Tiresome Weather.

[Diane CBPFC]

What did you do in Cyprus? Sit on the beach? Join the mob?

[Roger Kettle]

I think that's Sicily, Diane---the Cyprus Mob would make you an offer you can make your mind up about accepting.

[Vulture]

I think that's Sicily, Diane---the Cyprus Mob would make you an offer you can make your mind up about accepting.

 

[Diane CBPFC]

I put a mob hit out on this character in the Mario game for Wii - it was a smirky bespectacled turtle on a cloud that was throwing fiery spiky things at my daughter and my characters and kept killing us off. I got one of my teenage sons to take him out for us.

It felt good. 

[Roger Kettle]

I never want to fall out with you, Diane.

[Diane CBPFC]

Are you looking at me?

[Malc]

That picture in my avatar was taken on Cyprus. My dad was posted there and for the first seven or so years of my life I lived in the Med. I think that's partly the reason I adjusted to the sub tropics here. My wife used to freak out whenever she saw a lizard, but I could remember them on the ceiling of our house when I was a kid, (they must have been geckos because their local name was 'chit chat' and that's the sound geckos make) and somehow those days came back.

It's a balmy thirty degrees here and it's only just after nine in the morning. My son is playing football at 2pm today, it's a pre-season friendly, so the game will be played in thirds or quarters, with drink breaks.

[Malc]

This is my family as it existed then (we subsequently gained four more kids). I'm next to my mum, the baby is Cathy and Liz is sitting on my dad's knee. I post this because one of my personal projects is called The Dark Side, i.e. exploring my dad's side of the family.
You can see he has dark colouring (as does Liz, who was his Mini-Me) and I never regarded this as unusual until later in life, when I realised that the only other people in the area he came from (Dalry and the Garnock Valley) who were as dark as him and my Gran were Italians.

On Cyprus and Malta (where we also lived) he was often taken for a local and Cypriots would stop him in the street to ask for directions.

[Diane CBPFC]

I’m not sure if you want us all to hazard a guess at your paternal grandmother’s faithfulness, or have me dig out that book of my Dad’s: “Genetics for Budgerigar Breeders”.

[Tom]

Malc, you look like your Dad.

[Malc]

There have been rumours regarding my paternal grandmother's faithfulness, to be quite honest.
Suffice to say my dad was one of three sons, one of whom looks very like him, the other is a gigantic blond chap who Gran insisted was a throwback to our Icelandic heritage. He was born during the trime Grandad was away on war service. He was a cabinet maker on the ships in Port Glasgow.

 I'm not sure if I should go any further on this subject. I may have said too much already.

[Vulture]

Malc - my number one son is tall, skinny, blonde, pale skinned and has blue eyes - definitely Nordic. Number two son is tall, 'built', dark-haired, tanned and has hazel eyes - he could probably get lost in Hawaii.  They definitely had the same father AND mother.

[Malc]

Hmmm...but there are so many of these babies wrongly tagged in the delivery suites. You know, all these nurses in a rush, forms to fill in, holiday period, stress under fire, it's so easy for you to accidentally be allocated Mrs Velazquez's kid.

[Vulture]

Hmmm...but there are so many of these babies wrongly tagged in the delivery suites. You know, all these nurses in a rush, forms to fill in, holiday period, stress under fire, it's so easy for you to accidentally be allocated Mrs Velazquez's kid.

Have you ever been in a delivery room, Malc? It may be rushed now, as we're over populated. But in the olden days (40 years ago..), it was quiet and calm and you actually saw the baby as it popped out. You'd know if you got a different baby back. Besides, all my kids have a distinct Chinese flavour about them!

[Malc]

Is that why as soon as you had one, you wanted another one?