Taking stock

So, here we are. December 31st, 2009. The last day of the Noughties. In a few hours' time we will say farewell to the old decade and hello to the new one.

It should somehow feel like a day of great importance: a momentous day, a noteworthy day. After all, the last time we stepped over the threshold into a new decade, everyone was wondering whether computer systems were going to crash, planes were going to drop out of the sky and the very heartbeat of our modern world was going to suddenly stop. (What an anticlimax that turned out to be.)

Instead, today seems not unlike many other days - unexceptional. Cold and grey; a normal working day (for those people not extending their Christmas holidays); a day when ordinary people do ordinary things.

I suppose, at least, it is a time for a moment's retrospection. For the past couple of weeks, certainly, newspapers and TV programmes have been busily producing their 'top' and 'best of' lists: our favourite TV programmes of the decade, the greatest songs, the top sporting moments, the best new gadgets.

Making a list comprising a round number of anythings feels a bit too much like hard work, so I'll settle for reflecting on how life chez Liew has changed over the past ten years.

Obvious changes first.

On New Year's Eve 1999, Heather and I were living in our first house in Oxford. Ten years on, we have moved twice, first to Lane End, and from there to our current house in Thatcham. Of course, there are now three of us - Isaac turned two earlier this month - and our second child is now only a matter of days away.

I've worked for four different companies during the decade, having left Royal Mail in late 2000 and ending up at 3M (since mid-2005), via stops at Tesco and BBC Worldwide. I've now been at 3M for four-and-a-half years, my longest tenure at any of the five businesses I have worked for. And while I don't necessarily feel that this is my final resting place, I certainly don't have quite the same itchy feet I did ten - or even five - years ago.

Heather and I have had some great holidays too - travel has always been important to us both. We have whiled away hours lying on a beach in Jamaica or St Lucia; covered thousands of miles in a car in California (my all-time favourite holiday), New Zealand and Canada; stood atop the Great Wall of China, the Empire State Building and the Grand Canyon; marvelled at magnificent architecture and/or art works in Bangkok, Paris, Florence and Barcelona - to name but a handful. It's been a great few years. Hopefully we will take the new arrival to see his extended family in Malaysia and Australia in 2010.

What else? We've owned six cars between us during the Noughties, ranging from our little Citroen Saxo (the first car we ever bought) to my old Audi TT. By my count, on my own I've also accumulated nine mobile phones, three Playstations, two iPods and a partridge in a pear tree during the decade, not to mention the three home PCs, three digital cameras and three Sky satellite receivers we own or have owned between us. (Sign of the times, eh?)

But all that is a collection of either material goods or experiences. How have I changed as a person over the past ten years?

I'd like to come up with some staggering insight into my personal development here, but the fact is, after 39 years on this mortal coil, I'm just an older - and hopefully slightly wiser - of the 29-year-old who saw in the new millennium. I suspect that anyone who hadn't seen me for ten years would say that I haven't changed much. A few grey hairs and a lot more pounds, certainly. But fundamentally I'm still the same quiet, self-conscious, socially awkward person I've always been, albeit one who is a little more sure of his place in the world after an additional ten years' life and career experience. I'm a bit less patient than I was and quite a bit more irascible than I used to be. (I am, in fact, turning into a bit of a grumpy old man.) And I'm certainly starting to feel both my age and my mortality, a combination of minor health issues and the death this year of one of my best friends from university, Sam Best-Shaw.

If one thing has changed me more than anything else, it has been becoming a father. I'm definitely less self-absorbed and more responsible than I used to be, and I have learned to see things through a child's eyes. People say that having children allows you to experience a second childhood yourself, and I have certainly found that to be true. For all the sacrifices we have made, all the sleepless nights we have had, all the worries and doubts, it has been worth the trouble many times over.

So that's it. No stunning insights, a minimum of cod psychology. Ten years of my life which have been more about evolution than revolution; not in a bad way, though. I'm happy, and that's more than enough for me.

Anyhow, Happy New Year, everyone, and may 2010 and the new decade bring you good cheer and fortune.

What's in a name?

Another box ticked today. (Well, sort of.)

After dropping Zac off at nursery, Heather and I headed into Oxford to do a bit of shopping and - importantly - have a spot of lunch at our favourite restaurant (the Liaison Chinese restaurant on Castle Street, if you're ever passing that way).

I say importantly for two reasons.

Firstly it was perhaps the last opportunity for the two of us to go out to lunch together before we embark into logistically challenging two high-chair territory.

And secondly, as we discovered during Heather's first pregnancy, a restaurant table represents a very pleasant environment for the discussion of baby names.

So, as we tucked into our grilled dumplings, cheung fun and Singapore noodles, two lists were produced and names were revealed in turn. (It was a bit like the recent football World Cup draw, only without Charlize Theron.) Some names were vetoed by one or the other of us, and there were occasional squeals of joy as we discovered a few names which were common to both our lists. (You should see how excited we get when we play snap.)

At the end of it all, we had two combined shortlists: one containing exactly a dozen boy's names; the other, coincidentally, twelve girl's names.

For what it's worth, there had been quite a lot of overlap between us when comparing boy's names - to the extent where we've now both agreed on a favourite - and none whatsoever with our lists of girl's names. When Isaac was born, it was the other way round: we had to sleep on it overnight before deciding on his name, whereas if 'he' had been a 'she' we already had both first and middle names picked out.

Which, presumably, means we will have a daughter now ...

Green light

Three key milestones passed yesterday.

Firstly, Arsenal beat Aston Villa 3-0 to pull clear of the Midlands club in the Premier League title race. That's not directly relevant to the matter at hand, but it's still a notable event in my world.

Secondly, Heather completed the 37th week of her pregnancy, which is important because it means a planned home birth is now viable, barring any unforeseen complications. (Cue lots of online research into birthing pools.)

And finally, we had a home appointment with our midwife, A (commonly referred to locally as the 'mad-wife'), to check on the baby's progress and go over our birth plan - which basically is the same as last time: entonox, tick; pethidine, tick; vitamin K, tick; proud father to cut the cord, tick.

If it all started to feel particularly real for us on Boxing Day, it's doubly so now. All the detail and emotion of that evening when Zac was born are coming back to me now, from the mad rush to fill the pool to the exhiliration of feeling his head for the first time as he started to 'crown'.

Zac also got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time, so he's very much part of the experience now too. If he doesn't yet understand quite enough to be excited, he is certainly curious and very much aware of the presence of 'baby' in mummy's tummy. The poor thing won't know what's hit him; as a proper mummy's boy it's going to be a bit of a shock to him when he isn't automatically the primary focus for Heather any more.

So, 21 - now 20 - days to the due date, and we have a green light. Time to get our skates on ...

End of days

No, it’s not the biblical apocalypse. But it does feel like the end of an era, or at the very least like this particular phase of my life is drawing irrevocably to a close.

It’s late on the afternoon on Boxing Day as I write this. My parents and brother are driving home after spending Christmas with us, having been waved off by an almost tearful Isaac saying “see you soon” hopefully. More relevantly, I’m now looking at an empty dining room, which has been cleared in preparation to accommodate a birthing pool.

That means the next time we eat at the dining table (now residing in the garage) we will, hopefully, be a four-person household, not a three.

The combination of that thought and the sight of the currently empty room have suddenly made the whole impending birth thing very, very real. At least in my head, a line has been crossed from which there is no going back.

Of course, we have always known this time would come. Heather is due on January 17th, a date which has been seared into our minds for several months now. And it’s not as if we haven’t started making preparations. But you have to understand that for so long that date has been a barely visible blip on our personal horizons, and as time has marched on we have had the not inconsiderable dual distractions of Zac’s birthday (December 6th) and Christmas to attend to.

No longer. Now there are no other events to plan. The timeframe is measurable in days rather than weeks, and final arrangements are a matter of real and increasing urgency rather than abstract items on a to do list.

It may still be as much as a month away - or it may be mere hours - but a time will soon come when our lives are transformed and made, at the same time, both more complex and more wonderful.

I have never felt so unprepared.

Gulp.

The world didn't end

Never underestimate Mother Nature. If anyone had before, the tens of thousands of people who had nightmarish journeys home or who, like me, spent last night sleeping in cars, offices, hotels or the bedding department of John Lewis certainly won't underestimate her again.

I know of several people whose drives home took anywhere between three and seven hours. Others left their cars behind and opted for the train, or walked distances of up to seven miles. 60 people in our office stayed overnight, with one of the chefs coming back in to cook dinner for them. (I'll never complain about the restaurant again.)

Not everyone got caught out as harmless sleet turned into heavy snow in the blink of an eye, but the window of opportunity was a small one. In Bracknell, the abrupt change in the weather happened at 2.50pm. Anyone who left by 3.00 had a relatively clear run home. However, by the time I left at around 3.20, it was way too late. By then, everyone else on our industrial estate was also trying to leave en masse, resulting in gridlock. Worse still, the falling snow had already formed a slippery layer on top of the previous night's ice, making any stop-start manoeuvre on even the most gentle gradient an, erm, interesting exercise in Newtonian mechanics - particularly for anyone who, like me, was driving a rear-wheel drive car. As a result, what started as a merely annoying traffic situation was compounded by difficult and dangerous driving conditions.

Now I'm not normally one to get overly stressed, but I have to admit that hysteria was not far away as events gradually unfolded around our increasingly futile attempts to pick Isaac up from nursery. Firstly Heather phoned from Henley to say she was stuck - it's a one road in/one road out town surrounded by hills - so I told her to turn around, as a freezing car is not where a 36-week old pregnant woman wants to be spending the night. By this point it was becoming obvious that I was also going nowhere fast; a quick call to a colleague, J, who had left 15 minutes before me but was only a few hundred yards further up the road confirmed my worst fears. So Heather asked one of our local friends to pick Zac up, but she couldn't get up the steep hill to the nursery. Having spun my wheels, slid and bounced off the kerb several times already, I decided to cut my losses and ditch the car at the nearest hotel, but even then it took me an hour to cover the last 100 yards to get there.

By the time I had tramped back to the office it was 6.30 - it had taken over three hours to cover 1.5 miles - and I was cold, wet, hungry and muttering every expletive I have ever learned.

Thankfully, Heather had spoken to the nursery owner who had offered to take her 4x4, borrow a car seat from a neighbour, and drop Zac - who by now was the only child left at the nursery - at a friend's, which took a massive weight off both our minds. (So, thank you, Nicola from Acres of Fun for going way above and beyond the call of duty to deliver our temporarily parent-less son to familiar and comfortable surroundings.)

I hitched a lift with A to Bracknell Central Travelodge, where we settled in for the night with some much-needed food and a bottle of wine (possibly two). It was 1am by the time I got to bed, and I was wide awake at 5.00, watching the BBC News and worrying about how Zac, never a good sleeper at the best of times, was doing.

To cut a long story short, I eventually extricated my car, although it needed the help of A (to whom, also heartfelt thanks), two shovels and three random strangers to push me up out of the car park and from there up the hill to freedom. I was home by 11am, Heather soon after, and we set off to rescue Zac fearing the worst and hoping for only moderate collateral damage at best.

The funny thing is, despite our worst fears about Zac getting scared and playing up about our absence - we had both had visions of him screaming tearfully through the night - he was absolutely fine. Indeed, although he was pleased to see us, he was more upset at the idea of being separated from our friend and her son than he was by the fact that he hadn't seen us last night.

Which, I guess, just goes to show that it is possible for us to be away from him for an entire night - it is the first time in his two-and-a-bit years he has spent a night without both of us - without it being the end of the world. (At least, not for him, anyway.)

So I guess the moral of this story is two-fold. Firstly, don't assume you can outrun the elements. (In future, I'll think twice before glibly heading into work on a snowy day.) And secondly, that kids can be remarkably adaptable and unruffled even in stressful situations - sometimes far more so than their parents.

6 of the best: 80s cop shows

I was laid up in bed with some kind of not-swine-flu virus a couple of weeks ago, and spent several happy hours revisiting one of my favourite TV shows from my teenage years. Moonlighting (which is currently airing every weekday on CBS Drama in the UK) ran for 66 episodes between 1985 and 1989, introducing us to a thinning but not yet bald Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd with a hairdo you could have used as an umbrella. The show was considered ground-breaking in many ways, from its rapid-fire, dialogue-heavy scripts to an experimental style which would, say, see characters address the viewers direct or burst into song.

In fairness, the show is now starting to show its age. Clothes and hairstyles, naturally, look somewhat dated. Some of the tricks to break down the ‘fourth wall’ which were considered innovative at the time seem positively de rigueur by modern standards. And the plots feel terribly slow and drawn-out when set aside, say, 24, or anything from the CSI stable. (Mind you, the procedural crime-solving element of Moonlighting was never really more than a means to an end.)

Nonetheless, Moonlighting remains tremendous fun to watch. I’m currently about three-quarters of the way through season one, just as the show was really starting to find its stride and, racking my brains, there hasn’t really been anything like it since.

In fact, to my mind there was a period during the middle to latter part of the 80s which represents a golden age of US television, at least in terms of police/detective/spy-type shows. (The UK also got in on the act, emerging from an era of late-70s tough guy shows like The Sweeney and The Professionals into one which more frequently featured female leads, such as Juliet Bravo, The Gentle Touch, Dempsey and Makepeace and C.A.T.S. Eyes.)

With that in mind, here are six US examples of the genre from the 80s that I have not seen since their initial UK broadcast; not necessarily the best, but ones which, like Moonlighting, I would love to see again. In alphabetical order …

Automan (13 episodes, 1983-84)

Inspired by the success of Tron, this series featured Lucille Ball’s son Desi Arnaz Jr, a DeLorean car and Chuck Wagner as the eponymous computer-generated, crime-fighting hologram whose sidekick, a skittish ball of light named Cursor, had a habit of looking under ladies’ skirts. Automan, frequently posing under the pseudonym Otto Mann, would assist Arnaz’s character Walter, a police computer geek, in solving a variety of crimes. And that was about it.

It was, as you might expect from the above description, exceedingly silly and played with tongue firmly inserted in cheek. It was certainly not the best piece of television ever; it was, however, good fun, something which is too often missing from contemporary, angst-ridden shows.

The show also featured Robert Lansing as a police lieutenant; who would go on to co-star as a CIA-style handler in …

The Equalizer (88 episodes, 1985-89)

Edward Woodward was the star of one of my dad’s favourite shows, Callan, and his Equalizer character of Robert McCall could easily have been Callan’s doppelganger, a spy who had tired of the spy game and returned to civilian life as a private investigator and defender of the defenceless, a semi-retired James Bond, if you will.

The show was often criticised for excessive violence - by modern standards, it is tame - as McCall, although far from an unemotional character, frequently chose to fight fire with fire. Certainly it didn’t soft-soap in its view of the world, with much of its action taking place at night and frequently eschewing the standard happy ending for something more downbeat and ambiguous. As such, the show always had an edginess to it that contrasted sharply with the ‘bright lights, big city’ setting of LA-based shows, or the exoticness of Magnum, PI.

The Highwayman (10 episodes, 1987-88)

“There is a world, just beyond now, where reality runs a razor thin seam between fact and possibility; where the laws of the present collide with the crimes of tomorrow. Patrolling these vast outlands is a new breed of lawman, guarding the fringes of society’s frontiers, they are known simply as ‘Highwaymen’ - and this is their story.”

Set in the near future, this short-lived series is probably best described as Knight Rider meets Mad Max, with a Wild West feel to it. The title character was one of a small number of law enforcers, each equipped with a futuristic truck, patrolling the country, solving crimes and investigating other strange occurrences.

The Highwayman featured three well-known genre stars in its regular cast: Sam Jones, star of the 1980 film Flash Gordon, played Highwayman, and was joined by V’s Jane Badler and Tim Russ, who would later appear in Star Trek: Voyager.

Leg Work (10 episodes, 1987)

Cancelled before it ever had a chance to establish its niche, this series was unique at the time for having two female leads: Margaret Colin and, nearly a decade before her Oscar-winning turn in Fargo, Frances McDormand.

There was much to admire about Leg Work. Here we had a private investigator, Claire McCarron (Colin), who relied on empathy and intelligence rather than physicality or an excess of testosterone, traits underlined by the running joke of her owning a Porsche which was always broken and which she could barely afford to keep repaired.

It was also the first prime-time show I can remember that centred a story on AIDS at a time when the disease was still very much a taboo and poorly understood subject, and handled it in an unflinching and empathetic fashion. The show deserved better than the mid-season cancellation it received as US audiences abandoned it due to its lack of crash-bang-wallop; entirely missing the point that a huge part of its appeal was that it was so different from the norm.

Midnight Caller (61 episodes, 1988-91)

Gary Cole starred as Jack Killian, the San Francisco cop who turned late night radio talk show host after accidentally shooting and killing his partner.

Midnight Caller provided a different twist on the cop-turned-PI theme by focussing on the social rather than procedural aspects of the ‘case of the week’. Through his KJCM radio show, Killian comes into contact with all manner of people in need, addressing tough issues from neighbourhood drug-dealing to child abuse. There was nothing glitzy about the show, which regularly peered into social subcultures through a slightly jaded lens. And yet through it all, the thoroughly cynical Killian cannot help but reach out to and help his audience with a hand of hope.

Cole has had a distinguished career since, including notable turns as Sheriff Lucas Buck in American Gothic and vice-president ‘Bingo’ Bob Russell in The West Wing, but Midnight Caller remains his finest work. And the show also featured a young Mykel T Williamson, years before his Forrest Gump role as the shrimp-loving Bubba Blue.

Downbeat and yet resolutely optimistic, Midnight Caller spoke to those of us who recognised that, while we live in a far from perfect world, there is something inherently good about people everywhere, a sentiment perfectly encapsulated by Killian’s signature sign-off, “Good night, America, wherever you are.”

Sledge Hammer! (41 episodes, 1986-88)

As a send-up of the long procession of ‘on the edge’ film and TV cops such as Dirty Harry and Hunter, this sitcom presented us with a wonderfully over-the-top caricature of a policeman of Inspector Gadget or Clouseau-level incompetence, for whom violence was the first (indeed only) option.

Played purely for laughs – and with a wonderful balance of seriousness and knowingness by David Rasche - the series lovingly poked fun at all the staples and cliches of the cop show genre, presenting us with a sexist, shoot-first buffoon of a hero who talks to and sleeps with his gun, and yet is somehow utterly sympathetic. If Lethal Weapon had been a comedy, this is what it would have looked like.

And that’s my six, the majority of which have sadly not found their way to DVD yet. I’ve excluded several well-known and excellent series such as Hunter, Miami Vice, Scarecrow and Mrs King, TJ Hooker, The Fall Guy and Cagney and Lacey, as well as others which I have been fortunate enough to catch again thanks to the marvel that is multichannel TV (Knight Rider, Remington Steele, Street Hawk and Magnum PI, to name but four), but there you go – six slices of a bygone age that will always hold a special place in my heart.

Blogging: good for the soul?

I've been busier than normal at work recently, which means I've updated my blogs (the other, sports-based one is here) much less frequently over the past few weeks. There's nothing particularly unusual about that; there are always periods when I go into blog silence for a while, either because of workload or simply because I don't have anything in particular to say.

The thing is - and I'm feeling this more than usual right now - when I'm not blogging, I really miss it. I mean, I don't crave it in an I'm-addicted-and-I-need-my-fix sort of way; it's more of a nagging itch, a desire to put fingers to keyboard and put some tangible and permanent form to whatever is foremost in my thoughts at that moment in time.

And, let's put this into context, it's not an activity which takes up an overwhelming portion of my time - as of yesterday, I had posted 119 times across my two blogs in 2009 - slightly more than once every three days - which is hardly a prolific rate of output. In an average week I spend no more than a couple of hours - that's about one episode of X Factor or Strictly Come Dancing - blogging, which doesn't seem excessive, does it?

I've previously written my thoughts about why I blog, and the reasons I gave there are still valid: it's more about the self-satisfaction I get from writing a piece than it is about how widely it is read and appreciated, and it's a productive way to blow off steam for a classic introvert like myself, who naturally prefers writing to something more extroverted like (as my colleague A does) performing on stage.

The real point is: blogging makes me happy; it's good for my soul. A bit like chicken soup. And like that hearty dish, I'm sure many people will consider what I write to be relatively bland, but that's fine because the only thing it needs to do is make me feel good. And that it does.

'Tis the season

As one season ends, so another begins.

It was finally Isaac's turn to have his second birthday party on Saturday (actually, a joint party with Amelia). It was the last in a series of parties which have gone on over the past several weeks, but that didn't stop him enjoying it tremendously. Like his peers, it's clear that, at the end of his second year, Zac understands and appreciates the concept of a party now; equally obvious that he understood when we told him it was now going to be his turn turn throughout last week. (Wandering round the house singing "Happy birthday to me" is a bit of a giveaway ...)

Anyway, a good time was had by all. Heather had booked a half-hour music session - Zac's favourite - as part of the party, which all the kids seemed to enjoy, and we even had the majority of them sitting down to food together, which is virtually unprecedented.

And, of course, he has had fun since the party tearing into his haul of presents. (Although I must admit we have put a fair few away to give to him at Christmas - possibly even later - instead. Once you've watched him open and get excited about five new toys, there isn't much point giving him even more to open as he just develops that wide-eyed kid-in-a-candy-shop look and doesn't know where to turn next.)

Now that birthday party season is over, it means we can start thinking about Christmas. (We make a point of  keeping the two separate, so the one doesn't spoil his enjoyment of the other.) So I will be spending the next few days trying to work out where on earth I put all the decorations after last Christmas. In the meantime, Zac is already running around excitedly pointing at all the "lights flashing" on our neighbours' houses. I'm planning to let him help put up the tree and decorations at the weekend - something he will love, but potentially a recipe for chaos and disaster.

No doubt we'll also attempt another visit to Santa's Grotto. Our first trip a couple of weekends ago was less than successful. First Zac showed minimal interest in Santa arriving in his horse-drawn carriage, and then he flatly refused to even join the queue of kids to see him. (Mind you, why would a two-year-old want to wait to spend thirty seconds sitting on some strange bloke's knee? Knowing Zac, he'd probably grab my phone and immediately call Childline to report a suspected paedophile.)

Hmm.

Once Christmas is over - and hopefully not before! - we will go into full-blown baby preparation, with Heather being due on January 17th. Which means that we face a future in which, over a period of a few weeks from early December to some time in January, we will transition smoothly from Zac's birthday to Christmas and New Year, and then to number two's birthday.

In the past, I had always hoped that my children wouldn't be born too close to Christmas (or to each other), so that they wouldn't have two celebrations back-to-back and then a long gap to next year. But the thought of having a month or so of continuous joy within the family to cheer up a dark and dank winter doesn't seem so bad now. (Although I can imagine we will be knackered by the end of it.)

'Tis the season to be jolly, indeed. It's certainly something to look forward to.

The weigh-in

A month ago, I said I was going back on a diet with the aim of losing at least five pounds (from 17st 10lbs to 17st 5lbs) during the month of November.

Well, I weighed myself this morning, and the scales said 17st 7lbs, so while I have lost weight, I'm two pounds short of my target.

I'm disappointed with the result, but strangely not overly discouraged. I said I was going to eat less and stop snacking - which I have managed on the whole, although I've slipped a few times as the desire to comfort eat has overcome my dieting willpower. Seven out of ten on that front, I'd say.

What I have failed to do is exercise properly. The bike remains untouched, and while I have made an effort to do little things like use the stairs at work, I've been pretty poor on the whole. Awarding myself two out of ten is probably on the generous side.

On reflection, my five pound target was certainly achievable with some more consistent effort, particularly on the exercise front. (Certainly my fitness needs some attention, as I was huffing and puffing terribly this evening after climbing 125 steps at Edgware Road tube station.) But what's done is done. If I can lose three pounds just by generally eating sensibly (albeit with the odd relapse), then there's no reason why I can't keep it going and lose a bit more before the festive season kicks in with a vengeance.

So, anyway, 17st 7lbs is where I currently stand. I think I'll aim to at least get down to the original target of 17st 5lbs before Christmas, and then limit the damage over the holidays. I figure that if I can start 2010 no heavier than I am today, then that's at least a reasonable starting point.

Here goes.