When I started this blogging challenge, I had hoped I would get asked a few of those philosophical greats and the question I’m answering today is no disappointment – it’s the great ethical dilemma…. Monkeys, or Pirates?

I think for a proper response, we first need to look at the pros and cons of each:

Monkeys
Pros

• They can swing through the trees a bit like Spiderman except he swings past buildings and needs sticky stuff. That’s cool.

• They have that whole neat “extra limb” thing with their tails. That’s got to come in handy carrying your shopping back from Tescos.
• They have famous friends like Darwin, Richard Dawkins, and Clint Eastwood.

Cons

• The poor sods only get tea at their parties.

• That whole eating each other’s nits thing just isn’t very attractive.

Pirates
Pros

• They get rum at their parties.

• They get lots of gold dubloons too. What’s the exchange rate on gold dubloons like?

Cons

• I don’t like rum.

• I get seasick.
• There must be a lot of parrot shit.
• Increased risk of losing one’s leg.
• Was that eye-patch look EVER fashionable?!

So… on balance… Monkeys. Definitely.

…to live in the UK?

Good question (she says, as she looks out on yet more rain). Do we really choose to live where we do? Oh, I know we do within certain parameters – but for us we followed the job, want to be able to visit close relatives from time to time without needing to take plane journeys.

I sometimes have idle fantasies of emigrating somewhere else. I’m just not sure where I’d choose to go. I’ve never been very good with languages and to be honest, I’m not really interested in learning more than holiday-level anything so it’d have to be somewhere English was a main language. Although I like parts of the US, I don’t think I could live there permanently, Canada is even colder than here, Australia and New Zealand have the creepy crawly factor…

I don’t really mind the rain all that much. Well, okay, yes I do, but I like what results from the rain – very lush green scenery. I like British culture – well, at least I’m used to it. Moving country would require learning to live differently (learning new brands, new ways of doing things, new laws, etc) which I’m not sure I’m prepared to do.

Most of all, I’m a creature of habit and there’s just no place like home.

…would you like to have met, and why?

The first of my random challenge questions (and thank you to all who have contributed a question – I’ll get to them all eventually!) and already it’s a toughie.

Who to choose?

I’m not sure there’s a single person – I would love to have access to some sort of time machine (that didn’t affect the future, of course) and chat to any number of people – famous or not. The history I enjoy learning about the most is of the “normal” people caught up in big events: the third class passenger on Titanic, the French housewife living under German occupation in the Second World War, a pilgrim living in hardship in the New World.

I think, on reflection, the person I’d most like to meet is an ancestor of mine. I’m not sure of her name, although I could probably ask my grandmother what it was. I’m not sure of her exact relationship – great, great, great something-or-other I suspect. All I know about her is that she was a Jewish seamstress living in London at the time of her marriage. She married a Gentile. There’s a story in there, maybe even a romantic one. It would be nice to learn about it first hand.

Excellent article on the NHS and why “we’ve lost our faith in doctors”. Sums up everything I’ve felt about the medical profession in the last three years, really.

Have just seen this via D4D – it’s the official hyperlink policy for the Olympics.

For your protection and ours we have established a procedure for parties wishing to introduce a link to the ATHENS 2004 website on their site. By introducing a link to the ATHENS 2004 official Website on your site you are agreeing to comply with the ATHENS 2004 Website General Terms and Conditions. In order to place a link embedded in copy interested parties should:

a) Use the term ATHENS 2004 only, and no other term as the text referent

b) Not associate the link with any image, esp. the ATHENS 2004 Emblem (see paragraph below)

c) Send a request letter to the Internet Department stating:
* Short description of site
* Reason for linking
* Unique URL containing the link (if no unique URL than just the main URL)
* Publishing period
* Contact point (e-mail address)

Once the request has been mailed, interested parties can proceed to include the link and will only receive a response if ATHENS 2004 does not accept the link.

Do the words “fuck” and “off” mean anything to these people?!!

In an effort to encourage her to blog more frequently, I’ve recently issued famousamy a blogging challenge where she has a jar full of slips of paper with random words on them. Each day she’s to pick one of the words and blog the first thing that comes to mind. She’s taken it one step further and is asking her readers to volunteer the random words for her bloggage.

Anyway, seeing as I’ve inflicted this challenge on famousamy, it seems only fair that I partake of a similar challenge myself, only with slightly different criteria for the sake of variety.

So, for a limited period of time, I will answer any question whatsoever. Just pop a question you’d like me to blog about in the comments, I will write it on a bit of paper then each day I will randomly pick one to blog about until I run out of slips of paper. Any question at all.

Be kind.

And so the annual “let’s take the wind out of the sails of those young adults who have worked really hard and got good grades by implying that the exams are piss easy and meaningless” ritual begins. Bastards.

If you’ve got your results today: avoid the papers, block the BBC News Website, ignore the media mayhem. I’m raising a glass for you, whether for celebrations or commiserations. They are neither the be all and end all, nor useless bits of paper – as in all things important, it’s what you do with them that counts.

The other day, Akra Jr had an informal 3 year check from the Health Visitor. All seems well: slightly underweight to what he should be if he were following his line correctly, but not enough to be a concern; slightly taller than what he should be if he were following his line correctly, but not enough to be a concern; and I have to take him for a sight check next time I go to the optician.

His language ability was also informally assessed (i.e. she listened to him yak her ear off all the while she was here) and apparently he has the language ability of a four year old. I’m insanely proud even though I’ve had absolutely nothing to do with it – by all rights he should be zombified and silent the amount of TV he’s watched throughout my pregnancy and early days with Li’l Bhaji. According to the Health Visitor, an awful lot of 3 year olds need translation from Mummy to be coherent, and they only need to speak 5 word sentences to be “average”, while Akra Jr is … well… fluent, with excellent understanding to boot.

Of course, his above average language skills are probably responsible for the fact he’s recently embraced the “f” word and says it with clear enjoyment. I’ve mentioned before how this evolved out of his confusion on how to say “suck”, but now the clarity and precision in his pronunciation can no longer be ignored.

I took him to one side yesterday and carefully explained that he was saying it wrong, the word he was looking for was “suck” and the other word he was using wasn’t appropriate. End result is that he’s changed his usage, he now says loudly on a regular basis “Fuck is a rude word, isn’t it Mummy?”

Still, at least he hasn’t stumbled on the fatal combination guaranteed to send me screaming for the hills: “WHY is fuck a rude word, Mummy?” He’s saving that for his great grandmother’s visit tomorrow…

Wonder if I can swipe some of this treatment from the monkeys…

Well, it doesn’t look quite so bad today, but we have some lovely stain patterns on the walls and ceiling now. I’m hoping only noticeable if you’re looking for it and we’ve conveniently positioned a small table in *just* the right place on the carpet…