Photos

Couple of photos from today:
Max with a buterfly !


Max and Faye


The very photogeneic Jake


Easy to park !

Renting and the zoo

Well we have got a place to rent in Berkhamsted now and hope to move in 7th June and we complete on this one 9th June so it gives us the 8th to clean. We have signed up for 6 months but hopefully if our new house moves quicker then we can get it rented out so we dont lose out. Gone for a house like our current one ! 2 bed cottage with garden and it means that we can store our BBQ etc. in it so bit better then a flat BUT not as easy to re-rent.

Went to London Zoo today and had a really good day with our friends and their son. Managed to get a voucher off the web for 2 for 1 (http://www.daysoutguide.co.uk/) think it ends soon and is linked to rail travel. We drove but I just showed them my oyster card and no worries. Talking of driving there, They charged £1.20 per hour outide the zoo BUT here is a tip, as it is a bank holiday a single yellow is OK to park on so if you drive just out of the park ring road you can park for free ! So I saved over £20 in total BUT managed to spend most of that on some snacks ! Price were really high i.e. Tuna roll was £3.50, a small pasta salad was almost 4 quid, Soup £4 etc. etc. best deal was my rollover hot dog and drink for £4.

Will post some photos later.

Bye bye Dowie bye bye AJ

Well I have to post about Mr Dowie going and to be honest SEE YER, I dont mind that he is off and if he is to be replaced by Souness then so be it I wont be upset. I think Souness will give a bit of back bone to the team and help displace Dowie's favs. Now why Bob Dowie is helping with the choice of new manager is another thing because he is going to be talking to Iain about the choice and that is a given. I really hope that Iain does not go to Charlton because after saying that he needs to be off because of the distance that he lives away from his family will be a joke if he joins one of our rivals.

AJ going will only help the team because in the games that he did not play we played better football because we was not looking at AJ using his pace each game. His wages might also cripple the team next year so I think Jordan has done a good deal to sell him at 8.5 million. cant complain when we got him for 0.5 million and his wages have not cost us more then that. good work as long as Sandor torgelle comes back.

We need to look to the future, so as long as it is sorted then the quicker the better.

Still hold out a hope that AJ might stay rather then go to Wigan or Bolton but I think Bolton will get him.

The Maxster now weighs in at 20lb 2 so he is still growing. he is 6 months old next week and I can not beleive that he so old already, it has gone so fast. He is starting to hold himself up now although not for long and he is so funny he is great.

We have exchanged now on our house and have to leave in about 2 weeks. We was going to live between our parents houses BUT I cant live without Faye and Max for more then a week so we have deceided to rent and take the hit on ending a 6 month contract early. I mean lets face it how could I even think that I wouldnt miss them and to be honest I dont care about losing money because I would rather see my family, I hope that the house we have bought in Berkhamsted does happen fast but I dont see it being fast enough for us to be apart for any amount of time. It must take at least 6 weeks and I dont want to be away from them for that long ! We would have to parted because of work and trying to find somewhere we could all stay.

We should know more tomorrow but hopefully if we have to leave the rented place due to getting our "NEW" house quicker we will be able to "re-rent" the place and not lose money.

The house that we have bought is great BUT the people living there have not yet found anywhere. We was lucky finding it and have had to offer the full asking price so that it is taken off the market. i still think that we have got a great deal.

We wont have broadband for a bit, unless I find wireless, so the postings may get even shorter.

James
x

Never ending

This site is good mosaic

I found the link through digg.com

England Shirt is here

It arrived today :-)

Got it less then 24 hours after ordering it.

Ordered it just after posting and it was here by 10am !

We have also exchanged on our house today so we have 3 weeks to get somewhere to live. We also bought a house last week BUT it wont go through for a while so going to be a bit of a rush sorting things out.

England Home Shirt for £10

Just in time for the world cup, here is a deal:
I just ordered mine ;-)

goto HERE

The shirts are £25 for adult sizes but then you can enter in this £15 voucher code ZQ603 and so the shirt is then a tenner! and they do free 48hr delivery

Heres our Palace Hero AJ in his:


Looks like AJ will be off and I hope it is to Arsenal rather then the other clubs mentioned, Arsenal always steal our best players: Kenny Samson and Ian Wright. We got our own back though and flogged them Eddie McGoldrick and we also took Clive Allen off their hands as part of the Kenny Samson deal.

Food

Today I thought I would post on the subject of food and give you a great breakfast idea.

We have started every now and then buying Sarah Lee Croissants, What you get is a tin with fresh dough inside for 6 croissants. Half the fun is preparing them and you have to rip the labels off and tear the can so you can pop it open allowing for the dough to ouse out. You then separate the pieces and bake. Yummy. You will find them in the fresh fridge section of your local supermarket.

Made homemade burgers yesterday that were very good. Heres the receipe to make 6 big burgers:
800 grams of scottish beef minced
2 chilli's chopped up
3 garlic gloves chopped up
bit of ginger grated in
teaspoon of garam masala
1 egg (I used double yolk)
salt and pepper
1 onion (minced)
2 "glugs" of olive oil

Just mix it all together and make some patties out of it, I used an egg ring to shape them. Stick it on the BBQ and away you go.

Wouldn't hurt to add some herbs in there but I never had any.

Double yolk eggs I hear you say, well I bought these from Waitrose the other day:



Very tasty. My mate says that when he buys free range eggs from a "happy" farm, not a mental place but a real farm, he quite often gets double yolkers.

Eastenders look alike

While watching Eastenders, honest gov I just glanced over and it was on, I noticed that Ian Beales little nipper Peter.
Pictured here: Not the greatest photos coming up !


Only looks like Zammo from Grange Hill.



He looks more like Zammo in the program. I will get a more up to date shot from the TV program.

And whats with Ben a) no South African accent b) called Mitchell after she went when he was baby, no way would the name of stayed and c) Going for worse actor in a soap award.

England's Provisional squad

Shocking,

Walcott has been picked and has never played in the top flight.
This is his record:
The Championship - Southampton 13(8) 4
The League Cup - Southampton (1) 0
FA Cup - Southampton (1) 1

So he has played 13 games from the start for Southampton and 10 games from the bench scoring 5 goals. Oh dear !

He has picked 2 crocked player, a lanky bloke that can not score and a boy that has not played football since January (His move to Arsenal).

Im very Pleased for AJ and hope it is a boost for tomorrows game where we need a hat trick from him ! but leaving Bent out of the picture and Defoe for Walcott is a kick in the teeth to all players putside the top 4 teams !

No Shaun Wright-Phillips, not even on standby, well he can not say that if you have not been playing you dont get picked as Walcott is going. Hargreaves has picked again, another crap player. Maybe thay are staying at his house in Germany !

Thank F*ck Sven is off ! Nothing to do with Sweden I hope !

England's provisional squad:
Robinson (Tottenham), James (Manchester City), Green (Norwich), G Neville (Manchester United), R Ferdinand (Manchester United), Terry (Chelsea), A Cole (Arsenal), Campbell (Arsenal), Carragher (Liverpool), Bridge (Chelsea), Beckham (Real Madrid), Carrick (Tottenham), Lampard (Chelsea), Gerrard (Liverpool), Hargreaves (Bayern Munich), Jenas (Totenham), Downing (Middlesbrough), J Cole (Chelsea), Lennon (Tottenham), Rooney (Manchester United), Owen (Newcastle), Crouch (Liverpool), Walcott (Arsenal).

Standby: Scott Carson (Liverpool), Luke Young (Charlton), Nigel Reo-Coker (West Ham), Jermain Defoe (West Ham), Andy Johnson (Crystal Palace)

MacBook - new iBook

According to a couple of websites Tuesday will see the announcement of the intel powered iBook.

Time to start saving those pennies again. Although IO am thinking of trying to repair my powerbook so if anyone has 2 hinges and a battery for a PowerBook give me a shout.

The article of on Think Secret can be seen Here


I have copied the text below:

Briefly: MacBook's day this coming Tuesday [Updated]
May 5, 2006 - Following up on our report earlier this week concerning the MacBook's May availability, sources have nailed down next Tuesday, May 9, as the introduction day for the Intel-based laptop.
advertisement

Meanwhile, shipments of Apple's new 17-inch MacBook Pro, the initial units of which were to arrive in customer hands this week, have been temporarily delayed. After encountering a minor quality control issue with production of the laptops recently that has since been remedied, sources report Apple executives decided to postpone initial shipments and retail store availability by several days to ensure adequate launch inventory.

All indications now point to delivery of the 17-inch laptops sometime next week, meaning the new MacBook Pro and MacBooks may in fact arrive in be available in tandem as sources alluded to in early April, although two weeks will have separated their announcements.

On a side note, a coding glitch with Apple's Web site has all but confirmed the MacBook moniker for the new consumer laptop. The error began cropping up late Thursday evening and was still present intermittently Friday morning and resulted in Apple's iPod homepage being replaced by an empty page sporting a navigation hierarchy reading "Home > Hardware > MacBook".



While hardware release dates are often subject to last-minute change, sources' reports of an announcement Tuesday suggest that the long-awaited 13.3-inch widescreen MacBook is finally ready to ship. The release was first slated for January, then March, then April or May.

Update - May 6, 2006

Additional sources have confirmed the MacBook's announcement this Tuesday. Further, sources report that the MacBook will be thinner than current iBooks, will be available in both black and white configurations, and will likely cost slightly more than previous iBook models—not unlike the price increase Apple's Mac mini saw with its transition to Intel processors.

Palace 0 Watford 3

Well that was not meant to happen. I have got back from the game and it was hard to watch. Played OK in the 1st half and had nearly all the chances but I just dont know what happened after the break, we fell apart.

Personally I am blaming it on the stupid chant that was sang for the team to come out to. It spoilt what should of been a full on roar for the team.

Ward and Hall were poor and why Kiraly keeps getting games is madness, he can not command the area and has cost us too many games.

Why Dowie keeps on playing Hall at rightback when he is a centre half (and not a great one at that, hoofed pass to the left is his main move) by leaving Butterfield on the bench who is a right back is beyond belief. The biggest problem with Dowie is he has his favorites and keeps them in the team when there is a player better suited on the bench.

Oh well, to be brutally honest we are not good enough to go up anyway. I will be cheering Watford on in the final if they can hold on. If they cant then what a classic game it will be.

Not looking good for Tuesday but never write Palace off because we are Palace and do some strange things. At least I might be able to get a ticket to the game now, I bet a few will want to sell their ticket.

Dowie to Boro - I would be glad if that happened and we can try and get Peter Taylor. AJ will no doubt be gone when I come to take my seat for the first game of next season.

Boris Johnson Tackles German issues

Just seen this on YouTube and made me laugh.

This is Boris showing that if any of our tough tackling England players cany make the world cup he is ready.

Must be time to stop work....

Well posting at 1 in the morning and can not sleep because a)it's hot but the main oone is b) got a load of fucking workmen ouside my window banging away trying to clear the mess up that they have been creating since 20.30

They are filling in the bus stop lay by, yep where the bus used to pull in it is being filled in with what looks like gravel so that in the future the bus will just stop and in the process stop all the traffic. Now I am sure that the reason is so that buses do not get slowed down when they try and pull put again into the traffic but what a waste of time and money ! I hear though it is down to London transport rather then the council. I wont be moaning when my travel to the tube station is alot quicker on Saturday for the football :-)

I would take a picture but my camera battery has just died on me ! Oh well I will get one tomorrow. Hopefully they will be finished outside our house but tomorrow night I feel sorry for the people on the other side who are having their stop filled in.

Wont be shocked if we have no water or something in the morning.

Oh well, just managed to get a picure (Not a great one) BUT I have a silly charger that I have to take the battery out and the charge will not charge long enough for me to import into iPhoto.

Night all,

Want any food Max?

This is Max on Saturday 29/4/06. He is starting to like his food :-)

Click Here

Started using google video but it takes too long really for the upload to go live so going back to You Tube.

BT Tower

Had a good day today, I "HAD" to go to a conference that just happened to be held at the BT tower followed by lunch on the revolving floor 34 :-)

Just as a side note the conference was actually worth going to !

Lunch was very good. Food included oyster and other little fancy finger foods very good but the views are something else.

Got some good photos of Arsenals new ground Ashburton Grove

Normal View:


And ZOOMED:


There are also a couple of other photos on flickr.

So the tower then. Well we went up at full speed travelling at 7.5 meters a second to get me 158 meters up, The tower is 189 meters up. It closed it's doors to the public before I was born. On the 31/10/1971 a bomb went off on the 31st floor and it was closed. No one ever claimed responsability. The resturant was opened a few months later but that also closed in 1980. I was quite lucky today.

4/4/1961 building work started and and was opened for operation 8/10/1965 at a cost of £2.5 million ! To put that in perspective New Wembley is running at a cost £757 million.

Been a while again

Been a while again and I want to say congratulations to Dan and Lucy on the birth of their son Oliver.

Also congrats to Matt and Michelle on their new home, Congrats to us on selling our house, Congrats to all the people getting married that I know (Been invited to 5 this year), Congrats and good luck to Palace against Watford (Anyone got a spare ticket for the away leg? Sold out while I was trying to get through on the phone)

Hello to the Millwall fans that are stopping by. For some reason this blog comes up 8th when Millwall is searched and gawd knows where when Palace is. Palace Fan also does not get me anywhere.

Off to the BT Tower tomorrow so hopefully I will post a picture from the top for you.

Camden Crawl

Yesterday I went on the camden crawl and had a very good time BUT to be honest it was a nightmare getting in to the places to see bands.

Biggest shock of the night was Supergrass playing at the Dublin Castle, couldnt get into see them and we went there early. Did see them drinking in the Spread Eagle though.

We only went to 3 or 4 venues in the end and never lasted until 4am but hey I'm old !

Bye Bye Brighton, Bye Bye Millwall

See yer !!

That will teach him..... or will it

When I was younger and my sister was born I was around 9 years older then her and when ever she bashed herself or fell over the imortal words of support and advice from my mum would be "She'll learn from that" OR "She wont do that again in a hurry"

Max bashed his foot on the end of the changing table so I turned round to Faye and said "He wont do that in a hurry" turned back just in time to catch him doing it again.

I guess you must be a bit older before you start "learning"



Off soon to meet a mate for a pint before the football game. Crystal Palace V Crewe and hopefully we can get the point to make sure we are in the play offs.

My mate that I am meeting is a Brighton fan and lives at the bottom of the road from the ground :-0, for those that do not know, Brighton are our biggest rivels.

The only good thing that if we dont go up this year is my top 3 teams that I cant stand shouldnt be in the league. Brighton, Millwall and Sheff Utd

Google Calendar

Been looking at Google Calendar and looks quite good that I can use it with the Apple software iCal.

I did a search of Crystal Palace on the public calendars and my calendar of fixtures was on there ! Forgot to be honest that I uploaded it to icalx. I still try and update it when I can and it still updates, wonder how many people link to it. To use my personal calendar though I'm going to have to get a bit more clever because I do not want them as a public calendar so therefore can not just upload and link through iCalx as it requires a password. My thought at the moment is to export the information from iCal and import into google calendar. Now that sounds like a lot of work but the plan is to try and script it so I just click on a button OR schedule the script OR I could continue to use my iPod !!

Wembley

I know Wembley are having all sorts of problems BUT everytime I go past it I find it an amazing sight.

It's a shame Palace wont be there this year BUT I have my fingers crossed for my first Cardiff visit, I missed the play off final 2 years ago because I was on our year out. I have made it to Cardiff City's ground and the fans were quite scary to be honest. The most hostle ground I have been to yet ! including the time I got slapped at Birmingham.

Regarding the video service from YouTube it has not worked for 24 hours but seems OK now, it might of been scheduled maintenance that I never got a message about because I have only just joined.

We went to the Welsh Harp on Saturday in an attempt to fly the kite again but had more problems i.e. no wind, Anyway I took a photo of Wembley and also took a "zoomed" up one and here they are.

Click to view larger sizes:

Rockpool

Hi all this is a test of a video service that I might use. 

It is hosted on YouTube.com, I want to see if it embeds it better then the one I did i.e. I dont want it to play unless you hit start / play

The video itself was filmed while we were on holiday.



Looks like I am going to have to play with the size.
Sorted I had to reduce by a 1/3. If you want you can click on the video for a slightly larger video.

Bouncing

Personally I'm not sure about having the video embeded as I dont like it when I go to websites and they have sound going. At night i.e. now, I browse about with 1 headphone in my ear because I dont want to wake my wife OR Max up.

I guess I best practice what I preach SO I have posted another video here, this was also taken a couple of days ago and is Max using his door boucer.

Soon I will do a "real" blog and think about something to write about but at the moment I am enjoying playing with the iMac and iMovie.

Laters everyone,

Giggle movie

You must have quicktime installed to view the giggle movie.

This is the Link

Giggle

Nothing is quite like making your baby giggle !!

This movie has been saved down to web quality so not great. In advance I am sorry about the James Blunt in the background but Max seems to like it.

Mark - As you can see the chops are back !!!

And yes I know I make all sorts of strange voices and sounds !
Here you go it is 1.8 meg and is Quicktime format.

Removed embedded video The link is in the post above

Hope you enjoyed. I hope that the sound kicking in straight away is not too much of a problem but let me know and I will go back to just linking to the page rather then embedding it.

Lazy Frogs

Nope, I have not witnessed a frog getting a cab rather then hopping home BUT I saw this on the BBC website and it made me laugh. Quite a fair point if you ask meLazy Frogs

A furious airline boss has blasted the French as "lazy frogs" after protests disrupted services to the UK.

Philip Meeson, the chairman and chief executive of Yorkshire-based budget carrier Jet2.com, launched his attack in an article on the company website.

The article's headline said: "Jet2.com condemns French strike action and calls for lazy frogs to get back to work!"

The French air traffic controllers' union, CGT, reacted angrily, saying Mr Meeson's language was "not acceptable".

A CGT spokesman said: "It is easy for them to ask some people to go back to work but if people in France do not agree with the government it is a very good reason [to strike]."

In the past week, the airline has twice been hit by protests in France over new employment rules for young workers.

Services from France to Leeds-Bradford Airport were disrupted on Monday when French students protesting against the laws staged a runway demonstration at Chambery airport in the Alps.

More than 250 passengers were prevented from travelling and eventually arrived in West Yorkshire several hours late.

Last Tuesday, Jet2 flights were grounded when air traffic controllers joined a general strike in France.

Another low-cost airline, Ryanair, was forced to cancel about 80 flights on Tuesday because of the industrial action.

Mr Meeson, addressing his comments to the air traffic controllers, said: "After a token stoppage why can't you just sort the matter out amicably without bringing thousands of people around the world, who give your country huge economic wealth, into the argument?


It seems to me that either the air traffic controllers or the students run France at the moment
Jet2 boss Philip Meeson

"Whilst France is undeniably a beautiful country... we are appalled and quite frankly tired of the air traffic controllers' old-fashioned attitude to dealing with any issues they may have.

"In short, we urge the French air traffic controllers to get back to work or get another job."

British Euro MPs said the Jet2 boss was damaging Anglo-French relations.

Labour MEP Robert Evans said: "These cheap and derogatory remarks are beneath even a budget airline. We really have got to be more mature in our relationships."

Chris Davies, the leader of Britain's Liberal Democrat MEPs, said: "This is a stupid and crass remark, given that we want the French to visit Britain as much as Brits want to travel to France.

"But there is no doubt that the French are cutting their own throats by striking at every opportunity."

Mr Meeson said: "The 'lazy frogs' comment was meant to be a bit of fun. It was tongue-in-cheek. After all, the French call us 'les rosbifs'.

"It seems to me that either the air traffic controllers or the students run France at the moment."

Max eats solids

Here is a movie of max
It's 3.7 meg

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to me !

On this Day James Simmonds was born into the world.

Here is a picture of me at 4 months, check out the big feet !!!!



And here is me on my birthday very hung over after a great night out last night.



Yep last night Mrs Palace Fan and I hit the pubs of Hampstead and had a good Thai. It was the first time since Max came along and we had a great time drinking our way round ! We could of kept going but on a Monday night all the pubs closed at "normal" time. Will go to Camden next time because you can keep on drinking there !!

We have now dropped the price of our house to 250K to get it below the stamp duty hike. Anyone want a house in North London? Here are the details. House to buy ! email me rather then calling the agent !!

Max is getting louder and louder at the moment and is "chatting" away all the time. For those just browsing through, Max is my baby boy and not some bloke who cant talk !

He is starting to turn all over the place and yesterday he tried his first bit of baby rice. Dont think he enjoyed it that much. I will try and get a movie up of him tasting it.

I'm off to call the fire brigade and let them know I am going to be lighting the candles tonight !

Been away

Hello All,

Back from our week away in North Devon, we stayed in a place called Ilfracombe and had a nice chilled out week driving around the place. We also went to a town called Combe Martin and for a little more about the place vist this blog, Combe Martin A good read and some cool photos. It's in my RSS feed update list.

I took the laptop down BUT could not get on any wireless links so no updates. I had a go on iWeb and must say that it was good. Biggest problem though is the size of the photo files. I only did some quick testing and the size of the site was huge. One thing I have noticed to do next time though is export the photos as "web size" 640x480 and then re-import them to iPhoto and stick them in a iWeb folder and when you drag your photos drag the smaller web versions into the iWeb application. I have had a look at it uploaded and it is slow but take a look and check out the blog etc., As mentioned it was very easy to do and next time I will load smaller photo files up to help speed things up. iWeb Site

I now have another week off from work and going to use it to visit my Mum, meet some friends, look for a new house and spend more time with Faye and Max. Think they will be sick of the sight of me by Friday !

While away though some Bastard has reversed into my car and it now has a shape of a tow bar in the bonnet ! I'm quite sure that it is 1 of 3 4x4's that always park near me so i am going to be measuring the height and with a bit of luck get a match. I will also if possible drive right up to the tow bar and check the shape. What got me as well was that the dent has been "cleaned" i.e. someone has actually rubbed the dent to see how deep it is (I have a dirty car !) Will be out tomorrow with tape measure in hand. This is on top of getting smacked up the rear last week by an old fool in a car without ABS and I still need to see a body shop about getting that sorted. It's only a few scratches or at least that is what I hope because years ago a friend of mine thought that and when she had her MOT it turned out the car was a write off because it had put the sub frame out of shape.

Take care,

Dont work too hard !!!

My boss sent this out and has asked us to give each other a small nudge as we go past !



I have had to make it smaller so it fits, click on it, view a diff size and go large. Sure there is a joke there !

BBC in press error

Not sure myself.....

Dear James,

Thank you for your interest in the 2011 Census, and in particular our
intention to collect information on national identity.

I can confirm that we are intending to collect information for each UK
national identity, including a tick-box allowing people to identify
themselves as English. The omission of this category in some press reports
was simply an error.

Yours sincerely,

Alexa Courtney

Research Officer
Questionnaire Design and Content
2011 Census

How sat-nav rats brought jams to country lanes

A story from the times online:

How sat-nav rats brought jams to country lanes
It may be the quickest route according to your in-car guide, but increasingly the technology is sending drivers on rat runs through obscure rural byways – and the locals aren't happy, report Dipesh Gadher and Luke David of The Sunday Times
Full story.
Sat Nav Rat runs

Here is my post from a while ago.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Chelsea Tractors
What is the point of these 4x4's? This is one i saw earlier I am thinking that anyone that does not own a farm or at least goes off road and I'm not talking about mounting the kerb outside the local school should have to pay more road tax to drive them. Well lets face it they take up half the bloody road. Reason for the moan; well since everyone has got the system of a national banks computer system in their BMW X5's they all can navigate themselves off the M25 jams and use my "secret" way to work. I use the country lanes to navigate myself to work and now they are turning into jams as well :-( The only bonus is that I get my little 206 behind them and know that they dont give way so all cars coming the other way end up in the hedges and I sneak along behind them. Thinking of selling spray on mud so they can at least look the part.

Census to include Welsh, Scottish, Irish or British option - what about English?

My 100th post and I go political:

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/4786672.stm


Census to gauge national identity
The national Census is to include a question on national identity so people
can say if they consider themselves Welsh, Scottish, Irish or British.
Census co-ordinator Joy Dobbs announced the Office of National Statistics
(ONS) had decided to respond to a "strong demand... particularly from the
Welsh".

The ONS received 2,000 submissions from central and local government,
academia, business and members of the public.

The 2011 survey may also ask people their earnings and preferred language.

A possible question on earnings will ask which of a series of income
brackets people fall into and to indicate, from a list of options, how they
earn it.

Local authorities asked for a topic on languages to be included as many were
now dealing with "a range of communities speaking a wide number of
languages".

Questions on marital status are being extended so there is a series of
equivalent ones on civil partnerships.

Ethnic diversity

But the £300m poll for England and Wales will not ask about sexual
orientation, following concerns about the quality and accuracy of responses,
given the forms are addressed to whole households.

Questions asking whether people live in a tower block or have a bath, shower
or toilet at home are being replaced by more relevant enquiries about their
quality of housing.

The census monitors population age, ethnic diversity, household size and
housing demand.

It is used to decide how to allocate local authority cash and where to site
schools, old people's homes, shops and neighbourhood renewal programmes.

I ask you to send an email to them:
To: 'info@statistics.gov.uk'
Subject: Census to include Welsh, Scottish, Irish or British option - what
about English?
Importance: High

Office for National Statistics,
Customer Contact Centre,
Room 1.015,
Cardiff Road,
Newport,
NP10 8XG. Email:- info@statistics.gov.uk


Dear Sir/Madam,

I am strongly objecting to The Office of National Statistics National
Identity Census giving options for people to say if they consider themselves
Welsh, Scottish, Irish or British, but giving no option for people to say
that they are ENGLISH.

I am ENGLISH and I always say that I am if asked, and there a millions of
people who say they are English when asked about their national identity.

Please ensure that you provide the option for people to say that they are
English. Not having this option in your survey amounts to racial
discrimination against the English.

Yours Faithfully

Well it looks like it is me that is a jinx for the poor Palace.

In the first half it looked the Eagles had bird flu we we're not at the races and Leeds we're so much better then us.

We looked better in the second half and guess what...... Scored when I had left :-0 I left with about 5 minutes to go so I could get the fast train back to London Bridge.

Lots of police because it being Leeds and Millwall playing at home as well.

To go or not to go......

I missed football again on Saturday and we won 4-1 according to my dad and brother it was the best we have played all season.

It always seems to happen to when I dont go, now I'm thinking of writing to Simon Jordan the Chairman and asking if he wants to buy my season ticket back from me and give some sort of payment for not turning up and jinxing the team !!

Take the year we went travelling. I still bought the season ticket went to the first couple of games and then left to travel the world leaving the ticket with the hope of getting some money for the games that people used it. Didnt get much BUT we did get promotion through the play offs. So the season i'm not there we go up. When I was back I made an effort to get to quite a lot of games and well we got relegated on the last game of the season away to Charlton. No prize for guessing who was in the stands watching the game.....

Well I am going to the game on Saturday V Leeds so lets hope it's not me :-0

Baby News: Max has been great and is smiling all the time now his sleep pattern is good. He goes down after his bath at 7pm every night and then we are waking him at 11pm for a feed and he is going to about 3 or 4 on his own when he needs a feed and then we wake him again at 7am. Hopefully it wont be too long before he goes through.

He is also holding his head up really well so we have bought him a bebe pod and he loves sitting in it. Faye puts him in the chair in the mornings.



This is him relaxing on the bed.



Finally we have him playing with a friend. His friend Joel is 6 weeks older then him and Max looks like he has caught him up.



I will try not to leave it so long before the next post........

This is a test. I am using a new widget on the apple mac. More later

James

Daddy's Day

Hi yer, Sorry for the slight holiday from the blogging world but it's getting busier !

So as mentioned we never won the lottery we also never won when I put all the money on lucky dips for the Lotto draw. The only result is that I no longer have to keep the syndicate running. All the money has gone and I only ended up a couple of quid out of pocket. This is one reason why I wont do it. I always end up making up the money to get another lucky dip line and I'm also bound to put some money in for someone that can not get the money to me ontime or something. I was a lot tougher this time though because last time I was about £7 down. Oh well.

The title, right oh yeah, well today I had to take a day off work to look after Max because Faye went to visit some relatives and didnt want to take Max. So today was the very first time that I have looked after him during the day for any reasonable amount of time. I have looked after him for a night but that does not really count as he is sleeping for most of it.

My day started at 3am for the feed, Faye usually does all the night feeds if I have work the next day, It could of been Max's quickest feed yet but it felt like a long time to me. I went to the football and never got in until just before midnight and I dont know if you are like me BUT I need to relax if I have been out all night in the fresh air so I never went to bed until about 1am. So I'm up at 3am and get him fed in under half hour. He had all his feed (180ml) and was burped before going back to sleep. I have to say that last night was a great night for Max, he went from from 7pm - 3am and then I woke him at 7am !! Faye changed him while I stumbled off rubbing my eyes to get the next bottle of milk. He was fed and washed by 8 and that gave us a bit of play time so did that before putting him down for sleep and waving Mummy out of the door. The next few hours are a blur of preparing milk bottles, washing up, sterilising bottles and getting ready for a walk that Faye had arranged for me with her anti natal friend. To be honest I thought I was meeting all the girls and doing some big buggy walk with loads of mums so the thought of just Lauren was good and never filled me with fear and a strange sense of weirdness being with lots of new mums ! We did a huge walk all round Hampstead Garden Suburb and I saw loads of houses that just make you jealous. Saw Jonathon Ross's house, Richard and Judy were also on our walk route and there a few other famous people that live here. I puffed my way round talking about cars so thats not too bad. She is after a car and it had to be my nightmare car the 4x4 but oh well at least we talked about cars. Managed to get back at 2pm for Max's next feed and then it was play until 4pm at that point Faye came home and looked after us both ! I have managed to video lots of today and hopefully will be able to post a video of some of our day. It was great and I loved every minute of it. Can not wait until next time.

Max is 11 weeks old today.

Saw a thing about google doing stats for blogs so take a click over to this site http://www.measuremap.com/ I signed up today for it so we will see.

Footy News: I dont know what me and my Dad have done in a past life but we never deserved to have to watch Sheff Wed V Palace on Saturday just gone. It was terrible both teams were crap and the ref was the worst ref I have ever seen. My brother must of been a saint in a past life because he had the good sense not to go. (My Sister lives near there so at least we never had to come all the way home as well)

Jane over at slothblog must be glad she never went as well because she is a Wednesday fan (I think)

QPR last night was better and we won 2-1 but I'm really unsure of our manager Dowie at the moment, he just seems to make some very strange tatical choices.

Here is Max and the S is for Simmo

Cranky and dribbling

Well we have not won the lottery at work, we got about £ 25 from all our lines and putting that back into lucky dips for Saturdays draw.

Baby News:
Max is 10 weeks old this Wednesday and we have a feeling that he might even
be starting to teeth. We hope not because we have finally starting getting
him into some sort of routine but yesterday he was bit "cranky" and dribbling,
little bit like me after a heavy night to be honest, but after some
searching thought it might be his teeth so I rubbed his gums and man did he
start chilling and gave the biggest smile he has done yet !!!

This evening he seems fine so doubt it is his teeth.


This is us having a sing song.



Footy News:
The fan who threw his season ticket towards Middlesbrough manager Steve
McLaren will be allowed back into The Riverside. (The Sun)
See here

For punishment I think they should make him go Home and Away to watch Boro
!!!! boom boom

Viz letters (Thanks to Michelle for these)

Hats off to the England cricketers for their achievements in the Ashes this
summer, which rightly earned Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff BBC Sports
personality of the Year. Winning a two-team tournament against a nation with
a much smaller population once in every ten attempts, then never shutting up
about it makes me proud to be British.
Ben Hunt

The government tells us that we are eating too many pies and dying of heart
disease, then in the next breath they're telling us we are living too long
and there'll be no more pension money left for us. I wish they'd make their
minds up.
John

'Alton Towers - Where the magic never ends', or so the commercial says.
Imagine my disappointment when it closed at 7.30.
Colin Hill

I am married to a Taiwanese lady, and people often ask me if she was a
mail-order bride. I find this very insensitive. The Royal Mail lose around 2
million letters and parcels each year, and to suggest that I would trust the
delivery of my wife to them is insulting in the extreme. She was sent by DHL
next day delivery.
L Palmer, London

The record companies would have us believe that the money made by CD pirates
goes to fund the drug industry. But the money rock stars make from legal
record sales ends up in exactly the same place. When they stop breaking the
law, so will I.
P Boddington, Ringway

Peter Andre might look smug in all his wedding pictures, but I'd just like
to remind him that, as a Playboy reader, I have seen his wife's m!nge. He
hasn't seen my wife's, so who's had the last laugh?
P, Leeds

On holiday a few years back, I took part in a quiz and managed to reach the
final only to lose out after what I consider to this day, to be a correct
answer. The question asked 'What 'C' would you associate Jeremy Clarkson
with?' to which I confidently replied '*unt'. Not only was I told the answer
was incorrect, but I was asked by the holiday rep to leave the premises
immediately! Has anyone else experienced such appalling treatment whilst
holidaying with one's family?
Noel, Leeds

My friend's mum recently pointed out that I have the same ironing board
cover as her. Can anyone think of a more mundane and pointless remark to
make than this?
Alun Daniel

I'll never understand my neighbour. He has recently started wheel-clamping
his own caravan when he finds he has inadvertently parked it in his own
drive! I wonder if he is a sadist, a masochist or both.
Alan Thakray

Did anyone else feel that Mel Gibson's remake of the classic Life of Brian
wasn't anywhere near as funny as the original?

On the BBC website, I read with interest that some scientists in Australia
have discovered the smallest fish known to exist. They've obviously never
been to the Britannia Chippy on the Gloucester Road
Alan J., London

Hats off to the American police. They arrive at Michael Jackson's Neverland
ranch to arrest him a mere six months after he admits climbing into bed with
young boys on worldwide TV. Perhaps they should get some faster cars.
T Barnham, London

Could the Home Secretary explain to me how biometric checks on iris patterns
and fingerprints are going to help keep tabs on muslim cleric Abu Hamsa.
Les, Barnsley

How come rap artist Dr. Dre can use the 'N' word on his multi-million
selling albums and win a MOBO award, yet when I used it at my son's football
match I was asked to leave the park? Once again, it's one law for the rich
and another for the poor.
Reg Ashcroft, Bradford

The government says that there are nearly 50,000 people with HIV in Britain,
a third of whom do not even know that they have it. Is it just me, or is it
a bit harsh that the government know and haven't told the poor sods?
John Campbell, e-mail

Never mind ventriloquists like Keith Harris and Roger DeCourcey. What about
Professor Stephen Hawking? I saw him on telly blathering on about galaxies
for hours and I never saw his lips move once. Genius.
Mike Woods, e-mail

With reference to that series "Manhunt" where ex-Special Forces soldiers try
to hunt down Andy McNab. Why don't the producers include a couple of Iraqis
in the hunting team? They found the tw*t quickly enough the last time he
played hide and seek with them.
Shuggie, e-mail

Hats off to the witty burglars who stole my entire CD collection with the
exception of "There is Nothing Left to Lose" by the Foo Fighters. I hope
that when sentencing, the judge takes into account their splendid sense of
humour.
Chris Scaife, Jesmond

I see on the news that Lord Hutton says he is "satisfied that David Kelly
took his own life". He may not have liked Dr Kelly that much, but isn't this
taking gloating just a little too far?
Dave Owen, Edinburgh

I was extremely saddened to hear of Richard Whiteley's recent death. But I
was cheered to imagine his life support machine making the famous Countdown
"da-da, da-da, da-da-da-da! Booooooo!" sound as he took his final breaths.
Tripod

I never worry about the destination when I'm going on holiday. My dad is
Iranian and my mum is Irish, so I spend most of the time in customs.
Stan

What's all this nonsense about that 66-year-old Romanian woman being the
world's oldest mum? My mum's 77. Beat that.
Thomas J

Fingers Crossed

Well another rollover and most talk in the office involves what we are going to spend all our winnings on :-)

I have done a syndicate so gives us more chances to win. I dont mind sharing that sort of money.

Now what I did think though was that the odds are 74 million to 1 so if I could borrow 74 million and also had enough time to fill out all the numbers would I be on to a winner?

We did it last week and had 63 lines but only won £38 and so have reinvested that in more tickets this week.

Not sure how many lines this weeks syndicate will be put I am closing it early so that I can get to the lottery man before every man and his dog starts buying them. Let you know tomorrow.

I have now bought iLife and bought it from the new apple store in Brent Cross, the store is quite good but a bit narrow. I had a quick go on the new intel iMac but never really had a "proper" play and do anything that would test it. I will look to go again in a couple of weeks during the week so that I can spend a bit more time and talk to the Apple staff.

To be honest I have not really looked at iLife but I do love the iPhoto full screen editing and it does seem alot quicker. Will test out Garageband podcasting at some point and also iWeb as I want to see just how easy it is to use. Not happy about not being able to comment on the blog page but hope they sort that out. Bet it will only be available using .mac account though.

Max had some injections today for various things in both legs so a bit grizzly for once tonight but he has gone off to sleep now.

Baby Parade

Today was the gathering of babies from our NCT Anti Natal classes. Almost a full showing just 2 no shows.

Was really good, went to a a couples house (Rubys' mum and dads) and I ate cakes for the whole time. Max was good; as was all the babies actually.

Here is a photo of the babies in age order. Max is the youngest. You shouldnt have too much trouble spotting him. Unless your new to this blog !



I think Ruby, the oldest, is about 6 weeks older then Max but I will double check. Ruby just threw up all the time. I never seen anything like it. Really strange and apparently she is just a "throwing up" baby. Where some babies smile she flows puke with the odd smile every now and then. fascinated me for ages, she had a couple of changes and so did her parents.

Thats about it really. ALTHOUGH.....

Max is going to spend his first night alone in the nursery. I think I am waking him up with my snoring but then he wakes me up with his "snorting" so fair play I say. Why is it babies sound like little pigs?

He normally sleeps in his nursery for his naps and sleeps during the day and we only ever move him in to our room at 11pm for the night but we also think this is not a good idea because he is waking when being moved etc.

Our boy is growing so fast, going to be strange not having him right next to us.

Not done this for a while, only a taster though as not doing Joke or Footy today:

Fact of the day: 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Here is almost some proof. I can only get 16 precision places on the mac calc.




On this day: 22/1/1979: Public sector strike paralyses country
Tens of thousands of public sector workers have taken part in a day of action - the biggest mass stoppage since 1926 - in support of a claim for more pay.

The four major public service unions angry at the government's attempt to impose a 5% pay ceiling called out their 1.5 million members.

They included hospital workers, rubbish collectors, school caretakers, grave diggers and airport staff.
More from BBC Site

Bum Chutney

Nope not posted that to draw all the wierdos to this blog, unlike the ones finding Charlottes baby site, BUT we were all driving yesterday and just on the North circular we realised that the car in from was not a ghia but was in fact a bum chutney.



Not too sure I want to know the full story but you see some strange things on these London roads, just handy we had the camera in the car and YES I will get round to cleaning the front windscreen !!!

Went to see some houses we saw on rightmove in Berkhamstead but never saw anything we liked, only drove past rather then actually going inside them. Our house is having a few people round at the mment so thats good.

We then went over to Brent Cross and the Apple store will not be long now. It looked to me as though it was having the final bits done. I'm guessing next week. Wanted iLife so went into John Lewis but they never had it so I am going to order it online.

Tomorrow we have a get together in the afternoon of all the anti natel babies all 10 of them and parents so I will post the picture tomorrow of them all lined up.

Here is one we took yesterday of all of us using Photo Booth thermal setting. I really like it and it is now my desktop wallpaper. Tad scary on a 20" widescreen.

iLife '06 - Will be getting soon

I have been reading on the Apple sites about iLife06 and whilst I was very excited to start with about the new application iWeb now I am starting to think it is not as good as I first thought.

For starters you can not have comments on your blog page, not that I get that many but you have to be able to have them. I looked at Haloscan.com and thought great I can use that BUT it turns out you can not put your own HTML into the iWeb created pages SO that also screws up all my links and sitestats. You have to have a .Mac account to use the built in web counter function.

I have seen some of the web pages that have been created and they do look really good and all the users are saying that it is really easy and quick to use but does have a bit too many limitations.

I will get it though just for the boosted speed of iPhoto and also Garageband is updated and 1 thing I want to at least try this year is get more time on the guitar and try to record something.

I will also have a crack at some point at a video podcast and will also create an iWeb site that people can look at. Be good for movies and photos anyway. While I think of it the other thing will be that I can not blog from anywhere as I would have to use my computer and not just any internet connection.

Food question, What can I do with Capers. Seen a couple of receipes but lets have your suggestions as well. Need to cook for Nascot Dan at some point. Check out his site as he has some good news. He promised me that he will start to keep up to date with his blog.

Hull 1 Palace 2

Nick Barmby, Mike Dobson, John Prescott, Amy Johnson, The Beautiful South, Frankie Baldwin, Maureen Lipman. Your boys took one hell of a beating.

That was hard trying to get famous people from Hull !

From the biased commentary, I listened to BBC Hull over the internet, yeah we time wasted a bit at the end but Myhill in the Hull goal was the most mentioned player and the man also said we deserved the win. Thats good enough for me.

Come on the Palace, Shame Watford won but Sheff Utd drawing and Leeds losing to Brighton (Our biggest rivals) were good results.

Hull: Myhill, France, Cort, Collins, Lynch (Green 26), Price (Duffy 59), Andrews, Delaney, Barmby (Elliott 74), Fagan, Parkin.
Subs Not Used: Leite, Paynter.

Booked: Price, Barmby.

Goals: Parkin 25.

Crystal Palace: Kiraly, Boyce, Ward, Hudson, Borrowdale, Andrews (Freedman 77), Watson, Hughes (Riihilahti 86), McAnuff, Johnson, Macken (Morrison 84).
Subs Not Used: Black, Speroni.

Booked: Boyce.

Goals: Ward 9, Cort 24 og.

Att: 18,886

Ref: C Webster (Tyne & Wear)

Hull V Palace

Gutted I am in Hull and tomorrow Palace are playing them but I cant stay up here and see them. Wish the meetings I had yesterday were today and I could of stayed for the game but oh well would rather see Chosen One.

Will see Palace next week against Reading and also looking forward to coming back to this area and seeing us play Sheff Wednesday early February

Come on Palace lets beat those Tigers. Need to beat them so I can call my mates in Hull straight after. Dobbo is the main one I am looking to call, I have his number at the ready !

We are on a good run at the moment and I am sure we can win tomorrow but I have probably cursed them

Whats an intel chip doing in a Mac?

A whole lot more then it's ever done in a PC.

Apple marketing is brilliant.

As a few of you know I just got the iSight iMac G5 in October after sending the non iSight model back because they released the iSight model within 14 days of me getting it. Am I now bitter that they have released the new Intel models with claims of a speed boost of X2 on the iMac and X4 on the Powerbook, NAH. To be honest while I can not wait to get down the Apple shop (When is the bloody one in Brent Cross going to open?) and play with it to see the speed improvements, I learnt a long time ago though DO NOT TOUCH REV A products. I personally would wait for thr rev B models but if you can not hold off buying then read the support forum and see what people are saying. If you can wait then get the iBook or Mac mini for a taste of mac but I'm happy and sticking with my "Power Mac G5" They are still selling this model by the way and the Intel one is about £30 dearer.

I will be weighing up getting the new iLife package over the weekend, only £55, though because iWeb looks good for blogging. It looks as though iLife has been aimed a bit at blogging. Who knows what will happen if I get it but I feel a Video blog or podcast coming online soon.

The Macs are here to drawl over

I'm off up there North again to Hull and Manchester for a couple of days so going to spend my first night away from Max. Going to miss him but be glad of the sleep :-0

Here is a picture of Max, he is smilling all the time now and I'm going to miss his smile, these where taken at 22.40 yesterday just before his feed.

He is 6 weeks old today.



PS Anyone see whats NEW, will sort out a logo one day

New name

Yes I know and I will rename the blog soon so stop going on everyone, well the Howards recently :-)

Although hopefully I will be a Dad again so could just leave it for ages and ages but I will change it.

I want to try and do something in Paintshop that kind of crosses through the title and has the new one i.e. Palace Fan that IS NOW a Dad but struggling to get the time but hopefully will get something done soon.

Hang on in there !

London

Well we made it to Kings X and then to Camden Town Hall to get Max registered. The underground is not for pushchairs. It was not too bad but then there was two of us. We kept the name Max James and didnt change it for our own amusement. The best bit is it means we can now get our family allowance money :-)

Afterwards we went for a bus rather then try getting Max down the escalator. As it turns out it was quite a good plan because we went off down Oxford Street for a look at some shops I bought a little tripod for my camera for only £6.50 so result there (From Jessops), Looked in the Apple store and saw some good speakers for our iPods and the idea is to put them in the nursery so that we can play music to Max off the iPod in there. They did not have the one I liked in stock so when we got home I did some searching on the web and nearly everywhere is out of stock of them BUT the company I work for had them in stock so even managed to get a discount. Was quite shocked that we had them and never even looked at our website :-0 saw it when I was using pricerunner.co.uk, hopefully getting them on Tuesday.

This is a picture I stole off the internet of them:



Also saw this bloke chatting away very loud on his phone: For those that dont know him he is a presenter on T4 and sometimes a stand up comedian. He makes me laugh on a Sunday when he interviews bands anyway.



Now I'm starting to get sucked in to watching celebrityy (Now I am not sure that celebrityy is a word that you would associate with most of them) Big Brother. The 4th is just going in now. Some washed up actress from Baywatch. Lots of boos for all of them ! Chantle the non celebrityy will not find it too difficult because no one seems to know anyone anyway. More tomorrow......

Happy New Year

Not too much fun for us on new years eve. Bed at 8pm up at 10pm to feed Max, woken at 12 by loud fireworks followed by a quick kiss and a happy new year to each other. Actually not even sure we had a kiss but anyway we went back to sleep and was up again at 3am for another feed and again at 7am for his morning feed. Last year we got very drunk on a pub crawl round London followed by dancing at Tiger Tiger. Quite a bit different !!!

Seems like everyone came back to work today so from last week where it was really quiet and I could not do much due to nobody being around today was manic but at least the day went fast.

We are finally getting Max's birth registered on Thursday. We called them straight after he was born and Thursday is the first available day to get him registered !! Can not believe that we had to wait over 5 weeks for the first appointment. Look forward to my report on how we manage the tube stations for the first time.

The mighty Palace had a good run during Xmas and managed to get 4 wins out of 4 so very happy about that.

This is a picture of Max chilling in his cot, he is yet to spend a night in there but he seems to love playing in there looking at the mobile (thats a baby thing that goes round not a phone for those non parents out there)

Well what did yer get?

Well I never got the flavour shaker BUT I was lucky I never went on a full on Jamie Oliver rant because my Mum in Law did get the Italian book and some of his food ingredients for me. yum yum, will start to have a read and make some of them over the weekend.

Got an amazing set of saucepans from my Mum as well, as I said I do love cooking, the pans are really nice and called Stellar Lamina Tri-Ply Copper, here is a picture:



I will now hopefully be able to increase the collection.

What else? well I got lots of other things but my other main present was a Line6 toneport UX1, I can plug my guitar into it and connect it to the mac to make all sorts of noise :-) I still really need to sit down and play with it because I have only managed to have a very quick go on it due to people coming and going at our house. Will take a photo of my "rig" tomorrow.

Have Fun,

It's been a while, MERRY XMAS

Merry Xmas to everyone and a big ALL THE BEST to all those that know us in real life and those regular bloggers that also look here.

Been really busy as you can guess but I have been a bit slack getting the blog updated. Well my new year resolution will be to make sure I keep this updated at least every couple of days. Easier then giving up the beer !!!

So who has asked for Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker? I have not but I do love my cooking so I have to be careful because I am going to hate myself for blogging about it and then getting one ! BUT I'm going to stick my neck out and think that most people will think the same as me and say "What the hell is that about?"

From the description:
Features

* It crushes, grinds, blends, mixes and more!
* The Flavour Shaker is a fun, quirky and highly original food preparation item
* Invented and endorsed by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver
* More versatile alternative to the Pestle and Mortar
* Creates lovely flavours in seconds
* Lightweight and easy to use
* Dishwasher safe (top rack only)
* Made from high grade thick core polycarbonate for strength
* Comfortable non-slip grip for safety
* Includes a ceramic ball for crushing ingredients

I use a pestle and mortar and it was quite an expensive one ( I hope, thanks Mum in -law !) because it's not a wooden one but a kind of stone one. It's great and I have to give it some force to get everything into a powder. Now I can not see that a little ceramic ball in a plastic container can "crush and grind" the way my pestle does but I would be interested to hear from anyone that gets one.

Personally there is no way I would spend £20 on it but I guess lots of people have because it is sales rank number 2 on Amazon.co.uk I will wait for the reviews to be added to the site so I can see.

Quick Question: How do I see what the top sales are on Amazon.co.uk, could not see a link

Quick Tip: Lightly fry your spices before crushing.

This is Max playing with his new play mat that his Uncle Matt got him yesterday. I'm not sure what he is trying to tell me but look at his fingers in the mirror !!!!


Have a good one and I will blog tomorrow. Happy Xmas all.

James, Faye and Max
x

2 weeks old today

Max is now 2 weeks old and we are coping quite well. Seems like he has been around longer then that and he is getting bigger and bigger.

Personally Im still struggling with the fact that my sleep is in stages. It's strange because I probably have only had about 6 - 7 hours sleep a night for quite a while but now it is broken with feeds it is harder. I used to go to bed about midnight and then be up around 6am, now I'm trying to sleep earlier. say 10pm and then use those 2 hours for feeding, changing etc.

I'm still off work so it's not too bad but I have to try and get this sleeping thing sorted by Monday. Work are really good, I get 2 weeks off paternity but I also do compressed time so I get a day off because of that and I need to take 2 days holiday and I will of had almost 3 weeks off in the end :-0

We managed to get out and go to Brent Cross (shopping centre) yesterday. We were very chuffed with ourselves and even managed to to do a nappy change in the little changing rooms that they have.

Apart from that we have not really managed to get out. I did manage a trip down Selhurst to see the Palace (Fayes mum was round so I never left her) Its a lot harder then we thought it was going to be and even a small trip down the local shop is a task and a half BUT it is getting a lot easier for us now.

This is a photo of Max in his probably the best baby in the world t-shirt. One of my fav bits of clothes on him and a present from Fayes work colleagues.

PS Thanks for the gmail account Jane and also Laura, gutted I can not have Palace Fan but oh well. Looks really good but I still need to play around with it.

Gmail invite

Can anyone help me get a gmail account?

Just been reading up on this new feature and it looks quite good and I would like to have a play.

Thank you.

What is 'Web Clips'?
Web Clips shows you news headlines, Gmail tips, blogs, any RSS and Atom feed, relevant sponsored links, and more -- right at the top of your inbox and messages. Receive updates from your favorite sites without having to leave Gmail!

Here's how to customize which Web Clips are shown in your account:

1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page, and open the Web Clips tab.
3. Browse popular clips by selecting a topic link along the left. Search for feeds by entering topics that interest you -- use this feature like you would Google Search. Or, enter specific feed URLs.
4. Click Add next to the clips you'd like to see in your Gmail account.

Each clip displays the source from which it was received, how long ago the clip was published, and a link to access the entire story or page containing the clip.

From your inbox, you can scroll through clips you’ve already seen by clicking < or see new clips by clicking >.

Note: Clips of your favorite RSS and Atom feeds are displayed randomly, and aren't targeted to the contents of your mail.

When you got to go, you have to go

Happy birthday Max, 1 week old :-0

The joys of parenthood. Today while changing Max from his moist and dirty nappy he decided it was time to go again. Now when he first started a couple of days ago actually having a poo we were very excited and kept saying good boy, we are not too sure now if we should of been encourging him all the time.

Anyway, So I'm there all happy thinking good stuff all done, baby clean and dry, I turned to get a fresh nappy and throw the old one, I come back and he turned himself into a water feature and sprayed everywhere. OK another clean but then he farted and not just any fart but a full on poo fart all over the mat, his clothes, himself and me :-(. He then did it again straight after !!! Faye heard me scream and came running in but just laughed at me.

Here is a picture of Max in his Palace gear taken this morning for his grandad and uncle.

Tired

Well what can I say other then I have the greatest son in the world and a wife that is brilliant and so so good with Max BUT we dont seem to have sleep anymore.

I might get Faye to write about the labour as she saw it and I also will at the same time and we could see how close they are to each other ! So I wont go into it all BUT he was born at the Royal Free in Hampstead and had a view of the Crystal Palace tower. I never knew that until we went in the birthing room because we had not been able to see that birthing room (had the pool) during any of visits to the hospital. As I looked out I thought "this is just meant to be" :-)

He was helped out by the ventouse method in the end so his head has quite pointed but he already, to us, has got his shape back and the only signs of the delivery are a couple of small bruises.

This is a replica of the bags under my eyes:


Today is going to be our first day truely on our own so really looking forward to it. It has been great having all the family round especially getting clothes as presents. We only bought a few cream / white things and have yet to venture out so have not got all the blue clothes.

We should be able to email people we were meant to tell about Max and also try to reply back to some, sending some photos out, thanking people for the flowers and presents. Sorting out my printer so I can become one of the people in the office with a photo on the desk.

I always said that I would not be one of them office people with their life posted all over the desk in pictures. I do have a couple of concert tickets lying around but thats just to prove to myself that I have seen some bands this year. Not sure why you would need the whole family in pictures on your computer monitor. I'm going to be going home to them in the evening and if need be I can actually look at my blog. So I might just keep a picture in my desk.

Thanks again for all the comments and nice to see some friends posting a comment. I dont get too many comments and hardly any from people I have actually seen and drank with.

And the name change of the blog I guess will be happening soon. Didnt really think about that did I !!

Anyway enough about me here is Max at 24 hours: I will take some in daylight later !!!! He tends to be more awake at night though.


This us playing on the Mac using front row and glow as the setting:

Welcome to the world Chosen One

:-0

What a marathon, thanks for the comments and emails. It was really hard on Faye and I will hopefully blog more details laters. We went to the hospital after the last update but got sent home and went back again yesterday at about 1pm. A few problems happened but nothing too major. I stayed last night in the hospital because a) they are nice midwifes and B) it would be dangerous for me to of drove home.

I'm going back soon to bring them home.

Anyway the bits you want to know.
Sex: We are going to wait quite a while before doing that again !!! Oh, its a boy. Get in there. Just what I wanted.
Name: Max James Simmonds aka The Chosen One
Weight: 7lb 8 (Think that is about 3.2kg)
Date and Time: Wednesday 30th November at 23.48
Picture: This is Max at 8am this morning. He has not really cried at all and just seems to stare out at this new and amazing world.

Come on Chosen One - update 2

Well we are still at home, contractions are really strong now and every 5 minutes lasting a minute. The midwifes have told us to stay at home in comfort for as long as possible but Faye is getting really tired now so we might have to head off soon.

Hope that when we get there Faye is in an advanced stage and they dont send us home. I dont think Faye will like that !!!

Now gone over but it is looking good.

Best stop blogging and start helping :-0

Come on Chosen One - update

Still here and everything is starting to slow down :-(

Dont think it will be tonight now.

Must be my fault for blogging about it happening :-0

Come on chosen one

Well today is the day. Thanks for the comments from yesterday everyone.

It looks as though chosen one is going to come on the day s/he is due. Faye has been having contractions since about 11pm last night. I was rubbing her back talking to her about them until I heard her snoring so I guessed it was OK for me to try to sleep for a bit. She did keep waking up though but the contractions were not strong so no need to panic. I left for work as normal but have "worked" from home this afternoon because the contractions have been about every 10 minutes and lasting 30 seconds. It did start to go quicker i.e. it got down to every 7 minutes but has gone back to every 10 minutes BUT they are a lot stronger now. Still not going for a minute yet.

Faye is coping really well and is using the TENS machine. We are going to stay here for a while as it is more comfortable.

We are kind of hoping that it builds up around 8pm so that we have a chance of a parking space after visiting hours :-0.

Keep your fingers crossed for us all,

James

The world through my eyes

I am one of the many males in the world that has a colour (color for our friends over the pond) deficiency. Deficiency sounds better then my normal term of Colour Blindness. I'm not blind to colour, it just kind of merges into one when I see red, green or browns together.

What I hate though is when I say I am colour blind the first thing I get asked is "What colour is this?" and they point out allsorts of things normally the sky and grass !! What people forget is that I was born like this so have been told that the colour up there is blue and the stuff that a cow eats is green.

I hope that chosen one is not colour blind, I found out by chance when I drew a picture of my favorite food. A hot steaming bowl of tomato soup aged about 7 and threw my toys out of the pram when the teacher said it must be oxtail soup because it was brown and not red like a tomato. I got a note to take home and a trip to the optician followed the next day. At least they never thought I was stupid or lazy !!

A search of the web has lead me to this website where you can actually see the world how I see it. Click Here

Makes me glad I can see blue and Yellows.

The Ishihara plate one is good though, I can not see anything on ether but the hat one I can make out all the colours of the hats. Strange hey.

Baby News: Due tomorrow but no sign of the chosen one yet. You will all be 2nd to know.

Harry Potter

Well went this afternoon to see the latest instalment in young Harry's adventures.

Harrys first love interest is bit of over the top, he says 2 maybe 3 lines to her ! I have to say I never got into this one and found it the worse film out of them all. It just had so many bits missing and to me just did not get anything across. I cant even really sum it up. My attempt would be Harry wins a game that he should not of been in.

The others had a bit of everything and this well, just didn't. Mrs Palace Fan says that the book is loads better. I really need to put down Carl Hiaasen and read the HP books.

What I did notice though was that Seamus, the young Irish wizzard who always gets a spell really wrong (not in this one though !) Looks like Wayne Rooney.

This a early shot of him


And here is Rooney: Sorry but not having Man U Kits on the blog.



Seperated at birth I think so !

Baby News: Due on Tuesday :-0

Footy News: RIP George Best

Tired

Too tired to blog but here goes; Upgraded the mac to 1.5 gig of Ram now and everything OK with the baby.


Baby News: Faye went to the midwife today and next week they are closed ! so they can not see her and the following week they forgot to book her in ! Baby is due 29th. She has to go to the local doctors next week now but can not get her usual female doctor.

Footy News: Well a shock about Roy Keane. I fully expected him to leave at the end of the season and would of thought he would of got his wish to say goodbye to the clubs fans. Something happened I guess but I am sure that we will never find out due to clauses in the final payout.

Palace take on our big rivals Brighton on Sunday. The game is away but on Sky and hopefully I should be able to watch it. We need revenge for the loss not so long ago.

Photo Booth: Done using the mirror effect.

Time Warp

Went to the birthing centre yesterday and learnt quite a bit to be honest on when to call and some pain relief methods. They really dont want you turning up at the place too early they said that we have to wait for 1 contraction lasting a minute every 3. Think we will be leaving to get there a bit earlier !

We drove there as a bit of a dry run and got there OK but parking is a nightmare. I really hope the baby does come at night so that we have a chance to park in the car park. For those in London we are going to the Royal Free in Hampstead.

Have I hit a time warp? As we were walking back from the hospital after a visit to the birthing centre we went past this place:


2006?

2 weeks today :-0

Photo Booth Pic: Todays is using the X-Ray effect

Photo Booth

This was done using Comic Book

iMac Pics

Here it is:


And side on, amazing to think that everything is built in and no base unit.

iMactastic

What can I say other then the iMac is rather great.

Front Row works like a dream and is great the way I can bring up videos, iTunes, movie trailers. It really is good. The EyeTV box I bought is working really well, I think that is down to the fact that the big tree out the front of our house has lost it's leafs. Come Summer the signal will probably be worse.

It is really quiet compared to the Rev B, seems faster although does need more RAM.

The inputs (USB, Firewire, Headphone etc.) are now in a better place at the bottom of the screen and keep the wires a bit tidier.

It does seem thinner as well.

The iSight built in is great and we have managed to link to Fayes mum and dad and it worked fine. We also bought a webcam for my mum and her husband and connected it up yesterday but when I got home it never connected. It is a firewall problem probably but I'm no XP expert. I have done the decent thing though and sent them a list of websites to help sort it. See how we get on later.

Once I have sorted out the area where the iMac lives I will take a photo of it.

Baby News: Just over 2 weeks to go, tomorrow we are going to the hospital to the birthing centre to check out the pool.

Footy News: What a great game, Only managed to get the 2nd Half because I was coming back from my mums but what a ending. Well done England.

It's back for one day only.. Fact of the day: Females learn to talk earlier, use sentences earlier, and learn to read more quickly than males.

My new one for each day is going to be a photo from photo booth, well, until we all get bored of that one. Once I get on the iMac I will post one up. Faye is watching Parkinson that we recorded last night on to it.

The iMac is here :-)

Quick post from work as might not have time tonight as will be playing.

TNT had me waiting all day but it has turned up.

Will post my views and pictures as soon as possible.

Must dash home now.........

Where is my iMac.. Oh well tea anyone

Well the mac is not here :-( I did receive my new footy manager game so will have a look at that later.

I called TNT and the mac is meant to be in Luton but they can not be certain that it has arrived. It should be out for delivery tomorrow though. Hope so. Update tomorrow from work.

What I want to know is what happened to the cup of go juice in the morning, yep the good old cup of coffee or tea to start the day. Nowadays I get a whiff of Orange, Blackcurrent, mango or some other fruity smell and it's a cup of tea... Thats not a cup of tea it's a stewed bag of twigs and leafs. Where's the hit of caffeine to get yer going?

It used to be generally be the woman in the office wondering past my desk with these strange slightly sickly smelling cups of hot water but now I get a deep "alright mate, I got Apple, ginseng, Ginger and Blackcurrent because I can feel a slight tickle in throat. What you got?" Well I have a strong coffee to get through the first hour followed by another one to get me to lunchtime. I was sat a desk today going through some work and the guy had a desk full of fruity teas. All sorts of various flavours he had. (Owen's desk if anyone from work is reading, Matt you can probably borrow some off him or have a Strawberry and Mango from your better half)

Got to love a good detox ;-)

Mrs Palace Fan is drinking them at the moment but that is because she does not have caffeine.

Her fav flavour is Pear and Apple; Whats your favorite flavour or even strangest mix you have seen?

Come on don't be scared to comment on here....

iMac update

The latest is that TNT are saying that I should have the mac tomorrow. The TNT site though says it is in Holland. Fingers crossed that tomorrow there is an update from my work omputer to say it has arrived.

I should also get my copy of Football Manager 2006 tomorrow. Think this might be taking a bit of time before chosen one comes.

Today is 3 weeks to go before the due date :-0

footy, Bangs, iMacs and Gti

Went to the footy yesterday and watched a great match but saw a crap ref. When Warnock from Sheff Utd says that the ref had a great game you know something is wrong we lost 2-3. Got an international break and then the grudge rematch against Brighton.

Our friends came up yesterday with my godson and his sister. Had a small firework display in the garden, not for long though :-0, after a couple of fireworks went a bit haywire in the garden and nearly set the hedges alight we went over to the park over the road to finish it off. Managed to get a small crowd that lasted all of one firework . They saw us light it and run like the wind only for the most pathetic firework to fizz and then go out. The small crowd went straight off after that.

The iMac is finally starting it's journey to me. It has started to ship from Shanghai (3/11) so hopefully it wont be too long. We have bought our parents web cams so that they can see Chosen One via our built in iSight on the iMac. Need to get it to work between the Mac and PC using iChat and AIM.

We have decided to keep the little 206 and see how we get on with it before rushing out and getting a larger one. One huge reason is best explained with an example; we went down to Swiss Cottage to get a few bits and bobs and parking is tight but hey with a nippy little 206 we managed top get there quick and straight into a tiny gap to park. Now if we had anything bigger it just would not of fitted and we would of been going round and round for ages.

Its grim up north but they love their dogs xx

I saw this today on email :-0

You have to love the judge's comments.
News from Yorskhire
Extract from the Yorkshire Evening Post:

"A drunk who claimed he had been raped by a dog was yesterday jailed for 12 months by a judge. Martin Hoyle, 45, was arrested by police after a passing motorist and his girlfriend found a Staffordshire bull terrier, called Badger, having sex with him at the side of a road in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

Prosecutor Ben Crosland said the couple had stopped to help because they thought Hoyle was being attacked by the animal. But when they got closer they saw that he had his trousers round his ankles, was down on all fours and the dog was straddling him from behind.

"The defendant mumbled something about the dog having taken a liking to him," said Mr Crosland. "The couple were extremely offended and sickened by what they saw." Another passing motorist contacted the police and Hoyle was arrested as he walked with the dog down the road.

Hoyle, of East view, Marsh, Huddersfield, told police "I can't help it if the dog took a liking to me. He tried to rape me."

He repeated the rape allegation at the police station and added "The dog pulled my trousers down." Hoyle, who has had a long-standing alcohol problem, was jailed for 12 months after he admitted committing an act which outraged public decency.

His barrister said Hoyle had no memory of the incident because of his drunken state, but was now very remorseful and incredibly embarrassed.

Jailing him, Judge Alistair McCallum told Hoyle "Never before in my time at the bar or on the bench have I ever had to deal with somebody who voluntarily allowed himself to be buggered by a dog on the public highway. Frankly it is beyond most of our comprehension. It is an absolutely disgusting thing for members of the public to have to witness

Story is Here

Thanks for the Palace comments, big hello to another Palace fan called James.

Baby News: Faye has now finished work and looking forward to "resting"