Duck you

Did you know that if a duck quacks and farts at the same time it makes no noise? The sounds cancel each other out. So next time you’re in Roath Park feeding a noisy, chattering flock of ducks and a sudden hush descends move away quickly, very quickly, and find a bird with a less impressive wind cloaking technique.

Now my daughter loves ducks, to a point where we have over 30 types in our house. Big fluffy ones, robotic ones, ducks on strings, magnetic, rubber ones, vomit inducing calendars, animated ones and a sneaky one with Hoisin sauce in the fridge. She loves nothing more than to mimic them whenever and wherever possible.

I came down to the kitchen this morning to the sound of the little one running around pretending to be a duck, arms flapping and legs ablur. That’s very sweet you may think, however Anika often mixes up her ‘Q’s with ‘F’s. So when she runs around shouting, what she thinks is, ‘QUACK QUACK QUACK’ at the top of her voice you could be forgiven for thinking you wandered into the backstage ‘creche’ on Jeremy Kyle.

Now in our kitchen it’s fine because we know what she means however in certain circumstances it can cause issues.

I was in Tesco last week when she passed the book stand, and there in pride of place was a book called ‘The Duck Patrol’. One look at the book was enough to send the store into chaos, mothers covered their children’s ears, men with skull tattoos turned crimson and grandmothers plunged pineapples into their ears. I tried to explain that she was trying to quack but I’m afraid it fell on deaf (and covered) ears.

Swearing’s a funny thing though. It’s interesting that a collection of letters can create such pandemonium and cause so much outrage. I guess a lot of it depends on where the swear word is said, for example if you shouted ‘For F**** sake get on the end of the cross’ at the Cardiff City Stadium no one would blink an eyelid. Shout that in church though and you’re in trouble.

I’ve been in certain pubs in the past where you get thrown out for not swearing. Where ever big groups of men get together every other word seems to be an F or an S word. Everyone knows that between men a continual league table exists. This league table hovers about 3 feet above everyone’s head and is updated after every anecdote, joke and tale. Top of the tree means you are the legend, the alpha male – other members of the group will groom you, buy you pints and give you their chips on Facebook poker. While if you are bottom, you sheepishly follow the crowd at the back, bemoaning your lack of intimate meetings with middle aged strippers, failure to down 5 pints in a row and lack of knowledge of the workings of a classic Mustang.

The scoring method is shrouded in mystery however tales that end with whoops of joy and laughter, back slapping and shouts of ‘You never did that’ or ‘I’d go and see the doctor’ generally score well. Plus there’s one extra point per swear word. So as many as possible are shoe horned in, even if there’s no need for them – ‘She gave me some ******* crunchy nut corn flakes’ one person shouts out. Swear words are used so often they’ve lost their meaning. Originally created to show a high level of uproar and anger they have now just become words used to get other people’s attention. A way of creating a sign that says ‘Look at me I am both mature and hard enough to utter this word’ .  There’s a time and a place for swearing but may I suggest that children’s playgrounds aren’t one of them.  

One of life’s little ironies is that teenagers spend half their life telling people how mature and grown up they are and the other half sitting around in children’s playgrounds, messing about on the baby swings and pretending to be 2.

Last week while in a park pushing a 2yr old in a swing  I was able to witness the mating ritual of the teenager.

‘Oh butt, do you want to neck Joff – he’s the one with the afro’

‘No way’

‘Oh go on he’s desperate like’

Interestingly this whole conversation is carried out while the boy is hanging upside down from a metal bar, no doubt a sign of strength and agility He is one stage away from beating his chest and bringing out a great big club. I heard years ago that when you drink you basically start knocking out nerves in your brain – they cease to work. The more you down the more of these you knock out. These nerves control the part of the brain that makes us human and as such it’s the difference between us and cave men. So by the end of a night some men have regressed a million years and are left with 3 rudimentary survival needs, they must find food, a mate and somewhere to pee. That’s why on any given weekend Caroline Street seems so appealing, it’s a one stop shop for all three.  I wonder if perfume knocks these nerves off in the teenage boy.

But I know one thing for sure I won’t be taking my daughter to Roath park any time soon. Firstly because you can never trust a duck and secondly there’s a time and a place to shock.

Thoroughly Modern Man?

I once fell asleep during the Lord’s Prayer. Not as a bored child sitting in a stuffy school hall or a partied out teenager dragged to church by my well-meaning but ill-advised parents. No I fell asleep during the Lord’s Prayer when I was a teacher, a proper grown up adult man. I found that closing my eyes for any longer than a routine blink sent sleep crashing down on me like a great big, warm comfortable avalanche. Now my relationship with the big guy in the sky is tenuous in the least, apart from the odd conversation during injury time at the Cardiff City Stadium  or screamed references during rare ‘romantic’ nights in, we have a questionable bond  but I cherished those moments in that school hall. When I bowed my head reached out a hand to the all mighty and fell fast asleep for 30 seconds, until either Mr Harshaw dug me in the ribs or a small ginger child yanked my tie , causing me to head but myself with my own knee.

Now I’m not a cruel man, I catch spiders in cups and let them out of windows (from the top floor bathroom mind but once he’s out of my property he aint my concern) but one of the cruellest things I’ve done occurred around this time.

During a conversation with a female co-worker I actually started snoring – mid talk. Not just small mouse sized whimpers but great big Homer Simpson style grunts that made windows shake and rodents run for cover. I had my eyes fully open and was even standing bolt upright but somehow my body had listened to details of the British Canal System for long enough (about 3 seconds) and went into automatic sleep mode, a well know survival mechanism normally reserved for sky tv boxes and laptops. It wasn’t that I was particularly bored but that I was lacking that most valuable of human assets – Sleep.

It’s one of life’s cruel ironies that just when you finally get to a stage when you can sleep to your heart’s content, when you can enjoy lazy mornings reading pointlessly massive Sunday papers or when your lie inns upset nothing but your tv watching schedule along comes a bundle that is (all though undoubtedly joyful) an earth shattering mammoth dollop of WOW.

My daughter is a chortling, giggling bundle of joy but she really shows little respect for my sleeping schedule. It’s as though she doesn’t even care if I need to get up at 5 for a meeting or got in late after a night out. I’ve tried reasoning with her, offering her extra scoops of Actimal or on more extreme occasions kidnapping Mr Donkey but nothing works. My only hope is to book in a lie in for 2018.

My son, who is about to go to comprehensive school, will fight against the coming of the sleeping hour with ever more ingenious stories – ‘My teacher has asked me do a report on the 10 o’clock news for Journalism club’, ‘ Good god I’m 11 I should be able to live my life free from rules of any kind thank you very much’ and ‘I’ve just done my nails and have to wait for them to dry’ (that last one isn’t true but is inserted for reasons of gender balancing) and I try to tell him how wonderful sleep is but to him it’s just 8 hours not spent on the X-Box.

Of course naturally you only truly value sleep when you have none of it and when you have plenty of it you don’t really need it. It’s one of life’s cruel paradoxes that exist around every corner.  Like only being able to afford nice sports cars when you’re too old to look good in them, being told off for farting in the toilet or being at your physical prime at the same age you spend every night in the pub.

For instance what kind of cruel sense of humour decides that men will reach their sexual peak at 18 while women will have to wait till they’re in their mid-30s?

Women all over the country are wearing their best nighties and snuggling up to their men, ‘Hey big boy’ they whisper into the lug whole, the man fiddles with the remote gently, retracts the finger from the nose and replies ‘Where were you 15 yrs ago?’ Is it cruelty of the biggest order or the reason Kiwi’s was invented?  

Of course I’m always at my peak – perhaps that’s why I’m so tired all the time.