Making Up Stories

We had a babysitter for G on Thursday night so the two of us could go for a night out in town. When we got back the babysitter said that after G had got out of bed, she told her a made-up story about "Princess G" in order to get her to drift back off to sleep.

The law of unintended consequences became apparent by Friday night. Books are now very last week, and every story has to involve some kind of made-up thing about our heroine (Princess G, Fairy Queen G, always G) doing something exciting. It's clear we're going to have to seriously improve our powers of creativity in order to make bedtime as stress-free as it, thankfully, usually is.

The picture was taken earlier on Friday, when we headed back to Saddleworth to take in a bit of the Whit Friday brass band contest in Dobcross. This was G's fourth Whit Friday, so I was supposed we were due a really rainy one.

Shaky Ladder

Mrs J was away last weekend, so it was just me and G on Saturday and Sunday. Not that this is particularly unusual, given that I've looked after her for the last three-and-a-half years, and still have her at home with me a couple of days a week. But when you've got to stretch solo toddler entertaining to an extra couple of days, you have to ration your standard activities out slightly.

On Saturday morning, I took her dancing. This was the first time I'd been, and predictably enough I was the only dad in an ante-room of 15 or so mums, waiting around for our children to do their ballet class next door. Not that I could really hear what was going on, the overwhelming noise from another neighbouring room was of a group of eight-year-olds learning how to street dance to the Macarena. I don't think I'd heard the Macarena since about 1996, and it seemed pretty old hat to me even then. So goodness knows what today's pre-tweenies make of it. Perhaps it's this generation's Agadoo.

I decided to save a playground trip for Sunday, not least because the forecast was good. And it turned out to be beautifully sunny. Sunny enough in fact to take along G's bike, which she rode very slowly along the path to the playground in Parr Fold Park. This was clearly far too much like hard work, and she bounded off and ran towards the big climbing frame as soon as we got near it.

Then she stopped, puzzled as how to actually get up. Possibly aimed at slightly older children, the only ways onto the frame itself were via a couple of shaky rope ladders, which G didn't much like the look of at first glance. I encouraged her up one, step by step, lifting her foot up each time while supporting her back. Eventually, she scrambled up, slowly walked over to the slide, then came down. This was much more fun.

So much fun in fact, that she quickly forgot about any danger associated with going up the rope ladder, and trotted straight back to it, climbing up herself. She repeated this process about 38 times, briefly stopping once so I could take the photo of her peering back down at me. It all helped tire her right out, which as any parent will tell you, is always the most important thing.

Living Room Ballet

Despite being initially sceptical about ballet, or at least the bit that involves putting on a pink dress, G seems to be getting into it. The other day, she gave me a demonstration of some of her moves in the living room. Not quite sure the big finish went exactly as planned, though.

The music is Down By The Water by The Decemberists, which remains her favourite song almost a year after she began to insist on hearing it during every car journey. I don't think that's the kind of thing they dance to during the actual ballet classes, however.

For this week, the girls were asked to tell the teacher the name of their favourite Disney princess. Given that Disney princesses and all things pink are not exactly high on our home entertainment agenda, this meant we had to train G to say the name of the least lame female Disney princess we could think of. So if anyone asks, G likes Rapunzel, from the movie Tangled.

Obviously the character was originally created by the Brothers Grimm, but I imagine this kind of literary pedantry is generally frowned upon in children's dance lessons.

Leading The Applause

This was G's third year as a spectator at the Whit Friday celebrations in Dobcross. She first went as a baby, and last year she was a bit bigger, but this time she was old enough to start to enjoy all the brass music during the evening contest.

She put in some rudimentary dance moves as each of the bands played, then joined in with everyone else to clap them off afterwards. Here she is leading the applause for the Diggle B band. She's proving to be such an enthusiastic learner, next year I might volunteer her services as a guest adjudicator.

Down By The Water

I've got a mix CD in the car which has Down By The Water by The Decemberists as the first track. Over the last couple of weeks, every time we've got in the car, G has insisted I play it over and over again while she sings along. Whenever it finishes, she gives herself a cheer then says "Down by water song! Down by water song!" until I put it on again. At least it's a suitably good and trendy record for her to like. Thankfully, we've mostly been doing short journeys, otherwise I'd probably have got thoroughly fed up of it by now.

Obviously, G usually does the Gillian Welch part while I do my best Colin Meloy impression. I've spared you my singing on this video though. It was taken by Mrs J on our way back from the shops earlier, in case you were wondering how I was able to drive and film at the same time.

Leeds Festival

A year ago we took G to her first festival, Green Man in south Wales. It was a fun weekend, and the festival itself was very family-friendly. There were lots of little Tarquins and Cressidas toddling about, while their parents sipped chai lattes. Sadly enough, we kind of fitted right in.

Back in the pre-baby days we used to go to Reading or Leeds most years, but I never thought we'd try to take G there, at least not until she's about 15 and we need to go to make sure she doesn't do anything too stupid involving gas canisters. But on Tuesday Mrs J said she'd acquired a couple of last-minute weekend tickets for Leeds through work. Having checked the typically miserable forecast, and debated whether or not to bother with the whole palaver, we decided we would, although the decision was made a lot easier by the fact we live close enough to the site to go in and out each day.

And so it was that on Friday afternoon, with Mrs J at work, I got all our stuff together and headed over to Leeds. Soon, me and G found ourselves at the main stage for Frank Turner:

The constant drizzle on Friday presented various problems. Not for G, but for me. I thought better of trying to use the pram and left it in the car, so I resorted to carrying her around everywhere so I didn't lose her in the developing quagmire. This meant that, after seeing a couple more bands, we left for the day, before my arms fell off.

But the next day, we returned, this time with Mrs J, and also with G's ear-defenders. This picture was taken during Frankie and the Heartstrings in the NME tent. My only comment about the band was that they sounded a bit like dungarees-period Dexy's Midnight Runners, which I realised made me sound all of my 29 years. Given that a large proportion of the crowd appeared to be celebrating their GCSE results, this was elderly indeed.

Having struggled around with the pram on Saturday, we opted to transport G in her back carrier on Sunday. This proved quite effective, although I had to stand at an angle to the stages so G could peer over my shoulder. Here we are during Yuck:

But I couldn't carry her all day. She is getting a bit big for her carrier, after all. When she inevitably wanted a snack, while watching the even-more-elderly-than-me Madness on the main stage, this is the scene that resulted:

Watching Madness generated a certain nostalgia in me, because House of Fun was number one the day I was born. I looked up what the number one record was on the day G was born, and discovered it was by someone called Taio Cruz, a man described by Wikipedia as a "singer-songwriter, record producer, occasional rapper, and entrepreneur." Yes, he sounds like a total bell end. I'll be frankly alarmed if I'm watching a festival set of his when G is 29, but you never know I suppose.

After Madness we decided to head home. G had spent most of three days entertaining festival goers by doing a lot of smiling and high-fiving, and she even learned how to do the rock hand signal. Not being a family festival, she was one of very few young children there, which made her something of a celebrity. This reached its logical conclusion on the Sunday afternoon when two over-excited girls bizarrely asked to have their photo taken with her. Should have charged them, really.

The whole thing left G rather exhausted. This was about five minutes into our journey back on Sunday evening:
Maybe we'll do it all again next year.

Trumpet

G has been to Saddleworth's Whit Friday walks and band contests before. But last year she was just a baby, and far too little to appreciate much of the music and pageantry (for what it's all about, you can read an article I wrote for The Guardian, yes that one, here).

This time was a bit different. At the age of almost 21 months, G was able to take in a lot more of what was going on around her, which particularly involved taking a close interest in the various doting older ladies she encountered during the day.

Also keeping G occupied, as shown in the photo taken during the morning Whit Friday service in our local village square, was a toy trumpet. Mrs J was late back from work on Thursday night because, she said, she simply had to stop by a well-known toy retailer and buy one. With brass bands coming and going all day, she correctly predicted that G would inevitably want to join in.

Given that some of the young children in the Dobcross Youth Band didn't look all that much older than G, it was easy to imagine that it might be her marching with them a few years from now. Much to my surprise, and even though G hasn't yet worked out that you only have to blow into the trumpet rather than put one end entirely in your mouth, the prospect of this filled me with pride.

I won't try to push her into it though. Well, maybe just a teeny bit.

Sitting Still

G isn't really old enough to be told to go to the naughty step when she throws a tantrum. But that's not been a problem so far. Not because she never misbehaves, but because she likes to go and sit on the bottom step of her own accord. Whether this is because she thinks it's a grown-up thing to do I'm not sure, but I reckon her ability to sit still is something worth encouraging.

So Mrs J came back from the shops the other day with a little chair for her to sit in. Today she perched herself in it and used the drumstick to bash away at the giant xylophone thing she likes to play with. The photo captures a moment when I interrupted her, and she decided to put the drumstick in her mouth and look straight at the camera. Poser.

Christmas Day

This was G's second Christmas. She's grown up a lot since last year, and was able to investigate her sack of presents for herself. She's also got the hang of the idea of taking the paper off her presents, but still needed a bit of help from me to fully get at all of her new toys.

In fact, because she still doesn't have much idea of what Christmas is and why it's incredibly exciting, G actually let me and Mrs J have a lie-in until 9am. That's something that I can't imagine we'll be able to do on Christmas Day for an awfully long time to come.

G also didn't complain as we soon dragged her away from her presents to go into our local village of Dobcross at lunchtime to check out the brass band's carol concert. As it has been for most of the last month, it was well below freezing even in the middle of the day. But under all her winter clothes, G didn't seem to mind too much.

There were quite a lot of families with young kids at the band club, many of them clutching various gadgets and other things they'd clearly unwrapped that morning. G was in the mood for showing off, and crawled all over the room smiling and gurgling. She even bumped into some of her little friends from one of the parent and baby groups I take her to. There was still no proper walking from her though.

G started to get tired so we took her back home for a nap while Mrs J cooked up Christmas dinner. Once G got up later we all sat down to eat. G had a bit of everything on her plate, and happily munched through just about all of it.

The only exception, predictably enough, were the sprouts. As soon as she put one of the little green things in her mouth she made a disgusted face and spat it out. Seeing as me and Mrs J both quite like sprouts, her dislike of them can't be genetic. Maybe we'll try them out on her again next year.

Busy Baby

G can't read yet, but she does have a few cardboard books, and she likes to sit and turn the pages. I caught her earlier staring intently at her Winnie the Pooh story about Kanga and Roo, particularly the page saying that wherever Kanga goes, Roo goes too. That could just as easily apply to us, because wherever I go, G has to come along as well.

And the two of us have been pretty busy this week, particularly yesterday. We went into Manchester for the day, and first I treated G to a trip to the Aquatics Centre so she could splash around in the toddlers' pool. Then we met Mrs J for lunch. And after that I pushed her up to the hotel where the In The City music conference has been taking place, so I could meet some friends.

I'd put G in her little Converse shoes so she could fit in a bit more easily with all the hipster music industry types. On the way she managed to be sick over them. As it turned out this actually helped her fit in even better, because there were quite a few hungover people still wearing the previous night's clothes strewn around the hotel bar. At least they were all old enough to know better.

G crawled around happily, playing peek-a-boo with random strangers and generally enjoying being the youngest person there by at least 20 years. I wondered whether the industry people thought she was some kind of music baby, such as Mick Jagger's latest love child. Or, as one of my friends suggested, the more likely option for a Manchester music event of a niece of a member of Doves. She was far too well-behaved to be a rock star baby though. Maybe if I take her again next year she'll have worked out how to throw a proper tantrum.

Her First Festival

So, the three of us made it through G's first music festival, the Green Man Festival in south Wales. As this picture suggests, G actually seemed to enjoy it a lot.

She certainly enjoyed it a whole lot more than seemed possible when we turned up on the Friday in the middle of a Biblical downpour. They always say that rain is the enemy of revolutions, but that's equally true for festivals. With mud all over the site and toddlers amsuing themselves by jumping around in alarmingly deep puddles, the early signs for keeping G amused didn't look good. But being the lazy, greedy baby she is, once we'd loaded her up on food and the rain had stopped, she was happy enough to snooze away in the pram while we watched the bands.

On the second night, while the Flaming Lips headlined, G started stirring and woke up. I thought we'd have to take her back to the tent, but instead she was happy to stay and watch, laughing and smiling at all the lights even though it was way past her bedtime. She probably would have preferred it if they'd played something off The Soft Bulletin, but I suppose G has to learn that you can't have everything.

In the end, the rain cleared away and Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day. This gave G the opportunity to crawl about and practice her improving walking skills. She now only needs to have you hold one of her hands at a time while she's walking, which means that by next year's festival she'll be able to go off and watch the bands she wants to. Or she could just splash around in the puddles, whichever she prefers.

Festival Fashion

It's often said that after you have a baby, you can't do all the things you used to. I'd refine that a little bit to say that while you can still do anything you like if you really want to, you can't do those things as often and you can't do them in the same way. One of the things me and Mrs J used to enjoy doing every summer was going to a music festival or two. Following a year off when Mrs J was heavily pregnant, we're getting back into it next week with a visit to the Green Man Festival in south Wales. G is coming too.

That bit about not doing things in quite the same way will definitely hold true. For a start we're going to what should be a much more low-key event than our more regular festivals of years gone by, such as Reading, Leeds and Glastonbury. And we can't really get away with drinking industrial quantities of cider all day, interspersed with regular naps, because we've got a little person to take care of. G, of course, is allowed naps, although the cider is still a few years off.

I'm not sure how camping with the wee one at a music festival is really going to work. It might all be a bit of a nightmare, especially if it rains and she can't sleep properly. But there's not much we can do about that until next weekend. In the meantime, we're amusing ourselves by getting G kitted out for her first festival experience. The photo above shows her in her new waterproof suit. We've also got some pink ear-defenders for her. She just needs some wellies, and she'll be good to go.

Long Wet Summer

Today was the last day of the school term. G isn't nearly old enough to be bothered by that, but it means that the parent and baby groups I take her to most weeks won't be running until September. So today was the last day of baby singing for the time being, and despite the heavy rain I pushed G along the canal to the place, getting pretty drenched in the process. It was worth it though, because as always G had a great time, gurgling along to all the nursery rhymes and stealing the other babies' toys.

Mrs J asked if I could get a CD of all the baby songs so I could play them to G over the summer, but I vetoed that. I've got a strict policy of quality music only in the house to help educate G, and besides, I'm not sure I fancy listening to nursery rhymes more than once a week. With the weather as grotty as it is, the combination of not being able to leave the house and having to repeatedly sing Hickory Dickory Dock to keep G entertained would be too much to take.

If G gets bored, I'd rather stick to my unashamedly trendy iTunes library and G's new activity cube. As the photo shows, that's doing the job for now.

Whit Friday

Today is Whit Friday. If that means nothing to you it's hardly surprising, because it's not exactly near the top of the league for big religious festivals these days. It's not even on the same level as Epiphany, let alone Easter.

Everywhere that is, except Saddleworth. Here Whit Friday is the biggest day of the year, with every village holding a Whit Walk and service in the morning, and then a brass band contest in the afternoon and evening. Why the tradition of celebrating Whit Friday has survived here and nowhere else is not exactly clear, but survived it has. And having moved into the area earlier this year, today was our first Whit Friday in Saddleworth.

With Mrs J off work, we took G up to the middle of our nearest village, Dobcross, in time for the service in the square at 10 o'clock. The picture at the top shows the Dobcross Silver Band marching in. The whole village seemed to be there, and after a few hymns and readings we all walked off behind the band down to Uppermill where bands and walkers from all over the area met for another service. Everyone gets a break now before the serious business of the contests begins later, accompanied by lots of drinking.

The Dobcross Youth Band were there this morning too, with some very junior members who didn't look all that much older than G. If we stay in this area, hopefully we'll be back in years to come to watch G all dressed up and wielding a trombone or something similar. She certainly seemed to enjoy her first experience of it.

I Never Love England More Than When Covered In Snow

Mrs J went back to work today. We agreed I'd take G down to the office to see her at lunchtime, which would give her something to look forward to if she found it a bit difficult leaving the wee one behind. But when we got up we found something a lot more exciting. It had snowed. A lot.

The picture above is the view from our flat window of the junction of Oldham Street and Dale Street, which is usually busy with plenty of buses. There wasn't much of that this morning though. A quick look at the terrace at the back of the flat demonstrated just how much snow had fallen overnight:

I'm from the north of Scotland so I'm used to a bit of snow, but I've never seen snow like this in the middle of a city like Manchester. Normally it's gone almost as soon as soon as it's fallen, but not today. Paying no attention whatsoever to those 'only go outside if it's really necessary' messages (snowy days are far too exciting to sit inside), I put G in her snowsuit and got her ready to go out:
Getting the pram through the snow was hard going. I thought I'd been sensible by putting a layer of thermals on, but a few minutes of trying to push G along the snowy pavements had me feeling pretty warm. Warm enough in fact to undo my coat, which got a few funny looks from what few passers-by there were.

Outside the Arndale Centre I saw some workers trying to clear the snow. Only they'd run out of grit, and it looked suspiciously like they were putting ordinary table salt on to the steps instead. I suppose it probably has the same effect, although if you discover the supermarkets have run out of Saxa then you'll know why. I pressed on and made it to Urbis for a coffee. Unsurprisingly, we were the only customers.

Afterwards we doubled back on ourselves, and I pushed G through the streets of the city centre. On a much-quieter-than-usual Market Street, people were waiting patiently for a tram, although there weren't many of those around either:

Eventually we made it to Mrs J's office, although G was fast asleep by this stage, and seemed far less excited about the reunion than her mum:

Perhaps when she realises that every day is now daddy-daughter day she might be less sanguine about the whole thing.

I decided to explore a bit more before taking G back home, and in Albert Square I happened upon a really big snowman that some people had built in front of the Town Hall. They'd even given him a penis, although I made sure I tastefully put the pram in front of it for this picture:

The Town Hall itself looked suitably wintry:

By now wishing someone would go on Dragon's Den with a snow plough attachment for prams, I pushed G back through the streets towards home. Being stuck in her snowsuit, G couldn't really move very much, so she just lay there and stared at me in silent contempt:

I thought I'd earned a treat for lunch so popped into Bread and Butter on Tib Street for a flatbread and (another) coffee. So ended our little adventure in the Manchester snow. It was surprisingly deep in places, although not bad enough to scupper our fun. However, I suspect the first time we get snowed in at our new home in Saddleworth it'll be a more serious business altogether.

(The title of this post comes from this song. I could have gone for this one, but I don't think it's aged terribly well.)

It's Your First Christmas, Baby

G enjoyed her first Christmas. Or at least she seemed to enjoy most of it, the inevitable bits of crying notwithstanding. The crying may have been down to early teething, a lack of sleep brought on by too much noise and excitement, or just sheer disappointment at the outcome of the Christmas chart battle. Yes, G (or, in a more real sense, I) was particularly upset that both this lovely seasonal song by Laura Marling and this very apt one by Boyracer failed to make any impact on the contest between Rage Against The Machine and the guy from X Factor. Ah well, there's always next year.

The photo above shows a bit of daddy-daughter playtime. This is my favourite game, and judging by her usual reaction, G gets a kick out of it too. I like to tell her she's flying and that this is all good training for her future career as an astronaut, but the best I ever get in return is a silly grin. I've been playing this game for her for two months without any problems, but literally seconds after this picture was taken all the excitement got a bit much for G and she was sick on my face. I'll still keep playing the astronaut game with her, although maybe I should start calling it 'vomit roulette' or something.

On Christmas morning Mrs J put G in a seasonal outfit and helped her with her presents. Predictably enough, G had a mountain of pressies that piled together was far bigger than her entire body. Also predictably, the shiny paper and tearing sounds held just as much interest for her as any of her new toys. In fact, as this picture below clearly demonstrates, she was actually more interested in one of the presents her daddy received:

Later on it was time for Christmas dinner, or Christmas lunch if you're a posh southerner (G is neither of these things). If she's awake when people are eating at the table, she usually starts whining until Mrs J picks G up and puts her on her lap so she can see what's going on. This isn't normally much of a problem, but Christmas dinner is a bit tricky to eat with just a fork, so I did my best to distract G with the hat from one of the crackers, to her obvious delight:

Inevitably, shortly after this picture was taken G started making her 'I'm bored down here' noises and I had to cut Mrs J's turkey and roasties into bite-sized pieces for her. But other than that and a bit of her typical evening crying, G was pretty well-behaved throughout Christmas. She even slept happily through the night every night, allowing the rest of us to get on with the serious business of cracking open the Christmas booze, eating too many chocolates and staring in a daze at the telly. Something tells me that G won't be quite so accommodating and easygoing next year. Or any of the dozen years after that.

Chinatown

G's grandad is staying with us in Manchester this week, and Mrs J is helping him re-do our bathroom. So for the second day in a row I took G out for a few hours to let them get on with it, and to make sure she didn't get too disturbed by all the clattering and banging.

I decided to push her around town for a bit to get her off to sleep, and once she'd drifted off we ended up in the Wong Wong bakery in Chinatown. The picture is of my nutritious lunch, consisting of a deep fried spicy beef doughnut-type thing (interesting), a red bean and banana cake (amazing) and a cup of Hong Kong tea (dodgy). The tea tasted like English tea that had been left out to stew for a couple of hours, before being reheated in the microwave. I texted a friend who has lived in China to ask him about Chinese tea, and he replied that, although there are some good ones, in his opinion it's often pretty rubbish. I'd have thought that with so much tea coming from China, that they'd have a decent idea of how to brew it up. But apparently not. Maybe it's an acquired taste, which I haven't yet acquired.

Last night, Mrs J's dad babysat for us so we could have our first night out together since G was born. We didn't go far, just round the corner to the newly-renovated Band On The Wall to see Thea Gilmore, who's currently plugging her new Christmas album. It was a great show, and the highlight was probably the sight of Mark Radcliffe (yes, that one) shambling onto stage with a pint in his hand for a couple of duets, including a good go at Fairytale of New York. Incredibly, it's the first time I've heard it this year. No doubt I'll hear the original version plenty of times between now and the 25th, whether I like it or not.

I Love The Smell Of Calpol In The Morning

After a few days of angelic behaviour, with plenty of smiles and gurgles, G has been restless and grouchy all weekend. It's not that she won't go to sleep at all, but she's finding it hard to settle down properly, and is constantly waking up to whine and cry. This is a bit annoying.

What it means is that, after briefly getting to the stage where we were just about going to bed at the same time, Mrs J and me are back on opposite shifts. Mornings for her, nights for me. It's now the early hours of Monday morning, so Mrs J is asleep and I'm up with the little one. I don't actually mind doing it on this night of the week, because there's a live American football game to keep me entertained during the all-too-fleeting occasions when G does manage to drift off (the NFL is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, along with rhubarb and custard sweets and jangly Scottish guitar band Del Amitri). I've managed to capture one of those snoozy moments in the picture above.

One reason why G may be asleep for the time being is that I've dosed her up on some of the good stuff, Calpol. I don't want you to think I've just given her some drugs because I can't think of anything else to do that will get her to sleep. Oh no, that is absolutely not the reason. The thing is, I've had a bit of a sore throat all day, and was wondering whether G might have one too, which could be the thing keeping her from settling down. So basically I had no choice but to give her some Calpol. That's it. That's the only reason.

Actually giving her the stuff took me back years. To be precise, it took me back to when I was four, and I spent three months at home with a shocking case of whooping cough that kept me and my long-suffering mum up for night after night. I'd forgotten all about that sickly sweet smell that wafts out when you open the bottle. I'm sure I'll get plenty of chances to reacquaint myself with it before long.

In Praise Of Urbis

Mrs J has gone away to a hen party, which makes today my first full day home alone with G. So I decided to take her out to another of Manchester's museums. A friend is up from London and wanted to see the new exhibitions on UK hip hop and the history of TV in the north-west currently on at Urbis, so all three of us went along. Both of the exhibitions were particularly good, with lots of interesting archive stuff to see. I was particularly taken with all of the vintage Granada programmes being shown in the TV exhibition, although amidst all the eulogising about the wonder of Manchester's TV history there was sadly no mention of Granada Men and Motors and the short-lived show presented by Vanilla Ice and Jordan. Can't think why.

G wasn't quite so impressed, in fact she slept the whole time, which at least meant we could take in everything at our leisure. As you can see, the photo above shows G completely ignoring a collection of hip hop magazine covers. Don't let her verdict put you off though, both of the exhibitions are on until the spring and I'd recommend each of them if you get the chance to go. In fact there are plenty of good reasons to visit Urbis anytime, including the beautiful building itself, the family-friendly cafe, and the fact that it is free, which you don't have to be Scottish to approve of. After a controversial start to its existence back in 2002, Urbis has now become of the best things about Manchester.

However, it looks like things are going to change. The trustees of the National Football Museum in Preston want to move it to Urbis, and they will probably get their wish. Basically not enough people visit the museum at its current location, so it loses money. The people who run it reckon they could get four times as many folk through the doors if it were housed at Urbis. No doubt they're right, and if there's going to be a football museum anywhere it may as well be in Manchester. But if Urbis fills up with balls and caps and scarves, there won't be much space left for the sort of exhibitions I went to see today. More's the pity.

Too Young

I managed to get out for a couple of hours last night to go to a gig down at the uni. It was Phoenix, with support by Chairlift. It was a shame Mrs J had to stay in with G, because as a former bass player she would have appreciated the fact the bass parts for both bands were really high in the sound mix. Overall, Chairlift were a bit ropey but Phoenix sounded amazing. They're so good they almost make me want to be French. Almost.

I got home to find Mrs J had been getting some photos she'd taken of G recently off her posh camera (the pictures on this site are generally ones I've taken on a little point and shoot camera, this being all my limited technical knowledge can realistically stretch to). I like the one above the best. Not sure what she's celebrating though, perhaps the fact that daddy was still in bed asleep when it was taken. She certainly doesn't look particularly happy to be hanging out with me in the one below. Maybe she's trying to tell me something.