:.Puzz1ed P1ace.:

Reproduced from “Toonhound”

Bob was created by advertising artist Keith Chapman back in the late 1980s. He’d spied a JCB on a building site one day and thought it might be fun to bring it to life with cartoon eyes. That JCB became Scoop. Other machines followed. Then of course, the vehicles need a human operator, and so Bob was created together with a labourer mate called Lenny. In his original guise, Bob was actually an older character and he sported a macho moustache.

Keith used to tell his children bedtime stories featuring moustachioed Bob and the crew. At the time, however, no one was interested in the concept as a commercial vehicle.

Eventually, Keith brought his long-gestating project to HIT Entertainment, and it was they who developed it into the series we know today. They even formed their own in-house studio, HOT animation, to bring the show to life. The company took a pilot to Cannes in 1996 and acquired a development deal from the BBC and from thereon, HIT’s Kate Fawkes, Jackie Cockle of HOT and designer/illustrator Curtis Jobling worked the project through the rest of the developmemt process.

Bob soon lost that moustache. He also became younger. Then Lenny was dropped, and Wendy stepped in to his shoes. But she too developed. Originally, she was a dizzy secretary-type. Fortunately, one of the more drastic changes never came to fruition. It was a change requested by the BBC and it called for the machines to be made mute – talking machines being a most illogical concept. The production team spent three months rewriting scripts but thankfully for us, the new stories had lost their sparkle so the BBC honchos were persuaded to drop their request!

The series eventually premiered on the BBC 12th April 1999, and Keith, HOT and HIT haven’t looked back. By the end of 2000, Bob had been sold to 108 countries and £60m of licensed products had been sold.

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So, a little ‘teaser’ to get the new category going. Who, or what, is/was “Humpty Dumpty” of Nursery Rhyme fame?

No need to put the answer on a postcard: just post it as a comment.

Answer in a few days

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You may have already noticed a few updates already.  They’re mostly minor and cosmetic but they’re there all the same.

I have a worrying confession to make, however. My concerns over Bob and Wendy’s relationship has led to a need to understand all things ‘Bob’. It’s been an interesting trail so far, and I’m learning loads.  Thought it worth sharing and giving some meaning to the blog, so a new section now exists for all things Bob-related. Of course, there’s loads of other stuff that could be shared.  Like the real meaning of some of the more famous nursery rhymes.  So a kids stuff section is there for that, and there’ll be content added soon.

Yes, it’s all very sad – but that sums up life right now!

Of course, it’s no worse than worrying constantly about how superglue doesn’t stick to the tube, and finding weird and wonderful warning labels.  So a new section for such trivial quirkiness too.  Whoo!

On a more serious note, however, watch this site for the highly exciting Diary of a Disabled Dad.   It should all make sense once it’s live.

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After three years of marriage she’s leaving me. It’s all come as a bit of a shock but I guess really I should have expected it. There’s been talk of it before, but thankfully it never happened. This time it looks different though. I’m slowly coming to terms with it, and trying to look positively at just how Samuel and I are gonna cope without her here. For a whole 48 hours.

It must have been a tough choice though. Stay here with SJ and me and the leftover kids, or go to an activity centre for 3 days with most of the year group. Hmmm… Either way, sleepless nights and long tiring days are almost guaranteed. I’m not sure which is harder to look after though: us or 60 nine year olds.

Joking apart I must confess to being a little anxious about it. I’m sure we’ll manage fine, but it will be strange. Last year the other teachers went so we weren’t seperated with a newborn, but this year that excuse doesn’t work. I guess if we’d thought it through then we could have done something about it 9-10 months ago but that may have led to other problems.

We all went to look at the centre to get an idea of what space there was and what activities could be done. SJ loved it – lots of space, large lake, other kids playing football. Could have left him there for ages.

Of course, that’s always one of the biggest fears on trips like this. Losing a child. Confession time: I’ve done it! Not something I talk about much, but I managed to lose a child once in a Churchyard. Thankfully only for a few minutes: I realised he was missing by the bottom of the road, but he had no idea we’d all left. He was ok and (perhaps more importantly) so were his parents. Phew!

Reminds me of a story I heard about a Sunday School outing to the sea almost twenty years ago. There were 17 children and the required number of adults, carefully calculated by dividing the height of the tallest child by the average windspeed, or whatever the formula was back then. Being a diligent (or paranoid) Sunday School leadership, the children were counted frequently throughout the day. Every time there were 17. They had a fantastic day, no problems, no lost or drowned children, and at the of the afternoon it was time to get the train home. As ever the children were counted onto the train. As ever there were 17. They took their seats and chattered the whole way home. Just to be sure, once again, the children were counted off the train. Eighteen. In fact, it turned out there had been eighteen most of the day. A young lad had joined the group and followed them around for most of the day. I’m reliably informed that the Police reunited him with his anxious family swiftly and they all lived happily ever after.

Suddenly the thought of being on my own with SJ for 48 hours is quite appealing. It certainly seems that I’ve got the easier few days!

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Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.2 and 1.5.0.10 Released – MozillaZine Talkback

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.2 and 1.5.0.10 Released
Friday February 23rd, 2007New Security and Stability updates for Mozilla Firefox have been released.

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.2, a security and stability update for Firefox 2 addresses several security issues. All users are encouraged to upgrade to this release. For more information, refer to the Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.2 Release Notes.

Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.10, a security and stability update for Firefox 1.5 addresses several security issues. Users of Firefox 1.5 are encouraged to update to Firefox 2. Security updates for Firefox 1.5 will be discontinued on April 24, 2007. For more information, refer to the Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.10 Release Notes

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Won’t have affected this site/mail at all, but our other server has been playing up again this evening.  As ever Rick at Galaxy has not been responding to messages about the problem, leaving all the sites that we still provide hosting for unavailable.  Enough is enough though and I’m just signing up for a decent server so we can ditch the incresaingly incompetent and amateur Galaxy service for good.

If your website and mail is still on the server, expect to get an email in a couple of weeks with more information.

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Anyone want a shape sorter? SJ never had one before his birthday, but Brad bought him a wonderful one. So did Linda. And Lilly. And…

Now that the wrapping paper is all cleared away and the holiday washing washed we’ve managed to work out that he has in fact got five shape sorters. Amazingly each one is different. One is a truck, and if you push hard enough on the driver’s head the truck shudders and chugs along. Please don’t try this if you see an Eddie Stobart driver in a service station. One is a cube that has a shape sorter on one side, a maze on another, some strange halluciogenic hollographic disc on a third, and other things that I’ve not managed to make sense of as yet. Then there’s the bus with a piano on the roof, and the one that I fell over yesterday and kicked under the sofa.

I’m sure there is a positive side to having such a rich veriety of shape sorters. When SJ’s older we can use them to teach how each of us is different, or some other important lesson. Until then, though, we’ll enjoy the rich variety of sorters for what they are. A damned nuisance.

For just as each sorter is different, so too is each shape. Yes, yes, I know that’s the point. Children learn that the square thing goes in the square hole and all that jazz. My problem is that the square thing from the bus won’t fit in the square hole on the truck. I hope you get

the picture, for to list all the shape/block/hole combinations would almost definately result in life-long problems in the shape of RSI.

Should any toy manufacturers be reading this, until such time as the beloved European Union standardises shape sorter shapes and sizes – as I’m sure one day they will – my plea, for the sake of my sanity, is thus: please can we have a shape sorter shape sorter.

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Not sure how, but managed to break everything!  All seems ok again now though…

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Samuel’s been having a great time on holiday, being spoilt by everyone! Even the DJ decided he was the cutest baby ever and kidnapped him

Of course, he loved his short-lived moment of stardom in the DJ box and wanted to spend the whole night up there! Will get the photos uploaded when we get back.

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No, I’ve not lost my wallet again, and SJ’s not hidden the phone… for a change. I’m referring to the past twelve months or, to be more grammatically correct as that would require the title to say ‘where’ve they gone’, the past year.

This time last year I was about to give birth. Well, my wife was really, but I don’t want to sideline myself in the first diary entry: I’ve got the rest of society to do that for me.

Life was fairly normal back then. She worked, I worked, and we spent time together too. I vaguely remember places called ‘cinema’ and ‘pub’ though quite what they are seems to escape me now. We’d recovered from Christmas – it was spent moving house – and were all ready for the big day. Any day now… maybe…

One of the worst things you can do to a perfectionist and control-freak is make them wait for something without telling them exactly when it will be. You’d think after nine months of waiting she’d be used to it, but apparently not.

Here we are waiting again. Well, I am at least. Anytime now SJ will wake up and ask for milk in his usual eardrum-shattering way. We were told at ante-natal classes that there are two ways to bring labour on. One is curry but the midwife was too embarrassed to tell us what the other way is. She just said we’d all done it before. Similarly there are two ways to bring on the cries for milk. One is to make so much noise that everyone in a half-mile radius is woken up (anything quieter will not wake this baby). The other is to turn off the laptop, switch off the light and settle into bed. Guaranteed. Of course there is a very slim chance that he won’t wake for milk. Maybe after his three birthday parties this afternoon he’ll just sleep all night. Three parties! I think I’ve only had that many in my 32 years, yet alone in one day. Still, he loved every minute of it and kept going all afternoon without getting too grouchy. Until about 5.30 when he just got up, walked to his bedroom and waited for us to put him to bed. If only every night was like that.

It is quite alarming how quickly the last year has gone though, and how much has changed.  A year ago it was just the two of us.  Well, sort of. A year ago we both worked, I could get about without using a wheelchair and didn’t rattle from taking numerous tablets in the vain hope some of them might help me get through each day. The washing machine was used a couple of times each week rather than a couple of times every day, and we played playstation rather than ‘name the stain on the carpet’.  A year ago the house was tidy, everything was packed and ready just in case, and we were waiting. Now? The phone’s in the bath, I’ve lost my wallet as well as my marbles, the house is a mess, but the waiting’s over. We’ve got a fantastic baby boy…. who wants his milk.

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