Flemingovia's Fancies

Flemingovia

Flemingovia

TNPer
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Being a diabetic, I tend to avoid american children's TV. It is so sugary that I develop hyperglycemia by the end of the opening credits. Moralistic, sickly and patronising are three words that spring to mind.

Sesame Street moved us in that direction, with its inanely grinning human characters, and ineffably cute puppets. Barney was the epitome, for me, of American preschool TV.

Thankfully, my older children were pretty immune, and with a cynicism beyond their years, could be heard at the age of four going round the house singing:

"I love you, you love me
Let's shoot Barney through the knee
Stick a dagger up his bum, watch him crawl along the floor
No more purple dinosaur."

Apart from a brief flirtation with Disney feature films, they quickly graduated to the less subversive Pixar, Simpsons and South Park cartoons. They are therefore reasonably well adjusted.

Imagine my dismay, then, that Andrew loves......

..... no, I cannot bring myself to say it.......


.....be strong, Flemingvoia, be strong........

The Bloody wheels on the bloody bus, starrting Bloody Mango and bloody papaya, a bloody puppet monkey and toucan.

I do not care that Roger Daltrey of the WHO plays the bus-driving dragon. I do not care that the mother in the video previously starred in nudist "documentaries". I do not care that half of the hardass stuntmen in Hollywood are on the bloody bus.

Nothing can give the wheels on the bus any street cred.

And Andrew is playing it back to back for hours and hours.

If we will not put it on he does not scream or tantrum. Oh no. He is too clever for that now he is nearly three. When we "lose" the DVD he just sits and stares at his feet, saying softly "round and round" over and over again, sadly, to himself. Eventually, we crack.

I cannot take it any more. I am not one to abuse children, but this I swear. On the day of Andrew's 16th bithday I will take out that Bloody DVD, dust it off, tie him to a chair and make HIM watch it for nine hours straight.

I'll give him bloody "all day long".
 
The wipers on the bus go "Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish"
The wipers on the bus go "Swish, swish, swish" all through the town.
 
The horn on the bus goes Beep, beep, beep;
Beep, beep, beep;
Beep, beep, beep.
The horn on the bus goes Beep, beep, beep,
all through the town..
 
Blog the second

It is odd how things become fixed in our minds as part of a "proper" christmas. I know people who never go near a church at other times of the year, but who feel that Chrsitmas would not be Christmas if they did not go to a carol service. With others it is a taste - a particular reducrrant jelly, or Christmas Cake reciple. With others it is a tradition. Some people open one present on Christmas Eve, or do not open any presents until after Christmas dinner. in my wife's family they have a giant snowman made out of cardboard and cotton wool. At the end of Chrsistmas dinner the snowman is put on the table and his hat is taken off. Inside the snowman is a small gift for everyone round the table.

In my family the tradition was this: at the end of Christmas dinner the table would be cleared, and the curtains closed. Then my dad would bring out a box of indoor fireworks. these were mounted on cardboard and, when lit, would smoulder in different colours, or burn like fern plants, or grow like snakes, or give off thick white smoke.

Compared to outdoor fireworks, they were nothing special. But to a four year old Flemingovia they were better than any magic show.

Indoor fireworks disappeared years ago from the shops. I assumed that health and safety regulations had outlawed them. But someone at church said that they went to a wedding reception recently where indoor fireworks were on the table. I got curious, and so google searched on "indoor fireworks."

Guess what I found HERE (CLICKY)?

So indoor fireworks will once more be part of Flemingovia's Christmas. I do not know if they will be as magical 40 years after I first saw them; and I do not know what the Playstation generation of my kids will make of them. But I am more excited about this Christmas dinner than I have been for years. Funny how little things can take you back to your childhood, isn't it?
 
I have never seen Indoor fireworks before. Sounds pretty cool to me. The only tradition we have is opening the presents as soon as we get up and then spending the day in other rooms. :D
 
In my family, my sister and I would wake up at 4, and annoy our parents into getting up and sitting in the living room to watch us open our gifts. My dad would always complain, and have to get himself some coffee first, much to the dismay of myself and sibling, until finally sitting down to watch us. Oh, the joy of opening gifts, and the disappointment when you are done and have no more.

Chap:
The only tradition we have is opening the presents as soon as we get up and then spending the day in other rooms.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's basically it.
 
Oh, the joy of opening gifts, and the disappointment when you are done and have no more.
Click to expand...

It always goes too fast too. you feel like, at first glance, there must be millions of presents to open, and then all of a sudden you are picking up the wrapping paper remnants that didn't make it to the large trash can wondering how you could have possibly opened them all so quickly.
 
Chapstickisfun:
Oh, the joy of opening gifts, and the disappointment when you are done and have no more.
Click to expand...

It always goes too fast too. you feel like, at first glance, there must be millions of presents to open, and then all of a sudden you are picking up the wrapping paper remnants that didn't make it to the large trash can wondering how you could have possibly opened them all so quickly.
Click to expand...
Exactly.

I usually got music and stuff, so I would spend the day blasting it because I thought that I was doing my family a favor, and that they actually liked it.
 
I know you take forever! Probably because you're so amazed that some people are actually capable of wrapping presents properly that you don't want to mess it up too bad so you can study it later while writhing with envy.
 
Oh, I love Christmas! At my house, the gift exchange is spaced throughout the day. Santa only fills stockings, and the kids can open those presents at whatever ungodly hour they arise... with the caveat that they are not to share the joy with Mom until I am out of bed of my own accord. (One year Santa screwed up and got them all marbles, which unfortunately make an awful racket on the tile floors.) The family gift exchange has to wait until I've gotten the turkey stuffed and in the oven. Those gifts are the "big ticket" items. They usually keep everyone occupied until after dinner with the extended family when we have the big gift-giving extravaganza. It keeps the kids excited about what's to come.
 
Sometimes on NS people open up threads discussing deep philosophical questions such as "does God exist?"

Ladies and gentlemen, the question is now decisively answered.

God exists, and he likes me.

Andrew has broken the bloody wheels on the bloody bus DVD.
 
I was shopping in Waitrose yesterday. For those of you living in the colonies, Waitrose is an up market supermarket in the UK. Although it is upmarket, it still feels the need to pull in the punters with price reductions and BOGOF offers.

Like every other shopper, I am drawn to the orange "price reduction" shelf tickets, and so went up to packets of beans in the grocery aisle, and was about to put them into my basket when I looked more closely at the ticket.

It proudly displayed that the beans were £1.29 reduced from .... £1.29. Once I stopped laughing I realised that there were only a couple of packets of beans left. Like all the special offers people were buying them, often two or three packets at a time.

Just proves that even the well off are as gullible as the next person.
 
I Went into London yesterday. It was a day that the evening newspapers described as "london's transport meltdown." Strikes on the busses, engineering works on the underground trains.... suffice it to say I was left with plenty of time to muse and think. Here are some of the thoughts I came up with....

Muse #1 Why do they announce the details of the train you are on when the train has pulled out of the station? FOr example, let's say you want to travel to Bristol. You get on the train, it pulls out of the station, and the driver THEN comes on the intercom to say "you are on the 11:54 express to Birmingham....." What can you do? Nothing. But if he had given you that information 5 minutes earlier you could have hopped off the train and onto the right one.

And what is the point of listing all the stations? If the train is the wrong one , it is too late. if it is the right one, you already know the information.

Muse #2 What do they put in Egg mayonnaise and cress sandwiches? It sure isn't mayonnaise; and I am unsure about the egg. I am reasonably sure the green stuff was cress, so I should be grateful for small mercies.

Muse #3 Why the sudden vogue for signs and announcements that tell you what you already know? On the TV in a hospital yesterday there was a soccer match playing. Suddenly it was obscured by words: "THIS" flashed up. "IS". "FOOTBALL". Well thank you, Sky Sports. I thought I was watching elephant polo there for a minute.

On the way home I noticed more. The intercom on the tube train told me solemnly "you are travelling on the London Underground" An advert said "you are in London, the Capital of the UK." No chance of me getting lost, then. The only one the told me something I needed to hear was another advert in a railway station: "YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL" it said.

Stating the obvious, perhaps, but it was nice to hear it all the same.
 
Because of the nature of Britain in this day and age, people really do need to be reminded of what they are, what things are and where they are, because they are slowly becoming mental zombies that need to be constantly reminded of things, by the government and businesses, whilst the go about their pointless every day lives.

Obviously, you are not one of these people.

Congratulations.
 
Make sure you get on or off at the Arsenal station.

Then wish your club had a manager as great as Herbert Chapman.
 
About time to revive a blog after a LONG time with a short muse.

Andrew has moved on from the wheels on the bus. Now he is four years old, and into .... power rangers.

it goes like this.

Four kids are going about their business, when a lot of people dressed in black turn up and start waving their arms about.

They four kids turn into brightly coloured popsicles. The type that are full of e-numbers.

They wave their arms around and, for some reason, the evil dudes explode.

Andrew waves HIS arms around, imitating the TV. He knocks my cup of tea off the coffee table. He kicks the cat. I clear up the tea.

The main evil guy turns into a big lump of plastic, which is bigger than a cardboard skyscaper.

The power rangers look worried. But then they turn into giant lumps of plastic too.

Andrew imitates a giant lump of plastic, and roars around the house, chasing the aforementioned cat.

The evil lump of plastic falls over.

Andrew insists on watching it again.

The end.

I wish the power rangers would "go GO". Anywhere but here.
 
:lol: Now I remember why I would never let my kids watch power rangers. I don't know why, but a single viewing guaranteed that a fight would break out!

Now they like the Family Guy. I happened to overhear one episode on vasectomies. I walked in the living room, stared at the kids and said. "I can't believe my kids are learning about sex from cartoons! :duh:
 
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