These shoes are made for walking...

A milestone in Finn's life as we dragged him to Clarks for his first pair of 'proper' shoes. Miraculously, Finn allowed the woman in Clarks to measure his feet then, once we'd chosen a pair and they were brought to us, simply let her put the things on his feet. There is no way that putting Finn's shoes on will ever be as simple again. Despite walking up and down the living room and wreaking havoc in all corners of our house, Finn refused to budge once he was shoed up, save for collapsing on the floor in an 'I know they've told you I can walk real, real good but I'm a baby, goddammit!' heap. By the time you read this post I fully expect Finn to have lost at least one of his shoes.

Bush - it's the farewell kiss, you dog...

"So what if someone threw a shoe at me?" said George W Bush, after Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi threw not a single shoe but a pair at the man with no brain, the sitting duck president whose media farewell to Iraq quickly went viral due to the inherent comedy of this size 10 incident.

Here's Bush before the footwear flew his way:

And here he is after everyone realised what great fun it is to throw shoes at an American 'leader':

Let he who has an abundance of patent leather cast the first shoe and all that. Muntadar al-Zeidi is not just my hero.

Omnipresence...

As if all these tedious ramblings aren't enough, I now have yet more web presence and more blog space, over on the Hull Truck website, where I am, rather retrospectively in the first instance, harping on about where the idea for On A Shout materialised. In a hasty decision mumbled across a green room, I have pledged to write an entry at least once a month for the venue between now and the first night and I anticipate a huge response from the public!

Met eldest son in town. He's 15 tomorrow so I handed over the necessary in exchange for five minutes of his valuable time. We ate hot dogs, which are touted at Hull's major shopping mall as 'the taste of Europe', although, of course, we now associate hot dogs with ball parks and obese Americans, rather than the more svelt European. My hot dog was topped with chopped dried onions, an addition that quickly dropped off as soon as I started eating. In the mall I also managed to catch sight of a pair of trainers that my daughter is insisting we buy for the baby, as she's keen to indoctrinate unborn children with her personal brand preferences. Daughter reckons that if she had size 1.5 feet she would wear these herself, although I think that's the kind of behaviour that would probably get a 17-year-old girl laughed at (velcro? at your age?) and, if she did have size 1.5 feet, I'd've made her join the circus and she wouldn't be able to afford such luxurious footwear.