Why can I never get a straight answer from a man? We’re planning a trip to Guernsey (an island) dead early tomorrow morning, so I need to know what time we have to leave so I can set my alarm.
Me: What time do we have to leave home?
Piers: No earlier than an hour before the time we have to be there – which is an hour before we sail (6 am).
Took me 11 minutes of questioning, during which time I got more riddles, before I received the answer: 4 am.
Piers “invented” a really delicious Asian snack combo: Prawn crackers with hoisin sauce! So proud of him!
I also found this awesome lemongrass-flavoured prawn crackers at Tesco. From Netherlands, but makers were Indoneisan settlers. Tastes so great when you dip into hoisin sauce (sparingly)!
Yeah I know my photos are missing from my blog header. Looks very funny, doesn’t it?
Nanny Wen (aka Buggy Wen aka Davienne) says it reminds her of Harry Potter’s moving picture people.
Guess my photos are taking a break. They’ve gone into hiding because it’s been raining a lot in England and the weather forecast says it’s going to hail tomorrow.
IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER!
Crazy or not.
I thought I’d be in discomfort for a year because I was finding it impossible to get used to Invisalign in my mouth. But just 11 days into it, I hardly feel it anymore.
Was playing on my iPad before bed last night when I suddenly couldn’t feel plastic in my mouth and for one horrifying moment, thought that I had forgotten to put my aligners back on after dinner, which was ages ago.
Turned out it’s just my mouth has started to adapt.
Quote of the day
Me: I want a pet duckling!
Piers: LOL why!!!
Me: Cos they’re so cute.
Piers: All baby things are cute! Except babies.
A transport provider in the UK just sent me an e-mail asking me to take part in an online survey to help improve services.
So I go there and answer two questions (age and last time I used the service) and they say:
“Thank you for your time. Unfortunately, you do not qualify for the survey as this time around we are looking to survey our more senior customers (over 60) only.”
WTF fail.
Was googling the difference between biscuits and cookies and got linked to a Yahoo! Answers page. This guy’s answer made me LOL.
“The difference between the biscuit and the cookie is the Atlantic.
Plus, American biscuit more like a savory scone
Plus English biscuit is an American cookie.
Plus English or American cookie is in your computer to do stuff that no one really understands.”
Being too ambitious (or greedy). Two heaped bowls of ricotta and spinach tortelloni in bolognese sauce, with six sausages and three baby zucchinis thrown into the mix. A roll of garlic bread and a bottle of wine. Delicious!
Yay I got white tulips! My favouritest flowers. :)
England has the most beautiful flowers. Tulips and roses in white with pale pink. Gerberas in strawberry milk pink. Makes me happy!
Just read in detail about foot binding in ancient China. I always thought they just wrapped up the feet during infancy to stop them from growing.
But, no! They wait till the girl is 4-7 years old, then break her toes and arch bones so that the toes can curl under the sole. Without anaesthesia.
After wrapping the monstrous creation tightly, the girl is then forced to walk on her broken feet so her weight can help crush them into shape. The feet are crushed and rebound daily for like two years! WTF is wrong with people?!
14 Comments » 
Its about the influence around them, easily ready materials from the net, TV, the friends around them and what they could get hold of off the streets all at the end of the day ‘encouraged’ these kids into it.
It’s not a menace but it’s an unhealthy culture that needs to be looked at. At the end of the day, it’s what the parents, teachers and friends around them should do to educate the kids before it gets out of hand.
No one wants to cry HELP only when there’s a life form being created inside the womb right?
Unless they have pretty much started in the womb these days then this is a story that comes up pretty much every year. If you read back to ancient Greek times you will find writers complaining about how the younger generations have gone off the rails, so it’s nothing new.
The newspapers dig up stories of younger and younger children having sex over and again. I’m pretty sure that it’s not a general trend, but isolated cases are used to make good headlines.
…and another thing: Disraeli commented that there are “Lies, damn lies and statistics.” You can make the numbers mean anything you want.
I’d have been interested to know where the trigger for the article came from. “Media reports” is such a catch-all…
It’s human nature that the more it is forbidden, the more they are likely to do it, once they taste it, they’ll crave for more. In other words, it can’t be prevented. So what we can do is educate them to “do it” wisely. Instead of doing the coitus interruptus method why not — condoms (recommended, we all know that), basal body temperature method, natural monthly method, etc… At least they’ll venture out “prepared”, and it’s gonna be a more pleasurable sexperience for both parties.
Michael Yip: I think the problem is that it is really very hard to educate kids on the right values. Every kid is different and will respond differently to the same parenting strategy.
Kids, when they reach a certain age, especially with peer influence, might find themselves breaking rules rules even though they might not really want to. I’m not sure how I would keep my own kid in line, too, if I had a kid! lol.
Jesta: This topic came from the news report last week about this 15-year-old boy who had sex with an 11-year-old girl early last year. He was arrested in August.
Here: http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20081215-107817.html
Peaches Mode: What’s basal body temperature method? Er… I think the idea is to get them not to have sex at all, lol. :P
More infor here… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_body_temperature
Very disturbing.
What the kids need is neither “prohibition” nor “(sex) preparation”, but rather reasoning skills, e.g. who they want to be, where they want to go, do you follow whatever you see or what others are doing, what it means to have sex, what are its possible consequences, are they ready, etc.
No one can make decisions for them. They simply need to first comprehend and apprehend.
So… a single case then. This is a disturbing story, but it’s hardly a trend. Having been in the newspaper industry I am well aware of the need for a good headline, but I think that this is a fairly isolated case – even the article pointed out that this was the youngest case that they had come across.
We do need sensible education about the dangers and risks, but it should be sensible, not sensationalistic or the kids will find out on their own and the people that they should trust will lose credibility.
Certainly, a sprinkling of sensibility is necessary.
Trends emerge slowly. For example, 1 in 4 youths have had sex, according to a July 2008 survey conducted by Bayer Schering Pharma of 240 ITE students, aged 15 to 20. Perhaps this cannot be generalized to all youths, given that this survey was conducted only among ITE students. Still, this figure is very high compared to my time (ahem! many years ago).
Not to stray off from topic. How many people (read: girls) you know, regret how their first time, but still continue doing it anyway? Especially since years after their first.
It happens, too much too often for all we can say, or care. Just like other statistics, millions die from alien flu virus, millions die from choking on seaweed, millions here and there and we can only be glad that we’re not one of them millions, and in this case, we’re either glad that we’re not one of them, or our kids.
… and who are we to argue with the beast surrounded by raging hormones? Words of wisdom? Teenage A “I’m GONNA DO EEET!” Hermit-on-top-of-mt.smokey”Don’t do eeet aka you will regret it (especially in the event of a knock up)”. Who’s gonna listen? Fashion mags so easily accessible with tips, hints, tricks, walkthrough, cheats and what not to be lvl 99 in bed, who’s gonna listen? Then we have internets…
yalor… younger and yuonger…
problem in family is one of the reason kids trying to search for love outside the family. Parents don’t have time to educate their children due to work and kids rely more on friends and media to grow up. Sex sales in the market but it gives the wrong signal to immature kids regarding sex before marriage. I’m not sure how they measure their temple (body), according to own will or peers pressure?
The difference between now and 100 years ago.
100 years ago, 15-year-old were not called kids.
WAPANG !!!!