watch tHe skies

Ok I know I used to do this a lot more often than I do now but I heard this tune the other day and thought it was worth telling you about.

Sugababes - I bet you look good on the dancefloor

I know, the thought is horrendous, but it’s pretty cool and is a b-side on the “Red Dress Single”. Dare I say better than the Monkey’s version? Yes I dare.

I’ve also managed to get hold of Coldplay’s version of Gravity; the tune written by Chris Martin and given to Embrace. I must say WOW! I mean the Embrace version is great, but Coldplay’s version kicks its @rse. You can find it on the soon to be released 2 disk re-release of X&Y. Well worth picking up. Hopefully it will make its way on to iTunes at some point.
That’s all for now folks, I have a kitchen to rip out!!

Is it just me or did anyone else find it funny that the NFU livestock chairman and much interviewed beef farmer  Richard Haddock isn’t a fish seller?

Ok perhaps it’s just me then, but it amuses me when people with names that are clearly linked with items, creatures or activities don’t actually perform those activities nowadays? Of course at some time in history their ancestors must have been involved with something related to gain the surname. So how does one gain the surname haddock? Surely his great (times x generations) grandfather, was a fisherman renowned for his haddock catching skills, so why should good old Richard be stuck with sitting in a fishy boat all day? (more…)

So to date we have attended everything baby-related together that we can. Ultrasound scans, Mothercare visits, Mothercare visits, midwife appointments, Mothercare visits, heck I am even going to a National Childbirth Trust second hand baby stuff sale tomorrow.

But yesterday I couldn’t make a midwife appointment. I had an important client meeting in Bristol and although it was pencilled in for the morning which meant bar ridiculous Crufts traffic on the M42, I would be home in time for the 3.30 midwife appointment, when the client moved the meeting back until after lunch I knew that I was sunk. (more…)

I’m currently re-working the hatson.com website on a new server, using a different content manager. Previously I’ve used drupal, a pretty nice php system, but looks-wise it’s pretty simple. The new site uses joomla, a much prettier system not unlike dotnetnuke that we use for the corporate website.

It is starting to come together, and it has more functionality to let the family use it as a useful portal for photographs etc, and even lets me cache RSS feeds so I can read my favourite website information that is usually hidden behind the wall that is the company’s surf nazi.

So this is my test of whether I’ve managed to get the new website to accept e-blogs. Hopefully this will arrive on the blog without me having to log in, hence circumventing any surfnazi issues from the company web blocker.

I’ll reserve my evil laugh for the moment that this arrives on the interweb [hands rubbed together in anticipation].

Well I thought it was about time to move my blog to its own home, so here it is. I’ll copy across old blog items that are of interest,  or if I have a few spare minutes, I might even pull across the uninteresting ones! Stay tuned for witty commentary and incisive analysis of everyday issues, although I wouldn’t hold your breath…

So I am a little late in noticing it, but OMFG. Ok so he was pretty entertaining, but the fact that such a pap tune can get to number one just shows what mindless automatons actually contribute to the singles chart. Interestingly, on iTunes, Chico isn’t even in the top 10, so it must be the kiddies buying the crap. I have nothing against Chico, I think that its nice to see someone succeed  despite lacking any singing voice, and winning through sheer determination and a fair amount of personality. Hopefully he will move in to , I dunno, presenting on some obscure satellite channel and be very happy about the whole situation. Just as long as he doesn’t release any more records.

Still, the cheeky girls had a string of chart hits despite being one trick ponies. I wonder what has happened to them now? The only X-Factor candidate worthy of waiting for is Maria Lawson, the rather hot singer booted off by Louis Walsh. Apparently she now has a record contract and is releasing an album in the autumn. Unfortunately the muppets that bought Chico’s single will have forgotten all about her (and who Chico is) by then, so she’ll have to make it by merit alone. Given that she already has a handful of fan sitesm i’m sure she’ll do well.

Well Jenny finishes work at the end of the month and then we really are imminently expecting baby. Apart from the house still looking like a building site (we are in to phase 3: kitchen and screwing squeaky floorboards down), all expected to be finished mid-april, everything is ready and to be honest it’s all dragging on a bit.
Whilst I’m not wishing that the baby be premature, waiting 9 months is a really long time, and I’m really looking forward to meeting him her.

Jen’s antenatal classes are going well apart from one snag; I can’t go, the classes are women only. Feeling left out, I’ve booked us in to a 2 day course with a local company, bump to baby. Run by a couple of ex Childbirth trust employees, it is expensive, but at least it gives us the chance to prepare for the grisly experience of childbirth together.

Hospital bags are packed and ive got myself an extra memorycard for the psp to store some movies on, I just need a spare battery. Apparently women often follow the pattern of birth of their mother, in terms of when they go in to labour and how long labour is. Jen’s mum gave birth to her a week early and was in labour for 12 whole hours, so I think that I can handle that (although accepting that I don’t have to squeeze a baby shaped item out of me)….

Well thanks to Dan Balderas (thanks Dan), the mystery of Ellie Chidzey’s name is solved. Despite it being listed as Ellie Chidzley in the Dungeons & Dragons movie, it is certainly Ellie Chidzey considering that she is listed with that name on a modelling website. It would also appear that she is due at the end of this month so good luck to her!