Shitting in the Bath

free-floating days...

Kids, as you know, love to shit in the bath.  You don’t…know?  Well yes, for the mycomium baby, this may be some form of return to the womb, when times were less hectic and the waters were more maternal.  Ben loves this form of relaxation and I’d be more than happy to grant it to him.  The problem is, however, that if you leave him for more than a few minutes to splash away happily while you catch up with the online Guardian, you are liable to come back and find him splashing happily surrounded by several UFO’s [unidentified floating objects..]

 

Awright, how about a shower then…..

Who Killed the Electric Car?

If you do one passive couch-potato act in 2008, watch “Who Killed the Electric Car”.  It’s floating around the internet somewhere, just reel it in with a combination of Isohunt and Azureus.

Are we all idiots?  Why are we not driving electric?  Why does it take an Indian company to market the only electric car that is up for sale in the UK? (http://www.revaindia.com/index.htm).  Yes, it looks like a toaster on wheels but it is the only thing we can buy at this stage?  Why, ye Gods, why?  Yes, we are all being held to ransom by oil producing countries and their western acolytes, the dripping-with-profits oil companies.  Why on earth can’t an entrepreneur with some clout start building electric cars that look a little less toasterish?  Financial clout I don’t have, but insight (at least in this matter) I do have.  Whoever puts his risk capital on the line and goes for it will be the Ford of the future.  Why on earth would you drive a tub with 2,000 moving parts all gliding over each other in a friction frenzy when you could drive a motor with about 7 moving parts?

Give us the cars that General Motors towed away and pulped and just watch the price of oil go into terminal decline.  Oh, did I unwittingly stumble across something there…?

Grounded from a Distance

Helen, it seems, is grounded.  I was informed in international stereo, from the background hubbub over the Yahoo Messenger link, as my wife carefully explained her rationale while various items were displaced somewhere near her.  Grounded, it seems, is not what it was, not what it used to be in the monochrome sixties.  In fact, were we ever grounded?  Parents must have valued their bit o’ peace and quiet too much to endanger it.  Probably short sharp shocks were administered as the preferred tool.

Grounded in the 21st Century, at least as interpreted by Lyn, means withdrawal of stimuli.  No TV, no computer, no gameboy (well, it would do if Helen had one: Santa proved reluctant to sell out completely to the information age).  Grounded means rolling on the floor and talking to the baby because log-in to the Penguin Club is currently unavailable.  Grounded means taking a longer shower, unbolting your food and discovering that Mum is not working today so-let’s-go-to-the-park!

Grounded might not be so bad after all… 

Bowled Over

The life of the mind sometimes breaks through from the neurone zone to the concrete and flesh down on the street.  Walking uphill to “J” and “K” Buildings at Woosong University, laughing with Liz about what we would do with our 1,000 won per student honorarium for our morning’s forced labour and enjoying the thought that today is Wedding Anniversary day, the neurone zone was made flesh.

First of all, it has to be clear that the thought was there to be enjoyed because Lyn had already sent me a card, complete with funny wobbly bits.  Otherwise, well…let’s not go down that road..  A bright Daejeon morning, absence of yellow dust and the thought that I’m still, after nine years, swept off my feet by uxorious love.

And I was.  Bowled over.  Swept off and under even.  A Hyundae, driven by a young lass (going to my oral exam up the hill?)  powered through me.  I wasn’t there it seems.  Perhaps I was taking time off in some neurone zone.