nik newark

Eng-er-laaand!!

“So you off to watch the match tonight” asked the portly shop assistant.
“I'd rather eat my own ears”, I thought. But instead feigned ignorance: “Oh, er, is there a football match on today? England United playing are they?” etc etc.
But then, when we got home, I cracked open a tin of Carling Black Label (one of the less pleasant beverages known to man), and turned on the new 40” flat screen HD thing*, and came over all euphoric.

Sometimes I surprise myself.

*bought largely independently of all of the World Cup oriented marketing that TVs seem to have at the moment (like, what are you going to do with it once the world cup is over, eh? EH?). Or was it? Perhaps we really were swayed by the marketing. Oddly enough, we had a pizza in the fridge a few days back which said “great for World Cup”. We tried eating it during Lost, and it performed equally well.

Kalila Boo week 2

Photos are up in the usual place http://kalila.niknewark.co.uk/, but this week have been authored by Apple's funky iWeb software. Cool or pointless? You decide.

I have here a copy of your book...

Glad to see these informative discourses into historyhave appeared on Google video. Best viewed in sequence.

Cunning...

Over the past week or so, I have learnt an awful lot about female genitals that I didn't previously know. You see, my relationship with (what I shall pleasantly refer to as the Twinkle; many apologies for any offence that this may cause) has been of one particular nature, which I shall not go into further here.
Lately however, I've seen the Twinkle in a whole new light. Firstly, I've seen my daughter born out of one. It is quite surprising to see that something so small and neat looking is capable of doing that. Hidden depths indeed.
Secondly, I have been changing my daughter's nappies. Now, I'm used to changing boy nappies, but girls bits are far more complex. I mean, on the surface, they look all neat and non-dangly, but the Twinkle is a far more complex beast. It has many secrets, which no-one will ever know. Grown men and women go through years of medical training to become Gynaecologists (a profession so complex, that it even spelling it properly is tricksy), and still they don't know what on earth these strange organs are about. The two sets of labia are doubtless the inspiration for the jaws of the Alien. Great debate surrounds the purpose of the clitoris. Never mind the eyeball, how did this strange organ evolve, and why? Is this a proof of Intelligent Design? And if so, is God a woman (rather than, as has often been supposed previously, a piece of pasta?).
I think that it the complexity of the Twinkle is a neat mirror of the complexity of the beings that posess them. Yes, on the surface, they appear to be straightforward creatures (usually liking Shopping, Shoes, and James Blunt), but in fact, they are utterly incomprehensible. Even to each other. (I once asked a bisexual friend of mine whether she finds it easier to relate when she is going out with a woman, what with being one herself. And her response? “Good God no. No idea what they are thinking. Men are much simpler”).
So, I suggest that there is a strong connection between the mysterious and abstruse female psyche, and the cryptic shrouded complexity of the Twinkle. Does etymology provide any clues here? Geoffrey Chaucer can provide a clue, as he used the word queynte* to mean both Twinkle and knowledge. And consider the similarity between the word “Cunning” and the word (ahem) “Twinkle”.
For more details, see Matthew Hunt's** excellent Cunt Etymology***.

*arguably the only word to rhyme with “pint”. Aside from “cuckoopint”, which seems to actually mean “cuckoo penis”, so there. I guess we can conclude that there are no rhymes for pint without genital connotations.
** doubtless he has a brother called Mike…

Rob Newman's History of Oil

In case you didn't see it, Rob Newman's History of Oil was the most entertaining, informative TV program I've seen so far this year. Highly recommended.

Utility Pets

In one vision of the future, when a person is born, a “utility animal” will also be born, with the person's DNA engineered into it. The animal then acts as an organ bank, providing spare kidneys etc. In some versions of this future vision, the utility animal (for example, a pig) will be kept as a pet. Elio Caccavale has looked at some of the ethical consequences of this, and has proposed a set of products that we'd need in such a future (such as the Pig TV, or the snout to protect your pet pig from passive smoking).

Introducing Kalila Boo Newark

Born at 2.08am on Friday 9th June 2006, after a labour of just under 2 hours (no, really!)

she weighs 7lb 15oz, and is now acquainting herself with boob juice. Digi doesn't know yet...

A visit to the storks...

... but still no baby....

Playgroup posting

This morning, we are at Waterbeach playgroup, which is our favourite. Digi is enjoying playing with other kids (and is somewhat happier than he was at the playgroup yesterday at little downham). He hasn't yet had an attack of biscuit craving, but I don't believe it will be too long.
Now he is playinh with Duplo, which is good. I'd like it if he got into Lego. And Scalextric.
This is Digi in a car.....

Clever Trevor

I don't blog about my offspring frequently. This is not a deliberate policy, but Tosha writes so extensively about the goings on in the world of Digi that I normally have very little left to write about. But, at the moment, I'm on extended parental leave from work, whilst Tosha is preoccupied with being 41+ weeks pregnant (and appears to be writing about little else at the moment, bless her…). Which leaves a bit of a void in Digi-world.
One of Digi's favourite things is to pour water out of a bottle / cup / other container, look at us, and then say “uh oh!”. He likes to do the same thing with milk, and then draw patterns on the floor in milky residue. He likes to do the same thing when sitting in his car seat, when he will empty out a bottle all over himself.
The other day, whilst we were sitting on the sofa, Digi comes along, and picks up Tosha's glass of water, then pours it all over the floor. “Uh oh!” says Digi, and then runs off around the corner. Comes back a moment later, with one of his old T-shirts, prised from a bag of old Digi clothes. Then uses the T-shirt as a makeshift floorcloth to mop up the water.
Apologies for being a proud parent, but I was impressed that he (a) realised that the water needed to be cleared up, (b) remembered where the bag of old clothes were, © figured out that the clothes could be used as a tool to mop up the water (where has he ever seen someone do this before?!), and (d) put the whole plan into action.
However, last time I proudly mentioned Digi's latest piece of cleverness to a friend, I was told “very good, but to put it into perspective, dogs can do that sort of thing too”. Hmph.

It's not every day...

…when you go to visit the BBC news web site, and see a small picture of the back of your mum's head (in a picture from 1952).

The same picture appeared in Doctor Who a couple of weeks ago. At least I wasn't about in 1952, when this image appeared on the front of the Radio Times, apparently.

Treo test

This is a quick test blog from a Treo. I figure this could be useful for blogging from the labour ward...