Cute

Stan is three and my impression is that his elder sister took to English better than him when she was his age, maybe it's a "boy" thing.
Be that as it may, I do try to maintain at least my half of the dialogue with him in English. However, sometimes it is too easy to lapse into French, as I did this morning when he wanted to know what the alarm clock was called, although I do try to redeem myself afterwards:
"C'est quoi, ça?"
"C'est un radio-reveil."
Without hesitation he repeats it in order to commit it to memory: "Radio-réveil".
Whoops, come on now: "In English it's called an 'alarm clock'. Can you say that."
"Non."
"Go on. 'Alarm clock'."
Maybe it's because we'll soon be visiting the folks in England who don't speak a word of French. But a brief look of contemplation flashes over his features and he utters tentatively:
"Alarm plop?"
Gotta love 'em.

Kismet

As the rains come to the aid of a desperate(ly bad) England side in a Sri Lankan town that is as used to shipping water as the England bowling attack, the wags on the message board are passing the time indulging in speculation about Nelson's last words. According to one, it was not "Kiss me" that the Admiral said to Hardy but "Kismet", the Turkish word for "Fate".
Well I personally have it on the authority of Christopher Ecclestone, who used to go for trips through time in the Tardis while working as Doctor Who outside of official filming (perk of the job), that he personally witnessed the final moments of the dying seafarer, and the whispered words were actually: "Kiss it". He had his fly undone and his trouser snake hanging out as he breathed his last.
This kind of behaviour was not considered "gay" at the time since, for one thing, the term had not been coined and, for another, such boisterousness (even for a dying man) would have been considered normal practice among men of the navy, absent at sea for so long and left to their own devices.
These kinds of practices have been picked up in modern times by extremely heterosexual rugby players. A friend of mine, former scrum half and captain of the first eleven of an Oxford University college team, has regaled me with tales of the shenanigans they get up to. I also knew a guy who played for Bedford RU while doing teacher training, and he liked to cup mens' tackle to see what he was dealing with. It was more a case of "fronts to the wall" with him. He had a girlfriend, but he never let you see what was inside his closet.

Xmas spirit

They just turned on the Xmas lights on The Archers. Marvellous radio!

Balmy army

Despite a stalwart show of last ditch resistance, some dodgy umpiring and the home team's secret weapons of Malinga and Murali finally did for the English cricket team in the first test against Sri Lanka.
Looking beyond the possible inclusion of cricket in the Olympics, its inclusion in the Paralympics would surely be synoymous with golden glory for Sri Lanka, as they already have two world-class "differently-able" competitors in their able-bodied national team. That's right, "Slinger" Malinga and Muralitheran, both of whom have had the rule books re-written to accommodate their dubious bowling techniques, caused it is said by physiological defects.
That's the bowling side taken care of, and the latest news on the grapevine is that they're about to introduce another freakish prodigy into the batting line-up: a young man with the birth defect of a three-foot-wide bat sprouting from his wrist.

Credit card fraud

I just received an alert from a well-intentioned friend, warning me of a credit card scam doing the rounds, whereby people purporting to represent credit card companies, and who by whatever means already have obtained your card number, phone to get you to disclose the security number on the back of the card.

If you are worried by this scam, and feel there is a chance that you might disclose your number upon request by someone calling you and saying they work for a bank or credit institution, then send me by email your full name and address, along with your credit card number and the aforementioned security code, and I'll patch a security widget on the world wide internet that will ensure your details remain entirely confidential.

And if by chance these fraudsters do call you up, play clever, and rather than hanging up on them, give them a false number. That way they'll attempt a transaction and so leave an extra trace by which they hopefully might end up getting caught.

The more of these fraudsters that get hoisted by their own petard, the better.