Jahn Teigen & Deirdre Rachid / Barlow - Separated at Birth?

I'm amost at the end of a great book called Spanish Steps by Tim Moore. Tim's humour never fails to impress me. The book is about Tim's travels along the world-famous Way of St James (el Camino de Santiago) across northern Spain ... with a donkey called Shinto. I haven't laughed out loud for so long at a book - theres' something about Tim's humour that really appeals to me.


I've already read French Revolutions and Do Not Pass Go, but now I want to read Tim's Nul Points book next, a look at all those acts from countries on the fringes of Eurovision notoriety who have ignominiously received nul points. One of my all-time favourites, and a legend in his own lunchtime - in fact, he adorns the cover of Moore's book - is Jahn Teigen of Norway. The YouTube video below is from his legendary performance at the Paris Palais des Congrès in 1978 ... check out his comedic, fake trip (hilarious with a very small "h"), not to mention his Deirdre Rachid (or is it Barlow again now?) glasses ...

Jahn Teigen's Official Website (in Norwegian, I'm afraid)




We went to see the midwife again yesterday, and all is fine with the baby (or "laddo" as I now call him). The midwife chirped up with "If your growth chart's correct, you'll be looking at an 8-pounder". What a skill it must be to be able to make an unborn baby sound like they're an airborne explosive device used by the Wehrmacht, discussed on endless Channel 4 documentaries by aged Cockneys pointing at the skies above the East End.

Humiliation Par Excéllence

What has happened to the England Rugby Team? I just can't understand why we've become so depressingly awful.

Why am I being so negative and not doing as any faithful fan would, such as espousing the virtues of "taking part, not winning"?

Well, on Friday evening I settled down with a few cold beers on hand to watch England v South Africa. I knew this would be a tough match, and it was being touted as England's biggest test match since last World Cup's final against the Wallabies.

Beset with injuries, no strength in depth, no battle-ready number 10, and no real peripheral vision going on, I watched as time and again the Springboks ran ring after ring after ring around us. I actually found myself cheering Bryan Habana as he came back onto the pitch to replace his blood substitution.

Such was my disappointment that I actually turned over at half-time to watch some vacuous BBC comedy, as my constant grimacing was giving me face ache.

But the worst is yet to come. If - and it's a big if - we get second place in our Pool, then we get the almighty task of meeting Australia in the quarter finals. Safe to say that our velocitous exit will be precipitated by Australia's bloodthirsty need for revenge.

But we shouldn't all look on this gloomily - even though Australia will beat us, and it's not a case of if but of by how many points - we can all safely look back on November '03 and know that we beat them when it mattered most, on their turf, in front of their home crowd. Despite all of their back-stabbing, smear campaigns, verbal and xenophobic attacks on England that tournament, we still lifted the Webb-Ellis trophy.

We all get our "15 minutes of fame". Our time's now up.

Back In The Saddle Again ... And 3 Names You Should Never Choose As A Parent ...

It's been quite a while now since I last wrote in this blog - two months, in fact. Thing is, I don't even know where the time has gone! Back at the end of May I extrapolated about there being less than 200 days before I was to become a dad ... now it's only 100 days! And that - by my calculation - means that I have 14.28 weeks left before my son is born.

That's right, I said son, as we're expecting a boy!! We went for the second ultrasound scan back on August 6th at th'ospickle in Lichfield, and thankfully all was okay with the baby. The nurse doing the ultrasound (what is their job title?!) was checking the heart for ages - got me worried - but she said it's procedure and all was fine.

Then she asked if we wanted to know what it was - well I did, but Becky didn't. Trouble is, she'd be able to tell immediately from my reaction what it was. So we agreed and the nurse said "I'm 98% sure it's a boy". 98%?! What's all that about? Why the 2%? We were later told it's because there are many mistakes made with declaring - one woman was told 3 times that she was having a boy, then out popped a girl. So I'm happy, but not out of the woods yet!

The nurse asked if we'd chosen a name yet - well if it's a boy (note I'm still saying "if") it's going to be called Harry after my paternal grandfather, who died of tuberculosis at 32 years old, a week before my dad's 1st birthday. There's no other name we want. My mother-in-law's not keen on the name ... but she keeps referring to him as "Hal" or "Arry Boy" (when she first said this last one, I thought she'd said Haribo after the German confectioner!!). I like Hal, as he's one of my fave Shakespeare characters from Henry IV:Part One. The nurse also told us about other names that she has been told be prospective (chav) parents, who already have kids - these are REAL names for kids in the same families ...

• Girls
• Chanelle,
• Chantelle, and
  
• Charelle.

• Boys
• Wayne,
• Dwayne, and
  
• Shane.

• And I remember two Pakistani brothers I was at school with were called ...
• Wajid (aka. Waj), and
• Sajid (aka. Saj).
  

So now we're into the final stretch of the pregnancy, and we have no more time off work before the big day arrives (earmarked for December 16th). I'm getting very excited now - the nursery's all but done, we've been out and bought all the necessary bits and pieces, we've filled out all of the maternity and paternity forms, etc. All we really need to do now is wait for Haribo to put in an appearance - preferrably on the date specified!