But hey, the kids are the funniest in the house, so I can understand it! We’ve just introduced Conrad to time-outs, as he’s now old enough to understand what’s happened. Yesterday he had one of his first on the naughty chair after he gave Kolya a good old fashioned donk on the head with his toy car. Not that Kolya seemed to care much – he just grinned from his seat in the Jumparoo and continued looking over at us. But you know, it’s still wrong, even if the person you’re hitting is clearly a drooling idiot with no sense of pain.

So onto the naught step Conrad went. At first he fights it, then he accepts it, cries a bit, then it’s a hug and a sorry and all is right in the world once more. Fine. So, this evening, Kolya is in his Jumparoo once more and Conrad, as ever, has his little toy Audi TT in his hand… and well yes, he approaches Kolya, wielding it. But this time, before he can do anything, Romana says… “Don’t hit Kolya with the car!”

Conrad looks at us both, goes straight to the naughty seat, sits down, looks contrite and wonders why we’re laughing so much!

But it’s amazing to see how this baby… he’s changing. He’s growing. He has an explosion of vocabulary meaning he can tell you colours, put words together, and even tell me off. If I try and take something from him he starts with “No! Dada!” followed by, shortly after, a wagged finger and “Don’t!” His numbers are coming on, and he’s only missing the number seven and ten from that first 1-10 challenge.

Of course, it’s not all fun – Conrad’s reached his terrible twos already, meaning his favourite word is “no” and interrupting anything he’s enjoying can turn into a battle. Time-outs work to an extent, but you can’t apply them to every misdemeanour and tantrum or they lose their effectiveness.

Actually, that’s something about tantrums – when you’re a non-parent you see them as embarrassing and awkward. Once you’re a parent you realise they’re actually quite entertaining….

Kolya’s an easy kid, it has to be said – essentially he’s following the same path Conrad did, but with a more relaxed temperament. He probably has little choice. He’s weaning well, growing fast, and starting to show more and more of his character. One thing we’ve definitely learned is that he can, given enough time, chew through hard food in spite of still being gummy. We’ll have to watch that as it means sucking on a bit of apple isn’t as harmless as it was with Conrad – a bit falls off and it’s a choking risk.

What’s great is that Kolya’s now entertained by Conrad’s antics. It’s great seeing them make each other laugh in a little giggle-loop. In time they’ll no doubt make each other cry too – we’ll see!

Below are a vid and some recent pics… enjoy!

PS – YouTube can now do automatic image stabilising. Thought I’d try it on this video, but do you find it makes you feel like you’re just a little bit drunk when you watch it?

So, better that somebody who would enjoy it should have a chance to own it!

Head over to eBay if you’re interested.

Here’s the set:

Image, CC license by See Ming Lee on Flickr - follow the image link for details.

Two people meet. They decide to live together and grow old together.  Let’s ignore whether they are a man and a woman, or gay, or two brothers without any other relationships.  Doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that they’re not married.

Together, these two people set up home back in 1970 in a house for which they paid £8000.  Thing is, one was quite poor, really, so the other bought the house from his own funds and it remained his.

Both are now elderly, and the one owning the house sadly passes away.

If they’re married or in a civil partnership, everything that the deceased partner owns passes (unless otherwise willed) to the living partner.  But in any other relationship this doesn’t happen.  That house is now worth £500,000 – to the pair it’s still the same humble house they bought in a part of London that’s become quite trendy lately.  But that doesn’t matter – everything to be inherited over £325,000 is taxed at 40%.  So, you have a tax bill of £70,000.  The inheritee may not have the money to pay that bill so is left with the problem of selling the house, or borrowing against it, in order to pay the bill.  And that’s where the trouble starts.  Imagine having to pay £450 a month to continue living in the house you lived in for the past 40 years?

Even worse, when that poor person dies, their estate will *also* be taxed at 40%.  This compares to the married couple’s non-taxable estate which is effectively £650,000.

And it doesn’t end there.  Pension funds often can’t be transferred to anybody other than a spouse.  Family health insurance (particularly relevant in the US) often doesn’t cover anybody not in a legally recognised relationship.  And so on and so forth.  If there are married people’s tax allowances, they apply too.

So Why Be Against Gay Marriage?

I’m always fascinated by motives.  It’s quite clear why a government would be against gay marriage, or even against making it really easy to marry or divorce – in doing so they get more tax.  That’s simple then.  From a purely fiscal point of view, governments get more tax from two single people than two married people.

And we have the religious lot – right now we have a dolt like Cardinal Keith O’Brien calling plans for gay marriage something that would “shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world”.  I mean really?  Why would that be?  OK, there are states in this world where gay people are killed for it.  I guess we would look pretty shameful to them.  Do I care?  Not really – we’re strong enough to let people live their lives how they wish to.

So the religious folk are worried.  In part I know why – right there in Genesis (so believed by many Christians, Jews and Muslims as being important) is an instruction “And you, be you fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.”  It’s translated in lots of other ways too.  But the key message there is that you should go out and reproduce.

Which makes sense.  If your religion can outbreed another, it can do very well.  And you know something I’ve noticed about gay folk?  They don’t have many children!  Of course, many do.  And it would seem that their children may even fare better than their peers.

So Are Anti-Gay Marriage Campaigners Being Rational?

Nope, it’s unlikely that rationality comes into it.  So let’s simply say this – they’re doing what most people do – look after their own interests first, then worry about the next level down because that can affect them too.

The joyous thing right now is that in the UK the mainstream political parties are pretty liberal about all this.  They know that happy people work harder and make more money, which means more tax money, which means more power for them.  The churches are no longer so relevant.

But in the US it’s a more dangerous situation – the significant Christian right can be an illiberal bunch, and the leading Republican candidates to run for president have come out with some deeply concerning statements.

In the UK we’re setting an example to the world.  Let’s mock Cardinal Keith O’Brien and his antiquated beliefs – he’s not relevant any more, and let’s keep it that way.  And if you hear somebody repeating anti-gay-marriage rhetoric then point out to them why somebody would object and why it’s so hard on gay couples.

We’re No Christian Culture

The point being, it's easy to make a logically inarguable statement that is still utterly and completely fallacious. "Jesus Saves" could be another one - maybe he does, but there's no way to prove it.

I mean, look at how we named our days of the week – there’s no “Jesusday” or “Paulsday” – no, we have Thursday = Thor’s Day, or Wednesday = Woden’s Day = Odin’s Day, and Friday = Freya’s Day.  At Easter it’s all about fertility and I don’t see many people chowing down on chocolate crucifixes.  OK, that last bit is pretty flippant, but the truth is, a lot of our culture has plenty in common with old Pagan rites and beliefs.

Religious Freedom = Good

So if you’re Christian then that’s fine, but any politician who says that to be secularist is somehow non-Christian is like a secularist saying that being Christian, or Muslim or Rastafarian is bad.  It’s important for all to respect all our beliefs - few are provably right or wrong, but if government ever becomes about religion, or driven by religion then it causes inevitable sectarian divisions that are frankly disastrous.  Not only that, but government moves away from being evidence based to belief based.

Scrub that last bit – a lot of government is belief based anyway, even when religion doesn’t come into it.  People are like that.  But secularism is a big part of moving towards evidence based governance and away from running a country based on peculiar notions of what is good or bad based on differing interpretations of where we come from and who we’re supposed to be trying to please in order to get a decent afterlife.

I’m a secularist.  Not a militant one, but I do believe that state and church need to be completely removed from one another.  In Britain we have a curious situation where there is still a small amount of religious interference in the state – it’s almost inevitable when your nation’s leader is also expected to be the head of the church.  Currently an English heir to the throne can’t stay as heir to the throne if they marry a Muslim, for example, unless the Muslim converts.  And that, if you think about it properly, is a serious worry, because it tells people that it’s OK to consider a different belief system to be inferior.  It legitimises religious intolerance, which is bad for all of us.

So let’s keep pushing for a secular state, and let’s encourage religious freedom.  I’m not going to reveal my religious beliefs here, but I’ll support yours.  Unless, of course, they’re based on intolerance – in which case, time to take a hike.

Which nearly did my back in.  Both the Skoda and the Audi are relatively low cars, and as I have a weak back as it is, this proved too much and I recently found myself barely able to move for a weekend.  Not good.  I decided it was time to find a taller car.

So, with a heavy heart, I’m selling my 77,000 mile late 2004 Skoda Octavia vRS.  As you might expect from me, it’s been well looked after, has a full service history and no expense has been spared in its maintenance.  It’s a cracking car with great performance, handling and pretty good refinement.

I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.  If you’re interested, drop me a line in the comments below.  I’ll be adding a contact number on here shortly once the Telesafe number’s come through.

Price? Just £3100 – a lot of car for little money.  I’ll be sad to see it go.

It’s probably no surprise that the two dominant words here are Conrad and Kolya!  No bad thing – they’re my two amazing, wonderful kids.  It’s been quite a tough year in terms of time and effort.  Business continues as it should, and it’s almost certainly been the company’s best calendar year so far, with 2012 looking even more promising.  But there’s not doubt that right now I’m feeling pretty tired – the holiday season couldn’t have come any sooner for me, and in-laws will find themselves well used!

Whilst fiddling with Wordle above, my colleague Rob came up and mentioned We Feel Fine.  So I asked it for feelings in the UK of people aged 40-49 this month.  I was a bit surprised by the existential emptiness of the result. Stark dude, stark.

I’ve settled on potatoes. Why potatoes? Because although they’re nothing like as dull as you might think, the perception is just that. They’re not glamourous, or pretty, or novel. I also wanted a challenge – what could I find in the familiar that’s unfamiliar. In researching the subject I surprised myself. I discovered that NASA has guidance on how to make asteroids with potatoes.

I did have some problems, however – I’d offered myself up for the gig before the birth of our second son, Kolya. What I didn’t realise was just how much more tiring, how much less spare time, I would have to plan the presentation. Not only that, but I’ve been busy at work trying to keep business coming in during a particularly dry patch thanks to the start of what appears to be a double-dip recession. But we’re doing OK, the presentation is written, and I think we’re OK.

So, are you going to come? Tickets are free… Book Now!

This lunchtime I went for a walk but was dismayed to find my trusty Lumix LX3 wasn’t in my backpack.  I decided I should still try and take pictures, however.  The light was flat, the weather uninspiring, but let’s try with the smartphone camera and see what comes up.

I’m going to have a go at doing this as a regular feature.  Just to challenge my abilities with composition and creativity.

I will admit to one thing, however – I’ve post-processed.  I usually post pictures up as they came out of the camera, but sometimes you need to tweak at least a little – and smartphone cameras are pretty limited in their controls for contrast and colour.

I’m sitting here in the lounge, at 6am, with my laptop open. Two things to note here – once upon a time 6am was more of a going to bed time than a getting out of bed time, and actually it’s really like 7am because the clocks went back an hour last night. But I’ve been up for an hour anyway.

So, three weeks after the birth of Kolya, we’re starting to find something of a rhythm. It’s different to around the same stage with Conrad, but not in the way Kolya is, but how we are. In fact it’s remarkable looking at my notes from Conrad at the same age it feels identical. Constant feeding, a fussy period (which I assume is the digestive system settling down) which is now waning, a tired mother, and a tired father. But the big big difference is that he’s our second child.

And that’s massive, because suddenly there’s very little spare capacity. The first few days especially were tricky because we came home on the Friday, meaning that we had two days where we had both a toddler and a newborn to deal with. The change unsettled Conrad, and Kolya is just like newborns always are – no sense of day and night, and constantly hungry. So Kolya would wake, cry loudly, and then Conrad would react with concern and a surprising desire to help. He couldn’t, of course, and that just led to tears from him also.

Once that first weekend was over, we were able to drop Conrad off at nursery which meant that daytimes were just like 17 months ago. In the evening and night it was a touch trickier, I’d collect Conrad, bring him home and, essentially be like a single parent for the night. I would feed Conrad, play with him, bathe him, put him to bed, calm him down if he woke in the night, get up before him if possible to shower and dress, feed him breakfast, play again, then take him to nursery. In effect this pattern is mostly the same a few weeks later – the difference is I’m back at work, so after dropping off Conrad I go to work. Although I don’t usually pick him up, once I’m home I’m mostly kept busy dealing with him until he’s asleep. Then I have about 1.5hrs before bed which is mostly domestic duties and jobs and supporting Romana and Kolya.

No Complaints!

That may sound like I’m complaining, but I’m not.  I’m sharing because it’s stuff nobody tells you about before you have children, and what it all means is that suddenly you put great store by being organised.  Spending five minutes looking for your keys isn’t really a problem when you live alone.  Spending five minutes looking for your keys when you have a crying child in hand really is a problem.

Of course, with tiredness, mistakes happen.  On the second weekend I’d left the car door’s unlocked overnight and an opportunist helped himself to our satnav.  I didn’t need it and that, coupled with a few stressful incidents in the days following left me drained and misanthropic.  In the end, while Conrad was at nursery I retired to the garage, got the power drill up, and put up some shelfs, reorganised the comms cabinet, and generally got some pent up testosterone out of my system.

The Main Course

But I know that many of you don’t visit to read my tales – you visit to see pictures of the babies!

Here’s a set from the past couple of weeks, including an afternoon where quite a few friends dropped in to see Kolya for the first time.  Enjoy!

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