You’re an embarrassment

One of the great perks of parenthood is the opportunity to be a total embarrassment to your children. The great beauty of it is that it’s something that you don’t even have to work hard at to achieve great results.
Once the kids gain a say in what clothes they are allowed to buy/wear, the best remaining opportunity a parent has for causing great embarrassment is the sleepover. As I found, just last weekend, simply walking around the house singing along (with gusto) to your favourite songs can leave your daughter squirming in distress in front of her friends. Obviously, my rendition was note perfect - but as I was singing along to the Wedding Present at the time that doesn’t mean that it was particularly pleasing on the ear.
And George has discovered that just because you are sleeping over at someone else’s house it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are out of reach of parent-caused shame. He spent most of last evening’s sleepover at his friend’s house fending off texts from his mum reminding him to share his sweets, brush his teeth and not to let the bed bugs bite. She forgot to tell him to make sure that his mates didn’t put pink zinc cream on his eyebrows whilst he was asleep - which of course they did. And by passing on that information to you I am able to continue to pile on the embarrassment, especially now that George has taken to reading the blog to find out exactly what I’ve been saying about him. As a result of which, he asked me to point out that his inoculation last week was not for ‘Nintendo thumb’ but was in fact for ‘couch potato bum’. Actually, that’s a bit unfair on George seeing as he recently gained a place on the Connolly team in the Inter-Schools cross-country. In fact, if anyone should have that injection it should be me. Since the premature demise of my volleyball career (thanks Jay) my exercise regime has been reduced to walking to the shop (okay sometimes I drive) to buy fruit and veg (well, fruit pastilles and potatoes, okay... crisps). I’m not even playing snooker any more due to the fact that the club closed down whilst I was on my two-week-tour of the UK. I came back to find an advert in the paper informing me of the fact that everything was for sale: snooker tables, kitchen equipment, furniture, staff... the lot. I put in an offer for the rather attractive brunette with the sarcastic smile (well it was always sarcastic when she aimed it my way) but I think I was outbid by the old bloke, with the limp, who played on table 5. I’m so unfit at the moment that I managed to tweak a hamstring at work the other day... whilst sitting down. I’m currently researching various alternatives for attaining regular exercise (no, not that). I’ve narrowed the choices down to: indoor soccer, squash, or pole vaulting (looks easy to me). Unfortunately, I can’t really do anything until Wendy has completed her tour of the UK and South Africa so I’ve got another month or so of couch potatoing to look forward to.
George’s sporting abilities may be improved by the fact that he is now able to wear contact lenses. He is trialling them at the moment and seems to be able to put them in and take them out without too many difficulties.
We recently enjoyed a very pleasant family outing to see Florence and the Machine (look, I know you are supposed to have family outings to the zoo, or McDonalds, and not to concerts by popular music performers, but we have to try and balance our ability to embarrass the kids with a certain amount of ‘cool’ parenting) . It was a great show, Florence is very theatrical with a decent set of pipes (and pins to match), and ‘And the Machine’ are a very talented bunch of musicians – it’s the only gig I’ve ever been to that has featured a harp solo (or even a harp at all for that matter). Talking of gigs. If you are in the north of England on 1 September you may want to make your way to the Boardwalk in Sheffield where my 14-year-old nephew is performing with his new band Disfunctioned. Billy is the bass guitar player in the group and I’m not sure how they have managed to land such a major venue for their debut outing. I’ve not heard them but I’m assured that they play both kinds of music... heavy, and metal. I have already made my apologies and said that due to a lack of a bus service between Perth and Sheffield I shall be unable to attend. I have however promised to go and support them should they embark on an Australian tour (so long as they come over to the West, as a lot of acts actually by-pass us and Adelaide and just do the big cities over in the east).
Whilst my sporting pastimes have dried-up of late , I am still attending Art Club. I know, it’s amazing that they haven’t kicked me out yet. Not only am I still going, but they do seem genuinely interested in my style of painting. Comments I have received include: ‘I’ve never seen it done like that before’, ‘it’s a bit small isn’t it?’, ‘have you finished?’, and ‘no-one else has got one like that’. I’m pretty sure that they were talking about my artwork. In fact, they are so intrigued (confused) by my dabblings that they have asked me to give a demonstration of my technique and ideas to the group at the November workshop. As nerve wracking as this prospect is I am helped by the fact that I do have some previous experience of presenting my artwork to an audience. Did I ever tell you about my appearance on South Korean TV? Oh yes, back in the late 90’s they couldn’t get enough of me over there - I managed to create an entire generation of Korean couch potatoes (hence the invention of the vaccine)... well, maybe not. What actually happened was that me and Dusty had a very enjoyable art holiday in St Ives (I say art holiday, but there was a fair amount of eating and drinking, okay mainly drinking involved as well). During one of the Art School sessions a TV crew from the South Korean version of ‘Wish You Were Here’ turned up to film the class. The rather gorgeous female host (who bore absolutely resemblance to Judith Chalmers) decided she wanted to interview me – I’m not fluent in the language but I’m pretty sure that what she said was ‘I really want to chat to this bloke because he looks like one hot stud-muffin to me’ (or something along those lines). I have no evidence that the interview actually made it into the final programme but I do have photographs to prove that such an event did occur (in fact I have them about my person at all times).
I will leave you with the news that, just like you in the UK, we in oz now have a hung parliament. In the end the nation was just not able to choose between the Sheilah and the Budgie Smuggler. As I write this they are both desperately trying to get the 5 Independents and 1 Green on board to help form a Government. It could take a while, who knows Harold Holt might even turn up to resume as Prime Minister before they have sorted it out.