When I was just a little boy...

... I asked my mother, what will I be?
Will I be handsome?
Will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me...

Lift your feet my boy, I've got to vacuum - why don't you go out and get some fresh air.
Now the Clash hadn't released "Should I stay or should I go now", but I'm sure I was thinking it.

Why is it that parents always want you to go out when you want to stay in and stay in when you want to go out?

Of course now I realise I should have taken the vacuum and done the job for her.
Now as a parent with little mouths to feed, I find myself thinking,
I must get them out, away from that television. ABC1 playing "8 Simple rules" in what appears to be an endless loop.

Was my mother ahead of her years, wiser than the rest of us?
"You'll get square eyes!", she'd shout as she turned the television off.

Looking back I spent hours staring at the white light - shrinking white dot. I can't tell you how exciting it was when we got our first colour television - the test card looked fantastic.
My young lad couldn't believe we had had black & white televisions. He was even more amused when I showed him my first computer - a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K.
He insisted I set it up for him and then spent an age flipping through the manual trying to learn how to programme it. He brought back fond memories when he asked me to help him to make it BLEEP.

Of course my mother bought me that lovely black box, with multi-coloured, multi-function keys. She wanted to encourage me into engineering.
She declared one day that I would be an engineer. This life choice apparently made because I fixed the old black and white television by identifying a blown valve, removing it and asking the TV shopkeeper for another one.
So at the grand age of eight my mother mapped out a life for me as an engineer.

Of course I'm now a well rounded grown up - so I know I've helped create the latest set of couch potatoes. Game consoles don't grow on trees. Which is why you hear me saying, "let's do something, anything", park, cycle, swim.
I've got to fit more in before I head like a moth towards another white light.