Ben’s Musings

I created a petition on the Governments petition site yesterday. It is about removing the byelaws which ban skateboarding in Manchester’s City Centre. Click here to sign the petition.

Here’s the blurb:

The Byelaws, introduced in 2001, prohibit skateboarding in Manchester’s City Centre and criminalizes young people who, by skateboarding, are doing something physically active, socially engaging, constructive and creative.

The Government want to reduce obesity, increase social inclusion, encourage “play” activities among young people and reduce youth offending rates. The Byelaws oppose all of these aims.

Email this link to your family and friends to make this a big one: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SkateMCR/ 

Mary-Lou doesn’t like it when I whistle. I don’t think that it’s because I’m out of tune, it’s just the high pitch drone that does her head in.

But tonight Mary-Lou has been out with a friend so I’ve had chance to have a good whistle-along to some tunes! It feels great to have a good old whistle - I don’t really know why though!

I’ve also done some fun beat-boxing with some of the songs. This guy is nearly at my standard:

PS. Don’t ever ask me to show off my whistling or beat-boxing talents to you - I just won’t!

A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away….we had Star Wars Kid:

Now, coming to a screen near you, we have Star Wars Trumpet - the funniest video on the whole entire t’interweb!

Past 12 weeks, nervousness & excitement, “Do we know what we’ve got ourselves into?!”

Download Episode 4

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I agree with recycling. It’s not gonna save the planet, what with the increasing pillaging and raping of it’s resources by the West and booming countries like India and China. But it’s something positive and it makes sense.

Manchester City Council collect our paper, tin and glass recycling from our doorsteps ever two weeks, so recycling those items is easy. But they don’t collect plastic. I’m confused about that because I remember at school being taught about recycling and plastics were one of the main things we were told to recycle. So if recycling plastics is so important, why doesn’t our Council recycle them for us?

I joined www.change.org a while back and publicly committed to recycling even when it’s not convenient. I even wrote:

Recycling Plastic Bottles are a pain in my area (Manchester, UK) but I commit to getting them to a recycling place even though it is on the outskirts of the city.

I confess that I haven’t recycled any plastic since then. Sorry.

I tried to find plastic recycling banks near me but couldn’t find any locations. So I gave up. I could have asked friends, I have enough environmentalist friends to have found my nearest plastic recycling bank, but I’m lazy.

So I pledge anew: I commit to recycling the plastic we use, even when it’s not convenient.

I’m taking part in Blog Action Day and if you blog, I encourage you to too!

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Cravings, Morning Sickness in the night, babycentre.co.uk and our developing baby.

Download Episode 3

You can Subscribe to The Daddy Diaries in iTunes by clicking here, or you can subscribe to the podcast feed by clicking here.

I hired the documentary When The Levees Broke from my EasyCinema account recently. It is an incredibly sad, moving and beautiful film by Spike Lee about when Hurricane Katrina passed New Orleans. It consists of news footage from the time as well as original footage and interviews with reidents and people in charge at the time.
I listened to a podcast interview with him about the film and he said that once they started filming for the documentary, they realised very quickly that to tell the story would require much more than the usual couple of hours. So they have split the 4 hour film into 4 acts.

It is very critical of the Bush Administration and their unbelievably slow response to the tragedy. It also shows how the disaster was not natural but man-made due to the lack of investment in the levees and the faulty engineering of the Army Corps Engineers who constructed the levees and walls.

I highly recommend it to everybody as an expose of the priorities of the American Government and for the stories of the residents dealing with the aftermath.

On another note, I had to buy a belt last week! So my lifestyle change is going well.

Also, today is the beginning of the 12th week and second trimester of our pregnancy. This marker generally means that the risk of miscarriage is down to below 1%, but Mary-Lou and I don’t feel any more happy or confident since we know anything can go wrong at any stage. So were still feeling nervous, and probably will until our baby is born alive and healthy.