Moolies

Badzelda's up the duff

...and revealed her new monkey (ie: 12 week scan) to friends today. Meanwhile, Katie's nearly due, and Lotti should have had hers already but hasn't. Then there's Alistair's twins and Alex's.... second, that's right.

Haddock is turning in to a veritable baby festival.

(secret)Hurrah!(/)

Oh, and my friend Fraser, who is a painter (of which, more later) and obviously Anna his missus are also due around now, so we will be going over there with a big bowl of pasta sauce, quick cook pasta and lovely pudding soon after the birth to give them a break.

Mick Jones has a new band

Called Carbon/Silicon with tony James from Sigue Sigue sputnik. I have little doubt that it'll be vaguely disappointing, yet I will of course purchase it.

I love Mick Jones. I mean I really do. I always felt warmer toward him in The Clash that the slightly inpenetrable passionate stance of Joe Strummer. It was Mick Jones who sang, as he says here in this interview, Lost inthe Supermarket" aswell as "Stay Free" and others which seemed to be the more 'kitechen sink' type Clash songs: slightly (!) sentimental and romantic views of working class teenagerhood in a changing London. I will always remember that The Clash were still going with the whole crew (although I think Topper Headon wasn't drumming) when I was 12, which was the year that Owen was allowed to go and see his first gig. I, being a girl, had to wait utnil I was 14, and even then I could only go with Owen.

So I missed seeing The Clash, but to makeup for it I saw B.A.D. an enormous amount, and it was them (as well as The Clash) that really broadened my music taste. Their support acts in the early days tended to be rap, and they rocked the house - the London Posse, Whodini, it was like a masterclass in good hip hop. And then then, the good natured big brothers came to the stage in Don Letts, Leo "Eazee-kill" Williams, Dan Donovan, Mick Jones and the other bloke. They used to do "1999" as an encore which I just came over since it was a complete validation to my sceptical brother of how utterly fantastic Prince was (although I never really convinced him until he, like everyone else realised that "Parade" kisses the higher atmosphere of brilliance).

Anyway. Listening to BAD now it's really not that good apart from the first and bits of the second album, but neverthless, I had my red B.A.D. baseball cap for years, and when Jones nearly died and spent weeks in hospital with, I think itwas Meningitis or Encephalitis, I phoned CBS a few times and got through to their press office to see if they knew how he was.

Good luck with the new band, Mick!

*Yawn*

The cold still hasn't gone. It has mutated into a wracking cough that will not shake itself from Nora or me. Hence, 3 and 4am wakeup calls every day ths week.

And this week, I went back to work! Oh joy. Sleep deprivation and broken sleep is, I think you'll find, the kind of technique they use on, say, Guantanomo Bay prisoners.

So. We have now stopped expressing out the late feeds with the hope that her solid meals will make up for those extra top-uppy bits and pieces (difficult to tell since we didn't eat properly for about 4 days at the height of the cold) which means at least the possibility of an early-ish night. Providing she doesn't wake up at 11.35 as she did last night, and proceeded to stay awake until 2.

Where the fuck are her teeth? Where are they? She's going to be 7 months old in 13 days and if they come before then I'm a monkey's bloody uncle because there's no bloody sign of them so far, just broken sleep, dribbling, chewing and grumping. Bah!

Dribble

Rarely have I felt so unbelievably tired and ill.

Too many nights in quick succession with Nora waking up at 4 coughing her guts up. I don't know what it is about 4 but it just seems to be wakeup time in extremis.

My brain really is shutting down through over-tiredness and its rather scary given the garbled and nonsensical conversations I've had today. Luckily I have the excuse of a cold but still, it's somewhat alarming. I need to be "here" when I'm at work, not wafting off in to a green heavy fug.

Hmmm

What Europe (still) doesn't get.

It's always nice to read American right wing journo's who will try and shoehorn into a conversation about differences in opinion regarding the new Cybercrime Treaty any old shit they think they can throw at high tax, high public service / business interventionist European countries.

Whilst I agree that Germany is currently poleaxed, it has fuck all to do with their tax burden and secondly, can I remind this dumbass that the US has the highest child mortality rate of any of the major developed nations (including, by the way, Germany and France - interestingly, bad old interventionist France has the lowest out of the UK, Canada, France, USA & Germany). Hmm - how could this be in the land of the free?

Because not even fucking newborn children are given childcare without (pay for) strings? Now shut the hell up about the Euro bloody tax burden and stick to the point.

Hmm. Can you tell I'm back at work? Whilst rebuilding my job, I have an almost tedious amount of time available for surfing.

...and don't even ask me how I feel. I've got a suppurating hole of pain in the middle of my chest.

Oh and the other thing I forgot...

Childhood illness = a complete forfeit of the right to sleep, whether you be ill or not.

2.11am a miserable, deeply upset and confused Noo wakes and cries for... well, it was about 3.45 when I went to bed. Then she woke up again at around 5.30, then 6.

Ugh Gud, no

And we have our first cold, ladies and gentlemen. What I've realised is, apart from the misery that Noo is labouring under at the moment, is that I can never 'be' ill again. I can get ill; I can become ill, but I can never spend even those quiet few minutes wallowing, receiving hugs, being made nice food, feeling crappy and moaning about it....

No. I can never do that again.

Fuck.

(temperature high, feverish, total exhaustion, tissues and Vick up nose).

Bees

Bees. Very much alive.

This came from searching around CNN.com the US version to see what the headline was after the US enquiry on 9/11 had obviously) found no link between Al Quaida and Iraq.

CNN didn't mention that small fact at all. Surprise, surprise.

Unsurprisingly, it was the top headline news on BBC news.

Tell me this will stop soon

Do I mean the stinking heat or the teething?

Both.

Poor Nora is now coughing so much she can barely stay asleep and is utterly shattered and upset. I got back from work to give my munchkin lovely girly big fat hugs and found her shoving her fists so far in to her gob it nearly stopped the waterfall of saliva that was drooling in huge gobbets from her mouth. No fair. No fair!!!

Howq much worse can it get? Please just tell me that she's near the end of this torture for the time being????

A couple of scrubbed carrots go in to the freezer tonight, as does a bottle with a small amount of water (turned upside down so it fills the teat) and the ole' rags dipped in water.

Feeling rather sick

Today is my "test day" back at work, to help me get back in to the swing of things before actually returning on Monday. It also rather obviously tests McK's skills at looking after Noo.

And I feel sick with anxiety. I know she's supposed to get seperation anxiety relatively soon but good God, I've got it bad. All I want to do is rush home and bury my face in her belly and give her a big fat rasberry, and smell her wonderful smell and here her laughing.

In any same society I would not have to go through this torture! Unfortunately I am a human being, threfore it doesn't work the same way as if I were any other ape species. We evolved in to money earners. Whoop de doo.