My 5 WTF Commonwealth Sports

What is that mascot even about?

I AM NOT A SPORTS FAN!

I have however been made to watch a lot of sport against my will this evening, so consider this post a product of my ever-amounting rage at  the torture-fest that is organised sporting events interrupting the television schedule/normal life.

You're welcome.

1. Squash.

I have just spent more time than anyone should have watching this on the TV.  Two people, in a box, hitting a ball off a wall.  Isn't this just the very same game you used to play when you'd been inside a bit too long in the summer holidays, driving the adults insane.  Your mum would lose the plot with you and shout at you to 'Get Out!', and you'd traipse woefully to the garden, tennis ball in hand.

You'd spend virtually hours playing this game by yourself outside, because this was the week your best pal was on holiday, or it was the last week of the holidays and everyone was completely fed up, so you'd take it out on the harling stone outside your neighbours' house, which would no doubt bring them running out to tell you to bugger off even further up the street to bother someone else.

Why are grown people playing it now?


2. Swimming

Okay, I am impressed by fast swimming.  I'm not a big swimmer, so I am always impressed by something I can't do.  But what I am not impressed by are the varying strokes.  There's nothing more odd than watching grown, muscly, beautiful-bodied men doing the Butterfly stroke.

Why?  Why are we making them do this?  They look crazy.  And also, hello!  It makes them go slower!

People do some funny things for money in this world, but this swimming oddly in a stroke that serves no real purpose has to be up there with one of the weirdest.

3. Lawn Bowls

Right. Lawn bowls.  This is the game I am imagining I'm going to get into when I'm old.  Why?  Because, basically, it's an excuse to join one of those wee clubs where there'll be other older folk and more importantly, there will be a licensed and cheap bar, selling nips and a dash for £1.50 and packets of peanuts.

Which I am going to propose is the only reason Lawn Bowls is really still alive as a sport today.  I think it's probably one of the world's best-kept secrets - Lawn Bowls = cheap drinking on the sly, which is why Scotland's Commonwealth Games opened with it.  Like a sly wink to the guy behind the cheap veneer bar.

4. Tandem Biking

I caught this the other day.  Kudos to the sports people who are taking part in this - it is equal parts brave and talented to be able to work as a team like that, whizzing around the track at speed on a very thin, tiny, tandem bike.  Especially as part of the deal is that one of you is visually impaired.  Hats off to the men and women who compete in this sport.

My only qualm is - the person at the back has to put their nose on the person in front's bum!

It must be a streamlining thing or something (they were all doing it), but it does look pretty funny.  Definitely a 'bum' deal...(geddit?)

5.Table Tennis

The tagline for this sport is 'Agility. Precision. Focus.' and I am in no way disputing that this is what you do in fact need to be a successful Table Tennis player.

But when I was at school, Table Tennis was the lazy bastard approach to P.E.  Nobody took it seriously.  Indeed, our teacher was so annoyed by our lack of interest in physical exercise by 4th year, and the amount of girls who managed to pull out of the class every week, that she began to just let us mooch about beside the Table Tennis table for a quiet life.  Where we did nothing.  No precision, agility OR focus there, let me tell you.

The only other place I ever saw Table Tennis being played in real life and not in Forrest Gump, was at our local Youth Club in the early 90's.  By two wee boys who battered a ruined ping pong ball with those table tennis bats, which were so old, the foam had been either picked (or chewed?) off, or the very glue that had held them together had failed and the foam was just flapping about.  It never struck me that when someone was buying the resources for anywhere that they would add 'table tennis equipment' to the list, so again, I am a bit surprised that this has ended up as a sport that lots of people compete at.

Today's Pipe Dream: 'If I had a spare £16000'

Okay, so this is going to seem a little off the cuff.

But, as a huge theme park/funfair/ carnival aficionado, I have played my fair share of table arcade games.

I was slightly apprehensive about trying this, as it's slot fee was £2 for a game, but being situated among other much cheaper (and I have to say, very reasonably priced - you would be hard-pushed to findf anywhere so cheap for arcade games these days!) arcade games in Pleasure Land, Arbroath, I was keen to see what the fuss was about!

Plus, it had it's own special area within the arcade.

It was enticing.

So it starts as your normal air hockey game.

Then - a shed-load of pucks fall!

Over and over and over!

It was so much fun! 

Look what it does!

I will definitely be adding this to my 'things to get when I'm a Millionaire' list.

Or maybe this can be my equivalent of a mid-life crisis when I have to spend £20000 on something ridiculous because I am getting wrinkly?

Much better than one of those penis-extension sports cars.

What The Blethering Boys Are Playing Today: Shopkeeper

Today's play is brought to you by the creativity and imagination of our youngest son, Ethan.

Ethan is 3, and can be described as imaginative, cute, lovely and just a bit crazy (which only endears him further - think maniacal, unpredictable Elmo).  Like how he chooses to wear his oh-so-fashionable Cuban-stylee hat in all seasons - including winter.  We can't leave home without it most days.  I keep waiting for him to grow out of it, but people think he's cute and hilarious, so I'm stuck with other folk's crap hat cast-offs, which they joyously gift to him, thus perpetuating his love of the hat.

On the bright side, he's never had sunstroke.  Although it does get wet in the rain and man, does that material smell funny when it's wet.

Aside from his crazy hat obsession, Ethan has an amazing imagination, one which creates all kinds of games for him at any opportune moment.  We can be anywhere, at any time and he will produce some of the funniest and brilliant games that none of us could have ever thought up.

Today was no exception.

Today we are playing Shopkeeper.

Welcome to Ethan's shop!

Without even knowing it, he is learning all about

• Money and Coins
• Communication
• Developing his ability to find things based on description
• Left and Right (the aeroplane left from the car)
• Numbers
• Taking turns

Ethan has a tub of random toys, including figurines and their accessories.  He carefully placed them all out on the table and just asked us 'What would you like to buy?'

So we all played along.

I got out my purse and got together some coppers from my bankie, and kick-started a great game which is now part of our daily repertoire (kids learn best by repetition).

It was great fun.  He asked us what we liked, we described it for him, and then he found it for him.  He also learned the names of different characters and accessories.

We had a fab time - why not try it with your wee ones?  So easy to do and so much potential!

You don't need any fancy toy cash-registers or 'supermarket items' just some imagination.

And your best haggling skills!  Daylight robbery!

What The Blethering Boys are Playing Today: Scattergories - Adapted For a 5 Year Old!

It's a horrible day outside - raining, soggy and we even had some Thunder and Lightning!

Tom's still a bit under the weather (see what I did there?  I'm a comedy genius!) and both boys are getting a bit bored, so i decided to mix things up a bit today and pull out a board game that Dave had brought home from his work for the adults to try.

Scattergories is an adult game - if you notice the age recommendation is 12+.

But I'm a bit of a rebel. I believe that there is merit in ignoring age bands and adapting board games like this to suit.

After all, you'd be missing out on learning outcomes like:

• Reading
• Writing
• Having to think quickly and accurately
• Word building
• Improvisation
• Spelling
• Rule-building
• Letter recognition

Now, in the adult version of this game, you roll the letter dice ( I have no idea what you call such a thing as a many-sided letter dice, so here we'll call it 'Gubbins') and the letter that you land on is the letter you then have to use to find a word beginning with that letter of something that belongs in a set category:  i.e; Categories are: Animal, Book, Film, Country etc.  The letter you rolled is C.  therefore you have to find an Animal, Book, Film, Country etc. all beginning with the letter C, but against a timer.  The person who has guessed the most when the buzzer goes, wins.

I started by writing new categories that were relevant for Thomas.  i wanted him to enjoy it and for it to hold his interest, so i added things like Lego Characters, Cartoon Character and Food (that boy is always hungry - he thinks about food a lot!)

After explaining the rules, Tom was keen to get cracking - rolling the cool Gubbins and getting to race against the timer was something he found both fun and exciting.  He's nothing is not competitive (can't think where he gets that from!)

We might have reset the timer a couple of times to get his answers down, but he was chuffed when he had a completed list and we could begin the process again with a different letter.

This was a great exercise for him - he got to practice his reading, writing and recognition and his grey matter got a break from boredom.  Obviously it was quite slow-going, as he is only 5, and quite new to the whole writing game, but he did really well.

Shh!  I'm sleeping, Mummy!

Ethan chilled on the sofa and listened to us chatting about different letters and sounds, quietly absorbing what was going on, and throwing in the odd answer.

Me:  'Right, we need a Fruit beginning with N!'

Tom: 'Urm....Errr...'

Ethan: (excited) 'Naanaaa!'

Me: 'Banana starts with B, pal, sorry'

Ethan: 'Napple! HA ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah...Napple...'

As you can say, we played around with words and had a laugh, which is the main thing.  It's got to be fun.

What The Blethering Boys Are Playing Today

Today we are stuck in the house because Thomas is ill and cannot attend school.  He's feeling pretty rough and is going between hot and cold, so I want to make sure he has a nice chilled out day today.

On days like this we raid the games cupboard and play all of the games that usually get sidelined in favour of more active things.

I'm quite aware of the amount of time the kids are spending in front of the screen just now (it seems to be getting worse as they get older).  Between Youtube, Lego Batman2 on the PS3 and Mario on the Wii, not to mention the fact that we love to watch films, it's quite easy to drift from one screen to another.

Our favourite game just now is this Falling Monkey Game.  Someone (sorry gifter, it's been a while since we played it - we can't remember who gifted it!) gave the kids this game for Xmas, and we've hardly played it due to various things such as trips out, holidays and moving house (thanks gifter, it's awesome!).

It's another version of Tumbling Monkeys, which suits us, as small bits mixed with small children means that, quite likely, small bits will end up lost.

However, the kids are having such a fun time with it, they're actually looking after it!

I don't think they are getting the concept that the more monkeys you collect, the more likely you are to be a loser, but that's cool.  It's nice that they are just enjoying the concept and the learning outcomes, such as

• Counting (monkeys)
• Fine Motor Skills (poking the straws back through at the start of a new game. Picking out individual straws.)
• Taking Turns
• Learning Colours (of straws for turn-taking)
• Improvisation (We added Lego Men to the monkey mix!)
• Working Together
• Problem Solving (which straw will yield the least amount of monkeys?)

And look, I'm feeling all educational and parent-winning about this, so I'm having fun too.

Willing victims?

Stuff them in!

Any excuse to get the Lego characters involved!

'Winning' his monkeys!

Counting his sticks

Kids' Obsessions - what have you found yourself 'enjoying'?

Tom's excited face!

You know, when I analyse this properly, I'm not a massive Star Wars fan.  I tolerate it at best.  I have a thing for Han Solo (but mainly because he's Indiana Jones y'know? HAWT!) and I get a funny feeling in my stomach for those cute little Ewoks...and Chewbacca.

I've watched all of the Star Wars films.  I can give you all manner of Star Wars chat.  But, given the choice to sit and watch another Star Wars film or not, I'd well, rather not.

BUT

Somehow, we have created the world's biggest Star Wars fan.  He would sleep, eat, wear, play and watch Star Wars every minute of every day.  He spent months, and I mean actual months playing the Lego Star Wars games n the PS3 and PS2. He knows all of the characters off by heart, thanks to various sticker books which he has studied in depth (to the point where I'm sure he should and could have perfected a foreign language, the way he reels them off), and can debate with you the finer points of character familial relationships, better than he can his own familial relationships.  

He covets his Star Wars T-Shirts, and when we went to Disneyland, we spent a lot of time in the Star Wars shop trying on Darth Vader Mickey mouse ears and 'ooh-ing and ahh-ing' over build your own lightsabers.

He was so excited by Star Tours, the Star Wars ride at Disneyland that he never made it on.  His nerves got the better of him and he was sick in the queue at C3P0's feet.

I may, or may not have a two and a half foot Millennium Falcon in my attic at present that I've spent a lot of time maintaining and fixing, and I may or may not have considered getting a cute jumper I saw the other day with 'Jedi Warrior' across the chest for myself.

I have indulged in a lot of Star Wars memorabilia and I get really bloody excited when I see that Star Wars is showing on the T.V again.  Not to mention the time spent catching up with any film news about the new film coming in 2015.

'I can't wait to see the film at the cinema, mum!  Is it at the cinema yet?  How long is it until the DVD?'

What has happened to me?

It's Tom's fault.  I'm blaming him.  

It's true - you love your kids so much that their obsessions become your obsessions.  Even if you don't actively like whatever they are currently coveting.

There's evidence of this everywhere; the dad who knows all of One direction's songs because his eight year old daughter is in love with them, the mum who spends her life watching Peppa Pig with a half love/ half hate feeling in her heart - parents will go above and beyond for their children's latest obsessions.

Ah, if only!

See, before I had kids, I never, ever thought that In The Night Garden was a cute or even acceptable thing for children to like.

I scoffed at sleepsuits and moses baskets with Iggle Piggle and his ilk printed in garish colours all over them and laughed.

'Who the hell would put that crap on their kid? It's disgusting!'  I would sneer, while nursing my fledgeling baby bump.

'Gross!  My kid won't be watching any of that pish!  What kind of name is Upsy-Daisy?'

Fast-forward a year on and we were actively setting our schedules around that flower-headed nonsense-maker, hoping and praying for half-past six; the magical time where those horrible dome-headed, squeaky, ridiculous eejits would allow us to eat, wash and generally get back to some kind of human semblance, as Tom would watch them, transfixed for a full half hour.  

If Iggle Piggle meant that I could grab two minutes to pee in peace, then I was ON that bandwagon.  He could be printed on my face if he liked.  I would advertise him in the street if I had to.  That shit is magic, and I'll hear no harsh words against the horrid blue bugger.

Then came the Finding Nemo/Cars phase.  Which I'm wishing I'd indulged a little bit more, had I'd known it would lead to the Playstation phase.  I think I'd take watching Marlin find his son over and over again anytime, over the current tears and tantrums involved with not being able to get new characters on Lego Batman or spending hours 'finding the cheat codes so I can get Mace Windu* on Starwars 2, mum!'

*Disclaimer.  This might not be it's actual name.  Is either Mace Wimdu or Mace Windu.  I don't know.  I don't care enought to Google.

Ethan's current obsession is Jake and The Neverland Pirates, which has come from his love of Peter Pan.  As a massive Peter Pan fan myself, I am getting behind this for as long as humanly possible.  He can dress as a pirate until he's 30 if he likes.  Plus, he looks quite cute in the full regalia.

Tom brought home football cards the other day.

I'm not even looking.  It's nothing to do with me.

I don't have time to memorise all the players, leagues and footballers that I've spent such a long time actively not caring about.

I hate football.

You can see where this is headed, can't you?