The Destructor

Two months ago, The Destructor entered our lives. From the tiny human known as Little M, metamorphosised this new being.

Put simply, she learnt to crawl.

A large part of the past eight weeks have been taken up watching and chasing The Destructor as she crawled, explored and destroyed. Gone is my immobile baby forever.

For me, this is the hardest part of baby-rearing. The months up until now have been a doddle. But this crawling stage is hard work. We still don't have problems with sleeping and eating (despite what the naysayers insisted), and M has only been ill once with a cold. In those respects, we've been tremendously lucky. Now though, the cliche 'having eyes in the back of your head' has never been so true.

Last week, she stood up on her own two feet unaided (and quickly collapsed into a crumpled heap in confusion), which means that The Destructor will shortly have Height to add to her arsenal. God help us all.

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The Destructor was born ten months ago today.

Severe Bloglect

My blogging has tapered off severely during these summer months, for several reasons. My ranting time has been taken over by several different things, which I will share with you.

I am back though.

Away

I've just arrived back from west Wales, where I've been in a mostly communication-free zone - no landline, no mobile signal, no WiFi.

I feel better for it too.

Misconceptions

Yesterday, I noticed several views on the BBC and education, from left and right wing supporters. Neither side were correct, of course.

Firstly, Panorama aired a programme looking at how easy it was to sack teachers, and came out with statistics as to how many poor teachers had been fired in the last forty years. "Disgusting", shouted many left wingers,  "how dare the BBC criticise the public service yet again. This is just another example of how the BBC is pandering to the Conservatives because they're worried the licence fee is going to be slashed".

I'm paraphrasing, by the way.

Secondly, Newsnight put out a piece about cuts to the school building programme, which depicted an axe hanging over a school playground. "Disgusting", shouted many right wingers, "how dare the BBC criticise George Osborne's spending cuts. It's just typical of the tax-funded BBC never to support public spending restraint".

Oh dear. Which side are we to believe?

Well, neither actually.

Let's look at the facts. There is neither a left nor right wing conspiracy going on inside the BBC. Why? Simply because the BBC employs thousands of people across the globe; amongst those people will be differing backgrounds, political persuasions, religious beliefs, and ethnicities, to name but a few. How exactly then, would a mass conspiracy with the same cause be organised amongst such people, eh?

Plus anyone who's worked at the BBC will back me up on this one - it's precisely because it's such a sprawling organisation, that getting anything done collectively there is about as easy as getting fifty toddlers to march on the spot in unison.

So enough with the conspiracy theories, people. Get a little perspective.

We have the answer

...to the banking crisis. No, really. My friend Eli and I had a chat yesterday, and we sorted the whole thing out over a cup of tea and carrot cake.

When the banks were bailed out in September 2008, it left each individual in the UK with, what, £25K/£50K worth of debt? I don't know the actual figure, since they keep bleating different ones at us. Anyway, that's not the point.

Instead of bailing out the banks, why didn't Gordon Brown just give each individual person in the UK a lump sum of £25K or £50K each (whatever the true figure)?

I don't see what any of us have gained from the banks being bailed out, since we keep being told that we're still in the cack and will be for years. The way I see it, if we'd all been given a lump sum, we'd have all done something with it - invested it, spent it.....etc. Either way, it would have kept the economy going.

That all makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

A quiet month

What a quiet month it's been on the blogging front. Not least because of lots of work, two holidays (including one busman's holiday) and extreme house hunting.

Apologies for this, if you care. Assurances that normal blogging will resume shortly, including my recount of our first family holiday with Baby M in tow.

The Wedding Day Part 2

When you get married at Manhattan's City Hall, you don't book ahead like you do in the UK. Nope, you just stroll in and wait your turn. In fact, you take a ticket and wait for your number to come up. It's a bit like Argos, only instead of ending up with a pair of secateurs, you get a husband instead. Bargain.

After you've paid your $25 (no, really), you simply sit down until it's your turn to do the deed. Around you are other eager couples, some wearing traditional wedding dresses, others wearing jeans and t-shirt. Before you know it, the registrar is hollering your names and beckoning you into the chapel.

In we strolled with our Serbian witness-come-photographer. I remember feeling nervous and excited, and relieved that I wasn't having to do it all in front of a room full of relatives and friends.

The ceremony itself went something like this:

Registrar: "Do you love her?"
M: "Yes"
Registrar: "Do you love him?"
Me: "Yes"
Registrar: "Then I pronounce you husband and wife."

Following years of having to endure endless wedding ceremonies, interspersed with hymns, readings, poetry and the like, it was a breath of fresh air that it could all be that simple.

We practically danced out of the building onto the rainy streets, beaming. Our kindly Serb gave us his umbrella. Passers-by all offered us hearty congratulations. I couldn't imagine that happening at home.

Our reception was held at Starbucks, the nearest dry place where we could phone our friends and family to tell them the happy news, over a couple of lattes. Some were happy, some were confused, all were shocked.

After he gave us our photos, our wonderful photographer and witness from Serbia said goodbye. He had been honoured to help us. There was nothing left but to hail a cab to take us back to the Waldorf, where the staff there had left us the lovely surprise of a huge plate of strawberries, chocolate and a big bottle of champagne. We ordered a slap-up meal to be eaten in our pyjamas in our hotel suite.

The evening was spent at the top of the Empire State Building, celebrating by looking out at the twinkling lights of Manhattan.

Looking back, I couldn't have asked for anything better. Nothing was planned, nothing was stressed over but everything worked out perfectly.

The best wedding day ever.