As some of you may know, I am scheduled to enter the frankly terrifying and alien domain of parenthood this summer - my wife is ‘up the duff’ as they say, and come July the fruit of my loins will be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. Be afraid.

The issue of naming said sprog is currently burning bright in my mind, although as we don’t yet know the sex the possibilites are endless. A few that have potentially stuck are listed below, please feel free to add suggestions of your own, and, for the few Blackbridge parents out there, any potential gems of advice on surviving the first few months would be greatly appreciated.

BOY’S NAMES:

- Rambo Leonidas Potter

- Xbox Achievement Potter

- Dareyoutocallme Harry Potter

- Trains Potter

- Billy Bigballs Potter

- Osama Hussein Potter

GIRL’S NAMES

- Noboys Allowed Potter

- Psycopathic Dad Potter

- Boyfriends Beware Potter

- Beatrix Potter

* Artist's rendition

I hate writing about the fact I am an American, but I just thought I’d point out, yes I am. And I’ve come to find there are many differences with the Christmas’ I’ve experienced growing up outside of Boston from that of a typical English Christmas:

1. There are no Christmas crackers in America (unless you have an English family member, like my friend Ryan, or have watched Bridget Jones way too many times). It may sound silly to many of you, but Christmas crackers have become my new favourite addition to celebrating Christmas. It can’t be the silly ‘gifts’ and jokes inside, or even the noise they make when popped open, but it definitely has to be the Christmas crowns themselves that make me feel very festive. And yes, I originally thought Christmas crackers contained crackers (that’s biscuits to all the English) rather then being name for the noise they make.

2. An English Christmas meal is basically an American Thanksgiving (minus the pumpkin pie!). And no, I don’t have turkey on Christmas. It’s hard to say what is a typical American Christmas meal, because from what I’ve come to learn, every family has its own tradition. The Keith family typically enjoys a delicious fillet mignon cooked medium rare along with a lot of sides and way too many desserts! I’m glad I’ve been able to have Christmas dinners here and tomorrow will have my third Thursday turkey dinner in a row!

3. Christmas music, although many of the songs are the same, there are a lot of Christmas ‘classics’ I’ve learned here (Wham! ‘Last Christmas’, Slade ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ to name a few). And thankfully, I’ve introduced a few American classics (’Feliz Navidad’ and the entire Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack by the Vince Guaraldi Trio). In the Keith household, there was a lot of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Amy Grant (please don’t ask) and my dad didn’t think it was Christmas until he heard the dogs barking ‘Jingle Bells’.

And finally, I leave with a picture of my Christmas tree here in Londontown.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy Eid, and Happy New Year!!!

It started like any addiction. I was at a party, and a friend asked if I wanted to try something. ‘Okay,’ I agreed, innocently. He handed me a box about the same size as a DVD case, but slightly thicker. There was writing on the front: The Wire. Season 1.

I was feeling bereft after finishing both Season 2 of Dexter and Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica, so a shot of high-quality police drama was just what was needed. The next day, Emma and I tentatively gave The Wire a go. After about two episodes, we were hopelessly hooked on the gritty saga, with its mumbled dialogue and incomprehensible slang. Its themes of greed and betrayal on both sides of the law. It was a heady cocktail that proved impossible to resist, and we found ourselves reaching for the disks on a nightly basis.

But all too soon the stash ran dry, and we needed more. This time however, there were no kindly offers of a free hit, and I was forced to take to the streets. (Actually, the High Street,) and visit a dealer (Um… HMV, Moorgate.)

So that’s where we are: Part way through Season 2, and loving every minute. And everyone I know, it seems, is at it. Occupying a point somewhere on the inescapable vector between Season one and five.

Those of us with children have to shoe-horn a couple of ep’s between packing the little’uns off to bed, eating, and doing all the other jobs that grown-ups n need to do. Tasks that keep us from enjoying intelligent US import cop dramas.

That leads me to the moral dimension of all this: Is it okay to watch The Wire while the kids are still up? I mean, I’m an adult, and I find it hard enough to understand what the hell is going on. We even have to watch it with the subtitles turned on so we can follow the dialogue. Clever though my girls are, I don’t think their reading skills are up to following the wise-cracking word-play of the West Baltimore projects.

It wouldn’t be the first time we have crossed the line of what is age appropriate entertainment. When my eldest was a baby, the late night feed would often coincide with the odd episode of The Sopranos. She would regularly glug down the Hipp Organic while Tony Soprano whacked some button man who’d ratted him off to the feds. Or something.

My girls have also been following Doctor Who since the BBC brought it back. And they spurned High School Musical in favour of its more questionable forefather: Grease. A film that encourages low moral values, says that you must drink, smoke, and at the expense of everything else, make sure you always look cool in front of your mates. (I suppose they have to learn that some time.)

But it’s a two way street. I am regularly tormented in nightmares by The Tellytubbies, The Tweenies and those insane, hygiene obsessed café owners Big cook, Little cook.

Yeah, well. Perhaps it would be wrong to expose them to The Wire at this early stage. So, like all true addicts I should hide the evidence. Any moderately high shelf should do.

Reluctant as I am to throw my weight around here at Blackbridge Communications, one rule I enthusiastically enforce is that no Christmas music can be played in this place of business until the 1st of December.

A couple of days before the curfew I was working away when it came to my attention that my colleague Jocelyn Marie Keith was breaking this rule, and on work property to boot. Recriminations, I can assure you, were swift. But now we’re safely into December and so I thought I’d give a list of some of my own personal Christmas musical favourites with the caveat that they had to be on Youtube in order to be readily shared. Sadly, this meant the absence of James Brown’s ‘Santa Claus Please Stop First in The Ghetto’.

1) When I was growing up, the most regular noise heard at Christmas time was my brother and I bickering. If you grew up in the US of A however, it seems your Christmas fun was soundtracked by a moustachioed jazz musician. Vince Guaraldi – for it was he – composed the music for the animated Peanuts cartoons, including the Charlie Brown Christmas special which seems as ubiquitous as Top Of The Pops, er… used to be over here. I spent one Christmas in the USA; it involved a truly memorable Christmas Eve spent in a Polish church in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Anyway, the whole soundtrack is great. Seasoned Blackbridge watchers might have noticed this song playing on our very first Christmas HTML email. Fortunately for our nascent organisation, Charles M. Schulz’s lawyers didn’t: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RRm5qofw5vs

2) Nostalgia, as the joke goes, is great, but not what it was. Ever the sentimentalist, what could be more nostalgic than a nostalgic song about being nostalgic at this most nostalgic time of year? ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! - we’re talking about you. How quaint does it sound now, in these days of ringtones and downloads, that it was released as a “Double A Side” with ‘Everything She Wants’ so radio stations played that once the New Year arrived and people kept buying it. While I like the video in the snow with Andrew and George and Pepsi and Shirlie and all of that, here it is performed by a truly great artist, an epoch defining legend of our times, Crazy Frog… No, not really: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=naiYu9KtA4I

3) Up until about five minutes ago, I was not only convinced that ‘Greensleeves’ and ‘I Saw Three Ships’ had the same tune, but that both were composed by King Henry VIII. Thanks to the interwebs I now know that both my facts were incorrect. Great. Anyway, I Saw Three Ships is my favourite Christmas carol, even if the picture it paints is rather unlikely - Bethlehem isn’t near the sea. But then again, did the Little Donkey really have a heavy day? Did Cherubim and seraphim really throng the air? Either way, here are some very polite looking choirboys singing it. Interested to reflect that ten years later they’re probably all chain-smoking hoodies, lingering unsavourily outside the KFC in Cambridge. Especially the one guy with the glasses: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=waTafOG-QoQ

4) I could be here until next Christmas going on about Donny Hathaway. Instead, this is him singing ‘This Christmas’: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nJO_kdkrj1g

5) Why oh why do people like to bleedin’ go on about how ironic it is that ‘A Fairytale of New York’ continues to top polls of things like the best Christmas song evah, when it’s all about drunks and sin and misery? In my experience, that isn’t too far removed from the reality of Christmas, especially the first part. But my favourite Christmas song isn’t – as the lyrics say – about Christmas at all. Take an authentically smudged Spectoresq Wall of Sound production complete with Christmas bells and add a rather droll tale about driving through Scandinavia and you get Low’s ‘Just Like Christmas’. They chose the band’s ‘Little Drummer Boy’ for the Gap Christmas ad, but they should have gone for this one. Just love those drums: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=A-rvWoVX3t0

6) On the subject of Phil Spector, I have to include a song from ‘A Christmas Gift to You’ which I got as a Christmas gift to me when I was about 16. ‘Winter Wonderland’ and ‘Sleigh Bells’ and so on may be the best known, but I’ve had a soft spot for Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans’ take on ‘The Bells of St Mary’: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=liQCWYo4i6k&feature=related

7) When I was growing up, my father would always reply “peace and quiet!” when you asked him what he wanted for Christmas. Not this year though, it’s a book about Picasso. But what do you think a new guitar (which won’t play out of key), a basket three feet tall, some shoes with lots of sole and some mistletoe have in common? Well: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=enxc3qOd-9Y

And so there you go. Merry Christmas…

PS Not sure how I forgot about this one.

The number of Britons accessing the internet via mobile devices increased by 25% in the third quarter of 2008, according to new research from Nielsen Online, published in Media Week.

Results from the study Mobile Media View, highlight that usage of the mobile internet is increasing eight times faster than PC-based internet growth, rising from 5.8 million to 7.3 million between the second and third quarters of 2008.

BBC News is the most popular site, being visited by 24% of British mobile internet users, followed by Google Search(23%), BBC Weather (21%), Facebook (20%) and hotmail (14%).

Kent Ferguson, senior analyst at Nielsen, said: “The fact that weather, sports, news and e-mail sites make up the majority of leading mobile sites shows that mobile internet is mainly about functionality and need at the moment, as opposed to the more entertainment and e-commerce-focused make-up of the leading PC-based sites.”

The mobile internet audience also commands a higher concentration of younger users than PC-based internet, with only 12% aged 55 or older, compared to 23% for PC-based internet population.

In total, almost seven and a half million Britons now access the web through their phone, leading Ferguson to conclude: “The mobile internet audience is becoming more mainstream and is fast becoming a viable way for advertisers and publishers to reach important demographic groups.

“Growth of 25% between the two quarters this year is significant, and while advertisers and agencies may be reluctant to experiment with the emerging platform in a depressed 2009, I believe it is the right time for forward-thinking clients to be taking risks.

“Those who put their stake in the ground now can win over the desirable young audience before their competitors get out of the starting blocks.”

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