Political nobbers

The set is complete, chock full of total dweebs.

Never before has a Blackadder quote been more appropriate.

'I say, Blackadder, are you sure this is the PM? Seems more like an oily tick to me. When I was at school, we used to line up four or five of his sort, make 'em bend over, and use 'em as a toast rack'

Oily little ticks indeed.

All in their early forties and and all have done virtually fuck all other than be politicians. Apart from Ed of course, silly me, he was 'briefly' a television journalist. Ed and Dave have PPE degrees, normally the realm of those who go to Oxbridge with the sole intention of getting a Blue, rather than furthering their education. Nick has a degree in Social Anthropology whatever that is, and yet they all claim to be in touch with us.

Ed looks like an extra from 'Inbetweeners', Nick appears to be scurrying around Westminster like a newly appointed school prefect, dishing out lines to all and sundry as he relishes in his newly found power. I'm not really sure what the new head boy Dave does, I'm not sure he knows either.

Never before have we had such a collective bunch of dorks in Westminster. Can't wait to see Ed get his buns toasted by those naughty rough boys from the Unions. 'Oi Milliband, give us your lunch money, you know you said you would'

Progress

Another post about Boy 2, but it is a very dominant factor in our lives at the moment.

After a very long time when we thought we were banging our heads against a brick wall, it is truly remarkable how quickly things spring into action once the diagnosis of ADHD was made.

It's all rather daunting, (for us as parents) so goodness knows how he's going to feel about it. It's very difficult to know exactly what is right, and what is wrong, all we are doing is taking on board professional advice and trying to make the best decisions for him.

We've decided not to medicate him, against the advice of the pediatrician, only time will tell if we've done the right thing. We have done as much research as we can, and ultimately have come to the decision that we are not prepared to accept the potential risks of the side effects. He is our seven year old child, and we must do what we feel is the best for him.

We have instead, opted for behavioural therapy, and he has been referred to see a clinical psychologist. They will help him try to understand his behaviour, and help us with coping strategies.

He is going to be removed from the village school for a six week period and placed in a Pupil Referral Unit, where they will work with him to develop his classroom control to allow him to remain in mainstream education, which he is entitled to do. We are going to visit the school shortly, but their latest Ofsted report has given us a lot of hope.

I know that everything I've written seems very matter of fact, but that's the only way I can deal with it. A lot of the time, I have no idea of how his mind is working, and I cannot imagine how difficult this process is going to be for him, but constantly try to reassure myself that we are making the right choices for him.

I just want him to be happy.

Autumn blues

I don't like this time of year. Summer has gone, and the gloom of dark evenings looms.

I haven't posted about the end of our summer (more about why later) but we had three great camping weekends despite the weather. Good times with wonderful friends. Particularly memorable was seeing The Flaming Lips at The Green man Festival. Fabulously bonkers and the best live act I've seen.

My legal battle with the fuckwit company who decided not to pay my management fees rumbles on, and continues to cost a crazy amount in fees. I'm hoping to progress to mediation, but my usual cynical nature kicks in when yet another bill arrives. It's very much brought me down. It's made me anxious, I've lost weight, and I'm finding hard to concentrate on all the other aspects of my work. Thankfully, I've not hit the booze (having been down that route before) but it's been, and continues to be a thoroughly unpleasant episode in my life.

The general mood is not improved with the ongoing situation with Boy 2, although there has been progress. He's been diagnosed with ADHD, but I'm not convinced, and feel that they need to explore the possibility of Asperger's in greater detail. He's struggling at school, and continues to pretty much hate it. The immediate suggestion has been medication, but I am not convinced by both the long and short term effects of the drugs commonly used.

He can be a very difficult child, but he is also a very loving and talented little chap, who is having a very hard time. He's only seven, and it's sometimes very difficult to be a father and see the son you adore struggling with life at such a tender age.

On a more positive note, Boy 1 has started middle school and is on cloud nine. He loves it. He's been placed in the top set for all subjects, which he has worked hard to achieve. We're very proud of him, and very relieved that he's made the transition to 'big school' so smoothly and with such obvious enjoyment.

Thrills, spills, and camping

Yesterday, the hooligans and I pootled down to Monmouth with our bikes and cycled along the Peregrine Path which follows the River Wye from Monmouth to Symonds Yat.

The weather was good, and it was a great ride, with wonderful scenery. We picnicked on the way, grabbed an ice cream in Symonds Yat, and turned around for the return journey.

Boy 2 insisted on weaving at speed on the gravel track, despite my repeated warnings that at some point he was going to come a cropper, and it would hurt. As with much of Boy 2's life, he learnt the hard way, and over the handlebars he went in spectacular fashion. He was bloody lucky, not that he thought it at the time. I whipped out the first aid kit (pretty much goes everywhere with us with our deathwish offspring) and started cleaning him up. Gashed chin, cut hands, not too bad.

He proceeded to howl the Wye Valley down, screaming for his Mum, hospital, and bizarrely, a lifeboat. My efforts to calm him down were largely unsuccessful, leading to Boy 1 to declare. 'I'm off, I'll meet you at the next corner, you two look mental, and I don't want people, to think we're related.' Off he went shaking his head and I'm sure I heard him mutter 'Lifeboat? Nutter'

Cheers.

The next two weekends will be tent based and we have finally upgraded our faithful four man job, too a rather natty new one with three sleeping compartments. Oh, the luxury, and it was end of line and cost very little.

This weekend with friends for a chums birthday party in mid Wales, and next weekend with another group of friends at the Green Man Festival. I'm very much looking forward to both. Let's hope for some decent weather.

Yay! Talktalk, finally sorted

After six months of phone calls, the email sent below finally solicited a response which resolved the situation.

But they told me off for swearing.

An incident was created in RightNow:

Subject: Billing

Contact Data:

First name: Gumpher

Last name

Email: @hotmail.co.uk

Mobile Phone:

Home Phone:

Office Phone:

Incident Data:

Question:

Customer: Gumpher at 2010-08-01 22:58:26

I cannot access my account, as despite phoning you every month for the past

six months, you have consistently been unable to recognise that my email

address is @hotmail.co.uk, not 1@hotmail.co.uk.

Each time I have phoned, the person on the end of the call has assured me

that the problem has been rectified, yet each time it has not.

I cannot access my bills. Until I see a bank statement, I do not know how

much you are charging me.

This situation has now gone beyond annoying, and descended into customer

service of such shite proportions that it is simply farcical.

Are you capable of getting this right? What do I have to do to make you

get it right? Why did some fool at your end change my email address? It's

been the same for years. @hotmail.co.uk, NOT fucking

1@hotmail.co.uk.

I await your reply, but suspect that there are chimps in zoos who could

help me more.

Go on, give it a whirl, otherwise I'm going to BT,and you can stick your

contract up your arse, as a contract is a two way thing.

Incident ID: 5824267

Incident reference: 100801-001615

Incident Subject: Billing

Back again

We swam in the surf on near empty beaches.

We caught lots of crabs.

We ate grilled sardines and fried eels.

We had ice cream every day.

We drank near frozen Sagres and cheap cold red wine.

We all read.

We did an awful lot of not a lot at all.

We all rather enjoyed it.

I'm out of here

We're off to take life at a slower pace.

Sadly, just for a week.

This is about as busy as it gets.

Joy.

Why bother?

So a few terror suspects get slapped about whilst British intelligence services are present.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/politics/10521326.stm

Big fucking deal.

They're not trying to learn how to walk again with no legs, or trying to put their lives back together simply because they happened to be on a random London bus or tube carriage.

Do fuck off.

Really.

The wisdom of HMR &C part 2

So, I paid the fine, as by only allowing me twenty fours hours from receipt of notification, I had little choice.

Opened the post this morning, another HMR&C envelope, oh joy.

Enclosed was a cheque. A refund on the fine. For £3.18. If the Nick and Dave show want a few pointers on how to make departmental savings I'd be only too happy to assist.

The fuckwit spaniel

Is feeling very sorry for herself.

She was charging around a friend's garden (Nicki Nipples, so called due to her perfect, expensive fake breasts) with her spaniel chum Wilburt ( what you call a dog when you have expensive, fake breasts) when she ripped a claw out.

Blood everywhere, and a swift trip to the vets to remove the rest of it. Boy one was at NN's playing with her lad after school ,and she sent him back with an envelope with the claw, which she'd found, a dog treat, and one pound for the claw fairy !

Lead only walks for ten days, oh joy.

Round the Island Race

Velsheda appearing at dawn
The fleet

What a fantastic weekend.

Headed off to Port Solent on Thursday to pick up our boat, a Jenneau 37. By the time we'd shopped, sorted out and sat down to eat surrounded by the other seventy Sunsail charters it was around ten. I knew six of the eight crew, as it was a 'village' boat, a tradition which goes back a while and we were racing against another crew from the village who had hired the same type of boat. Of the eight crew I knew six, and of the other two, one was very good company, and the other a bit of a cock.

Suitably hungover, the next day we sailed to Cowes and had a bit of a practice. Not much wind and bloody hot, shorts and tee shirt stuff. My chum who had organized the trip had pulled a blinder, and our berth was bang outside the Cowes Yacht Haven, with easy access to the showers and shitters. ( Taking a dump on an eight berth boat after a chilli the night before is not thought to be socially acceptable).

In the evening, some went to watch the footie on the big screen in the marina, whilst not being English or particularly enjoying football, I was happy to chew the fat and cook my mean Thai yellow (chilli, Thai curry, not nice to shit onboard, see our mistake?)

We then had to get up at half past fucking three in the morning to make our start time of 0520. The starts are staggered at ten minute intervals according to class, and I was not that fussed as we would be able to see the Maxiyachts going off first from our holding area. We were bumbling around, supping a last coffee before thinking about our start when the most beautiful sight appeared through the soft orange of the dawn. The J class Velsheda at full tilt. What a vision. Apologies for geekiness, but this alone made my weekend, and my piss poor photography doesn't do her justice.

In all we took around nine and a half hours to complete the race and finished a shameful fifth from bottom in our class, losing to the other village boat by fourteen minutes in the process. But what a sail, gusting up to twenty three knots, full wets on all day, but with glorious sunshine. Everywhere you looked were sails.

We berthed up and seriously beered, and then met our victorious chums in a very good prebooked ( imagine the crowds, Phil's organization was superb) Italian restaurant, followed by a great little pub, and then a bad trip down a bottle of gin back at the boat.

The trip back to Port Solent after a dodgy full English was a quiet one.

A cracking long weekend, and I'm signed up for next year.

Quickie

Must get a post with pics up about the island race, had a wonderful time but bloody knackered after getting up at 0330 to get to the start line.

Taking another skive tomorrow, a mate has just offered me a corporate freebie to the one day international in Cardiff. Corporate tickets in sport are a bad thing...........................................

Until you get offered them!.

Note to self, stop doing fun stuff and get on with some work you bloody slacker.

Bits and pieces

We went to a Help for Heroes event on Sunday and all had an excellent time.

There was an airshow with Tornadoes, a Sea King, a Spifire, brilliant.

The Army had loads of tanks and assorted vehicles which they were quite happy for us to clamber in and out of, and even showed the boys how to operate some of electronic gizmos.

The police had a great display of vehicles and put on a cracking fake armed robbery with the dog team and firearms officers.

It was a great day out, and hopefully raised a lot of money. Everyone gave their time for free with one glaring exception who charged the organisers for the use of the disused airfield where it was held.

The Ministry of Defence. Simply staggering.

As the oil leak rumbles on we see American politicians fight to be a the front of the queue to hammer BP. If, as it would appear, that BP are culpable, then they must be held to account and pay. The same politicians would be mindful to remember a company called Union Carbide and what happened, and continues to happen in Bhopal twenty six years after the event. I hope BP do not follow Union Carbide's example in dealing with coorporate disaster.

Right, I'm off to pack my bestest sailing gear in preparation to race around the Isle of Wight. Nearly 1800 entries, should be quite a spectacle. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the J class yacht 'Velsheda'' racing, which is quite possibly the most beautiful object ever designed and built by man.

The wisdom of HMR & C

Today I received a letter from HMR &C stating that my corporation tax return for, wait for it 2006, yes 2006, had been filed late and that there was a penalty 0f £204.26 to pay.

I was fairly sure that this was bollocks, as I am anal regarding my tax affairs, so I rang them to chew the fat.

Despite my protests, they insisted it was payable and guess how long they gave me to pay before taking legal action?

Twenty four hours.

After waiting four years to notify me, they want to be paid within twenty four hours of receiving notification. I can't even clarify it with my accountant in that timeframe.

There is no point in even attempting to convince the droid at the other end of the phone line that in the real world (the one outside of the civil fucking service) this would not be considered in any way reasonable.

Cocksucking fuckwombles the lot of them.

The life and times of Boy 2

Those who have been following my turgid output over the last few years may recall the occasional mention of the behavior of Boy 2, sometimes written in a jocular fashion, sometimes not.

This may go on for some time, so give up now if you like, I'm sort of using it as a bit of a release.

Boy 2 has always been a bit different. His development as an infant was very quick. He crawled, walked, spoke and read at very early stages, and we always had to have eyes in the back of our head, as he was constantly on the go.

He went to a private nursery for one day a week, mainly to give A a breather, and to the village toddler group. From there he went to the village playgroup, and to prepare him for the structure of school, a Montessori school. The two years he had there were excellent, but the principal made us fully aware that we could have problems when he entered mainstream school, and prepared an extensive report for the school.

Without being consciously aware of what we were doing, we had coping strategies in place at home for his behavior. We never thought of them as such, just parents putting in controls to cope with a boy with extraordinarily high energy levels.

When he started school, he was a year ahead of the expected levels, now he is coming to the end of year two, he is now average or below.

It was at the end of the first year that the school first made us aware of their concerns. we had every confidence in the headteacher and have always from day one worked closely with the school. She is no longer there, and we are increasingly losing faith in the abilities of the new head.

He was being hugely disruptive in class, and had a problem in controlling his movement, and also rejected authority. He also had little concern for being disciplined in any way.

I can feel the 'he's a naughty little shit' thoughts coming here. 'Why don't you get your child to behave?' He has an elder brother who has been brought up within the same family environment. Boy 1 is a house captain and a school prefect, and is hugely respected by both the teaching staff and his peer group.

The only response seemed to be to remove him from the class. We understood why they had to do this. There was often no classroom assistant, and there was after all, a whole class of children to be taught, and the teacher's attention could not be solely taken by Boy2. He would often be sent to Boy1's class, who would be mortified by yet another appearance from his 'naughty' brother. We have asked time and time again for him not to be sent Boy1's class if he is removed, but two years on, they did it again on Monday.

At the end of the first year, we agreed for the school to ask for assistance from the behaviour support team (BST), and for him to be assessed by an educational psychologist. The head teacher is the school SEN coordinator, and despite sixteen years teaching experience, did not know what to do next.

The initial reports shocked us. They spoke of 'stress related behavioural patterns', a 'lack of self esteem', 'unable to regulate his feelings or emotions', 'difficulty in engaging'. I have to admit that as we read and re read them we both become very emotional, was this really what was going on inside our little boys head?

These sessions have been ongoing since last year, and there have been mixed results. The BST and ed psyc have put forward a number of strategies, some which have been implemented, some not, and indeed the validity of some questioned by the head teacher. He has developed a good relationship with one particular teacher from the BST who regularly observes him, and her reports make interesting reading, as she his built a relationship of trust with him.

Early in last term, one unpleasant incident ended up having the best results. We had a telephone call from the head, she had the chair of the governors with her. They were going to act on complaints they had received from seven parents regarding our son's behaviour in class. He would be removed from the classroom for most of the morning and taught on a one to one basis, He would be back in the classroom for the remainder of the day.

We were very unhappy with this course of action being taken without our consultation. Bear in mind for the past eighteen months I have effectively taken Friday afternoons off for the past eighteen months to have weekly review meetings with the head and his teacher. We had always been very supportive as we were all working to the same end, and thought we should have been consulted. The other unsavoury thought was that we would know these people, it's only a small village school. This whole episode has taken us through a whole gamut of emotions, and rightly or wrongly, anger was the one present at this time.

So, in consultation with BST, an individual timetable was prepared.More paperwork, by this stage he had already been within a CAF, and moved onto a PSP. It all worked like a dream. At this time we were fortunate to have a fully qualified teacher as a classroom assistant, and she took him for the one to one. He had frequent 'brain breaks' both inside and out, and had various 'fiddle objects'. He was also allowed to work standing up, which seems to agree with him. The improvement in his behaviour was amazing, and he was much happier at school.

At the same time we were on a waiting list to see a clinical psychologist, at the recommendation of the educational psychologist . The education department do not communicate with the health department in these circumstances, and the onus is on you as a parent to drive it forward.

So, the start of this term. The school has lost funding for the full time classroom assistant, and to our frustration (but much as we feared) he has regressed. His class had SATs two weeks ago. Could someone please explain to me why on earth we need to test seven year old children, as I really have no fucking clue. He had got himself into a bit of a state about the tests and was removed from the class on the first morning. So, a seven year old child, who in their words, not mine, has a problem with anxiety and self esteem is left on his own in a corridor to complete an examination.

I was livid. Why had they not requested support from the BST when they had always made it clear it was available? My wife offered to monitor him in school during the SATS, but luckily the BST came up trumps and he completed the week.

We finally saw a clinical psychologist this week. Fortunately we had taken all of the correspondence and reports from the past few years, as no one had had the foresight to send them to her. She could offer us little advice on coping at home as she told us that we had already implemented the coping strategies for the home that they would suggest. We just thought it was a common sense approach to dealing with a very energetic child, structure. Basically, what is going to happen is that the education professionals and health professionals are going to start to speak to other, and we are going to see some progress with knowing more about what goes on in his mind and how best to help him.

Which is a relief. All too frequently we have seen our loving, tactile and generous little boy reduced to a bundle of frustrated misery.

He is a wonderful athlete, with fantastic hand/eye/ball coordination, but has been excluded from after school rugby, football and tennis clubs, despite excelling in the out of school clubs he attends.

It's been very hard for us to watch him go through this, and of course there have been frequent occasions when we have questioned ourselves.

I love him more than words can describe, and I'm also very proud of him.

Ranty stuff

Boy oh boy oh boy.

Arseholes who use spray deodorant in the tiny squash club changing rooms.

There is no such thing as 'The Lynx factor', get some roll on.

When I come into the changing rooms gagging for oxygen, and then I get a deep bite of cfc in the lungs and the nose I simply want to kill you.

Talk talk, it's been said before, but once again, you are so cunty.

Triton showers. Don't sell products that don't work, and then quote a nine day response time to a guarantee issue.

But most of all, my wife's cousin's husband. A bit of a long trail, I know, but you cunt. You are a fat sweaty twat, and your wife is wonderful, as are your kids.

But still, you've fucked some young little slapper from your office.

Sometimes, I lose my faith in human nature.

I am really angry about this, and quite frankly, I just want to twat him, which is not my general outlook.


Seriously, this guy is fat, sweaty and has a face like a pushed in bag of shit.

His wife is not only a little cutie, but is also a wonderful person.

Apparently, it was an internet thing.

Bits of blurb

I must get around to putting up the Cornwall pictures, we all had a wonderful time.

I'm going to indulge in some shameless proud Dad stuff. The boys had their annual rugby presentation award dinner the other week. It's a great night, there's over two hundred kids from the under 7's to the under 17's all spruced up in their club ties, and we always have a couple of top players to present the awards, this year Nicky Robinson, Gloucester and Wales and Adam Eustace,Gloucester.

Both boys won 'Most promising player' in their respective age categories, and had their picture taken with Nicky and Adam. Proud doesn't even come close to describing how I felt.

Not quite sure what I make of the Dave and Nick double act, but I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, and hope that they can make a go of it. I'm not keen on Osbourne's appointment as Chancellor, oily little tick. Liam Fox at defence doesn't inspire confidence. Apparently he once porked Natalie Imbruglia, so not is he only a twat, but a particularly jammy twat. If I'd known her standards were so low, I would have had a go myself!

Sanity break

We're off again, this time to Cornwall, to the little town that was always my family's home base, despite all of our travelling.

My Mum sold the house about eight years ago, and this will be our first trip since. I'm very much looking forward to going back there with my boys. C can't remember it, and J's never been. We've got a little two up two down cottage in the town centre. Plenty of walking, plenty of rock pooling, and plenty of crabbing.

The boys' school is closed on Friday due to a teacher training day, so we'll clear off early in the morning.

I'm glad to be buggering off again. Work is difficult. I'm involved in a legal dispute with a contractor over unpaid fees, a lot of unpaid fees, and I'm finding it hard to focus on anything else.

A bit of sea air will help clear the mind.

Profile changes

Necessary as I am no longer 41.

42 today.

Oh well, at least it's a beautiful day.

My Mum's coming up tonight for a few days, and we'll all have dinner together, which I shall be cooking. I trust an Italian fish stew to no-one but me.

It will be great to see Mum, although she doesn't live far away, a lot of her time recently has been taken up looking after my Grandfather, who is now very elderly, and has had a spell of bad health.
She's going to look after the hooligans tomorrow night, and we're going out to dinner with a few friends.

It's very quiet at Gumpher Towers as boy 1 is at an outward bound centre with school for a few days. As we were packing his stuff the other night, he told me not to worry about shampoo and shower gel, as he didn't bother showering when they went last year. Stinky little sod.

So the plan for the day is to fire through a bit of work and get home. It's too bloody nice to be stuck inside an office, birthday or not

Tagged

I have been tagged by http://www.blogger.com/profile/08481107164497582398 DJ Aspey to complete the following, and I think it is a tad tricky, to tell six truths and one lie about yourself.

I'll give it a whirl.

1. I have travelled to thirty one countries,and have lived on three different continents. Only eight of these countries are in Europe.

2. At the age of sixteen, I was the Welsh trampolining champion, and came third in the national championships.

3. I can kick a ball with both feet. When playing cricket, I bat right handed and bowl left handed. I can play racquet sports with both hands, but if you ask me to throw a ball right handed, I will throw like a girl. I write left handed, and cannot even grasp a pen in my right hand.

4. I have a 2:1 in Economics and Political Studies.

5. I learned to windsurf at an early age. It's like riding a bike. Whenever we go on holiday and I hire one, my boys are amazed that Dad can actually do that.

6. My second toe is longer than my big toe, on both feet. It looks very odd in flip flops.

7. My father died when I was fourteen months old.