Saturday 30 October 2010

The candle burns at one end

Manners maketh man. Man maketh babies. Babies maketh noise. Noise maketh attention. attention maketh something deeply significant.
Sometimes I ramble, which is a useful tool in arguments. Rambling maketh a lilly white livered liberal raising tuition fees.

I am having an argument, an argument that I will win because I am an adult and he is a child.

I may be living longer, apparently I am, that is according to modern science. Therefore doctor, today is another birthright day of winning arguments.
I ruled with an iron fist that only looked pink. I could change time so was my power, bedtime could start at 3pm if there had been naughtiness.
But suddenly these days, these older days, without knowing when I actually morphed, but I think I may be in a parallel universe because this winning an argument malarchy is taking longer than usual.

Each new day it is taking longer than usual to be absolutely right. I must argue about cleaning teeth, picking up clothes, doing homework, not leaving doors open, not lazing in a chair when there's homework to be done, not staring at a tv dedicated to killing in an electronic world. And stop playing that bloody guitar.

I am growing old , he is wearing me down. I must stay strong for the children,...ummm..... no... I must stay strong because of the teenager......future of the teenager, the future they see as care free and I see as a clockwork, concrete jungle and any other cliche I can think of.

I am losing arguments that rely on experience that he does not have. My future is dull and short, his future is bright and long. And who is the better man to share a happy hour drink with?

I had more than my fair share of left of centre dreams as a teenager. I grew older, I grew wiser but not wise as nutty University Professors. I grew wiser in the University of the Streets.

I am worn down by the years that my education becomes remedial.
I am crushed by the logical counter-arguments based on theory and not practice.
I am worn down by teenage idealism.

He may be right, he may be the one who escapes the rat race. He may lead the art race.

But just in case please do your homework.... please.




















Saturday 23 October 2010

Gaming without Frontiers, war with points

Blood and thunder and an 18 warning. My boy is more high tech'd wired for sound, that there is no cables and I am sufficiently in touch with the technologiacl advanced age that I know not to expect rabbits and whites doves miraculously coming from teenage sleeves.

I find a teenager twitching on a couch, doing dirty deeds that need doing on a global scale. I am a child of another generation of whatever happened to a likely old football, a park, pullovers for a post and heavy dose of flu for two weeks.

There on the teenage couch are internet microphones allowing international communication, to whom?
Other international teenagers who can be heard greeting kills, like a viet vet on the wrong side of a stressful situation.
These teenagers or toddlers, who knows, wi-fi'd for sound.
Kids sounding quite squeaky because voices are squeaky and by all things toddler as yet unbroken, in fact as squeaky as a toddler with a birthday cake candles to unlight several times.
Teenagers sounding hard in queaky voices are not cutting the mustard but ar hez cutting a destiny.
Hard in their comfort zones of a home.
There are points given to each kill against a squeaky aggresive commentary.
Post traumatic stress is not on the agenda even if athritus is.

To the plot this morning in the Pryce abode, "big-time" victor gloating causes an exchange of E-mails. Swear words are exchanged via the next set of E-mails online in real-time from the safety of a non-de-plume and an unknown geography, but probably a big brother will need a few bus trips to avenge family honour here.

This is unreal, this begs a change in the world order, a return to the flesh and bullets hurt, eyeball to eyeball realism where an eye for an eye brings a painful reality, that it hurts and therefore should not be done. Instead an electronic ether divides them to be safe in nastiness

Back in the day space invaders met this criteria, the nerd was out there in the open, and he was not a nerd he was a out-there a hero. The lip smoking - digit twitching guy up to no good in the local pub staring at a fake electronic world with a aged wall as backdrop; and when there was homework to do.

This old gun-kill play appeared sufficiently and obviously play and nowadays I don't know. Nowadays it is in the home and realistic beyond comprehension and resurrection is guaranteed as long as the electricity bill is paid.

I bought the games.




Friday 8 October 2010

Sibling Rivalry - Father Kinda Saves the Day

Picture a scene if you will, a dysfunctional family, where Teenager 1~ the boy ~ is sitting playing on what used to be the family iPad.


Family iPad was agreed at point of purchase that is. It was agreed all family would have access to the expensive new toy. Family iPad what a fool am I, it has now evolved, faster than Darwin could count forty sheep and turn them into winks, to become the Teenager iPad.

Teenager 2 ~the daughter~is knitting, do not ask me why, it is an aberration on a cosmic scale of being a teenager. Teenage knitting I ask you, in a scale of 1 to "not bloody likely", this is taking the Pryce family to new heights in "what the" Twilight mountains. It proves as dysfunctional goes, Pryce family does Dysfunctional Extreme very well.

I ~ the adult participant in this motley crew ~ am probably looking like an overweight fella that needs a fitness regime more than I need another icecream and we all know that I know where the fridge is and I need a GPS to find a fitness studio. There is no surprise that I am an inclusion zone involving a telly.


Teenager 2 decides knitting is not tickling the excitement button and probably is a hobby best left for pensioners. So on a whim and a prayer, she now wants the IPad which as a Teenager, and it is a Teenager iPad, she still has rights of access that have been lost to all adults. Teenager 1 is mid doing something more exciting than homework and is reluctant to give-up a pleasure nanosecond. The iPad is his.

Sibling war is upon us in a matter of deciding a stitch in time is bloody boring.

I am a peacemaker, a man of few words, but thoughtful words none the less.

I offer guidance to my teenage two.

"Teenager1 when you grow up in seven or so years, you two will be the best of friends, so be nice, hey, ......you will be asking your sister "How's Uni? istead of all this 'its mine nonsense' "
I go on as life-coach in waiting, a parental voice of reason...

"And Teenager 1, you will be asking your brother "Have you finished your dustbin round, was it green containers today?" "

Ooops, one-sided laughter ensues, I am a wit, albeit with a foot that is not as well grounded as it should be, when there is an available mouth to fill.


But, however and double butt.....he ~Teenager 1~ is riled and not reconciled to his role as a butt of my joke.

He is staring at me, like only a teenager could, venom bleeds eyeball-sized. He stares intently as a teenager wronged and he will not be responsible for his actions. He is in the "zone" declared Teenjhad, revenge will be his.

I am a man in fear, an adult living with the teenage bomb, I will be verbally attacked probably mid breakfast, mid cornflake, mid milky gulp with a wetted piece of corn lingering from an incisor, potentially hindering any counter attack without causing serious spluttering and hiccups.

And we know Hiccups are dangerous at my age.

I am a man who will be the first man to suffer hospitalisation with a cornflake covered foot in need of surgical removal from an adult-sized mouth.

Pray for me, dear parents. I'm a gettin' religion.





Thursday 7 October 2010

Lost and Found

Oooh kids eh?,.......the old losing things in the training changing rooms trick.


We are parents in the throes of being sucker punched by the teenager.


I may come across as untrustworthy of my offspring which is probably a bad thing, but in my reality it says guilty until proven that it was me who placed the incriminating evidence in your pocket ~"old school training".


He ~ the Teenager ~ has lost his jacket. How do you lose a jacket. It is not a small jacket. The weather is cold and normally that means one wears a jacket to avoid the chill and therefore logically not leave it behind, when there a wind chill factor that does nothing for manhood, but does lots for extra layers of clothing, such as a jacket.

So suspicions were high, given when presented with his special new gift of some weeks ago, his teenager in horror face and without a zit in sight,.

We had dreams that we could turn him away from the Dark side, we would bring colour to his sea of black. He did not like it and he decided to let us know the mega expensive bit of cloth was an alleged fashion style icon from the Time that Land Forgot or something like that. The jacket was not a hit. But it was expensive, we were adults, we insisted on pain of something that could be painful.

More than not a hit. It was now a Jacket to be found by a passing tramp that may now be the talk of the hobo community with his super-cool orangey bluey jacket with a stripey bit and importantly for all things Goth-less, is not black.


Charity begins at home and donations to my teenager's lifestyle should also end at home. Call me old fashioned, as my teenager probably does, but some tramp with his new non-black jacket is not my idea of helping society, when a teenager is getting frost bite to be a political- fashion-correct.

Still a story must be told by the young ones for the old folks, the gullible old folks, the parents lost in 80's chic, he has a story to tell, a story that starts on a cold dark night and certainly ended with our expensive jacket gift being not deliberately left at on the grass, but was sadly forgotten in a moment of madness.

Yes he regrets it, he knows it cost an arm and a leg. But he secretly knows that whilst he could getaway with not putting a leg in it due to human geometry. He could unfortunately put two arms in it. His Goth roots would sadly be challenged by the bike-shed posse, if he turned up with even one arm in it. He knows retained possesion of the jacket would have caused parental pressure to wear his jolly jacket and Goth friends being Goth friends who judge things by shades of black going on grey, may have discarded him as mainstream sellout. Peer group pressure is stronger than the pen or the sword.

By the grey of my hair, we are parents not born yesterday, so to cut a long story short, it was not lost, it was hidden. Although the time between lost and in hiding was a subtle interrogation lasting several hours, as in 24 hours make one day and more hours make additional days. Thankfully for adult sanity it did not last a week.

Hey.... to not cut a story to short, I have a new jacket, a revenge of sorts for my lack of socks, I am again now looking as mutton dressed as lamb and surprisingly not of my choice damn it, it was expensive.

Friday 1 October 2010

note to self

I am not really a Note-to-Self person , but to make up for this lack of educational thoroughness, fortunately I have teenagers wanting to give me direction, although I thought I already knew the way.

But today to break the Note-to-Self rule, which proves rules are there to be bent and once in a while to be broken.

Be an example, a role model to the children....Hmmmm?

I will make my own tea, I will iron my own shirt, I will do my share of hoovering, I understand why I am not a note to self person.

I need a teenager to make me a cuppa, or fail to make me a cuppa, but I'm gonna ask.