Pica Pica

Robert – hope you had a good day!

I don’t know! All these youngsters doing well and outshing me! Pisses me right off! This time it’s Nick, also known as “My son” or “Oh him”:

…who has just achieved Qualified Teacher Status from Bristol. Rumour has it he also has a hot g/f.

Well done! I’m really pleased, if the truth be told.

Otherwise known as “Dr. Wilding”, “my daughter” or “Oh, her”, she recently won a permanent position at POLIS, Leeds University.

Here she is as shown on her page at POLIS:

Well done!

Yesterday we went to the christening of Zachary, who is Sarah’s father Les’ late wife Cherie’s brother Bob’s son Matthew’s son. Pictures include angelic participants:

key moment:

and keepsake boat with good-luck almonds:

Like most of the pictures here, you can click for a closer look.

Thanks to a series of coincidences we got invited to a free lunch on the Arcadia. (I suppose P&O are still trying to improve their image after the sorry Dianne Brimble story). A tour of the ship followed. I was a barnacle in tow with Sarah who was there as the daughter of her father, Les, who had very fond memories of a trip many years ago with some of the other friends at our table.

The name of the ship was historically important to Australia – I think quite a number of the Ten Pound Poms, for instance, came on an earlier bearer of the name. To be sure there are a lot of people with better reasons to have been there, but that was the luck of the draw. Note the cameras and media presence in the slide show!

Facit: food not at all bad, service excellent. What would those Victorian gentlemen who amused themselves dreaming up plurals call a large assembly of waiters? A canteen?

Today’s Birthday boy is Sarah’s dad:

Have a good day Les!

Have a great day Nick!

What’s a trifecta? It’s an Australian word, thought by Australians to be English. It means three things happening at once. So today, we start with happy birthday to Sarah:

Then we remember it is also Australia Day and Chinese new year. So now you know what a trifecta is.

Talking of Australia, you might not know that there is something here called a “Freedom of Information Act”, which means that you can pay a lot of money and wait quite long before being told officially and in writing (that’s the benefit to us) that – for reasons it has no need to explain and is not required to disclose – the government doesn’t want to give you the information you requested.

You’ll all remember the Ministry of Truth? And the Ministry for Public Enlightenment?

Happy Birthday Caitlin – 6 today!