4th May 2007

4th May 2007
I am a very relaxed person today. This is despite the fact that I am sitting waiting for our lawyer to ring to tell me that we have completed on the purchase of our house and that I am now broke. Fact is I have rarely been more stressed than I was yesterday, ahead of a charity fund-raising “X-Factor” event at our children’s school last night. Nine year old son, Bob, had cast aside an invitation to sing “We’re all going on a summer holiday” with three other boys in the auditions, preferring instead to shoot for fame on his own with a rendition of the Kaiser Chief’s hit, “Saturday”. For those of you who don’t know the song I have pasted the words at the bottom of this email. It is fast and furious, moderately inappropriate and his plan was to do it with no backing music….just little old him with a kitchen whisk in his hand in place of a microphone. Horror of horrors he was selected for the finals and so faced the prospect of performing on stage in front of a crowd of 200 or so teachers, pupils and parents. He seemed fairly calm about things. When he told his mother, after his success in the auditions, to stop talking about it, she thought it was because he was sick with nervousness. “Oh no”, he said “I don’t want people to think I’m boasting.” It was Sophie and I who were the nervous wrecks imagining him freezing up as he realized what an horrific thing he had set himself. The confidence of youth. Mind you his equanimity was somewhat challenged after his ( occasionally faltering ) act, when “Sharon Osbourne”, asked to comment on his performance, described him as cute. With a look of thunder on his face, he left the stage at speed.