Did you mean the XX?

I’ve just been on to google and typed in Paul Weller + Mercury Music Prize winner and it came back with the above reply. Surely the former Jam front man was robbed. I see that after some late, irregular betting patterns (for once not involving the Pakistan cricket team) the Modfather was a short priced favourite to take off the coveted title. He’s taking defeat very well, by leaving the country and coming over here to entertain the convicts – I shall be passing on my commiserations to him when I go and see him next month. I am hoping that it will be third time lucky and I do get to see him as my two previous attempts to watch him in concert have ended in disaster. I think the first show was cancelled due to illness or bad weather, or both but the second time I was definitely thwarted by a Fire Safety Certificate... or lack of. It wasn’t me; it was actually the venue that was missing the vital paper work. I have all of my up-to-date Fire safety documents having once successfully extinguished a fire in my boxer shorts. I should point out that it wasn’t actually a conflagration in my underwear – it was in fact a house fire, but I was only wearing boxer shorts at the time of successfully tackling the blaze. Luckily there are no photos to go with this story.
As you will have (no doubt) noticed - I have gradually got away from the vague notion that this is actually a blog about ‘the Davies family living in Australia’ and have accepted that I am, in fact, serialising my life story. I warn you now that it’s only a matter of time before we get to anecdotes such as ‘the jelly fight’ that took place at one of my birthday parties. You’re thinking that there is nothing unusual about a jelly fight at a children’s birthday party... I was 24, it took place in the street, and the police files say that the fight took place at some time after midnight. Chances are though that we won’t dwell upon the stories of the ‘bring and buy sale’ cabbage, and the de-handgranadeing of my brother’s airfix soldiers with a pair of scissors (an incident that George finds highly amusing).
Before I descend further into naval gazing, I should give you the latest news of ‘the Davies family living in Australia.’ Since I dissed him (a term that I believe was last used in late March 1990... at about 10.39am) for being a lazy, good-for-nothing couch potato type thing in my last entry, George has: played for the school rugby (league) team in the State competition, accompanied Wendy on the 12km ‘City to Surf’ walk, and won a prize for finishing third in the sprint race at the Sports carnival. Obviously, it is my words of ‘encouragement’ that have spurred him on to these sporting achievements. With this in mind I have no qualms in telling you about his latest step into adulthood – he was turned down by a girl when he asked her to dance at the school disco. But instead of doing what I would do (i.e. keeping it quiet and picking over it for the next 10 maybe 20 years and painting at least 40 pictures on the subject), he happily discussed it with all his mates and decided that next time he would ask a girl ‘early doors’ so that if she turned him down he would still have time to ask someone else. I think it might be time for that DNA test... this is clearly not Davies behaviour.
Another sign of George’s impending maturity is the fact that he has made his first mix tape (this is a move that is much more symptomatic of the Davies gene). I say mix tape, but clearly there was no cassette recorder used in its making and quite frankly the skill levels required for making up a compilation album these days with the help of i-tunes are negligible compared to how we had to do it back when I were a lad. It is only a matter of time before George combines both of the above items i.e. making a mix tape to give to a girl – and then getting rejected. The art of making a mix tape as a token of your affection is a very tricky one. The pitfalls are endless because basically you are looking for the balance between: including music that you know/or think you know she’ll like and including music that you think she should listen to (Beyonce-PJ Harvey); including music that doesn’t make you look too much like a morose, basket case and including music that makes you look like a soppy romantic wimp (Nick Cave - Nik Hayward). Judging by the number of times I got dumped, and the lengthy list of restraining orders I have against me I’m guessing I never did get the balance quite right.
Harriet is now allowed to take her earrings out having done the necessary six week probation thingy, or whatever it is you do when you have new holes put in your ears. This also means that she is allowed to put new earrings in – I’m not sure whether this is something that you are supposed to do on the hour every hour but that is exactly what she is doing at the moment. She is currently in the kitchen rustling up some buns with some sort of apple filling (actually they might be muffins), and apparently in order to do this you have to remove your flower shaped earrings and replace them with ones that are shaped like turtles (or they could be tortoises)... derrr, everyone knows that! . You never see Jamie or Ainsley making apple based bun type, muffiny things without their reptilian earrings in. (short pause) I just got called in to the kitchen to witness a double-yolked egg, I’m not sure that I expressed the sufficient amount of excitement that I was expected of me – they did look like identical twins though.
Hattie is getting over her disappointment of not being able to do her ballet exam this year because of our trip to Sydney. She can still go up to the next level but she won’t get a certificate, although I’m sure I could cobble something together in photoshop if necessary.
Wendy is almost packed ready for her overseas trip of many flights. She’s having one or two problems meeting the weight requirements (there is a lower weight allowance in South Africa than the UK – 20kg) and also the fact that there could be a sizeable difference in the climactic conditions – especially if the weather in the UK turns a bit autumnal. It does mean that when flying back to Perth from the UK she will have an extra 3kg of baggage allowance – I think is planning on using it for chocolate.
Anyway, I’m off to study my ‘Parenting for Dummies’ manual to ensure that everything runs smoothly whilst Wendy is away... I’m guessing I’ll be reverting to bribery before the week is out.
I leave you with the stunning news that Sunday shopping and Haribo sweets (yes that includes tangfastics and kiddie mix) have arrived in WA.
H