Fantastic creativity in the kitchen today. It really is amazing what shoeboxes, Pringles tubes and yoghurt pots can become with the help of a little imagination and a lot of PVA glue. Today we have witnessed the design and construction of a racing car, a hostel for refugee Sylvanians and a Death Star Battle Planet with integral Neutroncruiser Dock.
In terms of freedom of expression it's been a thoroughly good news day. When it comes to freedom of movement, however, there is rather less in which to rejoice. For instance, several months' worth of yoghurt pots can be stacked and stored quite nicely into a small space, say inside Pringles tubes. Pringles tubes can fit easily into, say, a wine rack. Three Pringles tubes glued end to end sporting large Strawberry and Vanilla solar panels are quite another matter.
In short it turns out that intergalactic defence hardware occupies houseroom in a wholly different and much less efficient way. Breakfast tomorrow promises to be a cramped affair.
Mel's Question of the Day.
Muggings went up 20% in London during the Bush bash. (Official fact.)
Was this because his arrival reminded the people of London of what he had taught them, i.e. that the best way to get whatever you want is by force and not negotiation?
The school's Winter Fayre fundraiser is only a fortnight away. We are being asked to provide help at the stalls and to donate prizes for the raffle, the tombola and the Mystery Bottle draw. Contributions to the Bric à Brac stall are also invited. I think that name is a little misleading. After last year's showing I'm surprised they haven't renamed it the Crip à Crap stall.
I'm keen to empty the toy cupboards to help out. I reckon anything in the cupboards and not on the floor or the stairs must by definition be out of favour but a massive outcry greeted my suggestion. I fear another net gain of bashed up old toys on the day.
Maybe it's because it's autumn but I have been in an uncommonly reflective mood all week. I have spent a lot of time trying to form a clear view of the values I wish to instill in our chldn and the best way to do it. I think that explains the outbursts about music anyway.
Jake has taken the order to stop clowning around in the school car park v badly and complains bitterly that we are all stopping him becoming famous. This has acted as a kind of last straw. I can see I'm going to have to address the tangled skein of issues that surround the pride/ambition/self-respect matrix.
Last week I noticed that a surveillance camera had been placed over the entrance to the school car park. I thought nothing of it at the time but a pattern seemed to be emerging when Mel mentioned she'd noticed one on the wall at the second hand uniform sale this Tues. She had thought it was to discourage theft but I wondered whether they would turn out to be recording footage for a school bloopers video that will appear conveniently just before Christmas.
I now regret telling Jake of my suspicions because there was a note in his homework diary yesterday evening informing us that he and his friends have been out there in the car park every breaktime for the last two days mooning and pretending to fall over and hurt themselves in an attempt to be included.
Someone in the blogosphere said recently that when they had finished cooking they had a compulsion to rearrange any remaining eggs into symmetrical patterns in the eggbox. I liked this foible but I have been unable to remember or Google who it was that shared it with us.
I would like someone to tell me either:
Who was it?
and/or
How can I store my three remaining eggs in their twelve seater box so that they conform to a symmetrical pattern?
Update.
Lisa has told me quite correctly that it was at the estimable Kitchentable (01 Oct 2003).
Now all I need to know is the other bit.
A rare moment of blogginess here. Having read Peter’s post about leaving comments I thought I should air this occasion at Audi Olympics when a comment by Peter allowed me to make what I count as my best joke ever on the web. Under a post by 'Ever Logical' Gordon Snowgoon re Guy Fawkes’ attempt to blow up Parliament (7 Nov 2003}.
Peter:
"It was the first known case of a Weapon of Mass Destruction."
Robin:
"Actually he was a Catholic so I think it would count as a Weapon of Mass Promotion."
And yes it was the last comment in the string.
I have not posted this because I am completely stuck for anything else to say this morning.
A few thoughts on this week's news.
‘Comedy Terrorist’ Aaron Barschak got chucked in jail. Mel sometimes says that I should be locked up for some of my jokes but in AB's case is this too harsh?
For me, the problem that needs to be addressed here is that he is not really a comedy terrorist but just a terrible comedyist. I think a more suitable punishment would be to slap a gagging order on him - i.e. an order to come up with some gags. Leave paint to the professionals, Aaron.
My admiration for our rugby players has only increased. Exhausted, and at a moment of massive emotional import, unique and unrepeatable, Martin Johnson gets a microphone shoved in his face and asked for his reaction. Which of us could have given such a coherent performance if someone had shoved a microphone in our faces three minutes after, say, we had lost our virginity or been handed our first child? Respect.
Afterthought.
The big blokes in our rugby teams used to be policemen. Martin Johnson is the first one who looks like everybody’s idea of a criminal.
Interesting item in the latest School newsletter. St Hugo's have proposed a new fairer way of deciding football matches. They want to introduce a system whereby the final score of a match would only count as 60% of the result, the rest consisting of additional ‘goals’ based on a broader assessment made by each team's coach, who would provide an impartial written estimate of the number of goals he/she thinks his/her side should have scored.
Apparently the proposed changes are designed to address the fact that the end result of a game can often seem quite arbitrary and may fail to reflect the true abilities of a team, or reward steady performers who have done well in training but did not deliver on the day.
It's a neat idea but to me the timing is suspicious. I think the recent 11-4 and 8-1 drubbings they've had at the hands (feet?) of Brockham Hill School Under 9's may have hurt them more than they care to admit.
Dear Mr Cent,
Thank you for submitting your material. Unfortunately we are unable to offer you a contract at present.
As a global entertainment corporation with a presence in all the world's major markets it has always been our policy to provide wholesome material across a broad spectrum. This strategy has served us well. It has enabled us to ride out the storms of counterculture and maintain our position at the centre of society's consensus while keeping a shrewd eye on shifts in opinion and taste.
We can take a large slice of the credit for putting the hippies back to work and taking the pins out of the punks. By doing so we have made our shareholders rich and have created a galaxy of stars and artists whose humanity and compassion has enhanced all our lives for the past fifty years.
While we are happy to create and nurture niche markets, even jazz, we have serious reservations about the niche you seem to be occupying.
We feel we cannot afford to be associated with an artist who chooses to present himself in such an odious and negative light. You portray sexual contact as devoid of emotion and you glorify the acquisition of money and status by means that are neither useful nor legal. These attitudes place you outside the mainstream markets we wish to service.
Furthermore your determination to exploit every negative stereotype of a young black man stands in sharp contrast to the many entertainers from the black community who over the years have emphasised all the opposite positions despite in many cases having experienced poverty, hardship and injustice much deeper than your own.
If you have not studied the history of Afro-Americans in the entertainment business let me provide you with a few pointers which may enable you to understand it a little more clearly.
‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’, ‘Hickory Hollers Tramp’ and even ‘Patches’ have all been massive global successes and are in different ways replete with positive messages about work and family and/or suffused with the pain wrought by those who blight the lives of others by selfish and irresponsible behaviour.
When you have matured in approach and learned to sing a bit better please do not hesitate to submit a sample of your latest work.
Yours etc etc.
Dear Mr Presley,
Thank you for submitting your recording. Unfortunately we can see no commercial future for your material. We consider the song to be lamentably short on hooks and no one in the office here has yet been able to discover how to dance to it. So barring some unforeseen revolution in popular taste, at the present time we cannot consider offering you a contract.
Here are some constructive points which might help you to understand today's music business a little better.
Firstly we think that ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ is a gratuitously depressing title. ‘Heartmend Hotel’ would be a lot more uplifting wouldn't it? Same situation, just a different angle. I mean everyone has had enough of this blues stuff. It's not the 30's now, you know.
Secondly you really should make a little more effort to keep up with the times lyrically. For instance when did you last hear anyone actually use the word ‘dwell’?
Thirdly the economy is currently expanding and people have a choice where they will spend their money. They are not going to choose your maudlin offering over Pat Boone.
And take it from a professional, it really needs drums.
Yours etc etc
Ye-e-e-es!
Clarification.
For those in doubt or living in the US or other non-rugby-playing countries this refers to the winning of the World Cup by England and the consumption of champagne before midday. In a strictly non-gloating sort of a way of course.
Had dinner at the Butterworths last night. I think we were a little early because we arrived to find Vicky taking the stamens out of some enormous lilies and Alan cursing as he struggled with his sushi maker.
We sat and watched him while we sipped a pleasant Kiwi Sauv Blanc. After about twenty minutes he gave up. He didn't seem too distressed, probably because the enforced change of menu afforded him an opportunity to show off his latest acquisition, an iZap which, he proudly explained, is the world's first microwave/DVD player with integral modem and touch sensitive screen controls.
We sat in the kitchen and watched highlights of his latest foreign trip on it while the emergency coq au vin defrosted, and in the end the meal turned out v well. Walking back I suggested to Mel that all he needs now is a laptop-cum-pancake maker called an iTosser.
Jake is really gripped by his drum machine and seems dazzled by its possibilities. He has also started listening to the radio in a different way and now proudly announces “I've got that one!” evey time he hears a beat that he’s got as a preset on his machine.
He also insists the station is changed if anything comes on that doesn't have a strong beat. Two days ago he was outraged by a famous rock ballad and announced “This is music for slugs to dance to!” I found it hard to hear an iconic counter culture anthem of my youth dismissed as mere entertainment for gastropods but it was a timely reminder that the perspectives of the young can be limited, so I bit my tongue. I'll give it time.
He asked me last night if it was difficult to write songs. I said I thought it used to be but that top flight artists like Sophie Ellis Bextor and the Stereophonics had now shown that it needn't be and that three notes seemed to be quite enough to put you in the charts these days. He immediately asked me which three notes they were. I said I didn't know precisely but that they needed to be really close together. I sent him off to work using the first line of ‘Do a Deer’ as a model.
He came back shortly after and asked me if I’d noticed that the first four notes of ‘Do a Deer’ were the same as in ‘Frère Jacques’. I hadn't. Perhaps he's got some talent.
When I suggested to Zoe a while back that she came up with ideas for the school mag I was really only trying to move her on from her disappointment about the School Council. I had no idea that my seeds would fall upon such fertile ground.
She's put in a lot of effort this week especially on her favourite new feature, the Film and DVD Review section. I'm sure it will be a popular addition and it should make much better reading than the usual account of the annual geography field trip to the Peak District, which it will replace.
Nor did I realise quite how open to change Zoe's Headmistress, Mrs Gore, would be. She's only been in the job just over a year but already she has stamped her personality thoroughly on the whole place. Perhaps her ‘new broom’ approach explains why she was so receptive to Z's ideas. Apparently they got on well from the moment Z suggested changing the title from ‘The Brockham Hill School Magazine’ because it was too long, too obvious and sounded too Victorian.
Z's been trying to come up with a new name for a while now. At the moment she's torn between Wassup Brokkaz and Kewl Skewl. I'm not sure Mrs Gore would want to go quite that far but she's clearly keen to leave behind the inward-looking tone of previous years and I for one welcome that.
I swear I can actually hear the ‘ka ching’ of a cash register repeatedly in Dido's ‘White Flag’. Tell me I'm not going mad.
Answering unexpected rings on the doorbell was recently added to my list of duties and lately it's been getting quite exciting. The days when it always turned out to be a Geordie in a white coat selling fresh fish seem to be over.
On Sat morning it was Jehovah's Witnesses (again) followed that afternoon by a small man called Tony from the Workers' Revolutionary Party selling their newspaper. I had an interesting talk with him about world revolution and he was full of ideas about how to end war, poverty, pollution, injustice etc but he went a bit vague when I asked him about some of my hot issues like labelling reform and banning the sale of fireworks.
I had to break off to help glue something to something else in the kitchen but I did have the presence of mind to ask him to come back at 11 am next Sat. That way with a bit of luck he and I and the Witnesses can really brainstorm about the world in general and maybe I can get some radically different perspectives on our cereal problem.
Late on Sun afternoon a polite young man came to the door and said he was thinking of doing a parachute jump for the starving in Africa and would we like to sponsor him and if we did then could we please give him the money now? I gave him £5, which he seemed v happy with and made me feel a bit better about Third World debt. I've always said that giving is a kind of growing so I then bought some bin bags from the man who called at teatime and looked so hungry.
Brockham Hill ran out 8 -1 winners at St Hugo's on Fri. Jake played well, dominating midfield by his own admission and scoring twice. I think the stamina sessions have really paid off. J is keen to move on to improving other areas of his game. I have suggested shielding the ball and volleying. He wants to work on his spitting.
I noticed in the paper that the educational theorists intend to bring back essay-type questions into our exam system. I think that must be a good thing in itself, but if anyone seriously believes that chldn today are 'no longer able to develop or sustain an argument' then I suggest they come round here any evening at about 7:35 when it's time to get out of the bath.
I was counting on using my own time in the bath this morning to allow me to figure out the way forward out of the current cereal impasse (see below). I didn't get into the bathtub/mental space until after the rugby but by then England's win had put me in a positive frame of mind and as I lay back in the water the ideas began to flow.
Feeding our surplus to the birds has been suggested but it is probably unwise to inject quite so much chocolate into the food chain without expert approval. Feeding it to the foxes, however, seems ideal. Nothing else eats them. Furthermore if they like it then it's gone and if they don't then it might finally get the message across that they aren't welcome. This is my current preferred option. I'll sleep on it.
Caught part of the chart countdown this evening. Unfortunately it was the part with the Stereophonics' “Since I Told You” in it. What a feeble excuse for a song that is, a classic non-quorate affair covering three notes throughout. Kelly Jones may think that his rasp denotes sincerity and profound engagement with his subject but to me the end result is like listening to an uninspiring log being addressed by a particularly unimaginative chain saw.
It's been a strange week all things considered. In the shower this morning I found that there was only enough Milk and Honey gel for one armpit and had to do the other with a Mango and Apricot concoction. As I write I smell by turns like a Greek breakfast and a Solero lolly.
Once more the evening sky is dark and the streets are empty, the silence broken only by the familiar rumbling bass from high performance stereos passing liike dancefloors in the night.
Yesterday lunchtime Zoe had a preliminary meeting with Mrs Gore the Headmistress re the school mag. She was impressed with Z's approach and appointed her Assistant Features Editor on the spot. We are all v proud but the hard work lies ahead.
All Jake seems to have learned at school this week is how to write rude things upside down on a calculator display. He can do Big Boobs and Hello Slob, and the search is on for more extreme combinations. The only thing that has got him excited is today's football match - away at St Hugo's and with it the chance of kicking Spencer Butterworth up in the air in the name of 'commitment'.
The cereal thing is not resolved yet. I will find a thinking slot over the weekend in which I can resolve the multistranded issues and formulate a clear policy. Sun morning in the bath is favourite.
Thank you for all the helpful comments over this cereal thing. Most kind. Plenty of thought for food there. Initially I wasn't convinced about having comments boxes myself but I'm getting to see the benefits now.
I'm also getting round to leaving messages on other people's blogs which seems to be a skill in itself. I've really begun to enjoy the whole thing but I'm developing a complex. Do I hold the record for leaving comments that end up being the last in the string? I'm not doing it deliberately, honestly. Is it because I'm one day behind reading the site or do I just have a natural tone of finality? If everyone thinks I've got a talent for it then please tell me and I'll start doing it on purpose. Then people will know not to leave comments after me because it would be in bad taste to do so. “You didn't leave a comment after Robin did you? Oh my God, didn't you know?”
Could it be that I have found a niche in blogland? Perhaps I should lobby for a new category in next year's Guardian comp namely “Best Last Word”. That's assuming that blogging and the Guardian both last another year of course.
I think it was Confuscius who said “A foolish man is condemned to repeat his mistakes”. I imagine he wasn't talking about bowls of Chokkabix but his dictum was uppermost in my mind this morning as I descended for breakfast.
The sad truth is that over time we have accumulated not just one friendless packet of gimmicky cereal, but five. Persistent failure to confront this issue has left us with a living museum of modern breakfast culture on top of the fridge, an installation trapped in a limbo from which only nomination for the Turner Prize now offers an escape.
The time had come, inaction no longer an option. Suddenly it was clear that the Bart Simpson's Shorts cereal had outstayed its welcome. In between pouring Rice Krispies for the chldn and toasting a fruity muffin for myself I glared at the five packets, determined to be rid of them at last. Three ways forward occurred.
1. Eat them. No takers. Ruled out.
2. Bin them. Not acceptable. We really couldn’t just throw them all away having constantly told the chldn not to waste food for years.
3. Recycle them. No good. Our compost heap is strictly organic.
I asked for suggestions. None came. After a few sips of coffee I got a little further. I had just thought of a use as grit under car wheels in icy weather when Zoe brightly suggested sending them to the Third World. She reminded us that last week we got a leaflet through the front door politely asking us for donations, accompanied by a large bin liner.
It was a kind thought but I'm not at all sure that ‘the poor people of eastern Europe’ would like Chokkabix, even with the toy. Anyway the flyer didn't mention cereals and seemed keener on ‘as new’ designer clothes and electrical goods.
Tough decisions lie ahead but we will not shirk them.
The euphoria of yesterday is now somewhat if not mostwhat diminished and I'm not quite so pleased with the new breakfast framework today.
By 7:15 am the chldn had unanimously refused to touch the nasty choco cereal in question without getting the free gift first. That's not quite what they said but it is definitely what they meant. Talks, or rather shouts, soon became deadlocked.
One thing I have learned since becoming a parent is how necessary it is to remain flexible in such disputes. My first choice tactic in this case was to whip out my season ticket to the moral high ground.
I announced that I was quite prepared to eat the embargoed cereal without the incentive of a plastic toy. I was not bluffing. I fully intended to do as I said, if necessary. I am accustomed to leading by example.
They announced that they were quite happy to watch me. This was not entirely what I had expected and left me fewer options than ideally I would have liked.
I can report that the unappealing brown appearance was perfectly matched by the unappetising brown perfume. This was harmoniously wedded to an uninteresting brown flavour in which sugary notes predominated. I can testify, however, that it was as crunchy as a builder's bogey.
This morning Zoe and Jake had yet another argument about whose turn it was to have the free gift in the cereal.
I have always refused to take sides at moments like these and I told them yet again that I can't be expected to keep track if they can't either. We've had too many identical exchanges recently about who got out of the bath first last night, who chose the last video from the library etc. so I put it to them bluntly and in plain language - do you want an Earned Autonomy system or not?
As I said it inspiration struck and I came up with a new rule - ‘no one gets the free gift until the box is empty’. I felt like Moses come down from the mountain. The announcement was met with the most profound silence I have ever heard in this house. The realisation that one of them would have to slog through half a box of the nasty stuff without getting ANYTHING in return was clearly v sobering.
The more I think about this strategy the more pleased I am with it. It seems to address the heart of the matter much more directly than the idea I came up with last time which was to lobby the manufacturers to include two gifts per packet. It also closes the loophole which allowed them to eat just enough to get the gift, refuse any further helpings for a week then claim it had gone stale and demand a new packet.
I received a delegation this morning on the subject of pocket money. More of it, that is. I would have liked to negotiate terms and conditions but in our house pocket money has always been a kind of performance related pay. The chldn make a performance about it then I pay.
Not wishing for a repeat of the recent Tooth Fairy Rates bloodbath I conceded an increase from £1 to £2 a week each.
1. Your children bring you up.
Not true. I think over the last ten years I'm about the only thing they haven't brought up.
2. You get an extra station on your dial.
You don't. But you do get a lot of extra brightly coloured cassette tape players that eat batteries and break really easily. Tip: for best results, cut the wire to the little karaoke microphone before the child finds out what it's for, not after. Trust me.
3. Children keep you young.
No they don't. One for the spectacularly unobservant this. About as daft as saying: “That new swiming pool of yours - handy for keeping dry, eh?”
Or, to be clearer, would anyone assert the implied opposite, namely that not having children would make you older quicker?
4. The child is the father of the man.
Right. And the tyres are the engine of the car.
5. You wouldn't be without them now.
My favourite. Most parents just smile wistfully when they hear this, but if you ever have the nerve to try it out on a hollow-eyed new parent then expect to get something like this in response:
“Oh no? Here, hold this. I'll be back soon. Honest. When I've had time to fit in a film, a nice meal out, a bath and a long snooze.”
Mel spotted a notice this morning in the school foyer announcing that the video of Jake's football team's recent 11-4 win over St Hugo's was on sale at last, only £9.99. J has been desperate for this moment to arrive so a copy was duly bought and has been viewed repeatedly this evening. He has nearly worn a hole in it at the point where he scored. He also likes the bit when Spencer Butterworth gets a nosebleed.
The handheld unedited style gripped me throughout. There is a raw immediacy to the footage which, cinematically speaking, places it at the polar opposite to the slick, ‘in the round’ style of television coverage that has become the lingua franca of the beautiful game.
My enjoyment was marred however by a commentary that I can only describe as both amateur and partisan. Mr. Phelps may have a way with the Xmas disco but a Motson he is not. He probably only got the job because it's his camera. Someone should tell him not to shout like that though.
Jake has been deeply absorbed with his new drum machine, locking himself away in his room for hours. My darkest fears about P.I.M.P. have lifted slightly since I overheard him in there singing “I'm a P.I.M.P.L.E.” to himself then laughing.
The only thing that brought him out this evening was the spectacular free fireworks show that went on for about three hours in our local sky. We didn't have our own display tonight. This year I fancied having a beer and watching the football instead of filling flowerpots with soil and cursing wet matches while the cowering chldn quailed at the other end of the garden.
I am opposed to the sale of fireworks in general. Fireworks should not be sold to anyone who thinks that loud explosions are actually worth paying money for but I can see that it would be difficult to frame that in a watertight legal manner. A good meal out is not cheap but it lasts something like two hours. A firework bang lasts less than a second, and it always sounds exactly the same. Pro rata, fireworks must be the most overrated, predictable entertainment EVER.
And on a personal note I object to the way the names are so inaccurate. Fireworks come with stealth names like ‘Silver Garden’ or ‘Fairy Rain’ and are never called anything truthful like ‘Evil Banshee Sonic Attack’ or ‘Psycho Flamethrower Tree Incinerator’.
I'm doing a stint as a guest blogger over at the Audi Olympics this week along with Zed, Gordon, Spengy and the estimable Mrs AudiMan. This is not something I have taken lightly so I apologise if I'm a little brief for a few days. Do please visit.
V good marks all round on the latest Grade Cards, a clear vindication of our policy of close involvement. It really seems to work when you make learning fun, esp with Times Tables, and I'm proud to say we've used a lot of our own ideas. My fave is the weddings and funerals table up to 48 weddings and 12 funerals.
Trying to think of words that S could stand for in S Club 8 was also a great success and kept us going for the whole of bathtime once. As a game it didn't prove nearly so absorbing when I tried it out the next morning in the office. There was a much shorter list of suggestions. One actually.
The searches just keep coming. Let me try to be clearer.
As I see it the major dangers of YuGiOh are:
- Eating nothing but YuGiOh cards can lead to a variety of vitamin deficiencies.
- Asking for cards solidly for three hours might well get you strangled by a parent or guardian.
- Listening to card owners talking about their decks can seriously interrupt the reading of newspapers.
- Reflecting upon the total cost of the deck mentioned above may interfere with parental sleep patterns.
- Playing tennis while reading the YuGiOh rules can put the reader at serious risk of losing heavily.
- Light does not pass through the cards unless you punch little holes in them so taking a walk on a clifftop with intact YuGiOh cards taped over both eyes can be dangerous and may expose the tapee to prejudicial high velocity impacts.
The Devil traditionally seduces the unwary with pastimes that are fun. Fornication is free and fun. Drink is widely available, relatively cheap and fun. The Devil is not going to be reaching anyone through something so overpriced, complicated and tedious.
That really is it now.
It was Jake's eighth birthday on Sat which passed off pretty well but not without a little last minute tension. The whole thing rather crept up on us, mainly because we spent most of last week agonising about all the presents on his wish list. As a consequence the practical arrangements did get somewhat overlooked and it was only at around five minutes to midnight on Fri that it became clear that we had no birthday cake. Mel was on the doorstep when M&S opened next morning and luckily got the last Shark Attack cake in the place.
Choosing presents seems to get more difficult each year. I absolutely refused to get him anything to do with those horrible Powadroidz he loves on TV and YuGiOh cards were out as he already has enough to fill all his pockets and still cover his bedroom floor. He had asked for a Spiderman costume but we decided against it on safety grounds. For such an imaginative child it seemed tantamount to encouraging him to climb all over the outside of the house or swing out of a second floor window clutching a skipping rope. So he got a plastic Spiderman cityscape full of figurines instead. He didn't seem too disappointed. He also got a drum machine and an Eminem headscarf.
I enjoyed his party in the bowling alley which went off without incident; no fights, nobody was sick, I won my game and they all seemed to leave with the right shoes. He got piles of presents including a hideous Powadroidz laser gun thing with which he has since regularly slaughtered his close family. Eight years of conditioning undone at a stroke. Perhaps we could avoid disasters like that in future by running a sort of Bridal List at a reputable high quality toy shop, with all the information on the invite.