Teddy Thompson

Imperial War Museum

On Friday, I took my son to the Imperial War Museum in London. We had a good day and it was really great to see the exhibits. There were lots of things he was too young to understand though. I could do with going back there by myself. The World War 1 trenches experience was quite unsettling for him, he doesn’t like smelly places and it was a bit smelly and dark and about as realistic as a museum experience of that kind of thing could be – so it had the desired effect of making him think again about what the reality of war really means. He did ask the lady in the shop if they sold any toy guns afterwards though.

I liked guns and war related things at his age. I had lots of plastic and metal toy guns as a child, there were a lot more opportunity to buy toy guns when I was younger. Military themed toys have become less popular in general and while you can still buy military action figures it seems harder to buy toy weapons then it used to be. With my son, we have tried not to introduce toy guns into the house but he just makes them out of Lego instead. With so much glamorisation of war and violence on the TV or in films I don’t know how we’re going to avoid him being exposed. It is worrying but I guess we just have to make sure he appreciates the difference between fiction and reality.

End of my long weekend

Well, these are the final minutes of my long weekend. I finished work last Thursday and haven’t done any work since then, at least not physically but I have thought about it. It is strange how thoughts of work occupy nearly all of my waking moments even if I don’t want it to and also it seems a waste of life to have my thoughts filled with something that I know is totally inconsequential to my life outside of work. A lot of my work is “of the moment”, by which I mean it is about small details that get passed between teams and that are important while they are important but are not necessarily things to get wound up about in and of themselves. Work seems just like a succession of these things, each quickly forgotten when they have been used.

Baby Gaga ice cream?

Do you like ice cream? How about some made from human breast milk, would you buy it? It was being sold in a posh restaurant in Covent Garden for £14 ($32) and comes served in a Martini glass with an injection of liquid nitrogen and a Rusk. I would be a bit concerned to eat something that was someone else’s bodily fluid. It was apparently health-screened but exactly what screening was performed? I think the thought of it puts me off more than anything else but whereas babies need a high concentrated amount of nutrients and fat, adults certainly don’t. Just because breast milk can be used to make ice cream it doesn’t mean that it should be and just because some people can afford to pay that much for a dessert it doesn’t mean they should be able to. I have a problem with the whole idea on a number of levels but then I wouldn’t pay that much for any dish of ice cream.

Middle East Crisis

Crises may be more accurate. What is happening in the Middle East? There does seem to be some kind of people’s revolution sweeping through to democratise parts of the world that have been ruled by regimes that have been in power a long time. If these are emerging democracies their birth is certainly painful but in some ways it seems inevitable, I only hope that the deaths are not in vain and that true democracies are infact emerging.

Not a busy blogging fortnight

We are well into February and I see that I’ve not done much blogging this last fortnight. I don’t really know why I go through this cycle, it seems to happen every month. I start with good intentions but then work and home life intervene and the time I have available for blogging just seems to disappear.

I missed The Brits this year, so not much to blog about there! Tinie Tempah did well though, I did like one of his songs that I heard on the radio a lot last year so will probably check him out when I get the opportunity to listen some more.

Egypt

The whole Egyptian popular revolt thing kind of escaped me I’m afraid, I mean up until this week I knew there was unrest but I didn’t really sit and watch the news. So I had no idea of the political analysis of the situation. It’s a shame in a way that I am so dumb when it comes to international affairs. I don’t really think there is any excuse for my ignorance, there are so many channels for news these days.

Well now that President Mubarak has been ousted from power after 30 years perhaps someone else can do better, 30 years is such a long time for one man to have that kind of power. It had to come to an end at some point. Shame he held on too long that he was no longer welcome. I hope for the citizens of Egypt and all the children there that a new peace can shine on the land. Such a beautiful country that is so so important historically to mankind.

Gary Moore RIP

I learned this evening that Gary Moore was pronounced dead today. He died apparently whilst in his sleep on holiday in Spain. He was a great guitarist, one of the best. I first heard of Gary Moore back in the eighties. I loved the Out In The Fields era. The first song I really remember hearing from him was Shapes of Things, a track that made me think this band is special. I don't know much about the track but I have a strong feeling that I heard once it was a cover of someone else's song.

Indiana Jones

My son is a big fan of Indiana Jones and who can blame him? I think the films are an excellent set of adventure stories and Indiana is a true hero. Today I watched the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with my boy and it has something of a reputation for being one of the weaker films in the series. Having watched it properly though, I am not so sure about that. There is still a good proportion of action and mystical adventure. My son likes it and while it probably isn’t my favourite, it is still a pretty great adventure ride for a Sunday morning.

My son is interested in aliens and alien abduction at the moment. I remember my brother being interested in UFOs and the unexplained in the 1970s. I used to own quite a number of paperback books about UFOs – handed down to me from my brother. Including the works of Eric von Daniken, I thought Chariots of the Gods was very interesting. I’m a little more sceptical as an adult now though and I think science has come a long way since the sixties.