Category: Ageing

Avatar Specs offender

A few weeks ago I set a little quiz, with pictures of my trying on a range of spectacles, in an attempt to make light of my ongoing ocular deterioration.

Nobody had a go at guessing which ones I would choose, but the answer is these ones, and to thrill and delight you further I am pleased to now present a fashion shoot in which I demonstrate everything my new glasses can do.

It’s official. Now I’m on the bandwagon, spectacles are the new rock and roll.

Avatar YouTube Promo 2

Hey guys, Face Uncle back to rock your world.

There was a pretty heated debate in the Discord channel about a week or so ago. I love it when you get passionate about things, guys, and I support everything you say 100%.

It inspired me to get productive.

Here’s a little teaser for my new video coming to you LIVE and FRESH at 4.00pm on Friday. Every Friday.

I dared myself to eat as much cornflakes as possible. It was pretty insane, guys, because you never know what’s gonna happen next! I hope you’ll turn up to find out.

Don’t forget to like, comment and subscribe!

Avatar Am I losing my mind?

There I was, aimlessly looking at my Facebook account.

Do you remember how much you faffed about with Facebook when you first got it? Adding in all your likes, favourite bands and films, trying to find people you used to go to school with and sending them a friend request. Poking, apparently, still exists. You can still poke people even now and a lot of people I know are still poking each other (waaaaaay!) so that’s good to know. It was all pretty pointless.

I still get notifications of memories of things and a lot of them are random statuses I typed trying to be funny and failing miserably. Sometimes they’re photos of Reuben or silly things he said as a tiny baby orb. Today was slightly different.

I was linked to something I’d written circa 2008. A short script for something called ‘Cockitt and Pullit’. This was episode two so I must have been on a roll. I glanced briefly at the script before my current orb needed something and I had to switch it off, and made a note in my head to come back later on for a proper read.

I tried to look it up now and it’s gone. The memories have moved onto something else. I sifted through all the various (mostly pointless) pages trying to find where it could be hiding. I’m convinced there used to be a kind of notebook where you could write and store things. Wherever that is hiding must have my scripts for whatever this Cockitt and Pullit thing.

It was a cop drama, probably stupid as we all know the kind of humour 2008 Ian was packing. I’d completely forgotten I’d written them and for now they remain unseen by my judgemental eyes. I’m sure they’re not worth the paper they’re written on, yet if they’re part of my legacy I want them back for future generations to, well, to have.

Except… it’s not mine. If you Google it apparently it was Chris Moyles’ idea, which makes me even more confused. There are references to it in his blog from around the same time. Now I feel like I’m completely losing my mind and I made the whole thing up.

Sometimes remembering isn’t fun.

Avatar Speccy four eyes

As you will be aware, the relentless march of time has taken its toll on my previously top notch eyeballs, and I am now officially a man in need of glasses. Only just – it’s a very slight prescription for reading small text – but this is the start of a slippery slope and, if my optician is to be believed, I’ll be squinting at the world through lenses like the bottom of a jam jar in no time.

Anyway, all of this means that I now have to choose a new facial accessory, so today I spent some time choosing what my face will now look like, or at least what it will look like in the moments where I’m trying to read small writing at close range.

I’m not going to tell you which ones I chose – that will be a cliffhanger that helps me wring out another post – but I can show you some of the options.

Please enjoy this gallery of my face wearing what we can refer to as Candidate Spectacles, and let me know if you think you can spot the ones I went for in the end.

Avatar YouTube promo

Hey guys, Face Uncle back to rock your world.

I’ve been trying out some new things on my channel, based on comments and questions from YOU in the discord. They’re some pretty wild ideas and I’m all for it.

Here’s a little teaser for my upcoming video, which will be uploaded at the usual time of 4.00pm on Friday. Every Friday.

I’ve really gone through the looking glass here, guys, and I’m hoping you’ll join me for the ride.

There’ll also be some YouTube shorts showing all my usual outtakes and there are TONS so be sure to keep an eye out for these.

Don’t forget to like, comment and subscribe!

Avatar The way forward

When your time comes, where will you go? How do you see yourself passing from this life to the next?

You might not have thought about it, but you probably should. Best not face the grim reaper without a plan.

I wasn’t sure how I’d go about it until the other day when I happened upon this grand Victorian monument in a London cemetery.

Then I had a look at the clear label at the front, and knew what to do.

Avatar The right way round?

I am at my best a pedant and at my worst a twat.

Have you ever been walking around a shop and something catches your eye for the wrong reason? With the Orb now here on planet Earth it means that any casual shopping either doesn’t exist or can only take place if the grandparents take him for the afternoon. I love my Orb but he’s not old enough to comprehend that sometimes boring chores need to happen. You get them out the way and breathe a sigh of relief. It’s all over. Game over, man. It takes so much longer with a trailing Orb. You take up way more space with a buggy or a pram.

There we were, looking for a new Christmas tree in every garden centre and kind of shop that would sell them. Once it’s done you have a tree that’ll last for a decade (no more flopping around trying to decide what size constitutes as “too high”) and you can get on with your life. Trying to get there can be a long and treacherous hike though; be sure to pack for all weather types.

I can feel my eyes glazing over underneath the artificial lights. My lizard brain screams, “get the one with the thing and the other thing and get outta there,” and I want to agree with it but there are so many options to consider that I shrug it off and carry on browsing. You can’t make a split second decision when fake trees can reach upwards of hundreds of pounds. What if we make the wrong one?

I’m walking past the lighting section in a particular store and I see it. “Wait, what? Nah that can’t be right. That has to be wrong, right?”

Shouldn’t it be ‘rechargeable octopus table lamp’? Why is the Natural History Museum collaborating with Dunelm? Who would buy such a thing and why do I care so much?

Does it really matter? Hardly. With Orb life being the only life there’s very little else going on. If you want thrilling stories and sexy adventures then you’ve come to the wrong place. I have nay nonny no nay none to my name. What I do have are questions about grammar on the boxes of table lamps.

Welcome to middle age. Population: us.

Avatar Tired (again)

As we can all tell from my last post, even without the statement at the end, I was, and still am, very tired. What started as a brief joke message to my brother turned into a rambling post on here about all sorts. This was not what I had intended to do. I was going to set some time aside for another Chris open source DNA newsboost post only suddenly it was 11pm before the end of the month and I had to scrabble around for something quicker and easier instead.

Everyone knows that looking after babies is exhausting. That still doesn’t prepare you for how exhausting it actually is. It’s a new level of exhaustion not felt in a very long time; to think I used to get a bit rowdy if I lost as little as half an hour’s sleep on a weekday. Oh, what a fool I was.

The good news is that despite some major changes to preparing baby formula bottles and some minor stuff, a lot of it remains the same and muscle memory is keeping me afloat. I am a happy state of tired, one that means I struggle to remember which way to clean the cheese grater so that I don’t shred the sponge but one that knows it is all worth it because of who it’s all for.

Perhaps with all this weariness we’ll return to 2007 Ian, writing nonsense poems about shoes made of bonfires and random articles about haunted sesame seeds. That all remains to be seen and I apologise in advance if it does happen.