Andy McKay's blog

So there I was doing 16 things in the kitchen making dinner and some soup at the same time, talking to kids etc. We've got one of those electric hobs where you can't tell what burner is hot. Move pots around. See a hob with no pan but food bits on it. Forgot which one was hot. Use my hand to wipe the hob. Idiot.

Four hours later my fingers had calmed down, but I've got quite a lot burns on my left hand. I've mastered a different style of typing now. Idiot.

It's only October, but presents for Christmas are being talked about. Every Christmas we end up on Boxing Day feeling terrible about the amount of presents that have arrived. In an attempt to stop this, we are publishing a "Christmas present manifesto".

Christmas present manifesto

Christmas is an overwhelming time for kids: there's all the magic of Christmas, a huge build up and a chance to spend time with family. The urge for people to give kids so many things is easy. There's so many toys that you could see the kids playing with. In a relatively affluent society it's hard to resist.

But we don't want our kids to have so many toys. There's a few things to remember - our kids have a lot of toys already (a huge number in fact) and most of them are plastic, a small portion recyclable. It's not a competition with other family members, the kids won't remember. You'll be generating a huge amount of waste over Christmas anyway, never mind discarded presents.

And finally, too many toys can actually be detrimental to development:

"They get overwhelmed and over-stimulated and cannot concentrate on any one thing long enough to learn from it so they just shut down. Too many toys means they are not learning to play imaginatively either"

On Christmas Day they'll be opening all your toys, and ones from everyone else. Ever seen a kid open toy after toy after ignoring, each one in turn? That's what happens when you get so many. So this year if possible we'd like it if you could think of the following:

Reduce: a small number of toys is likely to stick in their brain and more likely to be played with.

Reuse: the best toys are ones that have a history. Second hand toys are great, the box is just something to rip through.

Recycle: please, please avoid plastic. There are many great wooden toys, books, jigsaws and so on out there.

Interact: the best way to have fun with a child on Christmas Day is to play your toy with them. Chances are if it's plastic electronic junk, you won't be doing that.

What we like: books, jigsaws, games and anything that involves exercise. Thank you for your presents in advance and if you are really unsure, there are many kids and charities out there who would love a nice present.

See also:

• "But after the excitement is over most children often find themselves overwhelmed by what they have and may end up not playing with any of it"
• "Children with too many toys tend to be bored and passive, since there is nothing left for their imaginations"
• there is such a thing as having too many toys. As I have seen from my own son, he does not value them as much anymore

Had to change a light bulb in my Avensis headlight. A Google for it returned no instructions just horror stories. After a couple of motorway trips through the dark and rain, I decided it was time to fix it (besides it's technically illegal).

For about 10 minutes I struggled to get the clip off the bulb. The manual promises a simple future of things that easily popup with easy access. The reality was quite different. Ten minutes in she offered help.

Within a few minutes the clip was off the bulb out, the new bulb in, clip set and the really hard part (according to the websites) was done before I'd said "And this was meant to be really hard...". Thank god she was there.

There are a few authors I just have to get every new book. I can re-read the book and find hidden gems and they rarely get tired. This is in contrast to most authors, whom I can tell in a few pages if I've read before and then send back to the library. But there are a few exceptions. Iain Banks, Alastair Reynolds being two of them. And there was a new Iain Banks book out recently, the Steep Approach to Garbadale.

Seeing it I bugged Danae to get it immediately. Her response was "only if I can get the new Carl Hiaasen. I'm not sure how spending more money helps, but I spotted my opportunity - "sure". So she ordered them. This was about a month ago. There I was doing the laundry and what is staring at me? A copy of the book. How long has it been sat there? Days, weeks? Good god, when was she going to tell me. Suffice to say I've been busy the last few evenings.

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Where I'll be living only ADSL is available it seems. For the last few years I've been running my own mail server, web server, svn server (including this blog) and so on. Fortunately Shaw have never cared less about me running all this on my account and rarely change IP's on me. What I haven't found yet, apart from Virgin.net is an unlimited bandwidth cap. One of the highest rated ISP in the UK is I think madasafish.com, beating out all the others here. Ideally since I don't know whats coming and going, no bandwith usage limit would be nice. Is there a nice developer friendly ISP in the north west of the UK for a reasonable price, that somone would recommend? Mail me.

Last Thursday, between the sprint and the conference - it was a hectic week - was our tenth wedding anniversary. Ten years, yikes. So let's step back ten years to my wedding. Danae's sister Kelly Crook is an opera singer, music teacher and all round wonderful person. For our wedding she put one of Danae's favourite poems to music - "How do I love thee" by Elizabeth Barret Browning. She sang this song and made most of the audience cry with it's beauty. Here is the incomparable Kelly Crook. Fast forward ten years and I thought as a nice romantic gesture, that I would learn how to sing so I could sing this song to Danae. I'm not one of natures singers, tonelessly droning along to Bohemian Rhapsody is about as good as it gets. For me this was a big thing. So for the last 3 months I've been taking singing lessons to sing this song in front of Danae. If you think speaking at a computer conference is stressfull, that's nothing compared to this. Learning to sing has actually been quite a lot of fun, especially when I could forget about all the things I was doing wrong and just belt out the music. What I didn't realise was the sheer amount of training and skill that goes into singing as well as Kelly does. The pronounciation of words and letters was hard work for me, I've got an English accent so I'm at a disadvantage from the start. But the use of breath the placing of the tongue and the shape of the mouth and so on. There's an amazing amount to know and learn. Somehow in all this time I managed to keep it secret from Danae and secretly practiced singing Baby Beluga to Emily. The day came last week when I stood up in front of Danae and sang the song. She broke down in tears and said later it "was the most romantic thing I've ever done". Of course, all I could hear was my voice that was off key, the breathing I missed, the legato I didn't get right due to stress. It didn't matter at all to Danae who loved it completely. I think I've got a few brownie points for the future stored now. Thank you Kelly.