I Should Be An Astronaut Before Too Long

It turns out that the European Space Agency need more astronauts. I think I will have a go because frankly, George is starting to get on my nerves. You do not need any actual space experience (phew) but you do need:

• to be ready for anything (goes without saying)
• you must like surprises (absolutely anytime)
• be healthy (no chance of anything else with Mum)
• you must like science (I'm in, except for, 'the body' because that is quite boring)

The bad thing is you also have to be ancient so I think I will use my Dad's name and see how it goes.

There is one good thing about having George around. To make me feel better about having to put up an annoying baby in the house, The Parents have been round to my friend, Miranda. Her Dad is a show-off wild insect explorer and she has got masses of stick insects which are my favourite pet. Miranda gave The Parents some of the tiny baby ones (about 12 - it is tricky to count them). I say, any number of stick insects are alot less bother than one baby brother but I might just be wrong on this because it turns out they can be quite a lot of bother in actual fact.

Sometime back, my best friend Dexter was trying to help me sort out stick insect poo from stick insect eggs and this is very interesting but quite tricky. We did this delicate work in the spare room but then it went a bit wrong and Dexter had to vacuum up everything - poo and eggs. That was about 6 months ago. The next thing is this:

Mum and George are upstairs in his bedroom (the old spare room), de-smelling him (again). I am minding my own business whittling an arrow out of some old wood, when I hear George start yelling (again) and Mum scream. I drop the breadknife and Dad throws down his copy of 'Smile! You're a Dentist!'
He runs up the stairs, shouting, 'For goodness' sake - what now!?' Like he is the one always being disturbed.
Then Dad starts screaming.
Then they both stop screaming to bellow, 'WILFRED!'
It is then that the awful feeling comes upon me. A feeling that whatever is happening in the ex-spare bedroom might, not altogether not be my fault. Crazy but true. My brain whirrs at superhuman speed. I put the spare room, Dexter's sloppy vacuuming and a six month incubation period for stick insect eggs all together in a fantastic micro milli-second. Based on the available evidence, I come to a conclusion and it is not pretty. On the plus side, I have dealt with the surprise of The Parents finding hoardes of ravenous stick insects in the baby's bedroom in a scientific way and therefore I should be an astronaut before too long.
'WILFRED!! UP HERE NOW!'
Just as well. I go to face my doom.

Playing Tag with a Nearby Book

Anita has tagged me. I have to find a nearby book. The book I have found is in the downstairs loo. It is one of Dad's favourites. He is a big fan of talking about the weather and so takes any opportunity to read about it so that he can pretend to have a vast knowledge. The book is, The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney and it is an entire book about clouds. Dad has even joined the sad cloudspotter's society and this week was blah-blahing about Stratocumulus in a vastly knowledgeable sort of way. Turns out he is half way through Chapter 4 which is all about those particular clouds. Hmm. Anita has asked me to pick three sentences from page 123. I do not know why.

"Perhaps they'll see, 'a centaur, or a leopard, or a wolf, or a bull', like the Socrates character in Aristophanes play, Clouds. Perhaps they'll divine, 'giants' countenances...great mountains and rocks...after them some monster pulling and dragging other clouds', like Lucretius, the Roman poet, in his philosophical epic De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). The Greeks and the Romans appear to have been keen enthusiasts of this pastime."
The picture shows some Greeks or Romans probably - "Do not bother me now - I am having a think" is most likely what they are saying to one another and actually this is exactly what Dad says when you knock on the loo door.

I have no idea what all that is about but just copying it out has made my brain ache. I quite like being in the weather and I am a big fan of Barometer World, where we went on holiday but I do not like books where I have to have a dictionary and an encyclopaedia in the same room.

He Is Called George

My baby brother is now five months and one week old which is old enough as far as I am concerned. The quite bad thing is that I am jealous of his name. He is called George. This is clearly a terrible name to lumber anyone with but it is three times better than Alan and three million times better than Wilfred.
One of George's problems (apart from being called George) is that he looks like a potato. You could feel sorry for his lumpy head with its piggy eyes but then you look closer and realise that he is a Sontaran and in actual fact one of Dr Who's greatest enemies and very very evil. All you have to do is stick a baby-gro on a Sontaran and you have George, the baby Sontaran.



George likes to sleep for a few minutes before waking up and shouting. George likes to have clean nappies for a few minutes before making them smell very bad. George likes to sit quietly on your lap for a few minutes before throwing up on your best party trousers. Mum and Dad tell me that I was like him once, all shouty and smelly and nauseating.
But I know this is a lie - they must be thinking of Grandpa Jack.

Slightly Droopy News

The slightly droopy news is that, The Friday Project has stopped being a publisher because it ran out of money. Even droopier news is that the money ran out before, 'Wilf's World' was made into a book.
Here is a drooping plant. It is on my window sill and it still needs watering to make it perk up. It is a big shame that I cannot add water to the stick insects to make them perk up. Mum put them on the window sill, so they could see outside and now they are all dead with sunburn. That is the droopiest news of all.

So, What With One Thing and Another

So, what with one thing and another, I am stopping writing Wilf's World until May 1st. I will then start writing it again. In between I will sometimes write up some of my favourite inventions.
I also hope that everyone will buy the Wilf's World book when it comes out this year with The Friday Project.

Bye for now.

Happy Christmas

Martin Luther was someone who believed in religion alot. He lived in Germany in the 16th century and liked to have lights on a tree. I do not know if this was at christmas time or just anytime he fancied but I do know that he died on the toilet.

Anyway, people seemed to like the twinkly effect of the candles and lighting up trees became the only way to look at a tree at Christmas time. This led to some fantastic tree fires which people were not so keen on, especially at Christmas. When electricity was discovered, fairy lights were invented. By 1923 the White House in America had its first outdoor tree with electric lights. All the poor people carried on having flaming trees for some time to come.
In America after one tragic christmas tree fire too many, somebody called Albert Sadacca got the bright idea of making safety lights for christmas trees. These did not catch fire but interestingly took afew years to catch on.

This year we are having our own real life baby-child in a manger bed. I have not seen any shepherds bringing mangy sheep to our door or three kings bearing gifts or even bright angels descending upon us but Mum and Dad have gone to the hospital, Grandpa Jack has lit up his stinky pipe and Mrs Next-Door has still not discovered the new and exciting underground door into her hall. All is well.

Happy Christmas.

'WHAT ARE YOU BOYS DOING DOWN THERE?'

So, the mega-legus eating monsters pile through the hole. Dexter and me tumble backwards and I think that the creatures will fall on us and eat us right away. Somewhere, Mrs Next-Door is screeching like mad and will soon be another victim.

'It's drooling on me!' cries Dexter from beneath brown and matted fur.

'Try not to swallow! It is most likely poisonous!' I advise, helpfully.

Already the hot air down here is reeking of old meat and nasty wet stuff. I can hardly breath underneath it all. Four thousand claws scratch at my face.

'Sorry, Dexter!' I shout. 'At least we will not have to put up with the new baby-child!'

'It's licking me!' cries Dexter. 'Aghhhhhhhh!'

'WHAT ARE YOU BOYS DOING DOWN THERE???!!!' Mrs Next-Door bellows into the understairs void. She must have opened the door. Bad move.

There is a fantastic clawing and growling and scrabbling and the beasts fling themselves out of the under-the-stairs-cupboard and onto her throat. Probably. The door slams shut. There is silence whilst they devour their prey and then quite a lot of barking.

'Come along, boys!' chirrups Mrs Next-Door, who must still be alive. 'I don't know how you got into this house but now it's time for a bath!'

We crawl up to the hall and peek the door open. There are muddy paw-prints all over the hall floor, lots of jackhammer scratches on the parquet, a small hill of rubble by the front door and a mountain of mud that Dexter was supposed to be dealing with. I hear the car door slam outside.

'Right,' says Dexter, 'I think I'll be off now, you can keep the jack-hammer for a bit.'

And he runs out of the back door.