and baby are doing fine, Dad and big brother are memorising the route between home and North Sydney Private by repitition. The current plan is for them to come home on Sunday.

That’s it. I’m off home to pick up the family and take them to vaguely hospital related places. Wish us luck.

Well, not quite yet. It’s five days and counting until b-day. So we are on extremely high alert at Todd Towers. SWMBO has packed a hospital bag for herself and has promised me faithfully that she will be packing one for JFGP today. He’s off to stay with the Reeves for the early part of his mother’s confinement. After the messy bits are over and done with I’ll pick him up and then be solo parenting for a while.

JFGP is pictured here enjoying a scrumptious plate of roast chicken and all of the trimmings, cooked by his Dad. What the photo doesn’t show is that after this mouthful he announced that he was full and got down from the table to go and play with his train set. A small parent/child disagreement ensued.

I note on the Flickr blog (amongst many other sources) that a new Harry Potter book is out soon. Am I alone in my complete indifference to this publishing event of the year? No, didn’t think so. My completely un-scientific theory on the popularity of the young wizard is that they are books that are read by people who don’t read books. Almost entirely like Lord of the Toss. Go on, hands up if you’ve read all three volumes of the UK’s best loved book? See, no one. You have to be mad or bedridden to suffer through either of these literary masterpieces.

Recently on this here interweb there have been reflections of good and bad. A bit like the real world then.

The weather has been a little wintery in Sydney recently. At the weekend we rugged up JFGP and Elli before heading out to face the elements. Because it can get awfully rough at Warringah Mall. Now who was it who told me that the sun was always shining down under? I’d like a word.

Proof, if more proof were needed, that this is indeed a strange world. According to this article at the BBC the wacky people at Anheuser-Busch (home to the worst beer in the world - Budweiser) are bringing a beer with extra caffeine to the UK. What were they thinking? And since when did companies get marketing ideas from sitcoms? I’d love to have sat in on that product pitch, it must have been very compelling indeed.

He’s nearly two, but today was JFGP’s first haircut. I took him to Kids Central in Chatswood as they are used to small people fidgeting their way through the whole experience. Apart from a dislike of the cape they made him wear he was as good as gold. He was too busy watching the water wall they have in front of the chair to worry about what the stylist was doing to his head.

This may be stretching your interest a bit dear reader, but I’ve convinced myself I need to write a quick review of every book I read and put it here. Not least so that I know I’ve read them. Age and lager can weary a memory you know. I’ve recently finished reading the first edition of the Python Cookbook, just after the second edition has been published. I’d actually bought this book when it first came out, but it has been sitting in my to read list for over two years. In my defence a fair portion of that time was because we were in another country and this book was in storage.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. A selection of comments from the BBC who are running a vox pop on ID cards on their web site today; “I give 100% support to ID cards as it would cut down on crime and illegal immigration. Also all the information will be on a single card which will be better for everyone. Martin Williams, S Wales” Err, how exactly will you carrying a piece of plastic around reduce crime or illegal immigration? “Why will the cost so much they are just a bit of plastic with some data on and will be manufactured by the million. Three pounds would be too much. Bill Carney, North Lincs”

Before bed each evening Alexander enjoys some traditional warm milk and, slightly more unconventionally, a few crackers. More importantly I’ve just bought a new lens which is well suited to taking portraits. This is the first of what may be a long and illustrious line. If you’re really lucky I may even include other subjects.

I’ve been taking a photography course at evening school recently. This morning I was out at Dee Why beach learning a few practical lessons. I put some of them to use this afternoon with a couple of shots at Balmoral beach. This shot is taken at the fish shop whilst we were waiting for our lunch to cook. The technically minded will note the almost correct proportions of the shot and the use of fill flash to avoid any shadows on [JFGP](Jumpers For Goal Posts)’s face.

Time for an experiment. Here is my first book review on this blog. This isn’t a critique, more a set of notes to remember what I got from the book and which bits I liked. I actually finished Sebastian Faulk’s Birdsong a couple of weeks ago but that time hasn’t dimmed it’s impact. It’s strength, I think, lies in the depiction of life in the trenches in France and Belgium during the first world war, and in particular the first person description of the Battle of the Somme. This is the middle section of the book. It’s prefixed by a description of life in the same area of Northern France before the war (in 1911) and in the latter stages intertwined with the story of the main character’s grand-daughter.

I couldn’t let this article on BoingBoing pass without a comment or two. It’s an excerpt from a new book called “The Worlds Worst” about the breatharian life style, claiming that it’s the world’s worst diet. I heartily concur, if not because of what it appears to do to your brain. As some of you may know I once had the privilege of working with a chap who had wholeheartedly embraced this lifestyle. He hadn’t made it onto just fresh air but was several years into what he claimed was a twenty or so year quest to survive on absolutely nothing. He consumed only raw fruit and vegetables and drank nothing other than adam’s ale.

Alex is moving up in the world. Here’s a picture of him relaxing in his newly installed bed. Of course he’s also confused because we haven’t taken the cot down. So now he doesn’t know where to snooze and just thinks that this is a new play couch.

It doesn’t come often, so when it does we must perform the ritual dance of celebration; England beat Australia in a game of cricket. The predictable retort from the king of sledging at work was “well it’s not proper cricket is it”. Who cares, we still won. I managed to be a dedicated fan and watch the game from 2:15 this morning - by proxy. Said proxy being my VCR which is replaying the match to me now at a much more reasonable time.