We were delighted to welcome one of DBW’s ex-colleagues, this evening, from the time when she used to work for TeleAtlas, purveyors of digitals maps, and who have since been purchased by TomTom.

After having moved to Paris he and his family are now stationed in Taiwan where he is responsible for the emerging Asian market.

Impressive stuff, eh?

Which is why I was not only delighted to receive a phone call 10 minutes after they were due to arrive asking for directions to our place, but was honoured to drive “into town” and escort them back to port.

I naturally turned on my TomTom at the occasion: didn’t want to let the side down, did I?

Sorry Kuno: couldn’t resist!

Hmmm: I wonder if it really was a good idea to host Vic’s video on our own server rather than YouTube.

FYI, the dark green bar represents the bandwidth consumed on the given day: I just wonder when DBW started phoning family, friends and colleagues..

Hmmm..

And here she is.

Ladies and Gentlemen, THE VIC!!

Pretty damn good if you ask me!

Dads share advice. And although Tom is VERY far from “Parental Nuclear Warfare”, he actually posted something which I believe could come in EXTREMELY handy indeed!

Rule One:
If you pull into my driveway and honk you’d better be delivering a package, because you’re sure not picking anything up.

Rule Two:
You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter’s body, I will remove them.

Rule Three:
I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don’t take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose his compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

Rule Four:
I’m sure you’ve been told that in today’s world, sex without utilizing a “barrier method” of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

Rule Five:
It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day.Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is “early.”

Rule Six:
I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule Seven:
As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process that can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don’t you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?

Rule Eight:
The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka – zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which features chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.

Rule Nine:
Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a potbellied, balding, middle-aged, dimwitted has-been. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

Rule Ten:
Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Hanoi. When my Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit your car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car – there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine

Capisce?

Love or infatuation?

Or just support when it’s needed?

Children’s concerts are pretty awful events: annually watching “‘lil’ Johnny” attempt to produce just one single melodious tone from his bugle in order to justify the horrendous fees you have been paying all year for his music tuition is bad enough; unfortunately, such venues are rarely limited to supporting your own offspring.

As parents are obviously masochists (they wouldn’t have become parents otherwise), they are submitted to 12-15 “‘lil’ Johnnies” cum noise-producing apparatuses before the “chip of the old block” is allowed to desecrate any esteem your family may have acquired over the last couple of centuries.

Been there, done it, bought the “Sax Players Do It Differently”/”Clarinet RockZ”/Who Cares If We Lose Every Single Basketball Match We Ever Play” T-Shirt.

But our parental masochism can reach supernatural proportions.

Our Vic was away this week at a “musical workshop” (i.e. musical as in “Phantom of the Opera“) in the quaint village of Lenk in the Bernese Oberland.

As it happens, we were informed that there would be an “end-of-term” concert at 18:00 this evening in a posh hotel in said village (note the time: for every parental masochist there exists a teaching sadist [Freud? Maybe, hmmm...]).

What would you do? According to ViaMichelin AND TomTom, total trip time: 2 hours and 20 bl**dy minutes. I.e. 5 hours there and back in order to witness your daughter’s best five minutes of her life.

*SIGH*

Those five minutes turned out to be one of the best five minutes of my life and I will NEVER regret having sat (or rather stood expectantly behind a YouTube-compatible VideoCam DBW managed to borrow) through umpteen, though mature “‘lil’Johnnies” before she hit the stage.

DBW cried; and so did I (albeit in a more British way ).

Note to self: call Universal on Monday!!!