Warming Up

I awoke from a dream in which I'd been pitching some new comedy ideas to TV executives and some younger comedians. I had come up with a brilliant character called “Funny Man” who whatever situation you put him in does something funny. He's not a superhero. He's just a man. Who does funny things. In different situations. The dream executives loved it.

I think my dreams are trying to satirise me and my chosen profession. I mean, Funny Man is basically just every comedy character boiled down to their basic ingredients. I might try and do him some time.

Only on waking did I realise how my subconcious was mocking me. The joke will be on my subconcsious when I turn Funny Man into the next big hit. This is like Paul Maccartney dreaming "Yesterday". Or maybe it's like the song he dreamed the day before he wrote "Yesterday" that he never bothered writing up. But if that's the case then "Yesterday" was actually about that song and thus without the song from yesterday, Maccartney wouldn't have done, "Yesterday".

I can't wait to see what I dream tomorrow, then.

I took the kids to another local farm experience place this afternoon.  It was slightly more basic than the Peter Rabbit one, but I bet the burgers were nicer. It was also significantly cheaper. 

And fair enough it was a bit battered around the edges and there were no drama students dressed up in a Benjamin Bunny costume, but we had lots of fun. We fed some llamas and played crazy golf (though I had to carry Ernie as I played, which was a handicap I'd like to see added to professional, sane golf) and Phoebe went on some roundabouts. I don't remember going on roundabouts so much when I was a kid. Phoebe's been on roundabouts on at least five separate occasions in the last two months (and usually more than one different roundabout). Going on roundabouts at theme parks like this is certainly the cost effective way to do it as it's all included in the ticket price. There's just a little budgeting tip for fans of roundabouts.

The afternoon passed quickly and we had to go home before we'd done everything. Phoebe wanted a gift from the gift shop which was basically anything she saw. Suddenly upon seeing a thing she didn't really know existed before, it became essential for her to own it. I told her how lucky she was to get to come to a place like this at all and that some kids wouldn't be able to do that. She seemed to take that in and empathise. But she still wanted every bit of junk on offer. There was a ball with a weird tether thing attached to it that she said she really had to have. I said she couldn't. She did a bit of a fake cry. I said it wasn't going to happen. “But I want it,” she told me. That wasn't going to work. “But I love you, daddy,” she wailed. How quickly they learn. It didn't work. But I did end up buying her some kind of weird plastic centipede. Because I don't want her to stop loving me.

I am very much the pushover parent.

She earned her money back tonight at bedtime by singing  a ten minute improvised song about aliens. This is why I had kids. For cute interludes. 

But remember a child is for life and not just for cuteness. You have to keep looking after them even when they are no longer delivering the song-based goods. 

And all in all it might be cheaper just to pay someone else's kid to come over and do improvised songs. 

Though society can be weird about things like that.