So… Baby Spice supposedly couldn’t really dance so she went on Strictly Come Dancing, and now Scary Spice is going to be on Dancing With the Stars? Are they not really the Spice Girls, the all-singing, all-dancing pop group from the Nineties, but awkward, clumsy impersonators?

Age difference is key to having most kids: study:

To have the most children, men should find a partner six years younger and women a mate four years older, Austrian researchers said on Wednesday.

This means a totally new interpretation of the term ’star-crossed lovers’.

Oh my… the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats. That’s fucking brilliant.

Via Neatorama.

For once, I’m not just linking to and writing some thoughts on something that’s happened to someone else. That’s right, folks, this is first hand reporting.

A couple of kids threw a handful of stones at our car as we were driving past them to The Newhouse for an after-dinner coffee. Neil decided to turn around (he told me later it’s because he saw another car stop and thought they were confronting the stone-throwers), so we did a 180, and he yelled at the blokes, they yelled back (the first one being the stone-thrower, IMHO), one came towards us with what I thought was a baseball bat (on reflection, they don’t play baseball here, do they?), and by our psychic connection*, I knew Neil decided it wasn’t worth it, and he stepped on the accelerator. So they threw something at the windscreen (possibly the bat), but it bounced off.

These were kids, about 16? 18?

When we got to The Newhouse, we stopped to fill up with diesel (there’s a filling station next door) and I asked the shop’s proprietor for the number of the local police station. Neil then called and outlined our recent excitement, and we agreed (over coffee at The Newhouse, we weren’t about to let a few idiots spoil our detailed plan for the evening) not to tell his mother, as she is the, er, anxious type.

I also opined that the other car had been waiting for someone to react to the kids throwing the stones, i.e. it was all a trap, a set up by bored teenagers who think beating strangers up is a valid weeknight recreational activity (weekends they’d probably beat people up at football matches if they can afford the ticket). I’m a bit of a ‘glass is half-full’ type when ‘exciting in a bad way’ things happen.

We didn’t think anything else would be done, so we got home (after driving past again and confirming, between us, where it had happened) and I got ready for bed — then there was a knock on the front door at about half-past ten (I was looking at our Ikea catalogue, again, at the time), and lo and behold, a couple of police officers were here to take our statements!

(Which kind of laid waste to our attempt to keep it from Neil’s mum.)

One of the policemen and I sat down in the living room while Neil and the other were in the kitchen. He asked me to outline what had happened, and then went through it in detail as my statement. It’s amazing how slow the whole ‘incident’ sounds when it’s written down, and it made me feel that I am super-unobservant. What I remembered most was the bat, and the hair colour of the ned who wielded it (dark blonde with highlighted chunks in the fringe).

I remarked that I had thought to try and note the licence plate number (couldn’t even remember what kind it was, except that it was small and white, although I’ve never been the best at identifying makes and models at the best of times) after I noticed the bat, but we were going by too fast and I couldn’t see it.

To which Neil’s mum (who had been listening very intently to my statement, no doubt trying to remember as much as she could to recount in lurid detail to her friends — don’t we love small towns) piped up with a smile, “You watch too much CSI!”

I will remember this incident as the one where my in-depth training by watching too many episodes of a fictional forensic investigation team based in Las Vegas, Nevada, failed me (and the Strathclyde Police).

* I’m joking. Doesn’t take a psychic to work out what he was thinking.

One in four ‘fails to save money’.

I’m not surprised. There is something fundamentally incompatible with encouraging a commercial / business / retail free-for-all and then also propping people up with ‘free’ health care*, unemployment benefits, and so on.

You know what it says to me?

Spend all you damn like, do anything you want, we’ll be there to pick up the pieces.

This drives me mad. Is it any wonder young adults and children (and many supposedly mature and responsible adults) are careering completely out of control? No one thinks they’re accountable for anything, even their own lives (retirement, pension, future, destiny).

* Healthcare in this country is most definitely not free. I for one would prefer to be able to choose where, when, and how my healthcare is provided, and pay for it directly.

I’m hoping that those of my generation (and earlier) are feeling just as excited and anxious about this — the Famous Five are coming back! Not as children off on adventures and solving crimes, but middle-aged adults who are brought together by another crime.

No one should be surprised that I identified with George the most when I was a child — I was a total tomboy (it definitely wasn’t any sort of gender confusion, I just thought boys had the better games, sports, toys) and the Famous Five just fed my completely unrealistic desire for adventure. Growing up in a middle-class suburb in Singapore doesn’t really offer much opportunity for exploring and intrigue. The best we had was the dark house at number 13 (or 11a, as it was re-numbered).

The only thing I’m worried about is seeing the Five at 50 might spoil the fun for me — but I doubt it. Bring it on!

• did the weekly shop (I’m getting quite good at planning my lunches)
• watched Mock the Week while drinking wine
• got a haircut (yes, my life is that exciting)
• waited for Neil to get a haircut (yes, his life is also that exciting)
• went to Ikea to try and buy our bedroom furniture (and spotted some nice dining room furniture)
• left Ikea with a tall reading lamp (red, for the bedroom), a set of scales (for Neil’s mum), some handles, and a tiny elephant and lion (I have a strange ritual of buying tiny stuffed animals when I go to Ikea)
• had Chinese takeaway for dinner
• did NOT go to Carene’s hen night (computered and watched CSI, Law and Order: SVU, and Criminal Minds instead) as I just wasn’t energised enough for it (but Neil did go to Brian’s for a few drinks and woke me up clinking his spoon against the soup bowl very early the next morning)
• forced Neil to get up so we could go to a kitchen showroom in East Kilbride
• went for a coffee in Glasgow so I could go to Superdrug and locate ultra-strong hold hair stuff (the hairdresser told me on Saturday that my hair is too soft for the normal stuff)
• did some wee organising of paperwork