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Got involved in a modern day Myth of Sisyphus, just as I was about to go out on a run in some muddy running shoes. I came back into the wood floored living room briefly and realised I had inadvertently shed quite a lot of chunks of dried mud on to the floor. So I got the dustpan and long handled brush out of the cupboard and swept it up. But in doing so successfully I realised that more chunks of dirt had fallen from my shoes and I now needed to turn around to sweep those up. Yet even though I managed that I had created more debris that needed to be swept up and there was no way I could ever stop this pattern repeating over and over again. I mean I could take off my shoes, but I'd been so impressed with myself for even getting them on, after only having attempted one run in the last month or so (that was on Saturday- when I got the shoes muddy by not taking them off when I did some work in the garden), that I feared if I removed them I would lose my motivation to go. But if I didn't remove them I would be trapped in this never ending cycle of sweeping up land crumbs whilst creating more land crumbs. Eventually I just walked away from the last bit of dirt. Leaving another trail behind me.
I ran up the hill and conked out after 1km. But it's a start. A bad start. And it also got rid of the remaining dirt from my shoes.
My kids are terrible fucking swearers. I don't know where they get it from. We've mainly convinced the little wankers to stop doing it, but Phoebe likes to demonstrate that she knows very rude swear words (though did call "piss" the P-word the other day, which might lead to misunderstandings - there's too many swears to assign one letter to one of them). I was wearing my Rick and Morty T shirt that says " I am f*cking genius and god" on it. I've had to stop myself doing the school pick up in this shirt because I suspect some parents would find it inappropriate, but I was just wearing it round the house. Phoebe affected innocence and asked me what the asterisked word could possibly be. "It's facking" I told her. "Is that all it could be?" she responded. "It might be focking, or possibly ficking."
"I'm thinking it might be something else"
Phoebe started working through the vowels. "There are five of them" she told me.
"That's right," I said, "A E I O and Y. It might be fycking."
"I feel like there's another one. U"
"You're right it might be "f' you king - for you king. But I think it's focking."
"What does focking mean?"
"To dance around in a merry fashion."
"What about facking?"
"That's to dance around in a slightly less merry fashion."
"I don't know," she smiled.
I am the worst parent in the world.
More top guests announced for the tour, including Peter Hooton of the Farm for Liverpool, Peter Richardson of the Comic Strip for Exeter and Rufus Jones for Brighton.
Tickets and full line-ups here.No gigs are yet sold out (though Chorley is close), and some look more sold than they are because tickets are also out with agencies (ticketmaster etc). I have asked for as many of those as possible to be returned, so there are still a few tickets for the Newcastle afternoon gig which will be on the Stand website soon, but don't wait too long as both those shows should sell out soon.