It is Daisy’s birthday today.
To celebrate, as we seem to be between birthday parties, we are going to watch the Christmas lights being switched on in Princes Street, doing a bit of light shopping, eating sausages at the German market and listening to the Norwegian carol service at St Giles. We might even have a go on the Big Wheel!
I’m really looking forward to our evening together and I certainly feel more up for it than I did 16 years ago today.
Hmmm, what to blog about…
Should I compose a righteously indignant piece about the latest crisis to befall the Brown government? After all, as a recipient of Child Benefit, my personal details are possibly being put to nefarious use as I write (although, personally, as an ex-civil servant, I’m more inclined to believe the missing CDs are languishing on someone’s desk while the occupant of said desk contemplates another twenty years of administrative drudgery and thinks longingly of their pension).
Or should I blog about Daisy’s (first*) sixteenth birthday party? Last Saturday, the Klein household played host to fifteen 16 and 17 year-olds, who arrived at 1.15am (from the Edinburgh Fiddle Festival ceilidh) and proceeded to eat, drink and play music until 6am, all the while under the impression that saying “Shh” every now and again prevented any noise they were making from carrying!
Or should I just share with you the following, genuine websites (courtesy of Friday night’s edition of QI, which Brian and I didn’t see until it was repeated last night):
www.whorepresents.com – a database of celebrity representatives
www.therapistfinder.com – California’s online resource for clients searching for a family or marriage therapist
www.penisland.net - the best pens on the Internet (what else?!)
They also offered www.expertsexchanger.com , but that doesn’t seem to exist (in any of its possible senses!) although, in checking out the above, I did come across:
http://www.independentsources.com/2006/07/12/worst-company-urls/
which contains all of these and a few more.
Can you come up with any others?
* Apparently another bash is planned for her non-fiddle playing friends. Should I have the nervous breakdown now or wait until later?
…that Brian and I got married. Here. Very much before the DaVinci Code hype, obviously. Hardly anyone outside of Midlothian had heard of Roslin then (Dolly wasn’t even a twinkle in her own eye!)
However, I digress. The twentieth anniversary is “china” but, while I’m not averse to ceramics (quite the reverse, actually) and, strictly speaking, we’ve already celebrated our twenty glorious years with our trip to Berlin, we’ve decided instead to mark the occasion with a trip to Glasgow to see Bill Bailey.
After all, if you’re going to spend twenty (plus) years with the same person, a sense of humour’s probably going to be more use than a dinner service.
Conversation chez Klein the other night:
Daisy: Mum, you know you said that you’d be happy to help me with my English homework? Well, I’ve got this essay…
Me: Sure, what are you writing about?
Daisy: Othello.
Me; Awww, I hate Othello! I’ve never liked it, even when I was at school. It’s pants!
Daisy: That’s not very helpful. Or very mature.
Me: Sorry, you’re right. OK, fire away, what did you want to ask me?
Daisy: Well, you know how Iago hates Cassio…
Me: He invented the programmable calculator, you know.
Daisy: What?
Me: Cassio. Invented the programmable calculator, ha, ha.
Daisy (coldly): Yes. Well. Anyway, if we could get on. In this scene here, when Brabantio says…
Me: Do they mention his wife?
Daisy: Whose wife?!
Me: Brabantio’s wife, Brabantia. She invented the pedal-bin…
Daisy: The wha…?
Me: And the ironing-board!
Daisy: Nnnngggh!!!!
Homework was never this much fun when I was at school.
