Hockey Mom Names kid "Puck"
Rightly so, folk have been having a dig at the daft names US Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin has given her kids. I’ve even had a pop of my own over at Celebrity Litigation, (the blog that should by now be ruling the world). Here’s an excerpt of Sarah Palin’s blog from the site:
“There I was, doing what every American Mom does, squeezing out my fifteen wholesome kids, Chip, Buck, Chuck, Champ, Chad, Chimp, Buddy, Trapper, Hawkeye, Radar, Bristol, Birmingham, Newcastle, BJ and the Bear, with not a thought to ever doing anything other than baking cookies and shooting elk. Gee ladies, why, I’m just like you!”
What’s clear to me is that Sarah and Todd couldn’t have living grandparents. It’s always the elderly Grandmas that pour cold water on your baby names and say something so piercing and offensive that your cherished favourite name becomes dust in front of your eyes.
“Gran, I like the name Neil, if it’s a boy”
“Nooo, there was a boy at my school called ‘Daft Neilly’. Smelt of kippers, he did. Peed his pants at the Nativity Play. Whole school saw it happen.Used to eat his bogies….ahh daft Neilly….wonder if he’s dead, now…..”
Or,
“I’m thinking of Skye for the baby”
“Sky? Sky???? That’s not a real name, is it? For goodness sake. The kid’ll not know what it is! Sky?? As in Sky in the (points) …sky? Or TV company Sky? Which is it? I don’t know… you lot. I was just saying to Ella McKinnon the other day ‘What’s wrong with names like Susan or Julie? Or naming after the grandparents’…Hmmm? What happened to THAT, eh?”
All the same, some intervention can be called for. In 1992 there were a set of female twins born in Rottenrow Maternity Hospital in Glasgow called Mercedes and Pocahontas. I didn’t check back the year when the big Disney film was Toy Story but you can bet there were some Woodys and Buzzes.
And then after the birth of Brooklyn Beckham, progeny of David and Victoria, there was a whole raft of kids called after where they were conceived. Records from the Possilpark area of Glasgow show there are five kids called Bench and another six called Shelter. In fact, maybe that’s why Sarah Palin’s kid is called Track. Hmmm? (The filthy cow.) I’d say the same for Bristol except we all know for a fact that Palin has never left the borders of the US.
And what about this year? What’s the out-there baby name for this year? Heath could feature, but that’s passable and inoffensive enough, if you discount the fact that you are naming your kid after a depressed borderline junkie suicidal actor who is most famous for spitting on his hands in preparation for some lovin’ in a tent up yonder Brokeback Mountain. Get over that and Heath would be perfectly nice for a wee toot.
Gwen Stefani may also have started a trend with naming her kid after the exact noises she made whilst pushing him out, but that could lead to some quite nasty surprises, if you follow through with that decision, I’ll wager.
Gwen carrying baby Zuma Nesta Rock
And talking of baby names, as we are. What’s always good for a laugh is asking your parents what their second choice names for you were. Or the name they would have given you if you’d been of the opposite sex. Mine are quite odd, I have to admit (and no offence meant if any have the same names as any of these, btw. I’m allowed to josh, I was nearly called them.).
Apparently I was going to be a Kenneth if I was a boy. What the blazes? My parents were Bob Dylan fans, what’s wrong with either Bob or Dylan? I could have coped with that. But I’m not a Ken, Kenny or Kenneth; I know that for sure. Kenny’s a guy who can fix your guttering or do your tax return. Kenny’s not a windswept and interesting artiste with an eye for the ladies that won’t be tied down and owns a helicopter.*
And also in the running for my girl’s name was Janice. Janice?? Not even cool Janis Joplin spelling, but the uncool -I.C.E ending. Eeek. Janice is a woman who struggles with her weight, has a top-lip hair problem and works at the library. Janice is not someone who wins a Bafta under the age of 21 and then goes on to have a successful career as a reknowned character actress! Not that I’m any of these things, but I’m just saying…
Anyway as luck would have it, my Gran got in there first and ruined both names for my parents. How, I can only guess.
* I know of at least one Ken that reads the blog- so please accept my apologies, Ken, if you are any of these things. And if it’s the helicopter thing, then…cool!
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Ruby! Ruby! Ruby! Ruby! Aaa..aaa.aa.aaa..aa..aaaaah!
My parents got married forty years ago yesterday. They didn’t want a fuss. Fair dos.
However, in their honour, I am going to have a day doing all the stuff they wouldn’t let me do when I was a kid. I feel the occasion on them lasting that long needs some kind of commemoration, and it’s all the better if it involves me in someway.
Because…. it just is. Okay?
I am going to watch the following TV shows they wouldn’t let me watch:
OTT with Chris Tarrant.
Yes, all my mates got to stay up watching this early eighties shite and then would spend the whole day screaming about how actually OTT it was next day at school. Hah-haha! Who’s laughing now? Eh? I’m going to get it on betamax and lap it up 25 years on! Even though it’ll probably be dogshit.
The Professionals.
It isn’t too violent. I’m not too young. I am old enough to fancy Lewis Collins and Martin Shaw. Thank God it’s on UK Gold; I’m taping it all and going back to the Seventies. And after that I’m mainlining the Sweeney which no way they’d let me even have a sniff at! It was the late eighties before I even knew there was such a programme.
I’m going to wear the following:
Bay City Rollers trousers.
But all my friends had them! Why not me?
Well, read it and weep. I’ll have those trews! They’ll be white, they will be bordered with red tartan. I will also have a tartan scarf round my wrist and a black velvet slutty choker. I’ll maybe not bother with marrying Les McKeown though. Have you seen him these days? Jesus!
A crucifix.
But Madonna wears one! Yes, yes, I know we’re not Catholic. Jesus, you West coasters, get over the whole religious thing, we’re in godless Aberdeen now! Who cares about religious symbolism? All I know is: I want one!!! Now! They look goooood! Specially with fingerless lace gloves.
A permanent nose piercing.
And this time I won’t get it done and the proceed to take it out every time I go back home for fear of making mum cry. A piercing should be allowed to settle in for six weeks uninterrupted. If relentlessly taken out and put back in again to avoid a vigilant mother it will go septic and make your nostril flare unattractively. A nostrillectomy could be necessary and this would not be good thing.
I am going to:
Hang round the bus shelter.
No, I don’t smoke! I am holding it for my mate. Why if it’s ok to hang round the telephone box, is it not okay to also hang around the bus shelter? Concrete is not a corrupting force!
Go on the back of a motorbike.
Being on the back of motorbike is the only way I can get home after the last bus at EIGHT THIRTY has left the nearest town. Would you rather I slept rough? It does not mean I am a devil-worshipping crack whore Hell’s Angel. I just need a lift!
All this I am tenuously linking to my parents achievement of staying together for forty years. It has nothing to do with the fact that my mum has phoned me twice today to tell me what to do.
Nothing whatsoever.
The Golden Girl(s)
In the last few days, Junior Misssy has been talking a lot about being a grown up. She’s obsessed with what she’ll do when she’s a mummy, what make-up she’ll wear when she’s a mummy, what shoes she’ll wear when she’s a mummy and how many babies she’ll have.
She starts every such conversation with,
“Mummy, when I’m a mummy….”
Conversations starting this way are usually primo gold-dust. You know you’re in for a treat.
Today’s went like this:
Junior Misssy: Mummy, when I’m a mummy, what will you do?Misssy M: ( I’ll be getting new furniture to replace all the stuff you’ve trashed) Well, I’ll probably be a gran.
Junior Misssy: Will I live with you?
Misssy M: (Jesus, I hope not) No, you’ll have your own house.
Junior Misssy: Mummy, but I’ll miss you!
Misssy M: But you’ll still see me. You can give me a phone and I’ll come straight round.
Junior Misssy (actually a little bit distraught) : But I don’t have your phone number!
Later on I tell Meeester about our little chat and he tells me that she’s been talking this way for weeks. He’s been having to tell her that we’ll all be living in one big Walton’s style house, because she doesn’t like the idea that we won’t be living with her. Bless her. That little memory will be keeping me warm at night in twelve years time when she’s threatening to leave home and live with a wholly unsuitable chap.
Better than that though, I am now rigging up a tape recorder for the next “Mummy, when I’m a Mummy…” session. I’m going to tape her saying that she wants me to live with her when I’m a gran, and then I’m going to lodge the recording with my lawyer.
No old folks homes for me!
He!He!
The Dawning of a New Order
We’ve reached a watershed moment in the house of the Flying Martinis. We’ve realised that we maybe don’t have enough discipline with the kids and here’s a list of what Indy and Junior MisssyM do that have made us come to that conclusion. Once you’ve read the lists you’ll agree it’s time for Misssy and Meeester M to get tough.
Let’s take Indy first.
Indy
1. Indy is a soap dodger; he hates washing. He lies about washing. Says he has washed but turns tap for sound effect only.
2. He also lies about brushing his teeth. Says he’s brushed but turns on tap and electric toothbrush for sound effects only.
3. Just about the only chore Indy has is to clear dinner table, but has to be asked at least five times and threatened with stuff every night before he actually does it. Last night I threatened to move in with him when I was an old lady.
4. Indy lies about having homework. Will rustle paper in manner of one who is doing homework. Is hoping parents will forget to check homework and he will get away with it.
5.Is asked to tidy room and will kick mess under his bed or stuff in laundry basket and then play Nintendo for half an hour. Fifteen year old cat Harleyboy built a nest under Indy’s bed recently. He may even have hatched some chicks.
6. Will drop coat, bag, shoes in piles outside front door. If we are lucky he will drop them inside, meaning that they won’t get rained/snowed on. But only if we’re very lucky. We came back from Glasgow on Sunday to find his jacket lying on the driveway. It had been there since Friday.
7. Indy has been caught putting jammies on over school shirt so that he doesn’t have to get dressed in the morning (apparently Meesestermartin and twin sister did this once too when they were Indy’s age. I knew it! Proof positive the Martin gene is responsible)
Jnr Misssy
1. Has screaming fit every night when the words “Bed time” are mentioned.
2. Wants mum to sit on her bed with her and hold her hand before she falls asleep every night. Never falls asleep until the first ten minutes of CSI are over, rendering the rest of the episode useless to Horatio/Grissom loving Mum when she eventually makes it back downstairs.
3. Will wake up and shriek if Mum leaves room before that ten minute period is over.
4. Won’t let Mum brush her teeth for her without big fight. “I’ll do it myself” she’ll wail.
In fact, take this phrase and apply it to anything Mum does for her, particularly involving pouring large heavy bottles of milk into small cereal bowls, brushing hair, or zipping anything up.
In short, anything that she can’t really do yet and will make a mess of until mum helps her is fair game for this kind of nonsense.
5. Sneaks into parents’ bed every night. Sometimes to pee on them.
6. Will not go to toilet on her own. The scenario is the same every time:
JNR Miss: “Mummy I need the toilet. Will you help myself?”
MisssyM: “C’mon, you’re a big girl. Go yourself.”
Jnr: “But will you help myself?”
MM: But you go on your own at nursery and C’s *”
Jnr “But will you help myself?”
MM: “Jnr Misssy, get up those stairs and go yourself! I’m in the middle of something**”
Jnr “But I neeeeeeed you!”
Misssy grabs Jnr’s hand and hauls her up the stairs grumbling under breath.
The pair go into toilet and Jnr Misssy shouts as Mum starts to “help herself” , “I can do it myself!!”
Small aneurism forms in MisssyM’s brain.
7. Screams “Arghhh Tuggy! Tuggy!” hysterically as soon as MisssyM even takes the hairbrush out of her handbag. You don’t even want to know what goes on as the brush actually touches her head.
8.Waits til Misssym sits down with anything to eat and either asks for “A snack” or eats half of what MisssyM is eating. No wonder I’m thin.
9. Waits til Misssym sits down with anything to drink and either asks for “A drink” or drinks half of what MisssyM is drinking. No wonder I’m dehydrated.
10. Will run from anywhere in house or garden if anyone switches “Nick Junior” to a different TV channel bawling, “But I was watching tha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-at! Sob!”
So before we have to get that SuperNanny woman in we’re going all draconian on their asses. Rest assured, I’ll let you know how that goes. Meanwhile any advice or any lion taming gear much appreciated.
* C is jnr Misssy’s childminder. Poor cow.
** Writing blogs, eating crisps, putting on nail varnish.
Raging Bowl and Other Stories…
So now that Jessie has gone, our family has lost its last remaining blood tie to Clydebank, where we originally came from.
If you Google Clydebank, it’ll probably come up with “the Clydebank blitz” as it’s most famous for the worst Nazi bombing raids outside of Eastend London. Except they rebuilt Eastend London, they left Clydebank as it lay, or so it seems. The place had its heart ripped out and no real attempt has been made to give it a transplant. Clydebank was heavily targeted as the town made ships for the navy and had munitions factories during the war. Both sets of my grandparents met one another working in those factories.
The John Brown shipyards in Clydebank made the QE2. They also gave Billy Connolly years worth of comedy material. Our family left Clydebank to move to Aberdeen, leaving the dying shipyard industry for the new oil industry. Transferable skills you see. Even today the rigs in the North Sea are populated with Glaswegians who did the same thing.
To us, though, Clydebank meant the grandparents. And now that Jessie is gone, we realised that yesterday could easily be the last time we ever have reason to set foot in Clydebank. We ended our possible last visit at one of the places that me and the other two siblings have the most memories of; my Gran and Papa’s bowling green.
In the seventies my brother, sister and I spent a lot of time there, as my whole family were champion bowlers…and the bowling green bar was the cooling off station after games. So we had to entertain ourselves quite a bit as we kids were not allowed anywhere near the bar.
Each of us said yesterday, independently of one another, that we distinctly uneasy about being in the club bar, expecting at any moment my Papa would catch sight of us and chase us out. The nearest we got was standing at the door, waving frantically to catch the eye of my Dad or Papa, with one of two pieces of info:
1. We’d run out of crisps and coke
2. Our little sister had done something that warranted a telling off. That’s called “cliping” in Scots. I believe it’s similar to the phrase “to grass on someone”.
When our parents and grandparents were in “the club” as it was called, there were a few recreational activities on offer to the three of us. They fall neatly into two sections; Fairweather and Rainy
Fairweather
1. If weather was good we could play outside. We might even watch Jessie absolutely gub some other lady at bowling. She was that good. Papa was also a great bowler, and we nicknamed him “Raging Bowl” after watching him take someone up on some rules transgression or lost point. I think we were teenagers at this point. The name stuck. Not that we ever called him it to his face.
2. We could look for tennis balls in the abandoned tennis court next door.
3. We could try and move the massive ton weight roller for the green, dicing with death by crushing. If only our parents knew…
4. We could slide down the silver painted railings at the steps. Or do gymnastics round them. Until someone shouted at us. Or a head got cracked.
5. We could put chuckies (little stones used for paths) down stanks (drains) for hours at a time. Magic fun, for some reason. We may be responsible for recurrent drainage problems in the Clydebank area.
6. We could fight with each other.
Rainy
1. If the weather was bad (and we’re talking the West of Scotland here, folks) we had to sit in the “TV Room” in the basement of “the club”. A stale-smoke-smelling window-less dungeon with a wooden TV up on the wall.
I don’t know if any of you remember television in the 70s. There were 3 channels. Crappy programmes interspersed with periods of time called “Close Down” where nothing was broadcast and this little girl appeared.
You may have seen her recently on the excellent “Life on Mars”. There isn’t one seventies kid that doesn’t know her intimately.
I remember that if a cartoon came on, it was like flipping Christmas! Five minutes of “Bugs Bunny” or “Tom and Jerry” before endless hours of flaming Grandstand on a Saturday afternoon. A double bill if you were lucky and Grandstand was running late. (Producers frantically searching the vice clubs for Frank Bough could be a reason for a late start. We didn’t know then, but we sure know now! Cups of black coffee poured down his throat, a bit of slapping about, a production assistant trying to get the lemon Pringle jumper on over the nipple clamps…am I taking this too far?)
“Uncle” Frank Bough
Pre- vice scandal expose ….
2. The “TV room” was also a locker room. So when there was only horse-racing on (i.e all the bloody time) we would entertain ourselves by rifling through people’s lockers. We never nicked anything, but we did tamper with stuff. We would run around with other folks glasses on, or their club blazer, that kind of thing.
I remember my brother putting a lady’s tan pop sock or stocking over his head and me and my sister peeing ourselves laughing.
3. We would play with the bowls. In an ideal world we would all have grown up to be champion bowlers and I would be reminiscing about my early days in the TV Room with Hazel Irvine on BBC 2 after winning some big game. But since we were more into shot-putting them, or throwing them at one another, our bowling skills were never discovered.
4. We would eat snooker chalk.
5. We would dare each other to run into the loos of the opposite sex.
6. We would sniff the pineapple ring shaped toilet cubes in said loos. We were kids, give us a break!
7. We would draw on each other’s faces with snooker chalk.
8. We would perform acts of wanton vandalism.
9. We would fight with each other.
Yesterday in “the club”, a million little old dears that I didn’t know or recognise came up to me to tell me how much I looked like my mum, or how they recognised me straight away, or talk about Jessie. They were all called Bella, Ella, Isa, Minnie and Jeannie and wore their bowling blazers festooned with badges.
If they only knew about the pop socks…..
Pass me the quill, wind up the gramaphone and get out the instamatic
Disaster has struck the Martin Family household. The mother board on the family PC has gone into meltdown and we faced the prospect of losing all the photos from Eve’s birth onwards, all our documents and all our downloaded music. It’s too horrible to even contemplate, so for a couple of days whilst the computer was in intensive care at Northern Peripherals we were in a bit of denial of what this actually could mean. Every holiday, every Christmas, my kids growing up, every one of John’s bizarre hair/facial hair phases- four years of your life sucked into the vortex that is the PC blackhole.
Incidentally, this is also the blackhole populated with that unsaved dissertation you spent hours writing for your finals, the latest copy of the edit you did with that really fiddly bit that took bloody ages that you forgot to save, the e-tickets you downloaded for your flights that have gone awol and you can’t get onboard without. Oh, and it’s also where all the biros and hairbands end up. Fact. “It’ll be fine, these things can always be recovered,” we fooled ourselves into believing. To an extent, we were right. These things could be recovered, but at a cost of over £200 for man hours involving a bloke doing god knows what to our flux capacitor , transducer, transponder, and megadrive. I don’t pretend to understand. I’m more of the run around and panic type of person when technology goes wrong.
When people talk to me of these things, I look like I’m listening but really I’m playing a favourite movie in my head or I go into screensaver mode with tropical fish going round and round in my head. The technicians in college have already cottoned onto this and have been known to roll their eyes in anticipation as I approach. But as I’m annoyingly fond of saying “I’m a producer, I don’t need to know what buttons do, I have boys to do that for me”, or simply “Can you make porn come on my telly?”
But don’t get me wrong, I like using technology. It’s just when it goes wrong that I get panicky and confused like a spooked horse. Maybe some whispering will do the trick, “Shhh! Shhh! It’s ok girl,calm down and switch it on and off again. Have you tried plugging it in? Easy now girl, it’s aaaaalllll going to be ok, let’s just see if we can reboot. Easy! Easy! Whoa there!”. That kind of thing.Anyway, the panic is sort of over; our photos have been recovered and we can relax. Of all the things to lose these would be the worst so they are now safely backed up. But even though I am eternally grateful to the Megadeath T-shirt wearing Poindexter that saved our family memories, I am a bit pissed off that I’ve lost all my music. Luckily, I have about 200 tracks saved on other media, like phones, laptops, CDs etc and I am currently ripping them back into my PC (see, I said “Rip”, I do know some stuff!). Only problem is that Bastard Itunes and Goddamn Windows Media Player don’t recognise any of the track artists and titles so I’m having to play a tedious version of Tom O’Connor’s “Name that Tune” to get them all catalogued again. It’s like a music version of Trivial Pursuit that will never end. If only I lived with Paul Gambaccini. Actually, on second thoughts, no, I think I’ll just do it myself.
So, if you’re round my house, don’t be surprised if I involve you in the music quiz too. Like there’s this one track that goes, “Da Da nanana nana nan naaa!” and for the life of me I can’t remember what it is. C’mon you know the one, it goes “Da Da nanana nana nan naaa!” for god-sake. It’s by that guy that used to be in that other band with whatsis name…..grrr……
