Daily Archive

Sixteen years ago this morning, my life-situation went through a quantum leap when my wife said “I think it’s started”. By the end of the day, Ewan was with us and *everything* had changed.

It had been hot and humid that week and we were building up to a thunderstorm while I sat around in the delivery room, waiting and completely powerless.

I’m seeing a few friends going through this transition to fatherhood at the moment. It’s one of those ‘life is simultaneously so ordinary and extraordinary’ times.

In August 1991 I was temping (in the London offices of Chevron, I think) having just had a big piece of work cancelled (the legal case I was working on got settled suddenly before it went to court) That situation went on for about a year until I went to university which took 4 years, worked for one employer for nearly 7 years and now been self-employed for 5 years.

The world feels enormously different – I had a vague knowledge but no experience of BBS’s at the time, but if I’d heard of the internet, I certainly never thought I’d live and work there My job now, whatever it is, just didn’t exist and neither did the sorts of companies I work with. It was a couple of years later when I’d got a JANET account that I first saw the pre-mosaic WWW running in a terminal window.

I remember buying a paper in the hospital and seeing that there was some sort of coup attempt going on in the Soviet Union. After Ewan arrived I went down to a payphone and called the various branches of the family, I can’t remember taking many photos, but there are a handful in a drawer somewhere.

How weird. Newspapers, payphones, no digital photography, Soviet Union.

He was a fine boy and now he’s turning into a fine young man. Recently he’s started cooking for himself, asking me for hints and tips in the kitchen and how to use the washing machine Now he can apply for a National Insurance number, get a job (and be on the lowest level of minimum wage), get married (with consent from his parents), and, you know, all the rest.

He plays bass guitar and next month is starting at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford.

I love him to bits.

Happy Birthday Dude!