Choose the fate of the BT couple!

After 5 years of adverts, BT are letting us choose the fate of Adam and Jane! If you need bringing up to date you can either watch all of them here.. or get a hobby.

By visiting BT's special website you can help decide what should happen next in their series...

I LOVE the British public's responses so far:

• Adam and Jane change to the new BT browser and find it's as rubbish as we're finding it. Constant losses of connection. Driven by the resulting frustration; Adam throws his laptop through the window and Jane batters the home-hub before deep-frying it with a spare Mars bar.

• Adam trips over the home hub, gets the wire wrapped around his neck and tragically dies. Jane runs into the road screaming where she is killed by a BT van. The kids go to live with their dad, but become so frustrated by his slow broadband connection that they beat him to death with his own laptop. Or: Adam and Jane get married, and they all live happily ever. either one will do.

• Adam finds out that Jane has been cheating using his new faster BT broadband, he follows this up with a free weekend phone call to the local hitman.

• Adam gets a fault on his phone line that BT tell him will require an engineer to fix. The fault is within his property and the dirty smelly BT engineer arrives and spends less than 10 minutes on the fault then tells him he won't be charged for it. Two months later Adam receives a bill that takes £125 out of his bank account for the engineer visit and sees this for the extortionate price that it is. He calls BT to complain but is faced with a member of staff who can barely speak English and doesn't understand what he is saying. He hangs up after getting nowhere and tries again with the same outcome. Adam then emails BT and tells them to stick their services where the sun don't shine and decides to transfer to Virgin Media. With Virgin Media he realises that he has been being totally ripped off by BT as he now gets up to 50mb broadband, a whole load of premium channels and on demand content and all his calls for the same price he was paying BT for receiving less services. Adam is now happy and calls Jane advising her to switch to Virgin Media for a better service.

• Adam realises that he's a decent actor and that no matter how well paid these vacuous adverts are they are no substitute for a proper career. He does the decent thing and tells BT to shove it.

• Jane gets flying elbow-dropped from on top of the wardrobe by a midget in a wrestling costume. Nobody knows how long he's been hiding there, but in hindsight food has been going missing from the kitchen for a while.  Meanwhile, a bunch of local delinquents start throwing mini babybels at Adam through an open window.

• Just me, or would anybody else like them both killed?, nothing horrific or anything, maybe a gas explosion or hit with a rogue metorite strike.....hmmm yes that would be my choice.

• Dear BT: Any chance of this?

Conference Call

I had my first conference call today.

I know, I know. How very grown up.

In a way it's great: there's no way I'd have been able to sit there with my flip flop'd feet up on the table eating an ice cream in a board room. How were they to know?

In another way, it's very odd. There are lots of uncomfortable gaps in the conversation because you really need eye contact to have a proper multi-person chat.

But on the good side: the meeting was so much quicker than it would have been if we'd been in the same room because we were all so uncomfortable we wanted it done and dusted as soon as possible. And besides my fingers were sticky from the ice cream.

The only thing I wish I'd known was the opening etiquette. The automated BT lady tells you to type in the pin code you've been given to join the meeting. So, I pulled the handset away to see the keypad and carefully typed it in. As I put the ear piece back I heard the lady say 'and then press hash key'. "Ooh, this is fun!", I said as I hit hash whilst trying not to drip Magnum on it.

Suddenly there was silence and I said.. 'erm.. hello?' and another voice said 'Hi, who's that?'.. 'It's Steve..'
And then after some pleasantries an automated voice said 'Guest joining the call is..' followed by a man's voice saying 'Sean' - And then the same voice (now known as Sean) greeted us and started apologising for being late.

It was at this point I realised that what I'd missed the lady say before 'and then press the hash key' was most likely in hindsight 'Say your name now...'

So when I'd joined in the other's had heard the lady say 'Guest joining the call is.. "OOH, THIS IS FUN!"

Football Explained

I was having a chat with my nephew yesterday.

He's only four years old and is very excited about his first World Cup.

He was telling me he'd joined a football club and then went on to explain to me how football worked:

1. 'You can't pick up the ball as that's cheating'
2. 'Two people fall over a lot'
3. 'A man blows a whistle'

To be fair, he knows more about it than me.

Middle Class Tantrum

Supermarkets really do define social classes don't they?

Never was this more clear than this afternoon.

When I'm in Tesco I often hear kids saying in a whiney voice:
"Muuu-uum can we get some sweets?"
"Muu-uum I WANT some CRISPS!!"

But today in Waitrose I heard:
"Mummy, shall I get the brioche?"

More Things A Daddy Has Learnt

1. Always rinse the bath out properly before bathtime.  I think it's fair to say that you shouldn't find pubic hair on them for at least another 12 years.

2. If you have a bath toy Octopus by all means call him 'Olly' but if you have a bath toy Whale refrain from calling him 'Willy'. It's fine for a while until you shout out 'Come and look! He's playing with Willy in the bath!' whilst your neighbours are paying a house visit.

3. Taking a baby swimming is awesome but getting them dried on your own is hard work. Some how you end up being more wet than if you'd jumped in fully clothed.

4. Even though when 'swimming' with a baby all you do is spin in a circle, lift, push etc.. without doing any lengths or diving.. you still leave the pool absolutely starving like you've just swum the channel. How is that possible? Do vending machine operators pump something into the air that makes you crave Frazzles, Tootie Frooties and Lilt?

5. Having re-read point '1' again I think I should add that you probably shouldn't 'find' pubic hair on a 12 year old, they should simply discover it themselves.

Mother's Day Musings

Becoming a parent has finally made me realise that Mother's Day isn't just a cynical ploy by Greetings Card manufacturers and florists to get us to spend money (though the same is surely still true of Valentine's Day), nor is it merely an excuse for Simply Red to release another Love Songs album (though it's a happy coincidence that keeps Mick Hucknall in curlers).

For the first time in my life I can genuinely see how amazing mums are and that they really do deserve a special day separate from their birthday on which we focus on how great they really are.

It's not that I was a bad son and didn't appreciate my mum, but I now realise (with some sadness since this is the second Mother's Day without her) that my brothers and I never really knew and therefore never really showed her quite how amazing we thought she was. Like I say, we were lovely to her.. but we couldn't have known quite how lovely she deserved us to be. We couldn't have known all of the words we should have spoken of gratitude and love. It's only since becoming a Dad that I can see all of the things my parents did for me even before I was born; all of the emotions she would have felt and everything she went through and sacrificed for me...

But here I am, a Dad, and here's the first Mother's Day for my wife, the mother to our son. He's done well: scrambled eggs, daffodils (all supermarket flowers are pink and my wife hates pink), a personalised card, a present.. but 'Mummy' insists the best gift of all was the 2 and a half hour lie in she had whilst father and son covered each other in puree'd pear and sang songs down stairs. (If I'd have known this, he'd needn't have taken our a hefty loan from the Bank Of Dad for those Spa Treatments).

But I know that actually the best gift of all was when she was finally awoken by him practising his yodelling in the room next door; it was the smile he'd have given her; the squeal of excitement; the glint in his eyes; the hug with his tiny arms and the sigh of contentedness. So I know that my Mum will have felt special too, because actually being a parent at all is easily the best gift you can be given anyway.

Although that doesn't mean you're getting off lightly when Father's Day comes round in June.

Baby Bath

It appears I'm not allowed to give my son a bath.

For I do not have the required Laser Eyes.

Disappointing.

More things you learn when you're a new Dad

We're heading towards the four week mark. What have I learnt?

1. It's worth becoming a Dad if only to have someone who enjoys your singing

2. You'd think that when you become a Dad, you'd start enjoying the BBC's annual charity event Children In Need. Apparently this is not the case. You still don't enjoy watching newsreaders dance.

3. Never ever get too cocky about how good you are at changing nappies. Sure you may have a system now: all nappy sacks, clean nappies, cotton wool, water, wipes, tissues, nappy cream, kitchen towel will be in their optimum position for you to work away at speed, your arms working overtime in a whirl of hygiene like suddenly you're a very maternal octopus. That's fine.. but don't then say either in your head or out loud as you go to put on the clean wrap.. "Oh yes, I am the Nappy Ninja!". For at this point your son will somehow turn his body towards yours in a way he's not managed before and will pee all over your cardigan.

4. 'Night Feeds' are meant to be for the baby to feed not you. Don't get caught with that big box of chocolates on your lap when your wife pops down to see if you're okay.

5. Don't get upset when you realise your singing isn't enough to soothe your child anymore. This is what household appliances are for. No really.. My son will always fall asleep if held near a working washing machine, tumble dryer or dishwasher. And no, that doesn't mean he prefers the sound of a dishwasher to the sound of your voice. How could it?

6. If you had to pick one of the dancing news readers to remotely fancy it'd probably be Weekend Breakfast's Susannah Reid.

Being Manly

One thing about being a Dad is that it makes you feel very manly and you feel a sudden urge to be manly in other ways.

I feel I should know how to change that tyre/fit that washing machine/fix the uneven floorboard.

I give up at boilers however and get a man in. I still want to sound wise though so I spend the morning on various websites swotting up on my central heating system.

The man arrives. Late. (But that's another story, since when oh people at NPower has 13.20 been part of 'AM'?!)

I welcome him in with his boxes of tools and he asks a few questions.. One of which is:

'How long have you had the Litlun?'

Oh, about four or five years perhaps, we inherited it from the people who lived here before.

'What?'

About four years, I was wondering whether we should replace it

'He looks very small for a four year old'

You're talking about my son aren't you?

'Yes'

I thought you were talking about the boiler. I thought Litlun was the.. anyway...

'Right'

...

...

He's two weeks old

'Ah, lovely. Still not getting much sleep then?'

Apparently not

...

Cup of tea?

Night feeds for a child with a cat

Ah, the serenity of a night feed.

Sneaking down stairs with a slightly whimpering baby to prepare the bottle. Talking away to him about everything you're doing like a softly spoken, high pitched commentator on The Great Milk Race.

It's a beautiful moment in many ways between parent and child.

Ooh and who's that at the window? It's Atticus the Catticus! Shall we let him in and say hello?! Shall we?! ShallweshallwesayhellotoAtticusssss?!

And so I found myself at 2 in the morning with a hungry wriggling baby under one arm and a wriggling cat with a mouse in his mouth under the other.

I'm not sure which of the three of us was crying the loudest.

If only that cat could hunt milk bottles. Yes.. Ifonlythatcatcouldhuntbottlesofmilkywilky..