Kingdom of Thailand receives royal visit

4th century Thai legend has it that one day a princess baby will come from afar, across the sea,  descend from the sky, give her royal blessing and be their saviour. According to the great texts, this God in baby form will have chubby cheeks, long eyelashes and go by the name of Ivy may. 

Last week this great Thai prophecy was said to have come true. 

From the moment we arrived the people cheered , shouted her name and lauded her beauty. Businessmen were stopped in their tracks, teenage girls took her photo on their mobiles and wise old grandmothers nodded their wise old heads in approval. 

The god baby conducted herself in the most royal of ways. A slight tilt of the head to acknowledge police officials, a wave to their cheering crowds in the market, and a slight nod at the opening of a factory were all said to exhilarate the thousands who had flocked to see the royal visitor. 

Many of the onlookers were hoping to receive a royal blessing which is said to bring peace and prosperity

For many a kiss on the lips with the royal saviour will release them from all their sins in this lifetime

For us the keepers of the royal child unfortunately life wasn't so royal. We were constantly chided for the god baby being so fat. 

the God baby also decided that sleep was only a necessity for human babies and hence decided on a course of non stop thai party to celebrate her arrival on the human planet

It was after 7 days of mass celebrations that us the keepers of the Golden child decided to embark on the hugely unpopular decision to bring the golden child home early

despite mass protests from the local thai people and also the god child herself she returned to sydney unharmed and slept in one night more than she slept on the entire royal visit

We were only allowed to leave with promises that we return next year which surely after such a warm reception we will. That is if the God baby herself decides we will be allowed to

What a crawler

Before yesterday,  the only crawling she was doing was to her Grandma handing out big smiles on demand. But now Ivy is officially crawling and loving it. For other baby milestone spotters her top teeth have started growing through as well. Go Ivy go

When two tribes go to lunch

The Browne clan joined the Holmes clan to celebrate Kate's birthday 7th march and my birthday 9th of march. We went to the local Castel mola (Castle of moles) and good food was had by all. Probably my most interesting present was a bottle of absinthe....  It used to be the drink of choice amongst artists and lesbians in Gay paris in the twenties. After being banned for 80 years it seems to be back. Kate's brother in law Stephen managed to find it .... cheers for that 

Ed's Saturday shopping list

G'day mate, got a bit of an embarrassing shopping list today....

nipple shields x 2

thrush cream

anaesthetic nipple cream

cabbage

heat pack for sore breast

the good news is that Kate has now pretty much recovered from her mastitis and the Thaialnd trip is all systems go from next friday. Lets hope it's a good Friday especially with a nine month old and 9 hour plane trip

Scary new computer

I have just been completely blown away by our new Apple computer, especially the new photo booth option. Hours of fun for kiddies and adults alike. Is it just me or have computers come a long way in 4 years. The series of photos on this blog were made in about 5 minutes.Now i'm sure all you readers of the future looking back on my quaint little blog won't find this so interesting but us 21st century types find it quite unbelievable. personally I still find it difficult to describe how fax technology works to a third world rice farmer. in fact I'm blown away by telephones.... as for radio my god.... and cameras.... but digitally enhanced images sent from my computer thru space to everyone in the world who cares to see with a click of a button... now that is scary

even my nephew James who was born this century fails to comprehend
it's enough to alter your view of reality

The day of the brilliant path

Parents of geniuses often remark upon when they first discovered their child was a genius. For me it wasn't when I saw Ivy flicking through "a study of genius" in between vomits on the lounge room floor. Sure she rolled to the bookshelf selected which book took her fancy and it just so happened to be "a study of genius". (just what this book was doing on our bookshelf is a mystery but obviously it's one of Kate's pretentious college arthouse showy offy books! 

But how did I come to the realisation of Ivy's future genius abilities? 

It was when I consulted the Birthday book, a far more reliable source of finding geniuses, where each persons birthday is summarised with their personality description. Kate is the day of Abstract structure, brilliantly correct for anyone who's seen a day in the life of such a complex individual. Mine is the day of the space voyager which once again absolutely spot on target. But what about Ivy? Flicking over to the auspicious  birth date of 05/06/07 and I come across the Day of the Brilliant Path. Energetic, systematic, quick witted, obviously traits she inherits from her father, whilst anxious, chaotic and bewildered being the traits she inherited from her mother.

so how do I the space voyager balance the demands of abstract structure? Easy simply follow the teachings of the brilliant path because according the brilliant path the movement of music happens not in the notes themselves but in the silences in between.

"You blokes on strike or something?"

There I was sitting on a a comfy bench in Parliament house on February 13, national laugh at John Howard day, when Kevin 07 saunters along, fires off a quick joke to myself and colleague Martin before heading on his way to sign the sorry declaration. We were on a whistle-stop tour of all the channel ten newsrooms (Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra) and were hoping to film the prime minister in action. His infamous "you blokes on strike or something " line hilarious for the fact that we were'nt actually filming him but instead lazing around on the couch people watching. But what people watching it was... first came Julia Gillard with her proud parents on either arm... she gave me a big smile, then came Julie Bishop, 3 generations of Mclellands, Bob Brown, and then mid conversation with Martin he gets distracted and mutters a hey Bobby how ya going as if just running into a long lost friend delivered in his finest Cronulla accent. It was of course Bob Hawke, who as I later found had no idea who Martin was. This was due to the fact they had never met and Martin had fallen for the whole I recognise you and I'll absentmindedly say hello and then realise afterwards that I don't actually know you. But back to Kevin's little joke. 

The reason we couldn't film him was that we were inside the restricted area of the house where you cant film. Kevin being Kevin still doesn't realize this, his press secretary informed us. One channel ten crew had been given permission to film the sorry declaration walk for all the other networks and we were hoping to attach ourselves to this crew and film the crew filming Kevin. I was hoping it would make great footage for the news promotion I'm making. Unfortunately the speaker of the house intervened and even though Kevin's office was keen, the speaker wasn't so there we were on that famous couch.

It was a great trip though getting a fly on the wall peak at how TV newsrooms work and especially inside the Canberra Press gallery where we hung out for 2 days. It was also great to be there on such an historic occasion and mixing with indigenous Australians something which rarely happens to us inner city types

The fat baby files

It's the time in all our lives we'd all prefer to forget. You've been scoffing down mothers milk for 8 or so months and the word exercise hasn't even been invented yet... Yet when Ivy looks back o her dads blog 20 years from now she'll be horrified to think I've done an entry entirely on how fat she is.

I'm sure in two months she'll be sprinting up the hallway but at the moment she's a little fatty with cheeks two blocks away. Yep that's right but I'm sure she'll have the last laugh when in twenty years time I'll be a fat old dad and technology has completely bypassed blogging where with one click of her fingers she can she can change her baby aspect ratio quicker than she can say keep those dad jokes coming stupid old fat dad.
Lucky she's so cute

Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da

Either my daughter has just mastered the Russian language or I do believe she has started muttering her first words... In fact if you look closely and listen keenly she is actually saying Dad Dad Dad You're the best dad in the whole world Dad. It's just happened to strangely coincide with the day I was flicking through my mothers birth book which was written by my Grandmother in 1929. And like some kind of weird time capsule it has transported me back in time linking me with two generations past. According to grandmother Eileen, Mother Sylvia muttered her first da da da's at aged 9 months... I'vy's come in at 7 and a half months ( yet another example of the genius child we're raising)

It's such a little treasure with all sorts of gems... like my mother Sylvia being a "bonny baby" and when the bonny baby took her first steps my grandparents planted trees on their farm in Mudgee to commemorate the event. The amazing thing about the book is it just reminds you that as time goes by nothing really changes. Sure we think the world is so modern, but really we're just doing exactly the same thing as other humans have been for the past 10,000 years.

Kate Browne lighting up your screens

for an exclusive sneak peak of this years latest Nat geo ad sensation featuring Kate Im no extra Browne check out the following link

http://www.yousendit.com/download/bkhmK0d2cGtveFBIRGc9PQ

Hot town summer in the Sydney

2007 is over and we passed it in style. In fact all three of us were in bed by 10.30. Kate and I opened a nice bottle of sparkling merlot, smoked a joint, lay in hammocks and fried up a bit of haloumi on the BBQ. There were no queues for beer, no vomit laden toilets, no tossers shouting aussie aussie , no 2 hour waits for taxis, no 100 dollar tickets to enter a crap venue, and no pressure to have the best night you've ever had. Perfect way to kick off summer in 2008 in Sydney

Family christmas lunch

I'm pleased to report back that the Family Christmas lunch was what it was every year. Lovely.

In fact we're thinking of audtioning for a disney Christmas 2008. There were no conniving distant cousins, no drunken rumour-mongering aunts, no matriarchal martyr or vengeful ex-husbands, not a sniff of a neanderthal nephew on weekend detention. In fact so unlike the jerry Springer show was my christmas that it was almost a cliche. Just the way I like it .

The event this year was held at my sister Jessica's place. For this reason we also celebrated

Saturnalia, Yule, the Mesopotamian Zagmuk and drank toasts to Ishtar, El Gabal, Mithra, Buddha, his cat and various Gods, Demi-Gods, and any ousted Liberal party leaders who happenned to be wandering past. All this was done standing on one foot whispering a mantra celebrating the timeless universal actions of the contrating elements of the cosmos and how they manifest themselves into Jessica's Garden.

In conclusion, merry xmas to all, good will to all neighbours (except those Neighbours that go on to less than illustrious musical singing careers) and death to all contestants from Australian idol. Ho ho ho