I love basketball but honestly I put baseball into the same category as synchronised swimming and find it as exciting as watching paint dry. But having been here in Philly the day after the team whose name I can’t remember won the baseball world championship and being around the restaurants here it seems that baseball is still the subject of mass conversation. The other thing that they talk about is the Philly cheese steak sandwich and who serves the best.

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This morning I have been suffering from something that has had my hemorrhoids flaring up like a puff adder and it has to do with changing my password. Now I am going to try and explain what has been going on but remember I have the technology and computer skills of a dyslexic hamster but I will give it a try.
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There are two things that have made me mad this past weekend. The first is how complicated washing your hands in a restaurant or hotel or ship is. Yes I know its public health and yes I know people who have just wiped away the remains of last night’s beef stew from their bottoms touch the faucet straight after, but I am sick of having to do three hours of Tai-Chi under the sodding faucet just to get the water to come on. The second thing that has been rolling my eyes is the word “detox.”

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So how did you spend New Year’s Eve? Mine was very different to the ones I remember both on the ship of which we will talk later and certainly different to the ones I spent in my late teens with my best mate Alan. I remember one very well, I think it was 1987. I remember this one because I had just broken up with my girlfriend, Lorraine. I remember Lorraine very well because she was the only girl that didn’t vomit at the sheer sight of me thus she was my only proper girlfriend. It had been a wonderful rumpy pumpy-fueled relationship which had lasted a blissful three weeks but on Christmas Eve Lorraine came to her senses and dumped me.

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There was bugger all on television last night so I spent the evening using Heidi’s Eye Pad to answer yet more questions on Facebook. Kye was fast asleep and so was Breeze. Kye was dreaming of Peppa Pig and Breeze was dreaming of ignoring the carefully laid out newspaper and instead taking a dump in my slipper. Yes, I wear slippers. So Heidi was flicking through the TV channels and ended up watching Fatal Attraction which is a prime example of what I hate most in movies…………..badly written and badly performed rumpy pumpy.

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When my beautiful wife Heidi said choosing a puppy would be the easy part I really didn’t pay much attention. She is from a family who has had dogs all their lives while the only dog I have ever had was called Rachael – she was a spa therapist on the Jubilee which Heidi says doesn’t count as being a dog lover. And so here we are with our new German shepherd puppy and I can tell you that actually looking after it that makes looking after Kye when she was a newborn baby seem only slightly more difficult than the $100 question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

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Some parents I know see Christmas as a chance to show off their child’s creative skills and have them making cute, homemade cards from sometime in mid July. And there are others who think that standing over a child with a glitter pen for three hours when they sell perfectly good v alue packs of cards at JC Penney is three hours wasted. Heidi has been unwell with a cold and last night gave me the job of sitting down with Kye and having her draw a snowman card for her teacher Mrs. Wilkinson. Well unfortunately Peppa the sodding Pig was on TV and when I suggested to Kye that she come and make a card with Dadda she basically told me to bugger off. OK, she’s two and a half years old so she didn’t actually tell me to bugger off but she did say “silly Dadda pig” which basically is the same thing. I knew then that when Heidi came down stairs from her nap that I would be in for a bollocking and Dad’s you may find yourself in the same predicament. But please don’t despair, do as I did. Simply tie your right hand behind your back and draw a rubbish snowman with your left hand. It’s amazingly authentic. Plus everyone will say what an incredible artist your kid is for a two year-old. Job done.

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So our Christmas tree is up and Kye’s eyes are shinning brighter than the tinsel that decorates it. This could be because of the cold that she and every other Heald has at the moment although I think it’s more likely because Kye now relates the word Christmas tree to presents and her excitement is obvious and I can’t help but think back to when I was her age or maybe a couple of years older. As a young non-fat boy, I could never sleep on Christmas Eve out of sheer, bed-wetting anticipation and I am sure come the 24th, Kye will refuse to go to bed, and then wake me and Heidi up before dawn, out of sheer, bed-wetting anticipation. My sister Suedrip and I always did the same thing. We would wake my Mum and Dad up at 5 am to open our presents and the consequence is that my Mum and Dad always spent Christmas Day half asleep. Once my Dad, out of sheer exhaustion, nearly cut off his own hand with the electric turkey carver.

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One of the major travel companies here in the UK is in trouble. They are 1 billion pounds in debt and have had to go cap in hand to Mr. Merchant Banker for a loan is probably because of the economy but you can also blame the fact that they used a professional soccer player and his pop star wife to star in their commercials. Now remember this is a package vacation company who does a great job providing affordable vacations for Mr. and Mrs. Average. He stood on a deserted beach, his pants button undone, bare-chested playing keepy uppey with a soccer ball as his wife rode past on a white stallion. What happens after that I have no idea because like millions of other British televisions I am sure, mine was covered in projectile vomit. Having those two advertise this company would be like asking David and Victoria Beckham to advertise Cunard or us showing Angelina shoving a Guy Fieri burger down her mouth while Brad takes part in the hairy chest contest. Thank goodness then for Jim Berra and his team for keeping Carnival’s commercials real.
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I have a friend who works for Carnival on the ships who is very short. He’s not a little person but he often bangs his head on coffee tables and has to sit on the front row of the cinema so he can see the film. Being short he obviously has a bad temper as that’s the law and he cannot play basketball very well. If you’re small, it doesn’t matter whether you’re rich, poor, British, American or French, you will be consumed with a sense that people aren’t just physically looking down on you, but mentally as well. This will make you permanently angry, and equipped with a chip so large you could be mistaken for a bag of family sized Doritos.

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