Screamglish  [screen-glish]

Becomming a dad again!

This little bundle arrived on Jan 19th…

Normal service should will be resumed soon.

When I got home last night the mommy human had a big pot of past and sauce sitting on the stove ready for me to tuck in. Yummy!

Being Irish, I decided the best way to consume said pasta was to put it in a sandwich. We’ll put anything in a sandwich be it crisps, ketchup, banana or onions.

I took a big bite of the sandwich whilst anticipating the taste explosion that was about to occur in my mouth. Instead the pasta that just happened to be hotter than the sun hit the back of my throat and caused me the most excruciating pain imaginable.

Today, my voice sounds like I am a frog and my god it hurts. I did a stupid.

You may have noticed a lot of new posts suddenly appearing. That’s because I have decided to close down an old blog and merge the posts in to this one.

My old blog was called Gentastic and it dealt with man issues, in particular how to be a gentleman. I haven’t updated it in yonks, mostly due to time constraints and my creative juices on the subject matter running dry due to the monkey being foremost on my mind.

The subject matter of Gentastic does tie in nicely with the subject matter of this blog. Namely, how to be a better man and with that, a better father. So this seemed like a good place for all those old posts to live. I hope you enjoy them.

PS There will be broken links and images not displaying properly. Sorry about that. I’ll get them fixed, eventually.

It may be a few weeks away, but we we are already thinking about Hallowe’en. The monkey needs to be dressed up twice – once for his creches big sponsored dress up day on the 29th and again on Halowe’en itself.

We bought him a giraffe costume, because he really likes giraffes. He got to feed one at the South Lakes Wild Animal Park in Cumbria during the summer and he was rather taken with the whole experience.

But we only wan to the giraffe costume once – for Halowe’en itself. It well made and good from going door to door. For his creche dress up day, we have yet to decide what he will wear.

I quite like the idea of dressing him up as a member of Kraftwerk as featured on the cover of their seminal album ‘The Man Machine’.  Oddly, my wife isn’t too keen on that idea, no idea why.

I am a toddler, do do be do.

As for getting the house ready, well, we did have plans. We have a huge backyard that has lots of big trees and bushes. This is unusual for a home in space constrained central Dublin. We had considered turning it in to a scary wood for Hallowe’em, complete with gravestones, dry ice, and hanging skeletons. But, we just don’t have the time. Ah well, there is always next year.

Myself, I’m dressing up as Brian Blessed!

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Some of you may be aware of The New Sheridan Club, a rather nice bunch of London based folk who meet up every month or so to have a good time whilst dressed in their best nostalgic finery. I have been a member for sometime, but being resident in Dublin means I can never attend any of their events.

So I have decided to try and replicate it here in Dublin.

Allow me to present The Annora Society, a Dublin based club for people who care about traditional style and being well mannered. If you think tweed is the ultimate fashion fabric, love wearing hats and are very particular about how your Martini should be served, this might just be the club for you.

Our inaugural meeting will be held on the 16th February 2011 at The Long stone Pub at 7:30pm. Look for the people in tweed.

If you would like to know more about the society, please have a dander over to our website for more details

We hope to see you there.

..I know I’m having image problems. All will be put right tomorrow. Please accept my apologies.

Happy New Year One and All!

I have to admit I’ve been  rather negelectful of this blog as of late. That is a consequence of being the father of a very energetic toddler. Time for me is something of a luxury right now.

But that is soemthing I intend to change.

I have two new years resulotions for 2011 – lose some weight and blog more.

This leads me on to make some some comments on the whole new years resolution thing. The fact is that most resolutions prove themselves to be nothing more than aspirations. We all say we want to lose weight, stop smoking or drink less and we do, for maybe a week. Then we find ourselves reverting to our old ways.

So just how do we keep our resolutions? I’ve been doing some reading up on some strategies and I have come to one conclusion – less is more.

Pick just one resolution that you know you are capable of achieving and work on it hard as you can.

You have to be practical. For example saying you want to lose 3 stones by April is not being practical. Most people will not be able to achieve such lofty goals. Saying you want to lose a few pounds each month untill you are at your ideal weight is a more realistic strategy that is more likely to succeed.

By working on achieving your goal as hard as you can you are more likely to turn it in to a good habit that stays with you forever. The more you work on it, the greater the chances that it will become part of you daily routine.

In short, be reailistic and focus.

I’d also like to add that you don’t have to start your resolutions on January 1st. Leaving it for a week or two can sometimes help you by allowing you to integrate your resolution activities in to your regular daily routine. It’s hard to focus on a resolution when you have a new years day hangover.

Site News…

I know I have gone against my own advice by adoptiong two new years resolutions – losing weight and working on this site, but I think I can get away with it.

I’m going to be adding more content to the site over the next few months.I have also lined up some great guest authors to help me out too. I’m even planning to start producing podcasts featuring talks on gentlemanly issues and some great classic music.

Keep checking back for more new content over the coming weeks and months, I know you’re going to enjoy it.

Robert

…yep I’ve been busy.

But new contest will arrive soon. So please keep checking by or subscribe to the RSS feed.