A Donkey on the Edge

Well, actually her first go on the GS was a couple of years ago in a Paddington car-park but today we got her into some jeans and strapped Nicki’s old helmet on. We didn’t go far as the fun-fair was only a few streets away but she kept her feet on the pegs and held on like a trouper.

Not something I’d want to do again before getting her a proper Clemmie-sized helmet but it’s great having the other travel option available.

That, and her driving doggems for the first time and hopefully she’s had an interesting evening:-)

Couple of weeks ago I was on hols in Avignon with the whole extended Falby clan and we all wrote games for the evening’s entertainment. Margaret, Nicki’s mum came up with a devilishly difficult Balderdash (I knew only two of the ten words) and I did a pub-quiz.

Don’t know if you’ve set a pub-quiz before but this was my first go and and was way more difficult than I had anticipated. It’s not enough to find things people might not know—you need to try and prevent folk getting bored and you need to make the questions relevant to your audience. In my case I had an audience of three 70-year-olds, three 40-year-olds, two teenagers and Clemmie who is six now and was supposed to be in bed (she helped by numbering the questions and that’s her below trying her first diabolo menthe).

Tricky stuff.

At the end of the evening Billy—who knows about these things—reassured me that I had got it about right as the two teams scored better than average but not so much as to make it seem easy.

I’m on the flight back from Chicago listening to Laura Cantrell’s version of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald while flying over Lake Erie (which is kinda weird) and was going to do a little work (and write some stuff about Seed) when I found the quiz questions in my bag.

So I thought I’d share them before dropping the sheets in the bin:-)

1. In United States law, which branch of the government declares war. The supreme court, congress or the president?
   (for 1 point)
2. Who were the last captains of the RMS Lusitania and the Edmund Fitzgerald?
   (for 2 points)
3. What do Lorne from Angel, Raven from Teen Titans, Peter Petrelli from Heroes, Pru and Phoebe from Charmed have in common with Betazoïds and for a bonus point who the missing character in this list?
   (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
4. Where would you find your “minor arcana”?
   (for 1 point)
5. What connects Danish physicist Neils Böhr and Eels frontman Mark Everett?
   (for 1 point)
6. Name two grape varieties common in the “Côtes de Ventoux” appélation and for a bonus point what do Côtes de Ventoux winemakers call their terraces?
   (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
7. If you’ve just passed Governor’s Bridge and The Cutting and are half-way to Creg-ny-baa what are you doing?
   (for 1 point)
8. How many goalposts are there on a regulation quidditch pitch?
   (for 1 point)
9. Which motion picture won “Best Picture” at the 1968 Oscars? Two bonus points available for naming one or both of the two “more worthy” runners up that year.
   (for 1 point with 2 bonus points)
10. In the 1994 San Marino Formula One Grand Prix Ayrton Senna carried a furled flag in his cockpit. Of what country was the flag?
    (for 1 point)
11. In French cooking, what do “nappé”, “petit boulé” and “grand cassé” refer to?
    (for 1 point)
12. What is the waltz from Tchaïkovski’s fairy-tale-inspired ballet of 1890 better known as?
    (for 1 point)
13. Who first invited Harry and Stein to the Bronx? For a bonus point, who took his place in the video when he was sick on the day of the shoot?
    (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
14. What did King of France Louis XIII create in 1622? For a bonus point, who succeeded Richelieu as Cardinal?
    (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
15. Excluding Rockall, what is the Northernmost point of Scotland?
    (for 1 point)
16. By German law, how must Weißbier be fermented? For a bonus point, what is “botrytis cinerea”
    (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
17. Who broke the production motorcycle land-speed record for the rolling kilometre at Nardo on 29 September 1985
    (for 1 point)
18. What was the first film Alfred Hitchcock directed (title and year)? What was the last film he directed. For a bonus point, which film did he direct in 1935?
    (for up to 4 points and bonus 1 point)
19. What problem did John Harrison solve to win £20,000? For a bonus point, what was his solution made out of?
    (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
20. First Babakoto then Mojo Pin then Dear Eskimo. Who is this? For a bonus point, what is this person’s current label?
    (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)

Well, of course with the interweb y’all have the answers to hand, but (as Barney the Purple Dinosaur would say) it’s fun to try and guess them the hard way first…

This just in from Billy:

Finally, Kiloh discovered that Boris’s full name is Boris de Pfeffel Johnson so we came up with an ad campaign based on the Dr. Pepper approach: ‘Boris de Pfeffel, what’s the worst that could happen?’

Doctor Pfeffel, I like it :-)

Hey, Jed’s on TV :-)

Helping Clem with her homework. The brief was “what would you do” and the required media was “any” which I felt was vague and demanding for a 5-year-old.

Undaunted, Clemmie wanted to make a film but I had to point out this was going to be a little challenging given the time we had. We ended up with a Keynote file. She made the time machine slide herself and did all the thinking. The words are all hers. My contribution was to suggest a structure and be her dtp operator:-)

The cool bit was watching her work out what was needed both to make her machine (lots of levers) and to actually get to Laura’s place. It took a couple of minutes but she eventually worked out she needed to know both a place and a date (the date is spoken to the time machine using the on-board microphone and the map of Wisconsin is included above the catering tray).

Wow, John Hardy and David Coates aren’t just medical doctors, they’re voice-over artists:-)

John offered me this fantastic arthroscopy footage after my operation. The arthroscope is hooked up to a video encoder which captures live footage for post-operative review. When I first received the disk it was just raw footage. After hearing about the number of arthroscopies on YouTube, John (who is not only a world-leading Orthopaedic surgeon but a painter, internet guru, web marketer and now film editor and voice-over artist) decided to have a go at an edited version.

The result is a complete transformation, a view of the whole op from me on very powerful drugs to the final phases of the joint smoothing, the whole thing narrated by the two doctors.

Oh, and before I forget, John was mortified by my earlier “before and after” pictures. He wanted me to point out that the surgery is very non-invasive and the recovery is usually very speedy. The following shot of my knee was taken roughly two weeks after the operation, the stitches are out and you can barely see the entry wounds:

OK ma p’tite puce je te souhaite bon courage pour ton examen :-) Grosses bises et super-maxi-câlins de ton Papa!

Well, this morning I’ve noticed a couple:

• the great (if slightly over the top) music that accompanies tv series, movies and historical reenactments. There’s something about mentions of Molière and Richelieu that brings me back a medley of pleasant, childhood memories
• the formal acknowledgment given in lifts, restaurants and a bunch of other public places. I’m increasingly dissatisfied with the “let’s just ignore each other until one of us gets off the lift” thing we do…

france inter > 駑issions > 2000 ans d’histoire

So Clemmie’s cousin Apoa is learning Photoshop in art class:-) Check out this montage she asked Clem to sit for.

Well, in the end, the damage to the knee was worse than the scans had suggested and the knee arthroscopy took a lot longer than planned.

I had apparently damaged the front of the knee joint by overdoing it on staircases and the overall state of the cartilage and meniscus was pretty poor. The meniscus tear had a horizontal element which was unseen in the MRI scan and took a lot longer to trim.

The primary meniscus tear was a sudden incident. I was behind third base at a TMW softball game and was determined to not let the side down. I never did catch any balls but the stop-start without warm-up took care of the cartilage. Talk about stupid boy, not only was the accident avoidable, but I was busy at work and never took the knee to the doc. I had company health insurance at the time and could have had the whole thing sorted (retro-kicking myself as I write this grrr).

I’m guessing the damaging stair action might have been getting very pissed and lugging an entire photoshoot’s worth of lighting and camera gear up to the top of the Positano cliffs (in a oner) from down on the seafront. Lugging Sven’s camera gear up to the top-floor studio at Jubilee Place for a year probably didn’t help either…

Needless to say, the op was considerably more expensive than I had planned for. Basically, without health insurance and having lost mobility (I had been limping for three weeks) I needed to get it sorted very quickly. As well as the obvious need for going to work, I didn’t want the damage to reduce my future mobility and ability to play with Clem and Hal.

The major onset of pain was triggered by teaching Clementine to skateboard. We’d been looking at videos of Tony Alva grinding pools and planning a trip to North London’s three decent skateparks. The thought of not being able to share this with her was a real blow:-(

In any case, I’m crossing my fingers that with only three weeks between re-injury and op, I’ve managed to not grind or scratch the knee too much…

So I’ve now had the pleasure of being slid into an MRI and in a few minutes, a man called John Hardy (my trusty orthopaedic surgeon) is going to regularise a tear in the meniscus in my right knee (thank you TMW softball).

08:36 scratch that, doc and anesthetist (sp?) have a full-on knee replacement in theatre before me. Will need to wait a bit longer. On the plus side, I should get a DVD from the orthroscope which I will get up on YouTube as soon as poss.

09:16 JH and sleepman David Coates are doing a knee replacement I’m next in the queue.

09:51 anti-embolism stockings. I’m told to treat them like silk stockings

10:47 still no news :-(

Well, shortly before 11:15 David Coates injected me with a quart of martinis. The next thing I remember is having the best n
ap in the recovery room (boy, I’ll bet recovery-room staff have got some juicy material for a book) and then Nicki showed up next my bed :-)

Have now seen the physio and am waiting for nurse to redo dressing before heading home.

Thanks to all who tweeted, called and texted the messages really helped.

Not sure how this happened, but I seem to have turned 45 today and Kilohapoabillyohna spotted the event and sent me this lovely card.

Thanks:-)

Well, it’s not very Christmassy but Nick was transferring photos and contacts to her new handset and in the process sent me this photograph of Clementine playing in Nicki’s wedding outfit. Shame about the item in the background but I love the expression on Clemmie’s face, I think we should all feel like that ‘round this time of year :-)

(Family thoughts, you tech readers may want to skip this post)

So the rain is damaging down, the best-of-classic-motown cd is skipping like a techno track and I’m looking out the window of the Sancerre onto the Square du Temple. I’m dry, I’ve just been handed a glass of Brouilly and I caught the last metro before the strike started (at 20h) so all-in-all feeling very relieved.

Wow, the rain is now moving from dismantling to total continental submergence, but the tape has been changed and I’m now listening to Stevie Wonder (the guys at the Sancerre only ever seem to play two tapes… “ma cherrrie amorrr”) which is cheering me up some.

Nicki and Haldane and Clementine are back in London at the new house (the last one was “The Yellow House”—don’t know what we’ll call this one) in Whetstone. I’m missing them already and I’ve been feeling really protective of Hal and Clemmie ever since the move, watching them soak in the new surroundings and settle into their new rooms.

Clemmie in particular I worry a little about, she comes up with worrying statements which I’m never entirely sure how to evaluate. She is the same age I was when my folks moved from Connecticut to Paris and in the years that followed I was moved from school to school and across a few borders (actually not that many, just Paris to Milan and back to Paris) and I don’t remember being that upset by the process. Of course maybe that’s a problem in itself, but that’s another story. Hopefully the fact that Clementine is staying in the same school should iron out most difficulties.

It looks like we’ve moved into Budleigh-Salterton-on-Thames. It’s a quiet suburban street and neighbours east and west are over 65. Just to rub the point in, a scan with the trusty N95 reveals not a single 802.11 signal (bizarre!) so yeah, hopefully we’ll find some locals with kids.

Finally, and so I’ve got a note of it, the move went great, happened on the 9th November 2007—four very nice men from a company called Ward Thomas:-)

Anyways, the rain is slowing now so I’m going to make a run for it down the Rue des Archives and try and squeeze a little wireframing in before bed.

Well, I didn’t have the camera with me but this morning we put the pedals on the bicycle and Clemmie pedaled away. She can ride a bike, yay!

It’s great, actually, because I’ve been feeling a bit like I’ve been letting the side down in the parenting department. All the travel to France and the doing second projects on weekends means I haven’t been able to spend as much time with Clem and Hal as I’d like to. So knowing she can swim a length of the pool no problem and ride a bike makes me feel a bit like I’ve helped some:-)

Clementine, il s’est passé quelque chose d’abominable aujourd’hui. Je te l’indique ici pour quand tu reliras ces pages, tu t’en souviendras peut etre…

Parmi les Sept Merveilles du monde figurent les jardins suspendus des Batignolles.

Et qu’est ce que j’ai galleré pour le passer, mon bac… (Les perles du bac)

Yeay:-) She wobbled it for what feels like weeks and she’s soooooo unbelievably psyched she can’t sleep.

So tomorrow morning little Clementine is going to wake up and be five years old. Forgive the cliché but darn she got big quick… We’re at Rebecca and Tim’s place near Perpignan (strangely correctly identified on the N95’s GPS system) and Jed has just set up a follow-the-string treasure hunt for tomorrow morning.

So how did I get talked into this one;-) Family friends Christine and Michael Bland spend a large part of the year catering fabulous afairs on the pebbles of Budleigh beach (100 yards South of the nudist beach, near the gentlemen’s club…). This is the first year that the Dug and Nicki branch of our little family managed to get our shit together to get out on the beach (Jed and Billy actually swam in the same freezing waters just yesterday) and I was way impressed: hot food, hot wine and a functioning Victrola!

(Clem, Apoa and Kiloh sing away in a manger and Clemmie really goes for it)

So I’ve been in Paris all week. I was here last week and will be here for three days next week. I’m so totally sad, I’ve been commuting out to the burbs on the RER, working all day and then coming back to the hotel and working the evenings as well. I’ve had to cancel my going to LesBlogs3 and have done no strolling around soaking up the sights, no catching up with folk, no doing Christmas shopping etc. all a bit weird really…

Anyhow, I haven’t had a mo to publish much and I’ve been grabbing the odd snap en passant but the Shozu uploader is disabled in roaming mode to prevent me having more bandwidth-related punch-ups with mobile phone companies. Normal picture stream behaviour resumes Friday night (geolocation by Plazes).

Trying to score Nicki some perfume in the Galleries Lafayette yesterday and came across this chap. Great poster next to him with a guy reclining in a bulge-accentuating pose. I figured I should definitely get myself a full-body see-through outfit and then the mental image had me running for the escalator:-)

Great morning, was up til all hours looking for missing passport, sorting IT (or should be IS) bollocks and just generally not managing to get to sleep. Then up at 04:30 and into the shower where with a head full of Pantene’s finest (I think it was), the boiler decided to stop making hot water. Enjoyed military standard ice-cold shower (note to self: write to Pantene product development types about ability to rinse out product in sub-zero temp. water) and finally escaped the house’s gravity at 5:30.

So here I am on the Eurostar, I think une sieste is in order:-)

(photograph of breakfast to follow)

Well I meant to say I had a bit of a medical thing happen last Sunday and I’ve been spending a lot of time in bed with my brain turned off. Normal service should resume next Monday.

Best,
Dug

Encore enfant, je devinais que ce sourire très singulier représentait pour chaque femme une étrange petite victoire. Oui, une éphémère revanche sur les espoirs déçus, sur la grossièreté des hommes, sur la rareté des choses belles et vraies de ce monde. Si j’avais su le dire, à l’époque, j’aurais appelé cette façon de sourire féminité… Mais la langue était alors trop concrète. Je me contentais d’examiner, dans nos albums de photos, les visages féminins et de retrouver ce reflet de beauté sur certains d’entre eux.

Car ces femmes savaient que pour être belles, il fallait, quelques secondes avant que le flash ne les aveugle, prononcer ces mystérieuses syllabes françaises dont peu connaissaient le sens: pe-tite-pomme… Comme par enchantement, la bouche, au lieu de s’étirer dans une béatitude enjouée ou de se crisper dans un rictus anxieux, formait ce gracieux arrondi. Le visage tout entier en demeurait transfiguré. Les sourcils s’arquaient légèrement, l’ovale des joues s’allongeait. On disait petite pomme, et l’ombre d’une douceur lointaine et rêveuse voilait le regard, affinait les traits, laissait planer sur le cliché la lumière tamisée des jours anciens.

(The passage is quoted from Andreï Makine’s “Le Testament Français” which I will now have to struggle through)

Arrrgggg my specs broke. Bloody things cost a fortune and they’re less than a year old. My optician lined me up with these reading glasses undt jedst meiner name ist Dieter:-(

Jed sent me this drawing a while back. Just came across it again and thought I would post a shot. For those that haven’t met Jed, he draws. He sketches constantly.

What I would give to have a compilation of all the postcards he’s ever created:-)

Mucking about in the Pyrenees. On holiday and offline (largely). Back on Monday:-)

Just had breakfast with Clementine. It feels like I haven’t seen my family in ages

Hopefully won’t be working so late next week…

Hi Hal, it’s half-past twelve in the morning and you finished struggling with your insides about half an hour ago (looks v. sore, lots of grumbling and crying). You’re almost three weeks old and are sleeping in your little chair on the dining room table. I’m doing some writing at the same table and giving your wee rocker a nudge whenever it looks like you’re stirring…

Just wanted to write this down because the house is dark and quiet around us and I’m happy to be your dad:-)

Well it’s been a week now and Hal is eating non-stop (even makes sucking noises in his sleep, Nick’s nipples are taking a serious battering) and developing well. Last night early this morning I had a session with him and he managed to look me in the eyes. His limbs are still all folded up and we’re swaddling him, but I’m guessing (because my memory of Clemmie as a baby has been erased by her growing up…) he’ll limber up soon.

It’s funny having a cesearian baby, when he came out, his head wasn’t squashed (Clem came out looking like a butternut squash) and a couple of skull plates were lined up in preparation for the big squeeze. Over the last few days, the plates have settled down and he now has a perfectly formed wee head.

Another thing I’m experiencing differently to when I was caring for Clementine is beeing peed on. I was warned about the ‘little fountain’ concept and was ready with a strategically positioned wipe when he went for it. Of course the other difference is the guy has a huge, uncut cock. His testicles are like ping pong balls! This whole boy thing is going to take a little getting used to…

OK all, no time to reply to emails, have just woken up and must rush back to hospital. The potted bits:

• Haldane Edward Falby born 04:30 04:52 on Feb 8 2006 (why is it always in the middle of the night? Maybe to prep you for not sleeping anymore)
• Weight 7lb6oz
• Delivered by emergency ceasarian section at 8cm dillation (why they ask you to spend all day suffering to get dillated and then just cut it out. Could have c-sected at breakfast and cut out the contractions bit!)
• Both boy and mother are doing well (except that Nicki feels like she’s been run over by a bus)
• Visiting status not yet sorted, but prob ok from this pm onwards and it looks like Nicki and Hal will be on the ward for at least three days

Thanks to everyone for the messages and emails:-)

So Clemmie, it was a Tuesday afternoon, the 7th of February 2006. When I got home early you didn’t seem surprised and you didn’t notice that Mom was writing times down on a piece of paper and bouncing with intent on her large rubber ball.

We put you to bed at seven. Mom spilled the beans and told you that Dug and Nicki were going to the hospital that night and that donut (you christened the bump) was going to come out tonight.

Well, it’s eight thirty, you’re still jumping up and down up in your room (and playing with the princess Aurora lamp you picked out in Homebase when you were three-and-a-half) and Mom is having 60 second contractions every six minutes. With any luck, you’ll have a little brother by morning.

Still, does Apoa know she’s got a portrait in the V&A?

V&A - Day of Record: Notting Hill Carnival 2003

Well, tomorrow we pack and on Thursday, after more than 10 years on West End Lane, we finally move house.

I take 100 daft pictures a day with the N70 and ain’t it just typical I don’t have a camera on me today.

Nicki and I dragged our dead cooker to the dump this afternoon and I saw the sky for the first time. There’s a giant column of darkness to the North East and a blanket of dark haze goes from there, over London and off to the East. At 16:00 this afternoon, it felt like the war of the worlds (or the chimney-sweep scene from mary Poppins) with eddies and swirls of foggy, hazy cloud picking up strange colours from the seting sun. Very, very weird…

Little Clem was playing at her friend Sophia’s house yesterday when she came down with some serious temperature. Nicki kept her medicated all afternoon and put her to bed early.

Last night was rough—most problems you sort of know what to do, but when your kid starts whimpering and clutching her tummy the choices are peppermint tea or a trip to the ER. So 3am it was a little touch-and-go but she’s sort of settled now.

Still pitiful and heavily medicated, Clemmie is hugging baby Anabel (Charlie, Mary?) and watching Mary Poppins…

Well, today is the last day of Book Week at Clementine’s school. The kids were asked to go in fancy dress—picking the costume of their favourite character—and little Clem has gone as The Little Red Riding Hood:-)

It sort of amazes me that with all the fanfare around Clementine’s birth (readers may rememember the blow-by-blow of her mother’s labour)—and the fact that this blog was initially set up to track the goings on in my head about becoming a dad—that I haven’t felt it necessary to mention Nick and I are going to have a son.

That’s one baby boy due 2 Feb 2006 if all goes well.

Between now and then, we need to move house and get Clemmie into a school for next year (So no pressure then)…

This piece over at Digital Dad™ made me chuckle. Clemmie isn’t a toddler anymore (she’s three) but she’s been obsessed with computers, stereo, iPods and telephones almost since day one.

She now has an account on the G5 workstation and she demands time at the keyboard by saying “Daddy, I need to do some work now, OK?”

Clementine had a great afternoon today. She was totally terrified by the Museum of Natural History’s T-rex model (it lunges and roars and comes complete with dry-ice and mood-lighting) but couldn’t break away.

It’s that funny thing that kids actually like getting scared. It must of taken Nicki and I a good twenty minutes to drag her away form the exhibit:-)

Just love this picture. Not sure why exactly, but it’s something to do with the freshness of the whole thing.

Took Clemmie to Whipsnade yesterday and had my second “I’ve lost her” moment in the playground. Tom, Isac and Clem took off over a hill at high speed and I went running after them. Just as I was catching up with Tom and Isac, Clemmie and Tom made a break in different directions. Looked behind me and saw Isac’s dad Les catching up with us so tried to point out Tom and Isac to him while keeping an eye on Clem. Turned towards Les for one second with Clem entering the playground in the corner of my eye and then she was gone.

I ran into the playground and scanned all the slides and climbing frames but nothing.

It must have taken a good two minutes of nervous searching and calling (scanning the distant horizon in all directions for a little red-headed girl) before I finally spotted her. She had climbed right to the top of the highest tower and was hiding behind the clapboards and looking at me through a gap in the planks.

Damn.

Spent the whole day at IKEA (both Wembley and Edmonton) not buying a mattress.

The day was made bearable by imagining Michael Corleone’s entourage getting bogged down in circular arguments with IKEA store staff as they try and find the goods so they could ‘go to the mattresses’. The thought was prompted by a shop assistant saying why yes, we have 21 in stock and me thinking of Luca Brasi’s relief:-)

Note for Falby family: Clementine’s swimming pics are now in a flickr set so you can view them as a slideshow.

So we have a very large bath.

As far as I can tell, the thing must hold about one-and-a-half cubic meters (1.5 tonnes of water). It’s not so much huge as deep, like a plunge pool (it was marketed as a ‘Japanese’ bath). Clemmie and I have been taking baths in there pretty much since she was born. A big part of bath play used to involve me going “1,2,3” and then plunging her underwater, and this has continued at the swimming pool where from very early on I let go of her and let her sink. An instructor at the pool in Leighton explained that it was OK to chuck your child in the water as long as you looked comfortable, and that through any gasping and wheezing, you always maintained a beaming smile (as in: gosh, wasn’t that fun) which apparently communicates to your baby that all is well.

So fast-forward eight months. I took a gig in Salisbury and ended up commuting five hours a day so essentially never saw Clem on week-days. Our regular pool sessions faded off and she’s now much to big to dunk.

Nicki has taken our little Ariel to proper swimming lessons and what a star! Clemmie can effectively swim. I say effectively because there’s no actual coordinated kick-and-stroke going on, but she’s diving off the side of the pool, diving to the bottom to pick up rings and pushing off from he side of the pool and gliding face-down like a rocket.

I am actually really, really, impressed and am officially a very proud father:-)

Apoa and Kiloh bond with the rozzers at this year’s Notting Hill Carnival :-)