Our Greatest Team Rises

BP have recently launched a set of new medallions called the BP Legends Collection – a series of 12 medallions depicting ten British Olympic and two British Paralympic winning moments from past Games.  To help launch this they kindly invited me and the Mrs to the ‘Our Greatest Team Rises’ event at the Royal Albert Hall.  A star spangled event where the Hoi Polloi could mix it up with the bold and the beautiful (well from a distance anyway).

The situation demanded a Tux, something I wasn’t looking forward to.  Most days I can barely be bothered to put on jeans and I even have a special pair of them for ‘formal’ occasions, but several frowns and scowls convinced me to toe the line and tux up.

Before the event we got to meet and have a chat with Sir Steve Redgrave, without doubt our finest ever Olympian and whose face adorns the first medallion.  He happily posed for pics with us all and answered all things Olympic, including a story about all the traffic problems he encountered during the Atlanta Olympics.  As someone living right on top of the Olympic Park, it’s something I hoping isn’t repeated in a few months time.

There was an impressive list of performers at the event: Gary Barlow, Mel C, Will Young, Alfie Boe, The Feeling, Kimberly Walsh, Charlie Siem, The Noisettes and Spellbound (who hilariously sat in front of us after they had performed and instantly started tweeting en masse). We also had the pleasure of Davina McCall, John Bishop and Dermot O’Leary (who when we saw him outside my wife pushed me in the road in her haste to get to him) hosting the evening.  Plus, gasp, William and Cate, yep the real ones, also put in an appearance.

A great night was had by all and was topped off with a dash through Holborn station when the Station Announcer informed us as we got off the Piccadilly line train that “The last central line train will be leaving in two minutes.”  Cue a mad dash of Tux’s, evening gowns and various other late night drunks running through the station in fits of infectious, mad, breathless laughter.

The BP Legends Collection Medallions can be purchased from BP’s forecourts across the country. The first medallion is available for £1 together with an official presentation pack and the remaining 11 medallions will cost £2 each.  All profits from the sale of the Our Greatest Team Legends Collection will directly support Team GB and ParalympicsGB to help aspiring athletes deliver their best performance at London 2012 and beyond.

For more information about the Our Greatest Team Legends Collection and how you can start collecting the limited edition medallions, visit www.bp.com/medallions .

So as not to fall foul of the Blogging Police, this is a sponsored post (if you hadn’t guessed by now).  We attended the event as guests of BP and they even bought me a beer, but just one mind, they didn’t get me drunk and write this for me ok.

A Sporting Chance

The notice on the door read “The children will be taking part in a sporting event so can you please ensure they are wearing sports clothing on Thursday…”  An innocent enough request, in fact it was quite polite of them to actually tell us rather than rely on the memory of a five year old, especially a five year old that can switch subjects faster than I can change TV channels. 

To be honest, it was by pure chance that I even saw the damned sign.  I’m normally so busy juggling book bags, lunch boxes and children that it’s as much as I can do to push the right child through the right classroom door, all in my haste to return the temporary peace and quiet of home.  But I did, so score one for me, Mr Responsible Dad for a change.  This new me may even start reading the school newsletters in future, it would be quite refreshing to be one step ahead of the game rather than standing outside locked school gates on an inset day.

I can then only presume that it was my new smug self confidence that made me forget about the notice until 9pm on the Wednesday night, shit buggery bollocks.  Now I have to decide whether to tell the Mrs now, or try to blag it in the morning.  Before deciding, I pop out to the kitchen to see if I have enough vodka left to help withstand the disdainful looks and tongue-lashing that I am about to receive.  Half a bottle, that’ll do it.  The fact she would be coming with us to drop the kids off in the morning settled the matter, time to face the music.

She took the news as well as could be expected to be fair.  I can only presume that she was relieved that I had remembered 12 hours before the event, rather than the usual 12 minutes.  Nate’s not the kind of kid that wears sports gear, apparently he looks so cute that he only ever gets bought ‘nice’ clothes.  It hadn’t really occurred to me until I needed it that we he didn’t have any of his own.  I decided I would put him in his sisters Arsenal kit, I knew it would fit him and it had been sunny all week so the emergency was over.

Over that was until we woke up on Thursday to clouds and ground frost, bugger.  No tracksuit in the house fit him, so I wrangled everyone together überfast.  I dressed him in the top and shorts for now and we would have to zip into Tesco’s on the way there.  We had an extra 15 minutes to play with so it was going to be tight, tight but doable.  

I’ve always believed in reincarnation, it just makes sense to me.  The trouble is that on mornings like this it becomes glaring obvious that I was either a Spanish Inquisitor, a Hun’s henchman, or a Traffic Warden in a previous life.  I got stuck behind a dustcart and then two Learners on the way there, the 15 minutes I thought we would get in Tesco’s had become six. 

The clothing section was in the far corner of the store and I can only imagine what we looked like running through the shop dragging two bewildered children behind us.  Looking back on it now, I would have loved to have seen the Security Camera footage of those mad five minutes.  The mirth we must have caused as we bounced from camera to camera.  Would they have been able to see the panic in my eyes, the beads of sweat forming on my forehead as we belted up and down the unending aisles of tat?  I like to think so.

We eventually arrived at the right aisle and started pulling clothes of the rails, desperately looking for the right size.  Size 7, size 7, size 4, size 6, size 3, size 8 – it was a numerical dyslexic’s nightmare.  Fortune eventually started to smile on us as we found a hoody (dark blue) and some jogging bottoms (grey) in a size 5.  The bottoms looked a bit long so despite the time ticking away, I got him to try them on.  A perfect fit (ish), but we had no time to lose so we left them on him and leaving the clothes section looking like opening day of the Next Christmas Sales, rushed back to the tills. 

The only ones open were the self service tills, so I picked Nate up and scanned his arse over the scanner.  I was then prompted to “Please place item in bagging area”, bugger, there was nothing else to do but drop Nate in the said area.  The till started to throw a paddy with a series of commands - “Unexpected item in bagging area” then “Are you using your own bags?” and finally “Please wait for assistance”.

I can’t really explain the look on the shop assistants face but ‘Rottweiler licking piss off a thistle’ comes the closest.  She didn’t say a word, she didn’t really need to in all fairness, but after I had paid and started doing the walk of shame out of the store, I could feel her contemptuous stare boring into the back of my scull.  One only matched in intensity by the walking iceberg next to me, an iceberg oft referred to as the Mrs.

Lady Luck finally stated to take pity on me and the ride to school was free of traffic and red lights.  With three minutes to spare I triumphantly ushered the children through the school gates.  The Wife’s perma-scowl was starting to soften and I felt the tension start to ease out of my shoulders.  I honestly tried to suppress the smug grin that begun to form on my face when I saw the other stay at home dad in the playground.  A dad who was holding the hand of a full uniformed son, poor kid, how could you forget, pah?

The smile started to wobble when I saw the offspring of both Yummy and Slummy mummy, who were both in school uniforms of varying tidiness.  I turned to the Mrs and her perma-scowl was back.  I pointed to the sign on the door, Look, see, it quite clearly says “The children will be taking part in a sporting event so can you please ensure they are wearing sports clothing on Thursday 26^th April.”

Bugger.

At least I’m ready for next week then.

It's the little things

I recently asked myself the question ‘Am I depressed or do depressing things keep happening to me?’  I sat and thought about this for about a month before I actually uttered it out loud – and in that month I started mentally listing all the things that depressed me, which in itself was depressing, a double-bummer.

So inspired by a Bob Crampon article, I decided to list the stuff I like – a piece of positive thinking therapy if you will.

Bees, watching them, hearing them, clinging on to the quasi-Buddhist belief that I may come back as one.
Beating my daughters mates achievement scores on the Xbox (sorry Lucy, currently beating you by 130 on Skyrim, ha ha).
A new shaped pasta – grain pasta is this month’s fad.
Smoking, even though I haven’t in 5 years.
The postman holding an Amazon box.
Finding one of my special blue writing pens in the kids bedroom…with the lid still on.
Growing basil on my kitchen window.  My new bird feeder.
My latest phenomenon of waking up with a song I haven’t heard in years, stuck in my head (this was also on my depressed list as a sign of a possible brain tumour).
Smoked paprika, juniper berries, flaked rock salt, bread, frying Szechuan peppers for the pepper mill and adding Vermouth to pasta sauces.
Coltrane when I’m sad.
Coltrane when I’m happy.
Remembering something the wife forgot.  The year’s first daffodil.  The pennies that our house is full of.
The smell of a new bottle of washing up liquid and finding an awesome new recipe in a cookbook.
Having a garage for the first time in my life and filling it with man stuff.
The rest of the family considering the said garage as off-limits in deference to my masculinity.
Budleigh Salterton.
Cold pillows and warm towels.
Hearing the kids laugh every time I wake up and let one rip.  Letting one rip in general.
Looking back at a now clean room.  New taste buds.  Adidas trainers (black) ((always)).
Moleskine notebooks, stationary and new batteries.
Vinyl records on display.  Double glazing and thick walls. 
Saturday mornings spent watching a kids movie, followed by Saturday Kitchen, whilst still in my PJ’s.
Taking my shoes and socks off.  Big wine glasses, half full.
Ice cubes, vodka, limes and Russchian.
The first pint of a Saturday lunchtime.
BOGOF deals on something I actually need.
My harmonica not judging me for my awful attempts at learning to play it.
Wry smiles, a curious raised eyebrow and a barely suppressed laugh.
Lem Motlow, Gary Larson and Nelson Mandela.
Pointless websites and downloading new fonts.
Locks on toilet doors, autographs and autumn.
Trivial amounts of trivia.
Miso paste, thumb rings and a fresh razor blade (not together).
Planet Dork and their parachuting metal mice.
Wild expectations but never mine.  Crap magic by young children.
Eclecticness.
Red and White, fiddling with corks and Wild Wood.
Beeping strangers and then waving madly.  Finding short cuts.  Singing in the car…alone. 
Doing keepy ups and kicking footballs.
QT in HD with JD.
Being able to forward through adverts.

Writing this list.

Not on the High Street

When you name your kids Storm, Kaede and Nate you are often hard pushed to find anything with their names on in the High Street shops.  It’s not something you consider when you are playing the naming game, why would you, but it can be a proper pain in the butt later on down the line.  So when NotontheHighStreet.com asked me to pick and review one of their products, my answer was an obvious “Yes”.  It’s a site my wife had often used for personalised door signs, piggy banks and the like.

Before I went onto the site I had to decide who was going to be the lucky recipient of whatever I picked.  Storm has just celebrated her 18^th so she was off the list.  Kaede has just turned 7 so ditto her.  Nate is 5 in a few weeks but the Mrs has been über-organised and had already got all his pressies.  It is Mothers day soon but I always get my Mum daffodils (as a bump they named me dilly, I don’t know, it was the 70’s?) and the kids insist on picking their own presses so Mum’s were also off the list.

So that leaves little old me, it’s not my birthday for months so I decided that I deserved the free treat.

I went onto the site and went straight to the ‘for him’ section and to say I was spoilt for choice would be an understatement.  The site has the tag line ‘one basket, hundreds of unique shops’ and they’re not kidding. 

I saw a Skyline Wall Art sticker, a print of the London skyline that would fit perfectly on the big blank wall we have in one of the rooms, but then I realised that would only prompt the Mrs into demanding that I redecorate first, so I clicked away.

Next was a cashmere football scarf that comes in your teams colours (obviously).  Supporting footy in style was sounding good until I remembered that Kaede was becoming quite the footy fan and had taken to nicking my current scarf and wearing it to school.  It wouldn’t last a day in her grubby paws, so again I clicked away.

I then saw a personalised ‘…likes’ poster print, the idea being that you name 10 things you like and it would be turned into a ‘Goonerjamie likes…’ blah blah blah.  I started to list my ten things.  When I had finished four of them were alcoholic beverages, three were ex-Arsenal players, one was Arsenal, one was unmentionable and one was a Hollywood actress.  I decided that my list may not go down too well with the Mrs, so I carried on a clicking.

I then happened upon a silver scroll bracelet.  Three solid silver scrolls, threaded onto double leather black cords.  The scrolls could then be personalised with two initials, with a heart in-between for the romantic at heart, or with three initials for everyone else i.e. me.  I quite like a funky looking bracelet so I had found my gift.  I decided to get it personalised with the kids initials S, K and N and that was me set.  Ironically, before I placed the order I googled the letters SKN to make sure it wasn’t some sort of dubious acronym.  It turns out that it’s internet slang for ‘OK, cool, whatever’ which pretty must describes the kids anyway (in no particular order kids, in case they’re reading).

Five days later my bracelet turned up in a muslin drawstring sack, complete with care instructions.  Every bracelet is handmade and mine had a real rustic look and feel to it.  Like myself, it looked classic and understated and I’ve been happily wearing it ever since.

The love heart silver scrolled bracelet costs £49 and for a unique personalised item, that is exclusive to the site, feels like quite good value for money.

Thanks to Harriet French from www.notonthehighstreet.com for inviting me to do the review and I must point out that this is a sponsored post and I did not pay for the bracelet that I ordered.  I must also point out that if they think they are getting it back, they’ve got another thing coming bwahahaha.