The London Book Fair of Excessive Booze Overload and Train Fire Calamities

"Daddy! Blow Dandelion!"

"Ffffthppppp..." I am covered in a few grams of toddler spittle as we play the amazing new Dandelion game in the garden.

He comes back with more. Thousands more. It occurs to me that the "Blow Dandelion" game shall unleash a further plague upon my garden. But really - you can't get more than there are already. The only thing keeping them at bay are the other weeds - vying for attention. Next week - next week I shall lawnmow. But today - today I shall enjoy some playtime with the kids.

If I reflect on the last 2 months (which kinda explains the lack of blogging time) - I would summarise it as "controlled bedlam". My average out the door time is now somewhere around 05:45am and sometimes I finish work at near midnight. But...and here's the weird thing - I'm loving every minute. Whether I'm half way up a giant silo, standing on top of a really big turbine or whizzing through Crewe - the gateway to everywhere...

Last month we headed down to the London Book Fair to check out what was going down in the book world. Being a dedicated author and all - I took my wife along and we spent a good half an hour checking out the general hubbub of publishers and agents hard at work...and then we went in search of alcohol. Now - the London Book Fair is humungous. I never realised Earl's Court was so big (and had such horrific accoustics). Mice whispering in the farthest corner sound like elephants having an on-musk mating battle to the death. (Which made my impromptu work conference calls the most disastrous telcons in history. It was like talking to someone on Mars using tin cans and string - with ten thousand bees buzzing in your ear).

Either way - they had a Pizza Express inside. I love Pizza. Specially spicy Pizza. And specially red wine, beer and Pizza. And then more beer and my wife's Pizza too when she's not looking.

The queue for lunch is orderly but large. There are about thirty people ahead of us. We wait so long - I think there must be a Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the end of it. We strike up a conversation with the couple in front of us.

"Hello - big queue eh?"

"Yes. It is..." These people aren't overly chatty. They are proper book business people. Everyone eyes up everyone elses label IDs on their shirts. Labels are bad - labels create a pecking order. Luckily my "Tom Arnold - Byker Books - Author" has some vague bargaining power (it doesn't get you a Ferrari or a free back rub or anything - but people spark up a little and open up a little more).

"So what do you do?" I ask the lady.

"I'm an illustrator for children's books," she says.

"Wow - that's cool,"I say. For we have both children and books and I am wondering if she drew anything good or not.

"So - you do anything famous?" I ask. It's probably uncouth but what the hell.

"You know the Gruffalo?" she says.

"Holy cow - you did the Gruffalo? That's the best book ever - our kids love it - and the artwork is just phenomenal - you did that?!"

Sarah has already picked up the signals. Back up back up - mayday mayday - pull out pull out. But I am a bloke and blunder on - gushing about how cool that is.

"No - I was the author's illustrator before the Gruffalo..."

The tumbleweed crosses our path. A dead crow caws above my head and for all the spin I try to put on it - she senses my obvious disappointment. I am a mirror into her soul.

Oh well.. Pizza time!

They bolt for a table and don't even offer a goodbye. Miserable B*stards.

Everyone is young, female and thin....or fat, male, grey haired and old. Many are American.

They all drink mineral water and stare at us in disgust as we order an actual bottle of red wine - on a Monday at lunch in a Pizza Express! Shock and awe! Where was Joanna Lumley when I needed her?! Damn these responsible booky people.

We're having such great fun that we order a few more wines and leave with a spring in our step and 14% pumping through our veins. We chat to many more people and drink the free wine at the Scientologist stand. No-one else is - so we might as well. L Ron Hubbard wrote lot of books. Seriously. He's in the Guinness Book of Records for it!

We get to London Euston at about 5:30 and stare at a blank board. Not a single bloody train is going anywhere. Crap.

"Due to a fire on a train - there are no trains from Euston currently. All trains to the Midlands - please make your way from King's Cross. For Liverpool and Chester Please go to Paddington and take a train to Reading..."

"F*ck off!" I curse the announcer. Has he ever attempted to get to Chester via Reading before? We'd be better off nicking a push buggy, strapping a particularly flatulent weasel to the back of it and making our way under fart power back to the North West than go via Reading.

I decide to ignore their advice (the Vigin train person tells us it will be 4am before we get home via "The Reading Method").

"Let's go to the pub until this whole "fire" thing blows over.

So we sit and wait a few hours and low and behold..things free up again. Nine thousand tired groggy commuters stampede towards a train that holds a few hundred people at best.

As we are pegging it down the councourse - Sarah says to me..."If we get split up I'll meet you on the train..now give me my ticket." Wow - she means business.

It was like something out of the apocalpse or a 1950's Horror movie(or Monday night commuting in London). Random panic...men stampeding over women. Wives leaving husbands - children screaming...

"Sarah! Sarah - where are you?!" I am bolting down the platform in a maelstrom of panicked commuters - whistles are blowing and I've lost my wife. I am having a major dilemma - do I board the train or do I not?

Is she on it...or not. If I leave her behind then I am officially paying for that mistake for the rest of my shortly to be divorced life.

In hindsight - I wish I'd had a chance to shout my "Last of the Mohicans" line at her..."Sarah - where-ever you are...whatever happens...I will find you..." But it's too late for retrospective melodramatics.

So I board and clutter down the train just as we pull away. To find her sitting happily ensconced in her seat texting me...

Men really don't stand a chance do they? We really don't...

Mario Kart 100CC humiliations, sweaty beer drops and the wheel change of lost dignity

It's been a busy month - with mad dashings all over the country and overseas. My planning has been ambitious - resulting in early morning darts at 5am and arrivals back home at midnight. Weary but happy to sink a glass of red wine and kiss the kids goodnight.

This month I was particularly proud of my ability to change a car tyre under pressure. Ten minutes til my conf call and I manage to wrestle the rusted hulk off the car and replace it with the old faithful in the boot. There's a girl in the car park at the office on her mobile phone chatting away as I frantically spin the nuts off and jack the car up (not in that order). For the first few minutes I make a vague attempt to hitch my trousers back up as I bend down and kick the wheel brace repeatedly (the nuts take a while before they budge!). Thinking - "I must save her embarrassment and my dignity".

But eventually the builders butt is out and I don't care. There something strangely liberating about the air whistling between the crack as you carry out dirty, man's work. I would ask that this line is never quoted back to me out of context to wheel changes. Or I guess - it might sound a bit weird. Either way - I was so proud of my wheel changing achievement that I took a picture. Genius! Pure genius. My wife just thinks this further confirms how utterly stupid I am.


Later that week we head off to the Levellers on a Friday night. I meet up with my mate Tree and we reminisce about old times. At one point during "One Way" a few drops of something splash into our pints from the ceiling.

"Ahhh - it's ok Tree - it's just sweat."

The sweat of two thousand crusties jumping up and down until even the ceiling needs to cool down and dump a fine drizzle of rain down on us.

Behind me there's a man wearing a 1993 Levellers t-shirt and waving his walking stick in the air like a crazy man. Elsewhere there are savvy looking kids with dreadlocked, slightly balding dads pogo-ing on the spot and at one point in the night a truly humongous Sumo Sized bloke pogo's through the crowd towards Tree. He has launched his t-shirt in a fit of delirium and is wobbling along to the Riverboat Song with arms flapping wildly in the air and naked belly undulating to the rhythm. At a certain frequency his belly will never be able to stop moving. This is a worry. The worlds first perpetual motion machine locked within a fat scary b*stard. He has seven or eight breasts and at one point I lose line of sight with Tree and fear the worst.

"Man down! Man down! For God Sakes Tree get out of there!"

Tree emerges from the otherside - intact. I look at the missus - Sarah is worried that she has drunk man's sweat in her pint. We swap to red bulls and coke.

At some point in the month I'm in Switzerland. Switzerland is great. I buy a miniature alpine horn for the kids and instantly regret it. Apline horns make a really painful noise when the kids blow it at 6 in the morning. Think VuvuZella - but worse. Pray the world cup never makes it to the Alps!

I buy Sarah a lovely well-thought-out present (a pair of comedy Oven gloves with a Swiss woman in traditional Alpine dress on the front). I have excelled myself - this almost beats my "Steve Irwin - Crikey! Australia Zoo" tea towel I got her on my way back from Brisbane and my "Cowgirls know how to do it Houston style" oven mitt from last year.

Sarah takes it well - I have set a tradition now. Comedy kitchen utensils for my wife. And she was hoping for jewellery and stuff! (Ok - so I get some of that too - or I'd be dead by now!).

Yesterday is a turning point in my life as I accept that my time as the dominant alpha male is over. I must hand over family responsibility to my son. For he now has the dominance within the pride. It goes like this.

"Daddy - I can be Bowser cos he is my favourite and you can be Yoshi".

"Ok - let's go. Hang on a minute - Fintan - why am I in twelth. What's going on here."

"Daddy - it's ok. You're just a bit slow. It's ok though."

"Right - final lap - you're going down now son...here I come...!"

I pray for a lightning bolt or a mushroom but get a sodding green turtle shell. Fintan is in eighth and somehow I am in eleventh. This isn't supposed to happen. Initially I am laughing - thinking - I've been here before - messing about - the tortoise and the hare and all that. But this time the hare has left his sleep for too long. By the time I realise the real danger of losing to my five year old son - it's probably too late.

I'm catching him - I overtake (this is only 100cc by the way - not even 150CC!)and then he mags me - lightning strike and I am splatted and out for the count. Finishing ninth to his eight.

For me - this is a big moment. I am proud of him but he doesn't seem to realise the magnitude of genuinely beating his (slightly inebbriated) dad at Mario kart Wii.

"It's okay daddy - it's the taking part that counts," he tells me - quoting the kids from his after school club. I pray the world will eat me up. Truly a new low has been reached. I lamely defend myself.

"150CC Mushroom Cup - SNES - no-one could beat me Fintan. Serious. It's true. Back in 1994 - I was a legend!"

"Daddy - have you ever played Rainbow Road? I'm very good at that."

"Rainbow Road - I nailed that!...."

Time moves on and I remain planted in it - back in 1994.

Giant Tortoise raisin death, "What's a run?" and Red Bull Dependency...a life in gigging

It's a Monday night and I've got a free pass - so I'm off "gigging" to see "The Streets" in Liverpool. As usual - public transport lets us down at the first hurdle. There is a bus replacement service from Chester to Hooton (where the F*ck is Hooton?!) and then a train into Liverpool. This is crap news for a Monday night and my mate Chris is not impressed.

His track record on public transport is not good.

"Tom - I've only got on a train three times in the last five years and every time it goes wrong." says Chris.

"Yeah - fair enough. There was nothing we could do about the train catching fire last time. That was out of our control..." I say. (This was a Just Jack gig last year).

"And at Christmas - there's nothing you can do about snow like that..." I add.

"I nearly died in that snow. I had to walk 2 miles in snowdrifts above my knees - just to get to the nearest pub in Hooton."

"Aha - so at least you're familiar with Hooton then. So that's good."

Either way - we sit on a bus last serviced in 1937 and chug towards Hooton. And soon we are gig-bound and the night is looking up. We follow a couple of thirty year olds in baseball caps and low-slung jeans up the Lime Street Escalators and bundle in to Ma Eggerton's pub just outside. To say the pub does a disservice to spit and sawdust is an understatement - but I have great affection for it.

We walk into a heated arguement at the bar. "F*ck off alright! I wanted the day off alright?!"

"You F*ck off! What's your problem eh?!"

And that's the bar staff. The bar manager and bar maid are close to a full on cage fight. I seem to remember a similar barney last time I was in here. The locals don't bat an eyelid as the bar maid storms out mid shift.

I order a beer and remind myself not to complain about the head on it. They could serve me a jar of tepid cat p*ss and I'd probably just grin and bear it. This place is proper 'ard.

The Streets delivers a quality set. We nod heads - bob up and down - wave hands in the air and stupidly - very stupdily - I down the entire bar-supply of vodka and red bull during the night. It doesn't quite give me wings - instead I am buzzing all night and wondering for the rest of the week why I seem to have used up my entire back-up of "energy" for the next seven days. Curse the Taurine! Curse it!

Come the weekend I am better. I take the kids to the Zoo and meet up with Chris again. I detour via the Tropical Reptile House for the first time in years. It's cool in there and we run around looking at the wild exotic birds that are allowed to wander freely about you. Declan tries to feed a box of raisins to the giant, near-extinct Galapogos giant turtles and pulls a mini fit when I take that option away from him. (I am not gonna be responsible for killing off the last of a species!).

Later at home we have the annual "cleaning of the car ceremony". It's a bit like the trooping of the colour. A fair deal of pomp and circumstance and tubthumping from me. The first layers of green moss fall away with a quick scrape but some of the meaner looking fungi have had a whole year to take hold and even Fintan's "cloth whiplash technique" fails to budge these hard-core dirts.

"I can't feel my hands daddy...my hands?!" Fintan cries out after an hour or so.

"You'll be fine - just stick them in the bucket again," I advise. But he's beginning to look a bit blue around the edges and it is about one degree outside. But crucially - not snowing or raining.

The day is capped off with England beating France in the rugby. I should savour this moment as mere days later - I am to suffer the great double excruciation of an entire Irish clan of in-laws reminding me that England just lost to Ireland in the Cricket World Cup. And then having to actually explain the Cricket rules to my wife.

"So O'Brien just scored the fastest century in world cup cricket ever - that's pretty amazing..." I tell my lovely Irish wife.

"What's a century?" she says.

"A hundred runs..." I say.

"What's a run?" she asks with genuine curiosity.

At this point I should give up - but I forge ahead. She asks another question.

"So are England Rubbish or are Ireland really good?"

This is very hard to answer - because Cricket is a complicated business and this is also a trap.

"It's complicated. An individual can play very well but the team still loses. You can play for five days and still draw," I tell her.

"But England lost. So Ireland must be better." I can't fault her logic.

I decide it's best to dwell on the Ashes victory instead. Much better.

Sarah checks her facebook and it's awash with Irish friends and family in delighted celebration. One comment reminds us that "cricket is just a protestant version of hurling" and my brother-in-law reminds me that "cricket is for girls".

Later still - Sarah concludes that even if Ireland had just beaten England in a wheelbarrow race - the place would go mad celebrating. And why not - when's the next Wheelbarrow World Cup?

She is very happy. I am mildly grumpy as we go to bed. I dream of wheelbarrows and men in Kilts (weirdly). So perhaps Scotland are next to beat us?

Saucepan wife attacks, Eagle soaring Fox death and "no Lego Disassemble!"

Never on any account attempt to build anything Lego with a hangover. It's way too complicated. The Lego Police Van I was convinced into building with the kids had a twenty one page instruction booklet. Twenty one bloody pages! That's madness.

And when I finished. I still had five parts left over and the bricks on the side didn't line up with the sodding windshield. And then when I turned my back for a split second - all my hard labour is for nothing.

"Fintan. Where's the Police Van gone?"

"I broke it daddy. But you can fix it..."

"BOKEN!" Declan joins in with great animation.

I silently cry to myself. Hours of reassembling the same lego car lay ahead of me.

Later in the week I am in Liverpool with work. We park the car and are wondering whether to leave our laptops and mobiles in the car or take them with us. It's at this point that a man (I swear this is true!) walks down the street with a car door above his head. God knows what's happened to the rest of the car!

"Perhaps we should bring them with us?" we decide.

Mid week and Fintan and I are watching Human Planet. It's incredible viewing. This kid from Mongolia clambers down a rock face to steal a baby eagle from it's nest. Then he heads back to his yurt and trains it up for the next five months to hunt foxes so they can all eat. It's an amazing relationship. Fintan and I sit in wonderment. Fintan and I will never raise an eagle together and ride horses across Mongolian Plains. We shall never sip milk from the teat of a horse or get drunk on fermented yak milk. Hey ho. I can probably live with that. After all - is that kid with the eagle ever gonna sit and watch the entire series of Kung Fu Dino Posse on repeat for an entire weekend? Who's laughing now...?!

So - all is pretty wondrous up until the bit where the majestic young eagle swoops down and has a brutal claw to paw fight to the death with the rather terrified and angry young fox.

"Daddy. But is the fox dead daddy?"

"Er..yes. Remember in the Lion King. The Circle of Life? Well - it's like that isn't it?"

"Yeah - but the fox is ok isn't he?"

"But they ate him Fintan. He's in animal heaven now."

Tears begin to form. And things are looking bad. Oh Crap. Time for a rethink (note to self - never show Fintan Bambi).

"Actually Fintan - I just found out. The Fox is fine. It was a stunt fox for the programme. He's ok."

"Ok daddy. That's good. Cos you don't want to get eaten do you?"

"No - no you don't Fintan!"

He's gonna get a shock when I try to explain what's in Chicken drumsticks. I mean - I have tried - but it just doesn't sink in!

Later still - on Friday night - I decide to wear the kids out by dancing them to death for an hour. I put on Herp Albert (works a treat every time) and the kids do a little circuit where they climb on to the top of the couch and then jump off. This is ambitious stuff for Declan. He narrowly avoids head-butting the corner of the coffee table at least thirty times. Couch jumping is not for the faint-hearted.

Stupidly - I decide to bend over and pick up the rogue Triceratops with the three spikes that I've already trodden on twice today. As I do - Fintan seizes his chance - he's like a WWF wrestler - on me in a flash. Landing a flying pile drive to the neck and hanging on for dear life - using my neck as a grip point.

"MONSTER! Ride the MONSTER ARGHHHHH!" He screams in delight.

"I'm CH..o.k....ING Fintan..." I rasp. But have no option but act like a crazed monster and run around the room as black spots start flashing across my eyes.

I reverse slam dunk Fintan onto the couch and he roars with laughter. In the meantime - Declan has copped on to this new gag and clambers onto the top of the coffee table and makes a daring leap onto my back.

"Monster!" he yells.

Eventually I am brought to my knees. (Actually - this is whilst I am doing my body popping break dance moves on the floor). And I end up with both kids sitting on my back whilst Sarah looks on and laughs.

Which brings me on to my lovely wife. Only yesterday we are in the kitchen and I'm trying to make soup or something for lunch.

For some reason I thought it would be funny to poke Sarah with the spoon I was about to use for my soup.

"This is a great game," I think. So I flick her bum a few times with it and giggle to myself. Now admittedly - I had picked a bad time as she was emptying the dish washer at the time. So perhaps I could have been a bit more constructive.

I get a warning. "Tom. If you don't stop prodding me with that feckin' spoon - I swear I'm gonna hit you with this pan."

I laugh. She's such a joker - I think. I prod her again (this kind of messing is irresistable to all men!). Next thing I know - "Bang" - she's only gone and swung the frying pan at me!

"Arghhhhh!" I wail as I raise my hands in feeble defense!

"I told you! I told you!" And she is laughing and so am I. Thank God it wasn't the Le Creuseut. Or you'd be burying me under that casserole dish!

Later we head into the "secret garden" outside and feed THE DUCK. Half a loaf of bread and only one sodding duck bothers to turn up to be fed. Declan roars at the duck for a while. "BREAD. DUCK! BYE BYE DUCK!" before we head back inside.

Tomorrow is Valentines day - and I am fully prepped - kind of. Well - apart from flowers and stuff. But - where exactly is a bloke supposed to hide flowers for a week before hand? In the car? And - well - this is the really sneaky bit about Valentines Day. They make it so damned early in the year. Before spring has sprung and before you can legitimatley grab a handful of flowers from a neighbours garden. There aren't any snowdrops about anywhere - let alone Roses. Last year was bad enough. I was that man desperately riffling through the crap half dead petrol soaked flowers in the sand buckets at the Shell Garage (in the end I realised that a dead flower from a petrol station was worse than no flowers at all). And the Spar was open so I was saved! This year will be different - I assure you. Honest Sarah - it will!

The hangover of "fecky dog poo" and the lizard of ultimate evil

Friday night - and I'm out for a few beers with the lads from my old work. Two in the morning and I'm regretting my insane decision to leave my coat behind at home. The taxi queue is over two miles long and it's minus four outside. It is a certainty that I will be dead by the time my name is called for my taxi.

So - using my in-built geographical homing instinct (pigeons and men are very alike) - I stagger home. I am preserved from much of the cold by the many precautions I took through-out the night and am greateful for the large numbers of beers that insulate my body from the cold.

I creep in the door of the house - careful not to wake the kids. I make myself some marmite and toast - again careful not to wake anyone.

Then I stumble up the stairs and tip-toe into the bedroom, turn on the light - remember to turn the light back off because it's the middle of the night and attempt to creep to the bathroom by feeling along the wall until I come across it.

At this point Sarah is wide awake and for some weird reason - not as excited about the night out as I am.

I wake the next day feeling like a herd of bull elephants just trampled on my head. So - I know exactly what to do.

I raid the freezer for provisions. Cornetto - check. Orange fruit lolly check. I crawl back up the stairs to bed and for the brief seconds that they last - the hangover is at bay. This is stage one of many stages on the road to hangover recovery.

Stage two - ibuprofen.

Stage 3 - bacon eggs and toast. We are out of bacon so this is a bit of a calamity.

Somehow I am in charge of Declan for a few hours as Sarah and Fintan are off to the airport to collect nana. At this moment in time - Declan probably has more brain function and working cells that I do. After an hour of reading Thomas the Tank engine stories I am done in. Percy is doing my nut in. We watch Charlie and lola but I find it too stressful. There is a space party Lola wants to go to - but she already has other commitments. This is a serious moral dilemma and I don't know how the storymakers are gonna resolve this one. Either way - it is too much stress so early in the day. So I flick on the news and watch people rioting in Egypt. Hmmm - this is fairly stressful too.

So Fintan comes back and we play football in the frozen wasteland that is our garden.

"My hands are cold Fintan. Can we go in now?" I plead.

"Put your hand in your pocket daddy."

"Ok."

"Can we play with the waterguns daddy?"

"No - it's like minus twenty out here. Even the canal has frozen over." I tell him.

"Please...Pleeeeease daddy."

"No."

Five minutes later and after a nightmarish Mexican standoff - I am trying to de-ice a pump action watergun Fintan has found beneathe a tonne of decaying leaves.

Later still - I find myself attempting to stem the gag reflex as I hold Declan's tiny shoes in front of me.

"I wish people would clear up after their fecky dogs!" says nana.

"So do I! I spend every weekend cleaning dog crap off the buggy or the kids shoes!"

So yet again I am outside with a boiling kettle full of water and a clump of kitchen towel. Scraping a wodge of dog crap off of Declan's shoes. This is turning into a hangover of brutal proportions.

We finish the day by heading off to see The King's Speech. I wasn't expecting much - but it's really good. People even clap in the cinema when it's over. And the last time I heard people do that - it was 1984 and Ghostbusters was on at the Odeon in Bromley.

Sunday - and we head to the Zoo. We pull up and about thirty seconds later - Chris and Sarah and their gaggle of little ones pull up a few cars down. How random is that?

We wander round the zoo - where I am mainly astounded at how hairy the male urangutans are. They need a haircut - seriously - one of them looks like chewbacca crossbred with a red setter. But they are immense. And pretty cool.

But it's the monitor lizard who looks the most deadly today. He gives Declan and I the evil eye and looks ready to take a bite out of us - if only that damned protective glass wasn't in the way. His eyeballs keep on focusing in and out and eyeing me up. And his nose is right up against the glass - as is mine.

Then it's off to the batcave and home.

On the way home - nana asks a very probing question that leaves the whole family stumped.

"Why are there no Yellow Ducks?"

She's right - we have a bath tub filled with various yellow ducks of random size - but when was the last time you ever saw one? Yellow chicks - yes - but yellow ducks? Someone out there must know - someone!

And on that note we drive out of the zoo - past the noah's ark at the entrance and home.

"Bye bye Arthur's boat..." says Fintan.

"Bye Bye rhino!" says Declan.

Bye bye indeed.

Chicken Tikka spicy breakfast curries and my transmogrication into the ultimate DIY couch potato

It's been a great start to the New Year. I'm working for myself - free from the shackles of corporate evildom. I shall be a benign and fair boss. Like Solomon - wise beyond my years and my door always open for a friendly chat.

I start as I mean to go on. And early in the New Year I head down to Staples and buy a comfy chair for my office.

"Do you want us to assemble it for you? - it's only a fiver?" a nice lady asks me.

"No...no...I think I can manage it..." I chuckle. What does she take me for - some sort of DIY neanderthal?

And then I think of the bouts of swearing and cursing that will follow. The frantic search for the lost Alum key - the kids running off with the crucial screw at the crucial moment.

So I change my mind. I choose a particularly fine lazyboy chair in the show-room and sit back with my ipod on full volume. I listen to icelandic warblings courtesy of Sigur Ros and look over to the man from the Staples backroom who is busy assembling the chair on the shop floor in front of me.

This is actually fantastic fun. Every now and again I offer him helpful pointers like I'm some sort of DIY expert who regularly builds small outhouses and log cabins in his spare time. And if it wasn't for my pesky back - gone again - of course I'd assemble it myself.

"Yeah - those bits are always a bit fiddly aren't they?" I encourage him as he grunts and grumbles to himself.

There is definitely great satisfaction in sitting back watching someone else labour for your benefit.

And at a fiver - it's fairly good value entertainment. I might just head to Ikea to watch someone assemble an overly complicated flatpack bathroom.

Meanwhile - back at super crazy madhouse mansions (AKA "home"). Things get off to a good start this morning.

Sarah is getting her haircut and I'm in charge of the kids. I get them dressed and feed them breakfast whilst I tuck into a hearty meal of last night's reheated Chicken Tikka masala on toast - with cheese spread and ketchup.

This seemed like a good idea at the time but minutes later I'm drinking a litre of milk straight from the carton and pumping sweat furiously.

A few milliseconds later I'm on the toilet reassessing my choice of breakfast, when in charges Fintan. He's worked out that if he rattles the bathroom door until it falls off his hinges then he can get in.

He's holding an etch-a-sketch.

"Daddy Daddy daddy - look! Look! I've drawn four dinosaurs. But which have the same tails? Which ones daddy?"

"Fintan...Fintan... jesus Fintan...I'm sitting on the toilet. Fintan. Can this wait a minute?"

"Er...no daddy. Which one? Which one?"

"I dunno I dunno...that one?" I point wildly at the red squiggle with the big teeth in the corner.

"No daddy - look again!...It's that one," he whispers to me.

And then his brother wades in...

"Bottle daddy? Bottle?" he grins at me and waves an empty bottle in my face.

"Guys Guys Guys! Will you please let me just go for a crap in peace!" I tell them.

Declan promptly sits down as if in protest and claims the bathroom for his own. No one ever told me about this before I had kids. No-one. Where is this in the rulebook?

Finally - finally I realise that nothing is sacred - nothing is holy. Nothing and no place is safe from the avenging marauding masses of the children. They can morph through walls, snap CD's in two at a moments notice. Smash bowls randomly against the kitchen floor and turn lights on and off until all the fuses in the house blow and we are plunged into darkness.

So we head to Shrek Forever After at the cinema and the kids and I gorge on a sugar high of epic proportions. This is heroin for kids - a nose bag fulla cola bottles and jelly babies and pink shrimps. I find myself strangely moved by the final scenes of Shrek. It's like an Ogre based fairy tale remake of "A Wonderful Life".

I look at the kids and remind myself to enjoy these moments with them. Before it's too late. Although - it would be good if I could promote my book more, finish the sequel, win a few more work contracts and take over the world. But for the moment I am content with this. More than content.

I break away from Lego Star Wars on the PS2 to write this blog. Fintan is telling me:

"Calm down dad. Calm down dad. If you calm down you can do it." During a particularly challenging scene. Role reversal has finally set in. I find myself roaring at the tv and cursing the bloody game as I take the controls fully off Fintan and try to complete the mission. In the end I hand them back and Fintan completes it on his own.

Humiliating or have I created a child prodigy?

My wife already knows the answer...you're a feckin' eejit. That's what it is!

Baby Jesus head assaults, Ladder attacks and the Christmas of general naughtiness

Christmas day goes something like this...

"Daddeeeee...he hit me...arghhhhhhhh," cries Fintan clutching at the large dent in his forehead.

"Declan - don't hit your brother...Declan - what did you hit him with?"

"Heeshus...." and he grins back at me and waves the small solid crib and baby Jesus at me before running off back to the nativity scene in the hallway at nana's house.

"Interesting choice of weapon Declan..."

I doubt that baby Jesus has ever been used in a full frontal head assault before.

We trek off to Church for Christmas Day. It's like walking to the North Pole and back. I've never seen so much snow in my life. We trudge down the middle of the road 'cos the snow is piled so high on the pavement. It is difficult to tell if small pensioners and Renault 5's are buried beneath the drifts. This is how I imagine Siberia on day fifty of a brutal winter. Not Dublin. It rains in Dublin! Which brings us on to the next problem.

"Frank! The taps aren't working...I think the pipes are frozen. It's ok. I can go outside and defrost them with a hair dryer or something. That's what our friends at home do." I suggest helpfully. As son-in-laws go - I am right up there with great ideas and ways to help out.

"It's ok Tom. The council switched off the water. Between seven at night and seven in the morning."

I look at my watch. It's well after 7am. This is highly suspicious. Resevoirs running dry in the wettest country on the planet (they don't call it the Emerald Isle for nothing)and now all this snow. Clearly - someone has misplaced Northern Europe and relocated it exactly where Tibet used to be.

On the way back down the road - I get the chance to lob a few snowballs at Fintan before Karina launches one right down my neck. We scramble up the drive that took four hours to dig clear of snow. Fintan stares at nana's car as if noticing it for the first time.

"Look at the state of your car nana," and he laughs. Only small specks of paint stick out to let you know that a tonne of metal lies beneath the pleasant fluffy white stuff.

I eat so much Turkey and Ham that I worry I've peaked too soon and left nothing back for the Christmas Desserts. Luckily - my reserve stomach kicks in (all men have them - basically - we're built like cows inside) and I'm able to absorb a merangue, chocolate sauce, custard and ice cream combo. Washed down with red wine and beer. Lovely.

On the way back to Chester a few days later, we board the ferry and spend the next three hours bouncing off our cabin walls. Declan generally beats his fists against the glass porthole and points at the sea with great excitement. Whilst Fintan has fallen in love with the Cabin Bunk beds. As mum pulls the bed down Fintan gasps (and I sh*t you not) - looks at both of us in awe as he says.

"What the Hell is that?!" in great astoundment. Never before has Fintan encountered a fold down Cabin Bunk Bed. And he's gonna make the most of it.

Three hours of random clambering and jumping ensue. An assortment of wails and crocodile tears as he bangs various bits of his body off corners and posts also ensues.

At one point, we turn our backs for a split second (hard to do in a 2 metre squared prison cell cum cabin) and Declan has somehow managed to find the giant metal ladder that neither of us noticed. And now he's unhooking it from it's stowed position and hoisting it at his brother in a menacing fashion. We thought Baby Jesus packed a punch. Five foot metal ladders pack even more!

I wrestle the ladder off him and try to hide it. This proves difficult - short of sleeping with it in the lower bunk.

I take Fintan off downstairs to play in the arcades for a while.

"Can we play this Daddy..please...please..."

I stare at "International Gamehunter" and the picture of lions and wildeebeast getting their heads blasted off by double barrels from the enticing shotguns connected to the machine.

"Fintan. We don't want to shoot animals...that's bad."

"Let's shoot Zombies instead..." I suggest. "On second thoughts..let's not.." I wander over to Time Crisis instead. A classic. Fintan takes blue gun and I take pink. Fintan shoots his foot alot and I kill baddies.

We drive an eighteen tonne rig across the dessert in America next and then race some 1000 CC bikes across a warzone. And then I take Fintan back upstairs to the cabin and wonder why he's so hyper.

As we dock into port we race for the lifts and jump in. We travel randomly up and down the lifts for five minutes stopping at every floor apart from the car decks (which are still locked off). At each floor. The lift opens. Families see us standing there. Declan grinning inanely and pressing all the buttons and Fintan doing likewise. And they opt for the stairs.

After five minutes they open up the car decks. It's just at this point that Declan presses the big yellow "ALARM" button.

"BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!"

"Declan. Declan. Don't press that button. Nooooooo!" Sarah and I yell at him. He laughs and points at us. He has learnt a new word over Christmas - which unfortunately - has no context or meaning to him as yet. But is very apt.

"NAUGHTY!" he laughs.

The lift opens at Green Deck 7 just as the alarm cuts out. No-one would be stupid enough to get in a lift with us now.

It is at this point that Lisa, Jon, Maya and Rian get in the lift and look up in utter surprise. As do we.

"No wayyyyyyyy?!?!?! You're on the boat too?! Nooooo?!"

Meeting your Chester Friends in a lift on a boat from Dublin is always a rather unlikely scenario - we exchange rapid Christmas greetings in a very confined space. (Think buggy, kids, nappy bags). And then - 2 floors later they pile out again.

"See you in Chester guys!"

The kids don't even bat an eyelid. Like these sorts of happenstance are perectly normal.

We get home. I bath the kids later that night. Fintan manages to headbutt me as he gets into the bath and Declan makes a naked bolt for it - runs into his brothers bedroom and pees all over his carpet.

"Nice one Declan..." I say as I rub my bruised forehead and mop baby p*ss from the floor.

It's good to be back...