I’m doing some basic research on teaching kids to program computers. If you teach (or have taught) kids to program I’d value your response. I’m using zoomerang for this so if the survey doesn’t appear below try going to the direct page for it. If you know any ICT teachers (or just parents who teach their own kids to program – please pass this onto them.

I’ll post the results later here and on my Free Software Magazine blog.

I don’t need to add anything here (except for my UK friends 8th grade is about 13-14 years old).

( h/t Jesus Needs New PR )

Scott Zirkel drew this cartoon of Katie as a Jedi to encourage her

A heartwarming story came across my feed today. It tells of how Star Wars fan Katie Goldman (7) came home and asked her mum to change her school water bottle to a pink one because the kids in her class were teasing her about her Star Wars one which was apparently “just for boys”. The story is a wonderful example of humanity at its best and I won’t repeat the whole thing here. Go read it and then come back. As ever in these stories my thoughts turned to my own kids. My son is Katie’s age and my daughter is not far off and whilst not fans like Katie they both like Star Wars.

In case you want to read it later, Katie’s mum blogged about her daughter’s plight, this was read by a fellow Star Wars kid who is now all grown up and is also a girl – Jen Yates. She posted a message to other Star Wars fans to help encourage Katie. They responded and then some, including some of the actors in Clone Wars. Now people are wearing Star Wars clothes to work to support Katie and help negate the bullying.

It’s a great story and is rightly being trumpeted as a victory for all that is good about the Web but here’s what caught my attention. The web, like any other medium, would have failed Katie as it fails many other kids who are bullied had it not been for one thing: somebody acted. Had Katie’s mum said nothing, nothing would have happened. had Jen Yates just read the story, thought “how sad” and then gone back to WoW or whatever else she does with her time, Katie would not be famous or — more importantly — helped. Had the other fans Yates contacted done nothing, Katie would now be taking her pink bottle to school.

Somebody acted. Would you?

I follow someone on Twitter, @artsyhonker who every morning tweets “Good morning! What will you [blank] today?”. The blank is replaced by a different encouragement/question each day. Today’s one was “What will you persist in today?”. I am pretty certain she has already done this one but following the same lines I would like to say to you

Who will you encourage today?

That encouragement might be telling somebody they are doing okay, saying thank you for something they do as part of their job or in the case of Katie Goldman, telling them that they are not alone.

May the force be with you, Katie and all the other Star Wars kids out there.

Would you begrudge adding this to a £30 meal to help someone?

This weekend we had a meal at a local restaurant. It’s part of a chain and to be honest the chain is irrelevant. We had a good time and enjoyed the food. When it came to pay the bill they added a 10p donation to the World Food Program‘s World Hunger Campaign. We had no objection and happily paid the bill.

It got us thinking though. What if all restaurant meals had this? What if every restaurant meal over a certain threshold (let’s say £3) had an automatic “tax” of 10p? Not 10% just 10p? How much would this raise? According to one industry site, about 148 million restaurant meals were eaten in the UK last year. This does not include take-aways but if the “tax” I suggest included them I guess we would be looking at it raising around £25million per annum. I’m not an expert but that’s a lot of money.

Now what if this were used to fund something like the WFP or maybe even fund free school dinners for more children in the UK? We’re told that the average cost for a school dinner is about £1.50. Families on benefits get free school dinners anyway but something like this could help a greater number and raise the threshold so those who are just above the benefit threshold (but still on very low income) could get some help too. If a child had a free cooked meal at school wouldn’t that help keep the family budget down and thus help raise a lot of families out of poverty? I suspect the answer is yes because otherwise the government wouldn’t already offer free school meals to the poorest families in the UK. Many studies have also shown that eating a nutritious lunch helps with studies and learning.

Okay so I guess a lot of financial and sociological experts will pick holes in this idea. I’m also sure there would be a lot of people who would object because they don’t have children or they should be able to choose to whom, when, how much and even if they donate. I still think it would be worth looking into and could be acceptable to many because a) it’s flat rate – if your meal costs £500 you still pay 10p, b) it’s a paltry amount, c) it’s easy to pay and d) it could make a real difference very quickly.

My father would hand-pump air into one of these to keep his baby brother alive

There was quite a bit of stuff on TV over the weekend regarding the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Included in any tale of the Battle of Britain will always be The Blitz and these were no different.

Watching these programmes reminded me of my father. Growing up in Islington (which was not the trendy place it is now) he was 5 when Britain declared war on Germany. By 6 he had been evacuated to Whitney in Oxfordshire where he stayed on a farm but – like many – found his hosts not to be as warm as his own parents. In 1941 my grandmother gave birth to my twin uncles so my Dad, aged 7 was brought back to London (at the height of the Blitz) to help her. He has told me of his nights sat in an air-raid shelter wearing his “mickey mouse” gas mask and pumping air by hand into one of his baby brother’s gas mask (see image right) while my grandmother did the same with the other one. I have a son about the age he was then and the idea of my boy going through what my dad went through is horrendous.

A while back (I think it may have been during the 60th anniversay of the Blitz) the Imperial War Museum¹ in London had a Blitz exhibition. I accomanpied my Dad hoping he could give me some first-hand references to the displays and features. He did. One of the exhibits was a “Blitz Experience”. You walked into a mock anderson air-raid shelter and then sat there whilst a simulated air-raid took place. The narrative was interesting and to me it looked like they had taken a lot of care over the authenticity. When the “bombs” dropped you could “hear” the planes and “feel” them exploding in the surrounding area as the shelter shook. During much of this time the lights were either out or very low. Thinking the experience was quite good I turned to my Dad for an opinion on just how realistic it was. My Dad was a white as a sheet and staring ahead. I touched his arm and he looked at me with a tear in his eye and simply said “That was a bit too close for comfort”.

At that moment, more than any other I began to appreciate what those who remember the Blitz went through and why they rarely speak of all of it. I imagine it is similar for the pilots of the RAF and all those who served, fought and just lived through those times. Later my Dad would tell me how it brought back memories of the time and of those who went through it with him but are no longer around. At that moment also my respect for my dad grew at an exponential rate and still does.

So here’s to my Dad and the thousands like him who lived through times that I couldn’t possibly imagine living through. They didn’t ask to or want to and I doubt they would want to do it again but they did and had they not: how different would the world be now? While we’re at it here also is to those around the world who live through such times today and here’s hoping we can finally get around to making sure nobody else has to.

¹ If you live in London and have never visited the Imperial War Museum, I recommend it. Far from being a celebration and glorification of military might as the name might suggest it takes a sensitive, respectful and careful look all the aspects of war, the people involved, the tragedy and the reasons behind it. I am yet to go and not come away even more convinced that war must end.

Thought I’d start the new year with a cautionary tale.

Somebody once said “There’s no such thing as a normal day”. That is true but there are definitely abnormal days. Days that really could only happen once. At least there had better be or else the day described here could happen again. Before I go any further I want to say this is all absolutely true (except the Bon Jovi bit which I can’t prove) and occurred in mid 2008. At the time, I submitted it as an article for an internal magazine where I was then working but never got around to putting it on here.

Update 19 March 2010: Recently this page has been coming to the top of Google searches for “My child has put cat poo in their mouth”. If you’ve come here looking for what to do I’m afraid I don’t have the answer. The NHS website does say that “Animal faeces (poo) are not ‘poisonous’ but may cause infections and if you are concerned you should call NHS Direct.” Here’s the link to that page (helpfully called “poisoning”) if it helps.

If your child hasn’t been tucking into the cat litter you can read on. Oh and wouldn’t read this while eating if I were you.

Rude awakenings

It all started when my left leg decided it was time to re-introduce me to the idea of cramp. Now I’ve had my fair share of cramp and perhaps it was the fact that I was in the middle of an unusually deep sleep but I don’t recall cramp ever feeling like this! This was man-cramp. My leg felt like it had a shark attached and I went from snore to roar in under a second. I did what any normal human would do and screamed. Actually I didn’t – I was about to when I remembered my loving wife (Claire) sound asleep beside me and being a caring husband (and a complete coward) I thought it best not to wake her at 5:30 in the morning.

So I slid out of bed (the only way I could actually move at the time) and tried to get rid of the cramp by stretching my leg – which of course hurt even more. So now I wanted to scream even more. Time to leave the room and scream elsewhere. They don’t call it cramp for nothing though and my first step resulted in a half lunge and me falling towards the bed. After a clever mid-fall twist which would have made Tom Daley proud I avoided the bed and landed on the floor – right on top of the leg with cramp. So I crawled to the bathroom, stuffed a flannel in my mouth and stretched my leg. After about ten minutes the pain (and the screaming) reduced enough for me to limp back to bed where my – ever so concerned – wife was probably dreaming about Jon Bon-Jovi but was definitely not awake. Phew. The venture was a success in one aspect at least.

I went from roar to snore in under a second. This was man-cramp!

And so back to sleep for all of around 10 minutes when my son (four at the time) started shouting “help!” from his bedroom. Despite some well placed elbows, Bon-Jovi was still holding my wife’s avid attention. So up I got and hobbled into the kids’ room to find him sitting up in the top bunk. He calmly explained that he’d had a nightmare and had “forgotten” to wake up in the middle of it to go to the toilet. The bed was soaked. His sister (three) was as out of it as my wife (but hopefully not dreaming about Jon Bon-Jovi) in the lower bunk. The manager in me took over and I decided that eighties musicians would have to move aside. I, gently, woke my wife and assigned her the task of dealing with our son while I dealt with the bed. Standing on the edge of the lower bunk (with my daughter still asleep in it) I stripped the top one and cleaned up. Eventually the bedding was all piled up and Catnip (his favourite toy) was sitting atop the pile like a wee-covered Guy Fawkes. I decided I’d take them down “in the morning”. By this time my son was clean and in dry jammies and clambered back into bed. I limped back to mine. My wife was already heading back to the eighties and my cramp was dying down so it seemed some sleep was on the cards.

Enter the cat

At this point the cat realised she had not played a big enough part in my morning. She also decided – what with all the moving around – that it must be time for her breakfast. Tempting as it was to help her out of the upstairs window, I hobbled downstairs and fed her with all the grace I could muster. Believe me, she was lucky I didn’t put a funnel in her mouth and pour it down! So after all that it was back to bed and what was left of my sleep.

Believe me at this point the cat was lucky I didn’t open her mouth and pour the food down for her!

But wait! There’s more. Apparently during my cramp-induced gymnastics I managed to knock my alarm clock off the bedside and turned it off. So half an hour after I was supposed to wake up, my son appeared beside my bed and gently shook me. “Ah bless” I thought ,“He probably wants some breakfast”. He probably did, but the reason he was waking me up was to say “Daddy, Pebbles has done a poo in my room”. Pebbles if you haven’t guessed is the afore-mentioned cat. Taking in this glorious news I just knew it would be on the rug and not on the – easy to clean – laminate flooring. “Where abouts?” I asked, anxiously. “On the bottom bunk” came the reply swiftly followed by – a very dead-pan – “and it’s all squishy”. This was enough to drag my wife back from her own personal Ashes-to-Ashes and she went to rescue our daughter from the cat’s new litter tray. After she returned while I limped towards my own personal Life On Mars to clean another bed. Meanwhile Mummy went through the checking-a-child-for-cat-poo-whilst-avoiding-getting-it-on-yourself-and-anything-else procedure (patent pending).

When I arrived there were indeed some “parcels of fun” from Pebbles the cat on the end of the bed and they were indeed, squishy. Not that my daughter had noticed. Apparently she had remained completely asleep while the cat did it’s business and – even with the squishy poo on her bed – I confess I was envious. The cat must have seen my face and decided this was not the time to ask for more food and she sat quietly by the back door waiting for me to open it. If she was smart she’d stay out there all day. I know my cat. She’s not that smart.

A twist in the tale

You’d think this story would end now wouldn’t you but, like an M. Night Shyamalan film, there’s one final plot twist. As I went out to deposit Pebbles’ – er – pebbles ( now in a bag ) into the dustbin I re-discovered that the day before my Father-in-Law ( who to be fair was just trying to be helpful ) had put the kitchen bin liner and put it next to our dustbin. I had “meant” to do something about that before going to bed because, bless him, he didn’t know the reason we have dustbins with lids where I live. They are called foxes and overnight a couple of the little beggars had ripped that bin bag to shreds and spread the contents – offering like – before my front door. They were obviously looking for waste food. Ha! Waste food in our house – nice one.

So there I stood, tired, in bare feet, only one of which I could stand on, holding a bag of poo, before a sea of kitchen waste. Hey, at least the sun was shining. Right in my eyes! So I mopped up the sea, deposited the bag o’ poo and glanced at the clock. Arrghhh – 7:45 – I was supposed to leave at 7:30!

So while “this is the day that the Lord has made” would seem ironic at that moment. “We will rejoice and be glad in it” was a particular struggle. I really hope that was an abnormal day. Because if it wasn’t, there’s a risk that it could happen again and I’m not sure I could survive two days like that.

I know for a fact that my cat won’t!

P.S. My wife has asked me to point out that the bit about Bon Jovi is entirely without evidence or factual basis and is simply a pre-supposition on my part. Glad to get the legal part over but I would like to say that she was very excited when I later gave her tickets to a Bon-Jovi concert

It’s a popular meme at this time of year that Christmas is for the kids and — incarnation of God and beginning of the world’s salvation not withstanding — it probably is as well.

Having two of the little ones myself I thought it might be nice to share some of the Christmas-related, children-related quotes and events that I’ve encountered. Some happened this year, others in previous years.

Fair’s fair

My two were clamouring for one of the chocolates on offer after the carol service. I said they could have one each. My eldest (6 at the time) spotted the mince pies and — putting on his best smile — asked “Can I have a mince pie as well Dad?”. It’s Christmas. I said yes. At which point my youngest (4 at the time) started rifling through the tin of chocolates. When I asked what she was doing she responded (without looking up or stopping the rifling) with: “I don’t want a mince pie!”.

Guess who’s coming to town

It was six days before Christmas and to say my two were excited is a gross understatement. School was out and they were gearing up for the big night in a big way. Despite their excitement we managed to get them upstairs to get ready for bed. I took the opportunity to make a cup of tea and after stirring, tapped the mug with the teaspoon (I don’t know, it’s a thing I always do). It made a slight tinging sound at which the two kids thundered down the stairs shouting “We heard the bells! Where’s Father Christmas?”

New takes on the old old story

We’ve all encountered children who think the wise men brought “Gold, Frankenstein and Myrrh” but there are other cases of new words being used in the old story. I personally got in trouble as a child for saying the shepherds were washing their socks. I’ve also heard a version of Away in a manger where the cattle were “glowing” (presumably from standing too close to the angels). A friend’s child once asked why Mary and Joseph didn’t just drive home again if all the hotels were booked up but perhaps my favourite is the child who asked where the horses slept with all those people crowded in the stable.

The Real Father Christmas

When my niece was young I took her to see one of the many Father Christmas’s in a local shopping centre. Whilst queueing we passed the people exiting excitedly with their presents (and an emptier wallet). I heard a parent ask their little one if they enjoyed seeing Father Christmas. The child responded with “yes and I think this one is the real one not some bloke pretending”. Then there was a pause and then the big brother (who was looking very fed up) said  “He could do with getting his beard dry cleaned though!”.

The look that the parent gave the older child would have made Medusa proud.

The trials of Christmas shopping

Last year I was in a shopping centre, a week or so before Christmas and took a moment to grab a rest while waiting for my wife. A Mother and her three children stopped and readjusted their myriad of bags next to me. The mother started running through her – mental – checklist to ensure they hadn’t forgotten anything. As she listed the gifts they had bought and who they were for, the middle of the three children began to interrupt. “Mum..”. The mother held up her hand to summon silence. “But..” Again the mother held up her hand and this continued through the list. Satisfied that they hadn’t forgotten anything she declared they could now go home. She then turned and asked what the middle child wanted. “I think Dad’s still in GAME” they said at which point the youngest threw up her arms and said “Oh great! We’ll never get him out of there!” (For those who don’t know, GAME is a popular video game store in the UK)

If you have any of your own, feel free to add them as comments here.

Happy Christmas

Not as much as some would have us believe it seems.

The blue whale model - 30m long

Recently I visited the Natural History Museum in London with my family. We’ve been before and so this time skipped the long queues for the dinosaur exhibit and went direct to the mammals and particularly the aquatic mammal exhibit. You see I remembered going as a kid and being awed by the sheer size of the full-scale model of a blue whale they have there. I hoped my children would be similarly impressed. My hopes were fulfilled as they stood and gaped at the room-filling model and the real blue whale skeleton next to it.

What then interested me and Mrs C further was the information around the room. They have a skeleton of a sperm whale including a mock up of the spermiceti organs in it’s head. This is what gives the sperm whale its characteristic shape and name. As other aquatic mammals don’t possess this feature we wondered what it might be for. The refreshingly honest answer on the panel was “we don’t know”. It might be to aid buoyancy and swift asc/descendency, it might be used as a kind of weapon during inter-male fights and it might be used to aid echolocation (finding your way around in the dark using sounds) but the scientists just don’t know. Then we moved to the panel about whale communication and we found out that as whales have no vocal chords, the science community is still unclear exactly how they make noises. It’s possible it’s through cavities in their upper head but again the real answer is “we don’t know”. By the time we got to the narwhal exhibit we were looking for the “we don’t know” part. In this case it was the purpose of the spectacular tusk on the male’s head. Could it be for fighting again? Perhaps it’s the aquatic equivalent of the peacock’s tail or the Lion’s mane? Again nobody really knows for sure.

This is all fine and I applaud the honesty in putting a simple “we don’t know” where applicable (if only Christians would do the same instead of spouting off about “why” something happened the way it did) but what bothers me is the way in which science is often reported. Yes this is not the scientists fault but plenty of amateur scientists and media reports often spout scientific theory as fact. I find this concerning. If science can’t determine the role or function of a part of a living creature, why do we so often hear theory about the behaviour and fate of extinct species portrayed as fact? My five-year-old recently told me about the colours, skin and even feathers of certain dinosaur species – basing his statements on what he had seen and read. That’s fine, he is five after all, but what bothers me is the way so many adults will blindly accept the same “evidence” as a basis of their own belief (and that is what it is by the way). Worse, many of those same adults will scoff at those who believe in God as creator because there is “no evidence”.

I appreciate I am getting into dangerous territory here for a Christian….but here’s the thing. I happen to believe in God, I believe he is all powerful and that he created the earth and everything in it. Can I say the exact process through which he did that? No, I wasn’t there and the only account I have to go by is somewhat poetic and was written sometime after the fact by a human trying to express things which are probably way beyond his or my capacity of understanding. Do I believe God is capable of creating the “heavens and the earth” in 6 days? Absolutely. Could he do it by simply speaking? I believe so. Can I prove it? No. Do I know whether it was six periods of 24 hours or (as some recent theories suggest) six longer periods? No I don’t know. Does it matter that much to me? No.

Now some would read the paragraph above and mock me for the holes in it. I know this because others have done so in the past. Yet those that mock, it seems often base their own belief on similar holes. The difference between the two is that I believe God knows the answers and I am happy to accept that right now finding out the scientific process by which a Narwhal came to have a tusk and what it is for is not really going to affect my life greatly nor the lives of any human that I know of. Those promoting the scientific viewpoint (not necessarily the scientific community themselves) seem to imply we should be uneasy with holes in our beliefs.

Perhaps being content to hold less-tightly to the things we don’t understand is part of the contentment in all situations that the apostle Paul wrote of. I don’t know but I do know that I absolutely love the Natural History Museum and the fact that much of it is arranged to promote a theory that I don’t subscribe to doesn’t bother me at all – particularly because it is a theory with at least as many holes and gaps as the belief I hold to of how creation/nature got here. The NHM is a great place, particularly if you have younger children – just get there early and be prepared to queue for some time to to see the dinosaur exhibit.

Yesterday the weather people said we should expect “light” snow for the next couple of days. We woke up to find it snowing all day and now we’ve had around 8 inches of snow.

Still – the wonders of the Internet – I’ve been working from home all day – with a short break early on to help my kids build this fella (and have a snowball fight or three!).

Snowman

Have you ever wondered why all the fuss was made at Christmas? The first Christmas I mean – the one where Mary gave birth to Jesus, stable, wise men, shepherds, inn keepers – you know the one – don’t you?

Why were the shepherds let in on the secret? Why did the magi (wise men) turn up? and What’s with all those angels?

Now don’t get me wrong I know there are plenty of reasons for all these things and I’ve heard lots of people give very valid reasons. or example I have heard it said that being a shepherd was considered one of the lowest occupations you could have and to be on the night shift was the lowest type of shepherd. Thus, it is said, God was associating his Son with the outcast from the very beginning.

I’ve also heard that the magi were considered to be the wisest of their generation and by inviting them, God was signifying the wisdom of His son. Their gifts apparently signify the wealth of a king (Gold) right through to the embalming fluid used for corpses.

Apparently everything has a reason. But recently I had a different look at this sort of event, one from the inside as it were.

My wife, Claire, gave birth to our first child, a son ( Ethan ) a few weeks back. Now I’m not saying his birth is equivalent to Jesus’ in terms of it’s affect on the world but I would like to draw on my experience at the time to make a few comparisons.

Being there

I was present throughout the long and painful labour my wife endured, I was there holding her hand when Ethan was delivered. Some one once said to me that they couldn’t see why any man would want to be present at a birth on the basis that he could not bear to see his beloved wife go through such pain. Whilst I appreciate what they were saying, to this I would say that there is no way I would have let Claire go through such an ordeal without me. I promised to be with her all the time when we married.

God is the same. He promised to be with us always and when the world was receiving his Son, he was there, still running the world. I don’t know for sure but it may have crossed Mary & Joseph’s mind that if God was with them in the form of a baby, who was going to look after the earth? The angels, the shepherds, the magi were perhaps all ways of God saying – I’m still here even though I’m there as well.Also, thinking about it, the birth of Jesus was God delivering on His promise to be with us.

Gifts

When Ethan was born the I loved him – still do – he had done nothing to deserve this love but I felt the need to show it to him, so I kissed him. If I could have rushed out and bought him something I would of.

God loves his Son. When the Magi turned up with their gifts and the shepherd with their sheep is it just possible that amongst all the significance of the type of gift was the fact that the Father was showing his love for his Son?

Good News!

For two hours after Ethan was born I remained with Claire, I was unable to get out of the hospital to tell anyone and whilst I loved being there I also was busting a gut to tell somebody! I one point I saw somebody in the car park through the window. It was all I could do to stop myself throwing it open and shouting to the stranger – “Hey! – we’ve just had a baby!”

God was doing the same with the angelic host. He was so proud of his Sons birth – with the additional things that meant – that he arranged a choir of angel to sing about it. If I could have laid on a choir and an item on the ten o’clock news I would have. Perhaps the reason God laid on the angels was simply because he could? Later on in Jesus life there are two episodes where God cannot contain himself and simply bursts out with statements of love about his Son.

There are many reasons given for the events at Christmas, I’m sure they are all valid but sometimes I wonder if they aren’t all a bit cryptic. I think we can’t overlook the fact that when Jesus was born, God was ecstatic, not just because of what it meant for the world but also because it was his Son being born.

Doesn’t it also give us a glimpse of the Father we have. This is not some stand off – shake hands type Father, this is a genuine-overjoyed-with-his-kids-Dad! I’m not for a second taking away any of the need for reverence and holiness needed to approach God but I think that one reason Jesus came was to show us that God is not just God – he wants to be Dad as well. The first is about who he is, the second is about how he wants us to relate with him.

Happy Christmas.