Suspect Device

Muttley. I'd have that name before Mark. Sounds like a dog with a hair lip and I don't like our manager either. It was the wife's choice. She got to choose if it was a girl and I got to choose if it was a boy. I guess I'll have to call the dog Rudy. (From the Specials song - It would have tickled me to giving the lad a row by saying stop your meesin around. I know that's a very strange reason to name your offspring but we also liked it better than any of the multitude of names we thoguht about. Thanks for all your messages of support.

For those of a nervous disposition or the soon to be parents for the first time, I've hidden the details in a spoiler. The good news is that Nesta (that's her name - it is Bob marley's middle name but also a Welsh name derived from Agnes which is Greek for lamb) is now breathing well and is really too well to be in the neo natal ward but has to be fed before she is allowed to leave. Box ticking at it's best. The wife is less well but only because of the amount of drugs she is getting making her very woosy, drifting in and out of sleep. Her blood pressure is down and her kidneys are back working because (as I was told) the placenta is out and her body is returning to normal. Supposedly the placenta is a bit of a villain of the piece but pretty necessary in the whole thing. Not the most pleasant of tales but with a happy ending.

Little Suspect Device arrived today at 12.52. I will spare you all the gory details about the labour but that was the most traumatic experience of my life. To say that her contractions started at 4 on Sunday morning and we arrived at the hospital at 12.30 on Monday morning doesn't really do justice to the story between the first signs and the eventual arrival. In case anybody is anxious about their first child's imminent arrival I will not expand on what I've already said. I just hope that your time is a lot less eventful.

She'll be glad to hear that. She's got ages yet.

Cheers. I'll tell her everything's normal. As you can see I'm not at the football. I'm a bloody jinx anyway.

She has a question now. Should the kid be kicking in between the contractions? She assumed it would stop.

Why narrow that down to labouring women? I wasn't going to go and to be honest, I'm quite happy to have a good excuse not to. Could be in for a long wait though.

OK, the wife's 8 days over her due date the contractions started at 4 this morning and they're about every 10 minutes apart give or take. Phoned the midwife who reckoned it could be ages yet. Question is, should I go to the St. Johnstone game or watch it on thetelly. She reckons I should go, I reckon I should stay here.

100+ pages. It'll take me months to get through all this. can somebody summarise it all for me. The wife's due on April 2nd and I might need some pointers. For instance is it true that you're not allowed to tie them up while you go out to the pub anymore? (Mother and baby together of course)

Why does eating asparagus make your pish smell funny?

Pasta with Prawns & Feta Cheese 220g raw large prawns 150g Feta cheese 6 spring onions 25g butter small bunch fresh chives 150g penne pasta Cook the pasta for 10-12 minutes (It'll be on the packet) While that's cooking, melt the butter in a small pan, stir in the onions and cook for 1 minute. Chuck in the prawns and cook until they turn pink. A few minutes only. Cut the feta cheese into cubes and stir into the prawns/onions. Stick in a lot of pepper and the chopped chives and toss the stuff together to make sure everything's coated and slightly melting. Then drain the pasta and serve the pasta topped with the prawns.

I am Legend 6/10 Pretty ropey CGI work and a shite script but a good performance from Will Smith who is not exactly my favourite actor. Can't see the attraction in him but he's big box office even though he's done some shite films. Just a remake of the Omega man but it passed an hour and a half this morning while i'm at home suffering with the cold. Not the worst film you'll ever see.

Notting Hill 1/10 Watched this last night simply because the wife had never seen it and decided it was time that she did. What a complete and utter pile of shite. I'd been told by my mate that it was ok for achick flick but how wrong can he be? Hugh fucking Grant always acts as Hugh fuckingn Grant. Drippy, shy English twat persona just makes you want to kick 7 shades of shite out of him. The script was vomit inducing and the plot was written by a 12 year old girl. utter utter bollocks. I only gave it one because of Rhys Ifans (sp?) I've had more enjoyable root canal work than this shit. And the wife hated it as well. Gran Torino 6/10 Clint eastwood always acts as Clint Eastwood but that's a good thing in this movie. The movie was a bit simplistic in it's portayla of a racist converting to a nice guy by gettign to know the people he rejects out of hand to begin with but you can forgive the schmaltz that you know you're goign to get in a hollowood (sic) movie. The script made me cring in bits "You know, you're alright" he sayd to the Hmong girl after he saves her from some black hoodlums. Oh dear. Still, I've seen worse movies.

Albaroots - Blighty

The Stranglers in February.

The Wave 8/10 Excellent German movie about a teacher taking a class for a project week on the subject of autocracy to show them how a dictatorship can grow. Obviously would not have had the same impact if it was made in another country.

Love and Death 8/10. Oh for the days whe Woody Allen was funny like this. OK it had some poor jokes in it but most of it is hilarious. (Or mabe I was just stoned enough - who knows?) I'll forgive him for his pervy ways if he just makes another film like this or Sleeper.

Stiff Little Fingers at the Warehouse 15th October. Should be good they always are. After that I've got no gigs planned.

Agree with most of that except I got annoyed at the stupidity at the end where Hitler was so badly guarded that the 2 guys trying to kill him were allowed to roam about the cinema with apparently nobody to protect Der Fuhrer except 2 guys on the door. Liked the cinematography, didn't like the plot. Brad Pitt's impression of Brando while he was wearing the DJ was quite funny but his accent was annoying. Also the premise that all the Germans were nazis and deserved scalping/branding was a bit OTT. I would think (hope?) that most of them were just ordinary soldiers who had nothing to do with the final solution.

Just back from holiday so I got through a few Snowball in Hell - Brookmyre 9/10 has already been covered so I can't add anymore to it than has already been said except to say that I've read all his books except 1 and this was my favourite. God is not great - Christopher Hitchen 6/10. Well worth it for more ammunition agaist the god botherers I know who still insist that the lack of evidence for a god doesn't matter and religion is a force for good. Read this book and you'll see why I disagree. Fairly funny when it could have been a very dry read and did tell me a few things I didn't already know. We need to talk about Kevin 8/10 - 16 year old serial killer's Mum's memoirs in the form of letters to her husband. Very good and fairly disturbing take on the spate of schoolyard slaughters in the US. Did he do it because he was inherently evil or did his lack of Motherly love make him turn out the way he did? Would certainly put you off having kids if you thought there was a chance they might turn out like Kevin. Black Swan Green - David Mithcell 6/10 - Not nearly as good as his other books. Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten are far far better but it's worth a read if you're around 40ish simply for the nostalgia as it's based in 1982 and he does well in getting the flavour of that fairly important period in British history. Well written but I wasn't as interested in it as his others. Howard Mark's Book of Dope Stories 3/10 - Meh. Not worth bothering with. Nowhere near as interesting as Mr Nice and smacks of just an attempt to cash in on the popularity of his previosu book. A cobbled together collection of stories about drugs No surprise there! Some decent but most just kind of dull. The bedroom secrets of the Masterchefs - Irvine Welsh 6/10 - Similar to Welsh's other stuff. About Edinburgh and involves drugs and football casuals but also a wee nod to Picture of Dorian Gray and an attempt to find out why people lead a destructive life when they should know better. This time it's a lack of a father figure that gets the blame.

21 starring Kevin Spacey as a maths lecturer who takes his best students to Las Vegas to 'bring down the house' by card counting at the blackjack table. Slow and predictable. Avoid it unless you've got nothing better to do. 2/10.

It's very petty but people using the word surreal to describe something that isn't. The other night on Springwatch the presenter described watching some fallow deer as surreal because he was so close to them. It's not surreal, just unusual. If they were riding bicycles or juggling, it would be surreal.

Song to the siren/Vatican Broadside - Half Man Half Biscuit.

'Shrooms - 3/10 Good enough idea but shold have been so much better. Poor acting, terrible plot and the only saving grace was the trippy feel to the camera work. I wouldnt' recommend it until mushroom season. At least if you were on them yourself you wouldn't notice how bad the movie is.