X marks the spot

Pirates, what's not to love? OK, so there's the stealing, and the murdering, and probably the raping, but you know Johnny Depp was really cool in that film, and those hats and bandanas, and what about those treasure maps? (And yes, admittedly, it would be amazing to find a big X underneath a palm tree on a Caribbean island, that strangely no one else had spotted for 400 years).

Since becoming a parent though I've pondered on the nature of pirates quite a bit. Our culture is obsessed, and I mean absolutely obsessed with pushing the iconography of pirates to our very young children - if from the cradle girls are pushed into princesses and pink, then its equally true that boys are bombarded by pirates. Why is that?

And, while Pirates of the Caribbean et al are very entertaining, pirates really weren't that nice back in the day, and they're really not that nice now. I've already had to erm and ahhh through the inevitable 'Daddy, are there pirates still around today?' question, that obviously every young child will get around to. (Well, yes son, you see some people aren't very nice and they carry guns and take hostages. . . it's really not where you want to be five minutes before bedtime.) So, you know, can't we all just get back to firemen and builders as the indoctrination of choice for our young boys? At least they hopefully won't steal your boat if you get to meet them.

Maybe it's time for a 'pirates stink too' campaign. Don't tell either of my children I said that though. They'd make me walk the plank.

W is for weddings (and royals)

My five-year-old had a 'street party' today at school in honour of Friday's royal nuptials. The whole affair seems to have caught his imagination, and he's suddenly become a font of all knowledge on the royal family. (Kate, it transpires, is not really a real Princess, but 'some random' person who will only becomes a Princess when the marriage is completed.)

Personally I'm completely indifferent to the big day - I wish the happy couple all the best, but I have no particular desire to know more or wave flags - and this probably reflects my own views on our royal family; I'm neither a royalist or republican because, really, I don't care enough either way. I guess my wife feels similarly (though to be honest neither of us has ever been motivated enough to discuss the subject, so perhaps she does feel strongly one way or the other).

So it's some surprise to us that Lucas is suddenly so excited and interested, and a little unsettling; do I really want him becoming aware of the existence of Prince Charles, Kate and Wills and Harry, as they're all so slightly ridiculous? Obviously, his enjoyment/enthusiasm is his cultural birthright as much as my indifference is mine and perhaps this is what is really unsettling. If parenting is all about accepting your kid's long walk away from you, then this seems like a milestone along the way. It is possibly the first time we've become aware that he is autonomously absorbing a cultural moment without any mediation from us, and we can't tell him what to think or how to react to it. Which seems a bit weird.

V is for Voting alternatives

The upcoming referendum on whether we should change our voting system is looming like a saltry summer afternoon. And while I (like almost everyone else) haven't really followed closely, it seems the political discourse around a yes or no is starting to turn nasty.

Next week (or is the week after?) we get to decide whether we want to express a second (or third, or fourth) preference for our MP, in the event that one candidate doesn't get an outright majority. Laid next to recent events across the Middle East, it seems a particularly British eccentricity for so many of our politicians to get in such a tizzy over such an essentially trivial change. I'm not so sure that it's so funny though. With a cabinet featuring 18 millionaires* embarking on a massive, ideologically driven, series of budget cuts that are likely to cripple the economy and blight a generation of school leavers, it's probably worth giving some thought as to why there is such opposition to this change?

The older I get, the more openly corrupt I perceive our politics to be; when you see David Cameron sharing a stage with John Reid to extol the virtues of anything it's probably a good idea to take the exact opposing view on principle - even if they were extolling free cup cakes for all there would no doubt be some small print based on self-interest somewhere along the line. So on that basis I'll probably vote yes to AV - anything that might allow the people to chip away at the carapace of our one party state and actually express some choice about something has got to be worth a try.

*This is a made up statistic based on a half-remembered newspaper report that I can't be bothered to google. Apologies to any cabinet members who feel unfairly maligned, please feel free to post the correct figures in the comment section below.

U is for under-the-sea

We spent our Bank Holiday Monday at the beach in Weston-Super-Mare - a classic English seaside resort if ever there was one. It was a lovely day, and the kids loved running around the beach and stroking the donkeys. At our eldest's prompting we also took a look around the 'seaquariam' and took in the sharks, seahorses and stingrays.

The kids loved it (especially seeing a wrasse teasing a moray eel by swimming around its head), and having done quite a bit of scuba diving in the past (a six month trip around Indonesia, Thailand, Austraila and the Philippines after Uni saw to that) I always enjoy a good aquarium. But like zoos I'm never quite sure of the ethics of it all - I know fish are reputedly fairly dumb (a mind like a goldfish indeed) but are tropical fish, sharks, rays and eels really happy to be confined in (comparatively) tiny enclosures and ogled by small children?

Running log
Still no running, but hoping to get out this week

T is for Tesco riots

So, on Thursday night there was a riot in Bristol, on Stokes Croft. Was the riot caused by the massive austerity programme our 'elected' representatives are about to embark upon? Was it caused by widespread revulsion as we wade into a civil war in Libya in order to set up a client state to control that country's oil resources, all the while dressing up our involvement as some kind of 'humanitarian mission'? No? How about a popular grocer has opened up a convenience store in the neighbourhood? Man the barricades!

Indeed I'm being flippant. Tesco (much like Walmart in the US) is a corporate behemoth that has ridden roughshod over suppliers, competitors and communities in its pursuit of 'every day value'. It's been a key player in the degradation of our food culture and probably our health, and as such it deserves all the criticism it gets.

And yet still. A petrol bomb plot? A 300 person riot? Because of a shop? There comes a point where if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem, and I do wonder how constructive it really is to fuck shit up in the name of corporate protest. If you don't like the shop how about just trying not shopping in it? But then I suppose if its cider is cheaper then at the next door independent then that's not really fair, is it?

There's nowt so queer as folk as my mum used to tell me.

S is for sunshine

And how the sun has been shining this week. We were on the factor 50 today and it was supposedly around 28C. And it's still April! What is the world coming to?

Apparently the weather will break on Monday, and we're in for showers. I'm half relieved, and half worried. Hopefully this wasn't the high point of Summer already.

Anyways, apologies for reusing a topic. But goodness it was hot today.

R is for running

It had to be running for r really, given the original point of the blog. And running is a strange thing. For so long I looked on in pity as my friends flogged their knees around their marathon schedules. There was no envy, jealousy or sense of self-regret. Nothing like that - I just really didn't get it.

And then, before I knew it, I was the one with a four run a week timetable. The first prompt was as a necessary evil when I was rehabbing after knee surgery (the result of an injury pursuing my true sporting passion), but serendipitously I found I quite enjoyed it, and a couple of 10k and half-marathons was just a natural consequence. And I can genuinely say I enjoy training regularly - the space to clear your mind, the sense of incremental gain, the weight loss, the endorphins!

And then, as suddenly as the birth of my second child, I wasn't running anymore. Literally overnight, the combination of lack of time, lack of sleep, and lack of energy meant I moved into a space where the thought of running became a huge, challenging, chore. So I stopped.

And now, two year's later I'm trying to regain the middle state of enjoying a regular routine of running again. In many ways, I'm learning, it's a bit like blogging. If you're fresh and have the time, it's easy to get started and great once you get going. But as soon as you're jaded, stressed, or just lack time it can become a millstone. So, once April is over (I know I'm dropping off the schedule, but I'm not going to let this A-Z beat me!) and I'm over this horrible cold (which is still giving me problems) I'm going to make sure my running and blogging becomes a bit more balanced.

We'll see.