The Aged has been retelling his war stories. No, not to me - as with all parental stories I wasn't interested when I was a child, and I'm not interested now. Actually, that's not strictly true - they are quite interesting (just don't tell him I said that).

Long story short: I read a blog which talked about Chin Peng and the Malayan Emergency and commented that The Aged served his National Service in Malaya at that time. The blog author was very interested in this, so contacted The Aged for more information. Here is the relevant post. The Aged is cock-a-hoop that this entry has generated more interested than he could ever muster from his children!

I suppose the reason for our (slightly feigned) lack of interest in his stories is that it is difficult to see the immediate relevance of events that occurred before our birth. The Aged would have been in Malaya about seven or eight years before I was born - so let's say that's twelve or thirteen years before I was aware of the world. That's, er, the same length of time as we now are from the millennium.

I was born 20 years after the end of the Second World War. If the Second World War had been 20 years ago I would have quite possibly been too old for conscription. And how about this: I was born closer to the First World War than CGF's sprogs were to the Second. That's a sobering thought - or maybe, as CGF's Sprog 1 suggested, I am just really old (yes, thanks, CGF's Sprog 1. Weren't you going shopping?). But she already thinks I am daft for confusing Godzilla with mozzarella cheese - especially when I meant parmesan.

CGF's sprog 3 thought she should teach me how to play a tune on the piano. She was quite a good teacher (I was a lousy pupil). We did the first bit, then the second bit, then put both bits together. For another piece she explained "there's a bit of a pause where while the left hand does a bit, but we won't worry about that bit now".

It's interesting playing on a keyboard, as you can see how the patterns in the music are made up. You play the first, third and fifth note, then start at a different note and play the first, third and fifth again.

It's firework season. The British laugh at the namby-pambies in other counties who have their firework displays in the middle of summer (well, I do, anyway). No, a true firework display has to be on a cold and wet November night, in a muddy field. You have big bonfires and guys. And you have to walk for miles in the dark to get there because there is no local car park. And you have hot soup and hot dogs. Yes, hot dogs. Sausages go with fireworks. Burger's don't.

We went to a firework display last night. It was the first firework event I've been to in a non-SJA capacity since, well, since Sprog's sprogs were knee-high to grasshoppers. It was pretty good. And they had proper guys