TANTRUM TASTIES

This week has seen the outside temperature plummet, John Whaite's 'Great British Bakeoff' victory [surprisingly] and more Jimmy Saville stories. Here are the other things I've learnt though:

ONE] Some children are mental [because their parents are mental]. Those close to me know that I have a weird
         sixth sense for analysing the cries of children. Like a birdwatcher but with less birds and definitely less
         watching. Anyway, I can tell whether a child is crying because it is hungry, crying because it is in pain
         or crying because it wants attention. Imagine my joy [shock] at reading an article entitled:

'The tantrum toddler who held his breath so long he had to be revived by mouth-to-mouth'

         Excuse me?! I don't even know where to start with this. I couldn't even read the article; I just looked at the
         photograph in complete dismay. The sad things about this are:

                    a] This is clearly a tried and tested action for the child who has obviously gotten his own way
                        by doing this before.

                    b] The article and consequent photograph has given the baby FAR too much attention, more than

                        he could ever have imagined in fact.

        I can't really criticise as I am not a parent and haven't been through the trials of this very tough job myself,
        but I have seen parents deal with their cheeky children in ways which diffuse the situation straight away and

        don't lead to attempted suicide. This is, unfortunately, a very sad example of parenting-gone-wrong. More to

        the point, the child could have killed himself during his 'tantrum'. Also just take a look at this photo on the

        Daily Mail website:

Look at that STANCE. I'm scared of this child already and he's
not even old enough to talk.

        Lets hope that at least one person in this photo learnt their lesson.

TWO] Harrods can sometimes be amazing: Most of the time Harrods is just a big jug of wishes, "I wish my bed
         was made of solid oak" or "I wish I had a dog so I could buy it a Harrods doggy bed". Things like that.
         Today however it has utterly redeemed itself due to two facts:

                   a] Alex James of bassy fame will be there today from 5:30pm to 7:30pm giving out free samples of

                      his new cheese named 'goddess'. That gives you approximately half an hour to get there. If you

                      want to sample his cheese [had to say that] i'd drop everything. Right now.

                   b] A Disney pop-up shop has opened on its fourth floor. Now I was witness to their pop-up Wizard
                       of Oz store, and though I'm not a Musical fanatic, I absolutely loved the way they went about this,
                       complete with every shop assistant owning a name badge with 'Dorothy' written on, and a
                       gigantic array of ruby slippers available in pretty much every size. I am no Disney fanatic either,                        but since getting back from DisneyWorld this summer I've become somewhat of a Disney

                       magnet. With a dress-up area and a slipper salon, not mentioning the decor, this will be a
                       heavenly hub for little girls [and big ones too]. I advise everyone to take a look before Christmas!

Thanks Time Out London blog. If I wasn't catching a train to
Newcastle right now i'd be on the next flying carpet there.

As I just mentioned I am off to Newcastle. Interestingly Cheryl Cole is there at the moment. I saw her on Chatty Man the other day and was very surprised at how emotionless and reserved she was. It was like she'd had
personality botox or as though there was some X Men type forcefield around her. We all know she's feisty, especially when toilets are involved, so I wonder how hard it was for her to remain like that for an entire interview?

I'll let you know when I meet her tomorrow.

Also can I just say that Vodafone UK's chat service is brilliant and they just helped me sort something out very easily. Shame they're going to hoik up all our bills in a few months.

STANLEY

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