My baby girl thinks I’m pretty great

Posted: November 8, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Matters that Matter, Observe my tips | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I took her to the shops today.

She had a massive poo whilst driving there and she handled it like a champ. So did I.

In the rear-view-mirror, her face was doing the typical contortions of one expelling, what I’m sure we can all agree is amongst the worst things ever, a poop – whilst Daddy is singing along to Jessie-Jay on the radio in an attempt to make the whole scene more…musical?

By the time we arrived, her complexion had returned from hellish-rouge to healthy-human, and the gargles and goo-goos were back aplenty, ready for a nappy-change.

Then came my might – the thing of which I am without question the best of in the world:
distractingly amusing sounds and funny faces.

It’s a big difference between babies and men. I’ve never encountered a face so funny, or a sound so amusing, that I wouldn’t know my nappy was being changed.

My daughter was oblivious. At seven months, she generally is.

The amount of things my daughter doesn’t pick-up on is only dwarfed by sheer number of things she picks up and puts in her mouth.

But in the car’s boot, with nothing in reach to distract, it was down to the irresistible power of my face and the sounds that come out of it to make the following two minutes less awful.

There was poo, there was laughter, and there was the risk of each overwhelming both of us – but we persevered, and went shopping.

The dirty nappy went in the shop bin, my daughter went in the pram, and I went into performance mode.

An integral part of fatherhood is taking blows to the brain.

They’re both the height and depths of humour, and like her older siblings, my youngest baby girl loves to laugh at when I do what I do best.

A proportion of those impacts are something I suppose I’m proud:

  • My son (6) hitting me in the head with sporting equipment, for humorous purposes.
  • My eldest daughter (4) hitting me in the head with props, for amateur dramatics purposes.
  • Me (36) hitting myself in the head with whatever is nearest to hand, for competitive purposes (can’t let me son out-do me)
  • And my wife (N/A) hitting me in the head, for reasonable purposes.

The third of those – hitting myself in the brain – goes down something-smashing when it comes to fathering a baby girl.

If you’d like some hints as to what to grab for self-brain-bashing, I’d recommend whatever is nearest to hand for the sake of speed, but noise and colour should be appreciated for the awesome power they hold: like tins of beans and tinsel.

There’s a lot of tinsel at the shop, for arboreal/cultural purposes at this time of year, but no one there knows it’s also for brain-bashing purposes. Same for the tinned beans – it’s got nothing to do with fibre.

I’m struggling to write this blog, due in part to the regular severity of the impacts to my brain which cause such delightful bursts of laughter or, even better, the shining smiles of pure happiness from my baby girl.

It’s also due to the effects of the lychee-liqueur which has thus far turned out to be a wonderful purchase, with the promise of it being less-so tomorrow morning.

Then came the pram ‘uh-ohs’ – in which I push the pram, daughter nonchalantly perched within, away and panic in what I’d best describe as in a ‘flappy headed’ way, before pulling her back with a hint of a jolt but with my own laughing smile upon arrival – matched and soundly beaten only by hers.

She really is the most adorably scrumptious of little things that there ever could be, and you might feel the same about your offspring but I’m right because this is my blog and I’m right.

Take your own kids shopping – I’m occupied with the best thing since someone had the bright idea of having things under the sun, and sliced bread.

Due to what I presume to be a clerical error (by which I mean ecclesiastical rather than administrative) – I find there are no baskets proffered in the shop entrance, meaning I have to load items for purchase beneath the pram itself.

Here’s an opportunity to vanish and return, aka ‘Peekabo’.

With each item loaded onto the conveyer belt towards the till, I duck out. Briefly (and I really do mean briefly – I doubt I’ve ever been briefer), I’m away and suddenly I’m back – and sure enough I’m hitting myself in the same head from which funny noises and faces are emitting.

And she’s smiling joyously. The kind of joy you don’t remember.

From there it’s pay, parking ticket, load stuff in the car, daughter in her car-seat (featuring multiple checks on the way home to ensure I definitely packed her), visor down as the sun sets early this time of year, bish, bash, bosh, I’m a dad.

And the smiles and laughter, in addition to the excited little kicks of the even-littler legs, tells me all I’ve ever really needed to know: my baby girl thinks I’m pretty great.

Sam

I read the paper. Now I’ve opinions.

Posted: December 24, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Today's paper. | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

You’d better watch out!

You’d better not cry!

You’d better watch out and I’m telling you why...

Sam just read the paper, today.

And the world is fucked, in a very ‘but buy tomorrow’s edition’ way.

Actually, you can’t buy tomorrow’s edition because it’s Christmas Day, but that’s no reason to not panic about world events.

Such as the pet owner who was charged £40 for a phone call to discuss his cat’s constipation.

If the cat had eaten the phone, causing both constipation and a necessary phone call, I’m on the side of the vet. Holding up a scratching and wailing cat to my ear will result in me as calmly as possible letting you know that I’m going to be charging you for this above my normal rates.

Of course, the cat didn’t eat the phone, which is nice, and it did get some medicine, which is about as nice as not eating a phone.

Then there was the annual Christmas Day plunge into sewage on the nation’s coastal swimming spots.

Concerns are that those who like the bracing experience of seawater in December whilst wearing an amusing hat might get poo in their mouths, eyes, stomachs and bloodstream. And brain, probably.

I don’t know much about poo, but I wonder if it’s good for the skin. Probably not, but also, possibly so.

Maybe we should start finding alternative uses for poo, rather than just sending it down river or hiding it under less-pooey things.

Maybe use it in Law? Like shitting in the sinks of the water company Execs for every illness and death their actions caused. Copro-punishment.

Still, here’s hoping the Execs and the swimmers all have a happy Christmas.

The Druids made the news, at the only time of year they ever seem to these days (scarcely at all this millenia so far) to welcome winter solstice.

They watched the sun come up apparently, at Stonehenge. Quite windy, according to reports.

Surrounded by Druids and flaming torches, with a sun rising between ancient menhirs, that must feel like a good place for the world to end. Wiltshire.

And lastly, someone was arrested for stealing some valuable criminal damage.

Banksy does his stencil and spray-paint thing and people are arrested for stealing it before the council has a fair chance to steal it for themselves.

When I write “bugger” on a wall, I’m just stared at. By my wife. In the living room.

A good message in the sign though. Things do need to stop. I hope they do.

Merry Christmas wishes and hopes to all those who won’t have one.

Sam

A Christmas Tree For Christmas Dinner

Posted: December 13, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Apparently the needles of a Christmas (pine) tree are rich in vitamin C and can be boiled down into a new-car-smell flavoured soup, additionally giving your bathroom and the things you do in it a festive whiff.

I’ve been getting into facts.

Facts, when mentionable, are more like jokes or amusing opinions. When facts are unmentionable is when they are so horrifically dull that whoever mentioned it is false on the grounds of public interest (or in this case – disinterest).

I do some talk-work on a hospital radio show with my dad and I brought in the idea of having regular facts garnered from the internet, helping us to link them into the next song or simply chatting about them (ill people simply adore me, as do the injured).

I’ve read a fair few facts over the time it’s been and I’ve developed the nuance of disregarding some and mentioning others according to their ear-worth.

But upon hearing this fact – of Christmas trees being edible – I knew I was onto a keeper for sure.

I’ll eat a tree.

It’s certainly more impressive than broccoli, albeit slightly harder to fit in the saucepan.

When eating a Christmas tree, I feel the only way to go about it is the only way one should go about any activity: by going the ‘whole-hog’ – in other words: don’t strip it and soften it and maybe not even timber it.

Just eat the tree: go Whole Hog.

I’m sure the ‘Whole Hog’ saying comes from those against bacon; real men who don’t stop only a few centimetres into the pig but rather continue on all the way with their fork down to the sty floor.

If you won’t eat a trotter or a snout; you don’t deserve bacon. And if you won’t eat a Christmas tree plucked fresh from atop the pile of presents; then you don’t deserve Christmas.

Quite differentiating diets here, eating a whole pig and eating a whole tree, but the moral here remains the same.

Why stop at a Christmas tree?

I bet if Redwoods were delicious they’d stand a much better chance of survival thanks to the influx of executives eager to ensure the forest-eating consumer market is suitably supplied.

Much like the fact that if tiger bones really did increase the size of men’s’ penises; those tigers would be living across lush acres of privately protected jungle, raised to be big-boned, king of the lush and dense farmyard for several winters before we take poor Tiger out of pasture and grind it’s bones to make our penis-enlarging bread (“Give us this day our daily penis-enlarging bread”).

Take that Tiger Bone Bread, whack a Whole Hog between two slices, gobble it all down and then pick your teeth with the Christmas tree you’ve emasculated by suddenly having an enormous todger.

THAT is a fact, not factually; but certainly in my opinion.

Besides, you need more vitamin C in the winter months; so eat a Christmas tree for Christmas dinner and hopefully we’ll survive till the next one.

I think I’ll keep up the facts, let’s see.

That’ll do.

Sam