Customer "service"

I'm not normally one to complain excessively, but when faced with appalling customer service from a corporate behemoth - I'm talking about BT - that's a completely different matter.

If you've ever tried to change broadband suppliers, you may well have had a similar experience to what I've been through during the past five weeks.

In theory, it's quite simple. You phone your current internet service provider to ask for a migration code (MAC), which your new supplier then uses to switch your service over. According to the industry's code of conduct, the ISP should provide you with your MAC within 5 working days.

It should be simple, shouldn't it? But, of course, it's anything but.

Apparently most ISPs have a tendency to drag their feet over issuing MACs, presumably in the hope that most people will eventually give up and stay with them. Now I don't know whether BT is significantly better or worse than, say, Sky or Tiscali or Talk Talk, but what I do know is that I don't exactly have a warm glow about them.

The timeline goes as follows:

Nov 6th: Requested a MAC from BT's Customer Options team. I was told they would email it to me within 5 working days, in line with the code of conduct.

Nov 18th: Follow-up call. Polite service, profuse apologies, and a promise that it would be sorted out within 48 hours.

Nov 20th: Ditto.

Nov 25th: Another call, and a promise that I would either receive the MAC or someone would contact me within 48 hours. Registered a complaint with a manager anyway, expressing my disappointment.

Dec 1st: Still nothing. Emailed BT's High Level Escalation complaints team (hleteam@bt.com) after the phone number I had found for them didn't work. Received an automated email response promising they would get back to me within two working days. They didn't - which I personally find even more offensive than their general inaction. If you promise to call someone back, you call them back; that's basic courtesy.

Dec 11th (today): In total exasperation, I launched a three-pronged approach, thus:

1. I phoned BT again, stating clearly that I expected action within one week, or I would also be switching my landline supplier.

2. I then phoned the Ofcom and registered a complaint which they promised to pass on to BT. (Ofcom doesn't actually have the power to do anything, but by escalating it with the ISP there's more chance they'll actually sit up and take notice.)

3. Finally, I emailed BT's chief executive (ian.livingston@bt.com) directly at 8.58am, politely summarising the various communications I had made, and expressing my disappointment at the lack of any positive outcome or even feedback. I received an email response at 9.01am, a call from his PA at 9.30am, and a MAC by email and accompanying phone call by 11am. (Apparently the MAC had been generated four weeks ago, but never sent to me - go figure.)

That's two hours from my email to a surprisingly swift resolution - after five weeks of frustration. Hopefully that should now be the end of it. Even if it isn't, I now at least have a direct line to someone high up in BT's organisation who has been both responsive and effective. You can't ask for more than that.

Isn't it funny how quickly things happen when you cut out the middle man? Makes you wonder why companies invest so much in customer service infrastructure when the only way to get things done is to contact the man at the top.

Times change

... And we change with the times. It's an old Latin saying, and one which remains as true now as it was then.

Reflecting back on Isaac's first year, I always knew that life would change in many different ways, but there are so many things I do now as a matter of course that I would never have done a year ago. Here are ten off the top of my head.

1. Thinking that going to bed by 10pm is normal. (And that staying up after 11pm qualifies as “a big night”.)

2. Waking up at 5.30am on a Saturday after six hours’ uninterrupted sleep and thinking, “That counts as a lie-in.”

3. Being able to do household chores one-handed, while holding a kicking 20-pound weight with the other hand.

4. Singing nursery rhymes in public.

5. Maintaining a normal conversation while changing one of your son’s speciality super-dirty, super-smelly nappies.

6. Taking your boy out for a walk at 8am in the freezing cold and pouring rain, just so he can get some sleep.

7. Taking an hour to do what is normally a ten minute drive, so your son can get a much-needed nap.

8. Planning your entire life around your child’s sleep and meal times.

9. Using words like “botheration”, “drat” and “fiddlesticks” so your child doesn’t learn swear words.

10. Spelling out swear words when words like “botheration”, “drat” and “fiddlesticks” just won’t do the job.

Oliver Postgate RIP

A big part of my childhood - and, I suspect, that of many other people in their 30s and 40s - died yesterday.

Oliver Postgate, creator of much-loved children's TV programmes such as Ivor the Engine, The Clangers, Bagpuss and Noggin the Nog, died yesterday aged 83. Apparently he died peacefully.

Postgate was one half of the Smallfilms team, alongside artist Peter Firman. Together, the pair worked in a disused cowshed in Kent - a far cry from today's high-tech CGI production houses - to create classic shows which live on in the memories of millions of children-turned-adults: the marvellous mechanical mouse organ in Bagpuss; the surreal, swanee whistle conversation of the Clangers, (the show inspired the name of the early 90s indie band The Soup Dragons); Postgate's dodgy Welsh accent as Jones the Steam ("Come now, Ivor!").

Bagpuss was voted the top children's programme of all time in a 1998 poll, and ranked fourth (with The Clangers 13th) in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Kids' TV Shows in 2001, holding its own among such exalted company as The Simpsons, Danger Mouse, Grange Hill and Mr Benn.

Contemporary children's programmes may be more sophisticated, exciting and expensive than Bagpuss, Ivor and their ilk, but somehow they will never have the same simple charm of an era when two men in a shed were able to both entertain and shape the lives of an entire generation.

Rest in peace.

Oliver Postgate's obituary on BBC News

One!

Where has the time gone?

Our lovely little boy was one year old on Saturday (technically, at 8.50 that evening), and I genuinely cannot believe an entire year has passed. It seems like only a few weeks ago that I started the day working from home and generally pottering around, and finished it going to bed, exhausted, with a tiny baby sleeping next to us.

Still, it means he’s been going to a lot of parties at the moment, what with most of our local friends being other parents who had babies around the same time as us.

I’d love to know what Isaac thinks about all this. He’s probably a bit bemused at the moment, wondering why he keeps getting dressed up in his posh togs - his ‘clubbing shirt’, as I like to call it – and being dragged to all these gatherings with lots of his friends where there’s lots of food and presents. And cake. No doubt he’s also wondering why he’s suddenly got a mountain of new toys to play with. At the moment, the popular choice is anything with wheels, which basically means planes, trains and automobiles. As his nana says: he’s all boy.

Being a December baby, in little more than a fortnight he’ll be at more gatherings where there will be lots of food and presents, only with turkey rather than cake. And trees with lots of shiny hanging bits for him to pull down. (I’m really looking forward to that; it’ll be like having a cat, only you can’t put him out for the night.)

And then, just when he’s starting to get used to the party-and-presents routine, it will go quiet for the next eleven months.

Anyway, this last weekend, there was Amelia’s birthday party Sunday lunchtime. (Bad timing: it started just when he desperately needed a nap, he whinged for most of it and then only perked up towards the end.) Notable achievement: running over the birthday girl with a walker. (Note to self: get comprehensive insurance for Zac and protect his no-claims bonus.)

And before that we had his own party down in Ferndown on the Saturday, a rare chance for the grandparents (both real and adoptive) to get together and shower him with the gift of coloured plastic, which then took about ten hours to load into the car. (True to form, Zac got tired and I had to take him out for a long walk to get him to sleep. Thanks, boy.)

This coming weekend, we’re going to a joint birthday party for the NCT group, after which I’m planning to breathe a (short) sigh of relief before launching into Christmas. And beer.

Yes, it’s hectic, with all these parties. Yes, it can be a bit of a nightmare logistically (especially given last week’s unexpected hospital stay). But is it worth it? Well, to see my little boy playing happily with one of his new toys, only to look up with a beaming smile and shout “Da-ee!” as I walk into the room … as the Mastercard ads say: that’s priceless.

Rite of passage: update

Isaac was discharged yesterday afternoon, much to the relief of both his parents.

By the time I got home, having collected his antibiotics - no champagne for him at his birthday party, then! - he was all smiles, haring around the house and rediscovering favourite toys with an enthusiasm utterly out of proportion to the two days he had been away from them.

I guess that means he was glad to be home, too.

Better still, Heather and I have just both had an uninterrupted night's sleep - nine whole hours! - for the first time since Zac was born. No doubt it was just a one-off and tonight we'll be back to the usual middle-of-the-night routine, but you've got to appreciate these small mercies when you can. We wouldn't have it any other way.

P.S. Oh my God, he's one tomorrow! Time flies, eh?

Rite of passage

Most parents go through it with their children sooner or later.

In our case, it’s happened in the week leading up to Isaac’s first birthday.

I’m talking about your child’s first hospital stay.

After a restless night – nothing unusual there - Zac woke up on Tuesday morning with what was quickly diagnosed over the phone as ballonitis. (I won’t go into the gruesome detail here, but let’s just say it’s an infection which only males can have. You fill in the gaps.)

Our GP then confirmed it as the worst case she had ever seen – whatever happened to having a reassuring bedside manner? – and sent Heather and Zac off to the Royal Berks to be seen by a specialist. After the customary several hours of to-ing and fro-ing, Zac was admitted and put on intravenous antibiotics.

And that’s where both he and Heather have been ever since - 48 hours and counting – with me shuffling backwards and forwards mornings and evenings between work (Bracknell), home (Thatcham) and hospital (Reading) with a constant supply of clothes, toys, books and cheerful supportiveness (except for the bit where I whinge about the traffic).

Actually, it’s been a rite of passage for Heather in more than one way, as she herself had never spent a night in hospital either. (Zac was born at home.) Of course, it’s all old hat to me; as either an in-patient or out-patient I go to hospital in the same way that other people go on holidays. (Come to think of it, I’m surprised I don’t have a commemorative bed named after me somewhere.)

Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to have been overly traumatic. He wasn’t admitted with a broken leg, respiratory problems or something life-threatening, which is a good starting point. Sure, he found it very unsettling at first, and even though he was better yesterday Heather still ended up resorting to driving him around in the middle of the night to stop him crying and waking up everyone else on the ward, but since those first few hours he’s shown much more of his happy self: smiling at the nurses (it’s more like flirting, really), watching TV, playing with toys and crawling around getting in everyone’s way. And staring out of the window going “Whee!” or “Rah-a-rah” (“round and round”) as cars go past on the road. (Well, he is a boy, after all.)

With a bit of luck he’ll be discharged later today, as the inflammation has now subsided significantly. It will be good to have them both back home, where they belong and can feel comfortable.

From my perspective, it’s been a bit tricky. I want to be there and help as much as I can, but you can’t be there 24/7 or else you end up stepping on each other’s toes.

And then there’s always the small matter of the real world (i.e. work).

One thing I can say for sure is that my priorities have definitely changed. There was never any question this week that I was going to put my family first and work commitments second. That’s not to say that I would have prioritised work over a personal or family crisis before Zac came along, more that nowadays there is no need to even make a conscious decision about it, or any guilt about whatever loose threads I may have to tie up later.

Work to live, not live to work: it may be a bit of a cliché, but it’s more relevant – and true – than ever these days.

Top TV

I must be getting old. Doctor Who celebrated its 45th birthday yesterday. And it seems like only yesterday that The Black Adder first appeared on British TV screens; in reality, I noticed that the 25th anniversary of the series’ initial transmission came and went a few months back.

Which is as good an excuse for a list of my favourite TV programmes as any.

The television landscape has changed a lot in the past 25 years. Back then, the UK only had four television channels, Channel 4 having launched in November 1982. And our expectations of television programmes were very different as well. Stories unfolded at a much more leisurely pace – just watch a rerun of any old 80s programme on Bravo, ITV3 or the newly rebranded G.O.L.D. to see what I mean – and we were certainly more tolerant of budget-constrained production values and wobbly special effects. Whereas nowadays, if you have Sky, there are more channels than there are days in the year, we expect a thrill-a-minute adrenalin ride from programmes and no longer marvel at what CGI can achieve.

However, the more things change, the more they stay the same. No amount of green-screen pyrotechnics can replace engaging stories presented in an original format, which is why, despite my strong preference for sci-fi and other ‘genre’ shows, my list includes three series which date back 15 years or more and another which I don’t think ever used a single CGI shot.

So, in no particular order, here are ten of my favourite TV shows of all time:

1. The West Wing: A prime-time drama about the inner workings of the White House wasn’t the most obvious recipe for success. And yet, TWW remains one of the most intelligent, challenging and above all human series ever. For seven years I fell in love with a set of characters trying – and frequently failing - to steer a country I have never lived in via a system of government I have limited understanding of. TWW is perhaps the finest example of how you can generate pace in a story without having to resort to crash-bang-wallop, and that you can build exquisite dramatic tension just by having people talking without pointing guns at each other. Josh, CJ, Leo (the late John Spencer), Jed, Donna and all the others were, of course, not real people. And yet they absolutely were. Somewhere in my mind they still are.

2. Blackadder: Natch. Through four series of Edmund’s incompetent scheming and Baldrick’s “cunning plans”, this was British comedy at its finest – and it was a show only British TV could have produced, with its subversive and sometimes downright black humour. For me, Blackadder II and Blackadder Goes Forth in particular routinely reached heights on a par with anything Fawlty Towers ever produced. Best. Comedy. Ever.

3. Heroes: Yes, season 2 was too slow to get going, and this was one of the few shows for whom the WGA strike was probably a blessing in disguise. Yes, many of the characters’ powers are derivative. (Claire Bennet, for instance, is Wolverine with pom-poms.) And yes, a number of the characters are dreadfully dull or under-developed. (What, pray tell, is the point of Maya?) It’s not perfect; it is still, however, soaringly brilliant 90% of the time, combining complex, multi-layered storytelling with breathtaking CGI which puts many films to shame. And in the character of time-controlling Hiro Nakamura we have the poster boy for geeks everywhere. Gotta love it.

4. Knight Rider: I’m talking about the admittedly cheesy 80s original here, not the plethora of spin-offs which followed it (not least the abomination of a Ford commercial which is the new Knight Rider). Sure, the series and its basic format – Michael and KITT turn up in a small town to help a girl in trouble, KITT bails Michael out with the use of his ‘turbo boost’ and some pithy one-liners, Michael gets the girl - looks pretty dated now (as do the clothes and the hairstyles). But of all the one-man-and-his-hi-tech-sidekick series that proliferated in the early 80s (Airwolf, Street Hawk, Blue Thunder, Automan), this was the one which caught this young teenager’s imagination more than any other – I mean, come on, who didn’t think that black Trans Am wasn’t the coolest thing ever in an era of Mini Metros and Ford Escorts? – plus it had that killer theme tune and tag-line of “one man can make a difference, Michael” which are indelibly imprinted on my subconscious. Plus it never took itself too seriously or tried to justify the series’ many implausibilities (how exactly did they manage to cram so much gadgetry in a car which you could barely fit back-seat passengers into?), which I find always helps. Suspension of disbelief, people.

5. Battlestar Galactica: In this case, I’m talking about the present day ‘re-imagining’, which took the basic idea - remnants of the human race on the run and seeking the lost colony of Earth – of the ever-so-kitsch Star Wars-lite 1970s original, and turned it into a gritty political and religious allegory. The series is full of ‘good guys’ for whom the boundary between right and wrong has become immutably blurred – it is they, and not the supposedly evil Cylons, who resort to suicide bombing tactics - and which somehow manages to be unremittingly depressing yet ultimately uplifting. Also, Edward James Olmos: the man redefines the word ‘gravitas’.

6. Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Somehow, despite lacking the one big fan-boy’s favourite (Spock, Data etc), this, by far the darkest of the five Star Trek series, had the best ensemble cast, and maybe that’s exactly because it wasn’t dominated by one or two main characters. Here we had a crew of people bravely fighting the good fight in a morally grey world where even the supposedly whiter-than-white Starfleet has plenty of unsavoury skeletons in the closet, and there are as many downbeat endings – not least the ultimate fate of Benjamin Sisko - as there are happy ones. If that sounds a lot like the new Battlestar Galactica, that’s probably because of Ronald D Moore, BSG’s show-runner and co-executive producer on DS9. Hey, if it ain’t broke …

7. My Name Is Earl: An unapologetically cheesy premise – a former petty criminal who suddenly discovers karma (“do good things and good things happen”) - which shamelessly pokes fun at small-town Hicksville, trailer trash and some of the US’s more hysterical attitudes towards life, the universe and Operation Iraqi Freedom, among others. At its best MNIE veers from farce to cutting observational humour and back again several times an episode. And if there is a better, funnier supporting role on TV than Ethan Suplee’s Randy, I have yet to see it.

8. The Apprentice: Let me get this out of the way first: Sir Alan Sugar is an idiot, albeit one who gives good soundbite. He consistently fires the wrong person each week, despite the obviously high opinion he has of his own judgment. (I’m telling you, his sidekicks Nick and Margaret are the stars of this show.) The whole original concept of finding Britain’s best and brightest young entrepreneurs has been quietly forgotten in favour of what we really want to see: a succession of self-aggrandising tall poppies, and the inevitable schadenfreude that follows when some bright spark’s genius idea of selling beef to a vegan is exposed for its obvious stupidity. There are some basic lessons in business and selling here, but don’t ever be fooled into thinking this is even a semi-serious programme like Dragons’ Den: this is Big Brother in business suits.

9. Life On Mars: Never mind the high-concept premise – is Sam Tyler “mad, in a coma, or back in time”? – LOM was a lovingly created homage to 70s cop shows like The Sweeney, wryly observed through knowing 21st century eyes. Worth the price of admission for Gene Hunt’s one-liners alone (“He's got fingers in more pies than a leper on a cookery course”, “He's more nervous than a very small nun on a penguin shoot”). And bonus points for resurrecting the Test Card Girl and putting her front and centre in the plot - I always thought there was something vaguely scary about her, anyway. Best of all, the show went out on a high after just two series. Leave them wanting more.

10. Buffy The Vampire Slayer: A series which delighted in taking Hollywood conventions and turning them on their head. The helpless blonde cheerleader of a thousand slasher movies who turns out to be the girl who saves the world. A lot. Episodes conducted primarily in silence without any dialogue (Hush), without incidental music (The Body) and in musical format (Once More, With Feeling). BtVS did all that and more, making the fantastical seem commonplace while revealing that the greatest horrors can often be found within ourselves, and spawning a spin-off series, Angel, of such quality that it could get away with a giant talking hamburger and turning its lead character into a Muppet. Literally.

I’ve missed out plenty of series here which would have made other people’s top 10s, or which might have made it into mine on a different day: Who, and the first two seasons of both Lost and Alias for starters, but there you have it. Seven US series, three UK. Six genre shows, two comedies, one reality show and one drama. Pick the bones out of that.

Double bleurgh

I hadn't even recovered from last week's cold when I went down with something far nastier. I went to bed fine on Sunday night, ready to tackle another working week. But when my alarm went off the following morning and I attempted to leap out of bed with my usual joyous spring (or something like that), all I managed was a weak twitch of my foot and a groan. And that's pretty much how I stayed for the next 48 hours. Some kind of gastric flu or similar bug, I think.

The human body is an amazing thing, not least in how it deals with illness. Having identified the problem as being moderately severe and dispatched several million leukocytes to the relevant spots to deal with it - I always have a mental image of an army of uniformed white blood cells marching confidently forward into battle - it simply battened down the hatches and switched me off for as long as required. I must have slept for 40 of the first 48 hours of my illness - awakening only for adrenalin-filled dashes to the bathroom - with absolutely zero appetite for appetite to persuade me to keep my stomach clear. Only once it was deemed safe to step down from defcon 1, on Wednesday morning, was I able to stay awake for more than an hour at a time and start fuelling up again. (And, boy, does that first mouthful of post-illness food slithering into your digestive system feel good!) By Thursday, I was eating normally again and able to get through the whole day, albeit with limited energy, and today (Friday), I'm getting close to normality.

It's a pretty cool thing, isn't it? Your body knows you're ill even before you're conscious of it, and in many cases knows exactly what to do without calling for medical advice. And all you have to do is put your feet up and put up with feeling a bit crap for a while.

It's been a long while since I've been off work for more than a day or two like this - a really bad bout of flu about 12 years ago, I think - so I'd forgotten the upsides (such as they are) of being bed-ridden. For a start, there's none of the guilt or second-guessing I have when I take a day off with a heavy cold or something like that: you can barely make it to and from the kitchen, so driving to work is clearly out of the question. You get proper sympathy from your nearest and dearest, rather than being told to just get over it. And then, best of all, you get to snuggle under the duvet and watch rubbish on TV because you're not capable of doing anything more than that.

Which, in my case, meant a 100% guilt-free daily diet of Top Gear repeats on Dave (the convalescent home for sick blokes), repeats of old 80s classics (ITV3, Bravo, Virgin 1 and DMAX, among others, are good places to start) and a dash of Deal Or No Deal for good measure.

Oh, and wall-to-wall coverage of John Sergeant's decision to quit Strictly Come Dancing. But you can't have everything.

Anyhow, other than still feeling a bit lethargic (nothing new there), I'm over the nasty stuff now. The only problem is my cold's still here. And that's not really very much to shout about, is it?

Crime and punishment

Is it just me or do the police focus on the wrong things – or at least too few of them - when enforcing the rules of the road?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for cracking down on drink-drivers and for the judicious punishment of speeding, particularly in high-risk areas. Anyone who thinks it’s okay to do 45 in a school zone deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law as far as I’m concerned.

And I’m certainly no angel when it comes to observing the rules of the road. I routinely exceed the speed limit on motorways and have consequently picked up a couple of speeding offences in my time: fair enough. I have also been known to demonstrate a degree of impatience with other road users who are unobservant or unnecessarily slow or obstructive: I’m not proud of that either.

But in other respects I like to think I’m a reasonably accommodating driver. I will let people out at junctions, hop out of the way of faster cars, and I have a borderline obsession with parking neatly. UK roads are busy enough as it is without some of the micro-brained antics we frequently see making things worse.

So it annoys me somewhat that I could (rightly) be heavily penalised for doing 90mph on an empty motorway at night, while others who show a flagrant disregard for their fellow road users can get away with all manner of irritating acts which the police are either unwilling or unable to prosecute.

Here are my suggestions for five alternative motoring offences – with appropriate punishments, not just the usual points and a fine - which I believe would greatly enhance all road users’ driving experience.

1. Hands off, eyes down

Crime: Applying make-up, map-reading or similar activity which requires driver to look anywhere other than the road, or to take both hands off the wheel.

Punishment: Offender must complete their next journey with their hands super-glued to the steering wheel.

2. Queue-jumping

Crime: Deliberately cutting in at or near the front of a long queue at a motorway exit because you’re clearly more important than everyone waiting patiently behind you. In particular, those drivers who crawl along or stop in the middle lane holding up everyone behind them until some kind soul feels compelled to let them in. (It’s just so un-British – I thought we were a nation that knows how to queue politely – and it wouldn’t happen in the queue at your local post office, would it?)

Punishment: Offender is issued a spot punishment where they are made to wait until everyone they jumped in the queue has passed them, and then for a further ten minutes.

3. Road hog

Crime: Driver continues to occupy the outside lane of a motorway, even when a faster car comes up behind them and waits patiently for them to move into the empty middle/inside lane.

Punishment: Offender must complete the whole of their next motorway journey in the inside lane. Behind all the HGVs and caravans. At a maximum of 56mph.

4. Selfishness is not a disability

Crime: Parking in disabled or parent-with-child spots without either an orange badge or a child. (I mean, honestly, what makes you think these spaces have been set aside specifically to reduce the distance you have to walk? Have you ever tried getting a baby in and out of a car seat in the tight confines of a normal parking space? Or squeezing in or out of the car if you have a physical disability?)

Punishment: Offender’s car is towed to the furthest corner of the car park, and then squeezed into an especially tight space to prevent easy entry. Additional punishment for repeat offenders: all four tyres completely deflated.

5. Crossing the line

Crime: Driver straddles multiple spaces in a car park (and generally claims they are in too much of a hurry to park properly).

Punishment: Offender must pay for each space occupied, or else all parts of their vehicle not within the white lines of the main parking space are sliced off with a chainsaw.

I’m telling you, introduce and enforce just these five offences and I guarantee Britain will be a better place. Now if you’ll excuse me, there are some men in white coats coming for me …

Bleurgh

I’ve got a cold (again). Ick.

I guess it’s something that many parents are familiar with, but I must have caught more colds in the 11 months since Isaac was born than in the previous 11 years combined - the boy is a germ-spreading machine. In fact, feeling bunged up and snotty now appears to be my normal operating mode; I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like to go through an entire week without being slightly under the weather. (What an odd phrase that is: where does it come from?)

The worst thing about having a cold is that it’s not like you’re properly ill. If it was flu or some other virus, I would be quite justified in tucking myself up in bed all day and generally feeling sorry for myself. But with a cold, you feel compelled to go into work because ‘it’s only a cold’, then you feel bad when you slope away early, and then you can’t mention it at home without being told to shut up and stop being such a wuss. And then it’s several days until the blasted thing finally goes away, persisting as stubbornly as a Big Brother contestant who has outstayed their welcome on the Z-list celebrity pages.

Still, having a cold does give me an excuse to stock up on Lemsip and Lockets, one of those guilty I-know-I-shouldn’t-like-these-but-I-really-do addictions which Heather thinks is me exaggerating things in a man-flu sort of way, but actually is just part of a Pavlovian routine, a comfort blanket which allows me to feel OK about feeling lousy.

Maybe it’s a habit which stems from my childhood, as many of our ingrained behaviours do. I have vivid memories of being tucked up in bed with hot honey and lemon drinks, or sitting with a towel over my head inhaling steam from a boiled kettle. Or Lucozade – Lemsip, Lockets, Lucozade, is the alliteration somehow important? – which, if you’re of a certain age, you will remember came in big glass bottles wrapped in crinkly orange plastic.

Whatever the reason, it’s a lovely autumn morning, but I feel no more desire to be outside than I did during the near-biblical rain we had yesterday (at one stage I half expected to see an ark containing pairs of animals floating by). And that’s a real shame. Much though I despise the early nights and the knowledge that summer is long gone, I do normally very much like days like today which are crisp and dry. Right now, however, all I can think about is Lucozade.

Spinning around

So, John McCain was ultimately unsuccessful in the US presidential election. Lembit "Self-Publicity is a Virtue" Opik too. In news that will reverberate around the corridors of power in Wasington almost as loudly as a monk obeying a vow of silence in a sound-proof room, Mr Cheeky Girl nee Mr Sian Lloyd - open brackets, weather-girl, close brackets - failed in his bid to become party president of the Liberal Democrats. (Note to Sarah Palin: that's not a country on the Pacific rim.)

Anyhow, I couldn't let the post-US election aftermath - analysis of which has generated column mile after column mile in the UK papers over the past five days - go without mentioning a couple of things I've read.

Firstly - and I promise this will be the last time I mention The West Wing, at least for a while - a number of papers picked up on the link between the show and Barack Obama's new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

I've previously noted some of the similarities between the McCain/Obama race and the fictional world of TWW, where the series ended with Matt Santos defeating the Republican veteran Arnie Vinick, aided by a major external event (a near-nuclear disaster) which swung the pendulum decisively towards the Democrats, and resulted in the election of the first US president from an ethnic minority.

But that's not where the similarity ends. In the fictional White House, the deputy chief of staff is a canny, Jewish political operator named Josh Lyman, who was based on a real-life canny, Jewish political operator in the Clinton administration named ... Rahm Emanuel. And in TWW, president-elect Santos's choice to be his chief of staff was Josh Lyman, just as Emanuel is Obama's.

Life really does imitate art.

Secondly, the more distasteful side of politics has, inevitably, reared its ugly head as the Republican blood-letting and finger-pointing has begun in earnest. McCain insiders have started a virtual stampede of anonymous confidential 'briefings' - leaks, by any other name - against Sarah Palin, placing the blame for the election defeat solely at her door. (Never mind the fact that it was their man who chose the woefully underqualified governor of Alaska as his running mate in the first place.) She has been accused of a woeful ignorance of global affairs (something we already know to be true); in addition to her oft-televised foreign affairs gaffes, she has been accused of not knowing who the three members of NAFTA, the North America Free Trade Agreement, are (the US, Canada and Mexico, in case you wanted to know), and of thinking that Africa is a country rather than a continent. And, harking back to the cost of her campaign wardrobe - which it is suggested was rather more than the $150k which was originally stated - she and her husband Todd (the self-styled 'first dude', puh-lease) have been labelled as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast".

Other than being a killer soundbite, it's all very Lord of the Flies, isn't it?

Clearly, McCain staffers are looking to deflect blame for last week's defeat on to the most obvious (and all too plausible) target. And Palin has responded in kind, blaming the Bush administration for the election result, refusing to comment on several allegations and accusing reporters of not doing their homework before filing stories about some of her policies, decisions and (alleged) abuses of power. (Regardless of whether she is correct, attacking the press does not exactly strike me as the best way of getting them on-side.)

Post-election analysis confirms that Palin was certainly a divisive figure in the campaign, driving away swathes of independent voters, particularly women - a constituency which her appointment as McCain's running mate was designed specifically to appeal to. However, she remains popular with many conservative elements of her party, with a national poll suggesting that 64% of Republican voters now consider her to be the party's best presidential candidate for 2012. (Although no doubt Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and others will also be major contenders for the next Republican nomination.) The jockeying for position has already begun, with Palin extracting maximum advantage from her run in the spotlight; it would not be surprising if her next step was to run for Alaskan senator.

The sad thing is that my view of Sarah Palin is inevitably distorted by the lenses of the media and of the political spin doctors. There is no question she is woefully short of knowledge, but that can be addressed over the next four years. Similarly, she has been clearly shown on a number of occasions to have been, ah, economical with the truth to an extent which would make even seasoned politicos blush.

Other than that, the image I have built up of her is of an ambitious, ruthless, single-minded woman (pretty much incontrovertible), who loves the political spotlight in the same way a film star loves the photographers on the red carpet (again, I'm fairly secure in that assumption) and is not afraid to use her position and power in all manner of dubious ways - 'Troopergate', shopping sprees, allegedly 'going rogue' in the final days of the campaign - which cast severe doubts on her holding any position of power, let alone the most powerful one in the world.

Now how much of that last set of assumptions is actually true or not is anyone's guess - there's so much contradictory spin flying around that I'm getting a headache - but to my mind, there's no smoke without fire. However, 64% (or more) of Republicans clearly think otherwise, as is their right.

I just hope we never have the chance to find out. Right now, Sarah Palin is arguably the second most famous politician on the planet, after the president-elect. It doesn't mean she's the second most capable, though.

From red to blue

As I write this at 0830 GMT, and with only two states - Missouri and North Carolina – undeclared, Barack Obama leads John McCain 349-162, having easily passed the required total of 270 electoral college votes, and with a majority of the popular vote (52% currently).

Last night, the USA elected its first black president. This morning, the world is already a very different place. How much different it becomes will be the backdrop to the next four years in US politics.

In the final analysis, the writing was quickly on the wall for McCain. Having effectively declared Pennsylvania as his last stand, the state’s early call in favour of Obama – by a crushing ten point margin – had the calorifically-challenged lady limbering up her vocal cords. And when neighbouring Ohio – no Republican candidate has ever gained the White House without the Buckeye state - also proclaimed the Democrat candidate, 51% to 47%, the singing could be heard from Florida all the way to Sarah Palin’s home state of Alaska.

As other swing states followed the trend with a seeming inevitability, the US political map turned from Republican red to a sea of blue. It’s an over-simplification for sure, but it’s hard not to see this as a reflection of the changing times, with the demography of key battleground states such as Virginia and Florida having been dramatically altered by a combination of domestic and cross-border immigration in recent years.

While the Republicans will point to the popular vote being closer than any of the pre-election polls were suggesting – the pollsters were forecasting a chasm of anywhere between 6 and 13%, and it looks like the final gap will be 5-6% - the reality is that the Grand Old Party of American politics has been soundly trounced by a charismatic, at times almost messianic opponent, who has mobilised support with unprecedented efficiency. (The Obama campaign spent more money than both candidates combined in 2004.)

(Incidentally, for stattos like me who are that way inclined, Daniel Finkelstein’s article in Monday’s Times is an interesting insight into the systematic inaccuracy of the US polls.)

At a distance several thousand miles removed from the heat of the election battle, it seems to me that John McCain was an essentially honourable man – he repeatedly avoided the temptation to overtly smear Obama – who was ultimately undone by two events: one within his control, the other not. Firstly, his choice of running mate. (I’ll come back to that.) And secondly – and perhaps more critically - the economy, which voters have cited as the single biggest influence on their choice of candidate.

In the hype and hysteria of the last few weeks, in which Obama has been effectively proclaimed president-elect before the fact by a predominantly liberal media, it is easy to forget that the two candidates were neck-and-neck at the end of September. Had the global financial meltdown not started until, say, this morning, the election result could have been very different.

However, the crisis happened when it did, and as such the incumbent ruling party – and therefore McCain - took a lot of collateral damage. Despite being regarded by many as a great ‘war president’, George W Bush leaves office with a lower approval rating than Richard Nixon, and the Obama campaign relentlessly drove home the point that McCain – for all his claims to be a maverick – has voted with Bush 90% of the time.

Can the Republicans fight back in 2012? Of course they can. As Barack Obama himself has shown, with the right message, the right organisation and the right timing, it is possible to go from being a virtual unknown to holding the most powerful office on the planet within two years.

Already, some factions within the Republican party are positioning Palin as their presidential candidate next time around, a scenario which is frankly terrifying – this is the woman who claimed that Vladimir Putin flying through Alaskan airspace counted as foreign policy experience - but far from impossible. Her proponents will point to her being a role model for women (although she conspicuously failed to draw the support of Hillary Clinton’s supporters), her role in galvanising the gun-toting, bible-bashing extreme conservatives (which is true) and that, in four years’ time, she will be a more experienced and better prepared candidate (she could hardly be worse).

But Palin’s backers fundamentally miss the point. Barack Obama has won on the back of a message of change for an American society which has already changed and continues to do so. He has energised previously disenfranchised and disillusioned voters – blacks, Hispanics, the young – and embraced America in all its diversity. Palin’s message (insofar as there was any coherent message) throughout the campaign has been one of fear of change. She has accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists” and questioned his patriotism, his religious leanings, in fact pretty much everything except his skin colour. Yes, it is a message which appeals to a conservative minority, but that is exactly what her constituency is: conservatives in a time of change, and a minority (of largely older, white Americans) which is shrinking.

Barack Obama talks of striding forward and shaping the future. Sarah Palin is the political manifestation of the lie that America is the UNITED States, and would have the nation take a step backwards into an insular, arrogant and racially fragmented past which is out of step with our modern world.

The last time I wrote about Palin, I referred to her as “the political equivalent of a reality TV wannabe”. I was interested to note this morning in a couple of political blogs that TV execs are reportedly considering approaching her with a view to either fronting a chat show of her own or creating an Osbournes-like vehicle around her family. I don’t normally like to say “I told you so”, but … I told you so.

Anyhow, America has made its decision. It remains to be seen whether Obama really will be able to deliver on what are preposterously high expectations, but I can’t help but feel that the US electorate has voted in a 21st century president for a 21st century world, and that’s got to be a good start.

Jump on the bandwagon? No thanks, I’d rather walk

One of the best things about our modern, online, 24/7 world is the speed with which it allows word-of-mouth to spread, and for people to voice their opinions.

It’s a double-edged sword, though.

One of the worst things about our modern, online, 24/7 world is the speed with which it allows word-of-mouth to spread, and for people to voice their opinions.

From those idiots who seem to do nothing but snipe and post spiteful vitriol on message boards – “Who does Rebecca Adlington think she is?”, “Russell T Davies has killed Doctor Who”, “X is an ugly cow” - to the Spanish website currently spouting all kinds of racist and homophobic drivel against Lewis Hamilton in advance of Sunday’s Formula 1 title showdown in Brazil, modern communications has become a breeding ground for bandwagons for the moaners to jump on to with unseemly haste.

If you’re a UK resident who hasn’t been hiding under a rock for the past week, you may possibly be aware of an incident which has rippled the normally calm waters of the BBC.

In summary; Russell Brand, aided and abetted by Jonathan Ross, left a series of prank calls on the answerphone of Andrew Sachs (best known as Manuel on Fawlty Towers) insinuating, among other things, that Brand had slept with Sachs’ granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. These were broadcast on Brand’s post-watershed radio show on Saturday 18th October. Two complaints were received by the BBC, both relating to Ross’s swearing rather than the content of Brand’s humour.

Several days later, Sachs’ agent wrote to the BBC, demanding a full public apology. Last Sunday, a full eight days after the event, the Mail on Sunday ran an article condemning Brand, Ross, the BBC, global warming and fox-hunters (or something like that).

And so the media circus exploded. By the following day (Monday), the BBC had over 1,000 complaints on its hands and, as every UK news outlet further fanned the flames, that number swelled to 27,000 by Wednesday, at which point the BBC suspended both stars, and Brand announced he would resign from his radio show. And by the time Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas tendered her resignation yesterday (Thursday), the count had passed 30,000.

Now, call me an old cynic, but I’m willing to bet that most of those 30,000-odd people who complained have neither listened to the show (either live or on YouTube) nor read the transcripts (which can be easily found online). I’m also willing to bet that a sizeable proportion have never actually seen or heard Brand in action, and have chosen to register complaints simply because they don’t like him or Ross (and particularly the latter’s estimated £6m pa earnings).

So why complain? Because the Mail on Sunday – which likes to consider itself the arbiter of what is right and wrong in modern society - is outraged? Because you heard second-hand from family, friends or colleagues about Brand and Ross making ‘obscene’ phone calls? Or because some people recognise a good bandwagon when they see one and scapegoatng some overpaid, over-hyped celebs to take them down a peg or two makes you feel good?

(By the way, I have seen the word ’obscene’ bandied around way too freely with regards to this incident. It was certainly misjudged, lewd and inappropriate, but it was no more obscene than the Sun’s Page 3 girls. Child pornography: now that’s obscene.)

Don’t get me wrong, there has been a multitude of mistakes here. Brand and Ross certainly overstepped the mark, for which they have apologised. Production oversight was virtually non-existent, not helped by the fact that Brand owns the production company which runs his radio show. And the BBC was slow to react: an immediate apology and a prompt response (as opposed to calling an ‘emergency’ meeting the following week) could well have nipped the whole affair in the bud. (It’s clear the BBC did not learn from Channel 4’s equally ponderous handling of the Jade Goody/Shilpa Shetty Celebrity Big Brother racism row.)

However, what’s done is done. Brand and Douglas are gone, and Ross has been hit heavily in the pocket. The BBC will introduce tighter production controls, and will no doubt err on the side of conservatism in its humour, just as its investigative news reporting lost some of its teeth in the wake of the Hutton inquiry.

30,000 people - and let’s remember that only two complained initially – almost all of whose quality of life would have remained blissfully unaffected had the media not raised public awareness of the affair, have brought about a significant change in the UK radio landscape. I guess that’s democracy for you.

Odd, isn’t it? I’m not a fan of Russell Brand, so I choose not to listen to his radio show. For me, an apology, a slap on the wrist and better judgment in the future would have been enough. Bloodshed was unnecessary. (In the same way, I’m not a fan of Chelsea, but every time they do something that displeases me I don’t feel the need to complain to the Premier League asking for them to be fined or deducted points. What’s the difference?)

Brand isn’t the victim here: he will quickly return with his edgy, bad boy image enhanced. Neither is Ross: yes, he has forfeited an estimated £1.4m in earnings as a result of his suspension, but the BBC can ill-afford to jettison the man who is arguably its biggest TV and radio audience draw. Baillie has sold her side of the story to the Sun, and will no doubt extract the maximum from her 15 minutes of fame. And Sachs, thanks to his agent, is back in the public consciousness from which he has been absent since Fawlty Towers.

No, the victim here is Lesley Douglas, the controller of Radio 2, who resigned yesterday because (in her own words) “the events of the last two weeks happened on my watch”.

The BBC has lost a talented controller, one who over the past four years has transformed Radio 2 into the UK’s most popular radio station – with 13 million listeners – and assembled a diverse and enviable roster of talent, including Ross, Brand, Terry Wogan and Chris Evans.

More than that, the corporation has lost an honourable servant, one who has accepted responsibility for errors made, not by herself, but by her people.

If only politicians were as honourable in accepting responsibility for their actions (let alone those of their people) – but then I suppose the House of Commons would be a very empty place if that were the case!

So, to the 30,000-odd people who took the opportunity to have a pop at Brand and/or Ross: I hope you’re happy now. Radio has lost an unsung champion in Lesley Douglas, a casualty of war.

Sadly, I doubt too many of those 30,000 will even care. The baying crowd has tasted blood, and that’s all that really matters to them. You’ll forgive me if I want no part of that: I’m quite happy to let the bandwagon roll on without me. I need the exercise anyway.

A different type of holiday

As the old saying goes: times change, and we change with the times.

Before Isaac came along, our idea of a holiday was something like this: wake up at some ungodly hour; catch a flight across several time zones, leaving us unsure as to whether it is day or night when we land; eat copious amounts for breakfast; skip lunch; cover several miles a day on foot seeing as many things as possible; find a restaurant for dinner; collapse into bed, exhausted; repeat until departure; start planning the next holiday. Washington, New York, Prague, Sydney, New Zealand, California, Canada, Thailand, Rome, Milan, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, to name but a few - we’ve been very fortunate to have travelled all over the world in recent years.

So the idea of a holiday at Center Parcs - from where we have just returned - was a bit alien to us. Stay in one place; do the odd activity here and there but basically chill a lot; gentle strolls through the woodland; sit around reading or playing Scrabble in the evening: the concept was about as far removed from our typical holiday as you could possibly get.

Loved it, though.

I guess that underlines just how much having a baby changes your life.

Whether it was learning basic archery, or playing table tennis with R (R and A and the kids were also there for the week), or taking Zac for a long morning stroll to get him to sleep, or just generally unwinding in the evening with Heather, it was all good. And the soothing benefit of being in a self-contained community, effectively isolated from the outside world (except for the occasional RAF fighter jet thundering overhead), should not be underestimated.

As a new parent, the fact that Center Parcs is so child-friendly was a real weight off our minds. For Zac to be able to zip freely around our villa without there being lots of corners to bump into, wires to pull and general havoc to be wreaked was brilliant for us, and he clearly loved having the run of the place without constantly being dragged away from the TV or being told not to tug at a power lead. Pretty much all the restaurants have big children’s play areas which mean you can actually sit down and enjoy a meal. And then there’s all the organised activities, the big pool, the on-site babysitting service …

To be fair, we only really scratched the surface of what Center Parcs has to offer. Heather had a morning in the spa and did some fencing; I tried my hand at archery (Robin Hood has nothing to worry about), and Zac’s still a bit young to really make the most of all the kids’ facilities and activities (whose number is legion), but he did seem to enjoy swimming (in his usual, stoic, “I’m in public so I’m not going to give anything away” sort of way). And I got to spend an entire morning with him while Heather was at the spa, just walking and playing and doing the whole father/son bonding thing in a way we never have the time to do at home, at least not over such an extended period.

It’s certainly not cheap, once you’ve factored in the cost of activities, eating out and general supplies (the captive audience pricing principle very much applies here), but as a getaway that allows the entire family to enjoy themselves it was well worth it. However, there aren’t lots of staff in red coats running around trying to coax you into playing bingo or some such thing, which was the (admittedly somewhat outdated) mental picture I previously had of ‘holiday villages’.

So, the official Tim rating - only marginally less prestigious than the AA or Michelin - is four stars out of five. (I just wish everything was just a fraction less expensive, and that it wasn’t such a long walk from the car park to our villa, which was practically in the next county.)

Do I miss our globetrotting holidays? Of course I do. But did I enjoy spending an entire week with just the three of us, unencumbered by work deadlines, household chores and the million and one other day-to-day concerns which routinely drag us down? (Just being a family, in other words.)

You betcha. And I'd do it again in the blink of an eye.

Six degrees of separation

You’ve probably heard of this theory before: the premise that anyone can be connected to any other person in the world via a chain of no more than six acquaintances. It’s also the basis of a play and subsequent film of the same name. (The latter starred Stockard Channing, who more recently played the First Lady, Dr Abigail Bartlet, in The West Wing. Sorry, I just couldn’t resist making what is becoming a customary TWW reference.)

The maths is pretty straightforward. If we conservatively say the average person knows 100 people – and I’m willing to bet the contents of your mobile and email address books easily exceeds that – and each of those 100 people knows another 100 people, then by the time you’ve reached the acquaintances of the acquaintances of the acquaintances of the acquaintances of your acquaintances (that’s five degrees of separation, if you’re counting), then you have access to potentially ten billion people; according to US Census Bureau estimates, that’s equivalent to 1.5 times the total global population. Okay, it wouldn’t actually be ten billion because there would be lots of duplication between people, but the calculation is good enough to demonstrate that the premise isn’t at all far-fetched.

And in our modern world of social networking – email, Facebook, MySpace, message boards, chat rooms, even actually meeting people – the boundaries are collapsing ever faster, to the point where I’m willing to bet there is no one in the UK who I can’t reach within four steps. I’ve just tried to estimate the number of people I know – friends, current and former work colleagues, people I knew at school or university, friends of friends I have been introduced to, and so on – and come up with a number in excess of 1,000, of which I have had some sort of contact (face-to-face, a phone call, an email or other online message) with at least 400 in the past twelve months.

To put it another way: it’s a small world. And it’s getting smaller all the time.

Some examples. At work, there are around 60 people in my immediate department. I’ve only worked here for 3 years, and I live at least 20 miles away from the vast majority of my colleagues; most frequent Reading or London, I go to Oxford. Within this small group alone, here are some of my non work-related connections which require only one degree of separation:

A did the same MBA course as me, albeit several years apart. Naturally, we share many acquaintances through the faculty at the business school.

K was one year above me at university, at a different college but studying the same subject. Though our paths never crossed at the time, through a (very) minority sport we both played (start from football, straight on past hockey, keep going past dwarf tossing, and you’re still not there yet), we have at least a dozen common friends and acquaintances.

A (a different A) has acted in amateur productions opposite the husband of a friend of mine from my MBA.

C is the account manager for a major customer who I worked for several years ago. She deals with a number of people there who I worked with or for back then, and several others have moved to other businesses in the same industry, and consequently deal with other account managers within in my department.

And no doubt there are many other connections I’m unaware of which require one or at most two degrees of separation.

Scary, huh?

I guess all this is an inevitable consequence not just of technology and the connectivity with other people this gives us, but also of an increasingly mobile population, both in terms of where we live and where we work. Gone are the days when you were born in a town, grew up, went to school and worked in that same town, married a local boy/girl, rarely ventured beyond the town borders (except maybe occasional trips to the nearest city), and eventually were buried in the town cemetery. Anyone who has traced their genealogy back more than a hundred years or so will probably recognise this pattern.

Nowadays it’s not uncommon to go to university hundreds of miles away from home, to work for several different companies in several different places (I’m currently on my fifth company in my fifth town), have friends and family all over the world, and even have good friends you have never actually met. (If you think that last one is odd, it’s really not so different from the old concept of pen friends.)

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? A bit of both, I suppose. A lot of people feel disconnected – when many of your friends are no longer just round the corner, it’s inevitable you don’t see them as often as you’d like – which is why sites like Friends Reunited and Facebook have flourished, and it’s probably why so many of us reach out via the online universe, seeking other people with common interests.

I guess ultimately that’s what it’s all about. We all want to belong, and to know that we are not alone in this small and yet ever-so-big world.

Naming ceremony

So, that’s the naming ceremony done and dusted, then.

I’m really glad we did it too, despite the expense. On the one hand, it’s effectively a token ceremony which has no legal standing. And yet it allowed us to include the godparents we wanted, beyond the restrictions imposed on us by the Catholic church (maximum of two godparents, at least one of whom must be a confirmed and practising Catholic). Plus we could be very specific about personalising the readings and promises so they meant that much more to us.

Overall, I thought the whole afternoon went really well. Yesterday was a surprisingly lovely October day, and Heather had done a great job picking out a venue with plenty of space for our friends’ various kids to run around. People mingled well, and genuinely seemed to enjoy proceedings.

I thought the readings we picked out – one for us (‘A poem for parents’), one for Zac (Bob Dylan’s ‘Forever Young’) – worked nicely, and thanks are due to T and R for agreeing to read them.

Admittedly, it would have been nice if Zac had been a bit sunnier and up for bonding with his godparents, but it was very hot and he does have yet another cold bunging him up. On the bright side, at least he didn’t howl through the entire thing like he did during his baptism two weeks ago. And he did provide a couple of great comedy moments; firstly sprinting away on all fours at high speed just as the registrar was explaining about his Chinese names meaning ‘mighty, strong and energetic’, and then getting clonked over the head with a toy car by A (the future wife), which I think every person in the hotel - never mind the room - heard. Still, good practice for married life, I suppose!

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Promises, promises

I guess it’s worth recording for posterity the promises Heather and I made:
- To love Isaac always and cherish each day with him
- To nurture Isaac’s growth and development, from infant to boy, and from boy to man
- To fuel Isaac’s curiosity and teach him to appreciate the world in all its diversity
- To encourage Isaac to become a caring and valued member of society
- To support Isaac in pursuing his dreams and fulfilling his potential
- To guide Isaac in choosing his path in life, and to be proud of the man he becomes

And here are the promises Zac’s godparents signed up to:
- To help and support Tim and Heather in their role as Isaac’s parents
- To promise to be there for Isaac, as an advisor and a friend
- To promise to encourage Isaac in his hopes and aspirations
- To promise to share in Isaac’s successes and help him deal with life’s challenges
- To assist Isaac in living a happy and fulfilled life

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What’s in a name?

One of the things we agonised over before Zac was born was whether the names we gave him would fit him as a person.

As already mentioned, his Chinese name, Wai Kin, means 'mighty, strong and energetic', which could not have been more appropriate (although we do occasionally wish we had given him a name which means 'quiet and sleeps a lot'). And Isaac comes from the Hebrew word for 'laughter'; if there is one thing which characterises him more than anything else, it is his loud, infectious (and downright dirty) laugh.

I guess the names fit just fine, then.

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Godparents = supporting adults

Thinking about what our expectations of Zac’s godparents – or ‘supporting adults’, to use the appropriate non-denominational term - are has made me reflect that I need to be more actively involved with my godchildren than I have been previously, but that’s a whole different story.

In truth, I’ve never really got my head around the whole godparent thing. In a modern society where the church plays a lesser role in people’s lives than it once did, the concept has become increasingly nebulous. What exactly is the ‘supporting’ role? Clearly it goes beyond birthdays, Christmases and Sunday school, but how far? Being there to support the parents in times of need, sure. (As long as all appointments are booked at least a month in advance, you know how it is with our busy modern lifestyles.) Providing advice and encouragement, no problem. (Although most kids will already get plenty of that from a combination of parents, grandparents, teachers etc.)

Do you see what I mean? The role of a godparent lacks a clear job description, and in many ways you are providing little more than a safety net to the support network which naturally develops around a child anyway. But that in itself is no bad thing, I suppose. Just agreeing to help wherever and however you can is no insignificant commitment.

At least we were specific in how we are hoping Zac’s godparents will support him. T & C will provide spiritual guidance; A (that’s A’s mum) will offer both motherly and medical advice; Peter is responsible for educating Zac about music; K for football & films; finally, R will help him manage his currently meagre savings through the economic crisis.

I’m not sure how much that helps them. But it helps clear some of the fog for me, anyway.

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Not much else to say, really. At the risk of resorting to a hackneyed cliché (too late!), I guess you have to take things a day at a time. And now it’s time for me to go off and cherish today with my little boy.

Sympathy for the devil

Well, not the devil exactly. But Jade Goody has all too often been held up as reality TV’s most diabolical creation, a celebrity whose fame is built solely on the basis of having appeared on a TV show, Big Brother, whose sole premise is to entertain viewers with the laboratory rat antics of a bunch of wannabes desperate for their 15 minutes of fame, despite having no discernible talent other than searing ambition, and the ability to be simultaneously obnoxious and completely lacking in self-awareness.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to vilify Big Brother. As someone who has watched the programme since its beginning in 2000, I’m well aware I’m part of the machine which creates Z-list celebs like Goody. And I know it’s little more than glorified car-crash TV, but it’s still one of my guilty pleasures which fills a gap in a largely football-free summer, so I won’t apologise for that either. (“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been two months since I last watched Big Brother.”)

Equally, I come neither to praise Goody, nor to bury her. She has long been held up as Queen of the Chavs, the far-from-the-sharpest-tool who made a million off the back of not knowing where “East Angular” is. And that was before the events of ‘Shilpa-gate’ during Celebrity Big Brother in 2007, where she was ritually crucified on the altar of public opinion for her racist comments - “Shilpa Poppadum”, among others - towards Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty.

While there is no place in society for the kind of abuse Goody dished out, it’s also worth putting into perspective. I’m from an ethnic minority myself, and while I found Goody’s insults offensive to say the least, I’ve been on the receiving end of worse abuse at football matches. And that pales into insignificance compared to the kind of vile homophobic abuse dished out by Tottenham fans to their former captain Sol Campbell two weeks ago. (Abuse which I am sure many Spurs fans themselves are disgusted by, but which equally has been publicly defended by some as “no more than he deserves” and “just part of footballing banter” on radio phone-ins. I'm not joking.)

My point is this: Jade Goody may be exceptionable, but she is certainly not exceptional. We like to think of our society as cosmopolitan and sophisticated - and that our mob reaction in scapegoating the likes of Goody is incontrovertible proof of that – but the fact is that Goody is neither unique nor the worst example of abusive, discriminating behaviour there is. Yes, we are a cosmopolitan society in the UK - something I take great pride in - but we’re by no means a perfect one.

Anyhow, I never thought I’d feel sympathy towards Jade Goody. While she has certainly made the most of her celebrity and limited talent – wouldn’t anyone in her position? – it’s not as if my quality of life has been eroded by her ubiquitous presence in the gossip mags. Earlier this year she went into the Indian Big Brother house – now there’s a show of PR chutzpah if ever there was one – only to leave within days after being told she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer.

And it was in this context that I was horrified to read Caitlin Moran’s weekly Celebrity Watch column in today’s Times. Here’s Moran commenting on OK! magazine’s interview with Goody this week:

With her on/off boyfriend, Jack Tweed, currently in jail, she has had to cope with her illness alone. OK! tackled this aspect of her life with the question: “How's [Jack] coping - has he been safe in the showers?” Because it's always nice when a national publication asks if your partner is being raped in prison. Follow-up questions/comments included: “What if one of the kids at school goes up to [your kids] and says 'Your mum is going to die'?”; “Would you come back as a ghost?”; and, fairly incredibly, “You'll be like a cockroach, who'll live for ever.”

Who comes up with this? Why do the bottom-feeders at OK! think there are people out there who want to read this kind of trailer-trash journalism? And, worst of all, why are they right in thinking exactly that?

As I said above, I never thought I’d feel sympathy towards Jade Goody. I do now.

Instead of pillorying Jade Goody and her ilk, maybe we would be better served by taking a long, hard look in the mirror ourselves. I’m not at all sure we would like what we see.

A list!

In the great tradition of great (and not-so-great) bloggers, it’s about time I compiled a list.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of these anally-retentive types who has to have lists for everything, like the Rob character in High Fidelity, who catalogues pretty much everything in his life – and reveals much about himself in the process - as a succession of ‘top 5’ lists. In fact, I have a long history of compiling lists which I subsequently fail to complete / lose / choose to ignore (delete as applicable).

Anyhow, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I do like my boys’ toys. So, for what it’s worth, here are my top 7 gadgets du jour, in no particular order. Feel free to read into the list what you will …

1. iPhone 3G: It’s an Apple product, so of course it’s gorgeous to look at. (I spent much of the first 24 hours after buying it stroking it lovingly as one might a favourite pet.) But it’s so much more, and it’s the 3G and wi-fi capability which are the iPhone’s real killer apps. Where else can you access the internet (well, most of it), get directions via GPS and Google Maps, download and read e-books, listen to music (and download more via iTunes), and - most importantly - turn your phone into a lightsaber or tricorder (complete with sound effects), all in one pocket-sized box? Oh, and you can make telephone calls on it too, if you want to get all 20th century on me. Sure, it’s not perfect: the battery life is poor and the camera is rubbish. Who cares? I spent last night out at dinner with some friends; S spent half the evening excitedly playing with my iPhone. Must. Have. Gadget.

2. HD camcorder: Full-HD capability. Ability to record 4 hours of HD content on a single 16 GB SD card which, at the time of writing, can be bought for as little as £25. (Or alternatively, there are models which record directly on to an internal hard drive with greater storage capacity than a Sky+ box.) Wrapped up in a package about two-thirds the size of a Coke can. All for less than £400, in the case of the camcorder I recently purchased (a Panasonic HDC-SD9, if you want to know). Anyone remember the old VHS over-the-shoulder jobs which were all you could get 15 years ago? They are about as comparable with the new generation of HD camcorders as the BBC Micro is with a MacBook Air.

3. Sky+ (or better still, Sky HD): Buying a HDD (hard disk drive) recorder nearly three years ago revolutionised my TV viewing. No more waiting for the video to finish recording. No more trying to work out which tape that episode of The West Wing I recorded two months ago is on. No more going on holiday and only being able to record 8 hours’ worth of stuff. On top of all that, having Sky+ doubles your money, with its ability to record two programmes simultaneously, obviating the need to scour the schedules for repeat showings of programmes whenever you have a clash. So now there is no excuse for missing re-runs of Deep Space Nine on Bravo. Result!

4. iPod: Yes, they’re pretty much ubiquitous these days. And yes, there are other cheaper and/or better MP3 players out there. But it doesn’t matter. The iPod is still the best-looking, and iTunes is still the best front-end application for those who, like me, just want something easy to use. It’s not exaggerating things to say my iPod has transformed the way I listen to music. The ability to access my entire collection no matter where I am without having to lug around 300 CDs: let’s just say I listen to a broader variety more often that I ever would have done. More than that, my 60GB video iPod is now nearly three years old, and I don’t feel a burning need to upgrade it for the latest model. For a gadget, that’s amazing.

5. Noise-cancelling headphones: The best combination of gadgets I own is the iPod coupled with a pair of Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones, which I bought in Canada a couple of years back. Yes, they’re incredibly expensive – around £270 in the UK – but, boy, do they make a difference. The benefit is most obvious on planes and trains (the first time you try it on a plane, the ensuing near-hush makes you think someone has switched off the engines), but even at my desk at work, it’s made me realise how much background noise there is, from the hum of air conditioning to the gentle buzz of fluorescent lighting. The sound quality is excellent too; I rarely use my standard iPod in-the-ear ‘phones any more.

6. PowerMonkey Explorer: I’ve just ordered one of these, because I’m fed up of always having to cart around a variety of chargers wherever we go, or getting caught short when my power-hungry iPhone runs out of juice and there isn’t a mains point or USB port in sight. One bit of kit with the various relevant connectors, which slips easily into a bag or pocket and acts as a backup charger for any of my gadgets which need a power top-up. Better still, it can be recharged via an attachable solar cell as well as at the mains. Portable power, it’s the way forward. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to get one.

7. DAB digital radio: No more crackly sound, but more importantly access to the full array of BBC digital-only stations, which means no more cursing at the radio when they announce the football match I want to listen to can be followed “on our sister station, 5 Live Sports Extra”. We have one DAB radio in the house and another incorporated into the stereo in my car. It makes a small difference, but it’s a big difference, if you know what I mean.

Okay, I know seven is an odd number to stop at, but we are in an economic downturn, after all, so a top ten feels a bit decadent. It’s nothing to do with the fact I couldn’t think of anything else I own which fit the bill. Still, Christmas is just around the corner … plenty of time to aim for the full ten ...

Will Sarah Palin become the first "reality" VP?

I don’t normally take much of an interest in American politics – pretty much everything I know about the US electoral process I learned from watching The West Wing – but there has been something strangely compelling about this year’s presidential race.

Something more than a little terrifying too.

The acrimonious race for the Democrats’ nomination between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was never less than intriguing, with the candidates seeking to become, respectively, the first female and black president of the US.

And now we have Sarah Palin, who as John McCain’s running mate, is arguably the least qualified person ever to seek a role which requires her to be one heartbeat away from the most powerful office on Earth.

As I said, more than a little terrifying.

Now don’t get me wrong. Unlike the bipartisan American media, I do not pledge allegiance to either the Republican or Democrat camp. Nor do I discount Palin solely on the basis of her gender. (For what it’s worth, I think Hillary Clinton is thoroughly deserving of her status and reputation notwithstanding her gender or who her husband is.)

However, what are we supposed to make of a candidate who has:
- No foreign policy experience, to the extent that she didn’t even know what the Bush Doctrine is (for God’s sake, even I know what it is)
- Demonstrated on several occasions that her grasp of economic policy, past Supreme Court judgments and many of the other basic tools of the political trade verges on the non-existent
- Effectively positioned her candidacy on the basis of being a mom, a moose-hunter and a maverick

In a now notorious interview with CBS’s Katie Couric, this is what Palin had to say, having shot herself in the foot in an earlier interview with ABC in which she had cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of her foreign policy experience.

Palin: "Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land … boundary that we have with … Canada."

Couric: "Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials."

Palin: "Well, it certainly does because our … our next door neighbours are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of ... We have trade missions back and forth. We … we do … it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where … where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is … from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to … to our state."

Now Palin’s ineptitude and all too obvious lack of knowledge have made her an easy target; a sizeable proportion of the world is literally laughing at her, as exemplified by a series of parodies by Tina Fey - who bears an uncanny resemblance to Palin - on Saturday Night Live. (Check out YouTube for more.)

And her performance in last Thursday’s sole televised vice-presidential debate – which was watched by more Americans than the first McCain/Obama presidential debate - was barely an improvement. The debate was leniently moderated and structured so as to provide both Palin and her opponent Joe Biden with minimal opportunities to insert feet in mouths. But for every solid point she delivered, there was another question which was answered in the vaguest terms, or neatly sidestepped - yes, I know that’s what politicians do, and Biden did plenty of the soft-shoe shuffle too - or simply countered with one of her folksy homespun catchphrases (“Say it ain’t so, Joe”, “Doggone it”) and a wink and a smile.

Many commentators suggested that, because Palin had not made any game-changing gaffes and exceeded very low expectations, that the debate could be viewed as a tie. Oh, puh-lease.

If all that is required of a vice-president is an ability to deliver a well-rehearsed script, then for sure Palin can do that. Call me a bluff old traditionalist, but I would hope that the vice-president of the most powerful nation on the planet was capable of a little more than that. Does that make me odd?

The scariest thing of all is that there is a sizeable proportion of the American population – paid-up members of the NRA, Creationists, rednecks, whatever - who see no problem having Palin as McCain’s designated backup. They are convinced by her attempts to spin her lack of Washington and foreign policy experience into a virtue: she’s an outsider, a maverick, as opposed to someone of utterly unproven ability and essentially zero experience. They are even happy to accept the factual errors, the gaping knowledge gaps, the half-truths and the bare-faced lies – if you don’t believe me, a simple Google search should rapidly convince you otherwise - as the words of a credible candidate.

What we have here is the political equivalent of a reality TV wannabe, a woman of great ambition who would have us believe that memorised scripts, cutesy soundbites and a telegenic array of smiles and winks is in some way a replacement for experience, talent and – heaven forfend - substance. And like your average Big Brother contestant, she has long since exceeded her allotted 15 minutes of fame. It’s time for Americans to, as the Republicans’ slogan so boldly proclaims, put their 'country first'. Which means choosing the option which has the greater credibility on both the domestic and world stage, in rescuing an ailing economy and in navigating tricky foreign policy waters. Which surely means the Democrats' ticket of Obama/Biden.

For sure, Sarah Palin looks good on TV: does anyone sane really believe this is enough?

One final thought. In the fictional world of The West Wing, the series ended with the Democrats' young buck, Matt Santos, defeating the Republicans' veteran politico, Arnie Vinick, aided in no small part by a game-changing external event (in this case, a near-nuclear disaster) which swung the pendulum decisively towards the Democrats, resulting in the election of the first American president from an ethnic minority.

No doubt you can see where I'm going with this: sometimes, as the saying goes, life imitates art. In this case, I certainly hope it does.

Welcome

So, who am I?

I’m Tim, I’m 38 (my God, already?!?), and I live in Thatcham near Newbury. Married to Heather for eleven years; one son, Isaac (Zac), aged ten months as of today.

There’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary about me, but if you wanted one word to sum me up it would probably have to be ‘diverse’.

Why?

Well, for starters, I like to think of myself as multi-cultural. I was born in London and consider myself unwaveringly British (hey, it’s what my passport says I am), but my parents are both Malaysian Chinese, so although I sound like your average middle-class Londoner - whatever that is these days – I don’t look it. Heather’s half-British (mum) and half-Australian (dad), and I think it’s fair to say we’re both keen that Zac grows up with a full appreciation of his diverse origins.

What else? Having (barely) completed a chemistry degree, I haven’t seen the inside of a laboratory since - no great loss on either my part or the scientific world’s - and have worked in marketing ever since. I’m currently employed by a large American multinational manufacturer, having previously worked for, among others, a large British media corporation, a very large retailer and the same public sector business as Postman Pat.

Let’s just say I’ve built a rich portfolio of experiences. It sounds better than “never really had a career plan”, doesn’t it?

The same goes for my interests: I like variety. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to 20-something countries, and I love discovering different cultures. I follow many sports but football is my first passion (specifically Arsenal), and although I like rugby I much prefer American football and Aussie Rules. I like photography; I like to read; I like to write (hence this blog).

Anyway, that’s me in 300 or so words. And this is my blog.

Like me and my life, there’s no specific aim to this blog, other than a desire to capture and articulate my thoughts on life, the world, and anything else random which catches my interest. If you want to know my reflections on the sporting universe, you’ll find them in my other blog; if you want a window into the life of an ordinary but reasonably diverse chap, then stick around here. I don’t crave an audience for my soapbox rantings, but this ain’t no secret diary either; I may be many things, but I’m neither Perez Hilton nor Belle de Jour.

And that’s it, really. Welcome.

(Incidentally, if you’re wondering what the title of this blog is supposed to mean, it’s a reference to the book Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion, which in turn is derived from a line in the poem The Second Coming by W B Yeats. There’s nothing deep and meaningful nor intentionally pretentious about my choice - I just liked the phrase.)