The Big Review: Disney Sing It Party Hits and Family Hits
So the lovely chaps at Disney recently sent me some fabulous karaoke games for the Wii. However hard I tried, my lumbering teens were not to be persuaded into testing (oh, I would have paid good money to see the Death Wish Child singing ‘Hakuna Matata’) but sadly it was not to be. Luckily, my lovely friend Poppy’s Mum came up trumps when she offered the services of Mr PM’s lovely nieces, Elise and Juliette.
Sit back, then, and prepare to find out how my glamorous assistants got on with their intensive consumer test. Over to you, then, Elise and Juliette’s mum, Sophie:
Disney Sing It Party Hits
Reviewed by Elise and Juliette
Score: 8/10
The girls were thrilled to get a chance to review “Disney Sing It Party Hits”. ‘We are big fans of the Disney Channel so it was really cool to be able to sing along with Disney stars like Demi Lovato and The Jonas Brothers and feel like we were in the movie Camp Rock 2‘ says Juliette aged 7. There are a good few different ways to play including Karaoke, Performance and Sing Off with levels of Easy, Medium and Hard.
The game was really easy to use. You could easily find your way around and see what you needed to do. There is a really good mix of songs, most they already knew as well as new ones that were fun to learn. The song they liked most was “Magic” by Selena Gomez. ‘Keeping up with the rapping in “Boom boom pow” by the Black Eyed Peas was real fun‘ said Elise aged 9. ‘We hadn’t realised how fast they really sing‘. You can score more points by getting the timing and the notes exactly right. If you’re tone deaf then this is not the game for you!!
The vocal coaching by Demi Lovato was really good. It starts off easy with nice simple scales. Every time you successfully pass a lesson you unlock a new level. It then gets more and more difficult. Some of the exercises really put your tongue in quite a twist but it’s fun to try.
When they connected a second microphone they were able to use the duet mode. This was the best and really got the girls playing together. They got to sing together like a real star duo. You can sing as a team or against each other. It was also fun to use the Encore feature to listen to the replay so you could hear just your own voice. You could add special effects to the voice. ‘The squeaky one was hilarious! We sounded like Alvin and The Chipmunks!‘ said Juliette.
The girls found the set up a bit difficult. It asks you to hold the microphone to the left speaker and it plays a strange sound. At the start, they could not get this to work but they found they could play without it. Eventually Dad came to the rescue and got it working by holding the microphone against the speaker.
Concensus all around, the girls would definitely recommend this to their friends especially those who like singing. Boys however wouldn’t be too impressed, far too girly songs. Mum also liked Sing It Party Hits, it brought the girls together with the duet feature and there is a definite improvement in their singing, and confidence too!
Disney Sing It Family Hits
Reviewed by Elise and Juliette
Score: 7/10
They also got to try out “Disney Sing It Family Hits”. This is very similar to the “Party Hits” game with most of the same features. With Family Hits you get to sing along to songs from some of the biggest Disney hit movies. The movies include newer hits such as Toy Story, Monsters Inc, The Lion King as well as classics such as Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. The girls’ favorites were “The Bare Necessities” and “I wanna be like you” from “The Jungle Book” as well as “Hakuna Matata” from “The Lion King”. You score points for being able to sing the words at exactly the right time and also in the right key. ‘“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” was definitely the hardest to get right because the words are so crazy and they sing so fast but we really enjoyed it!‘ said Juliette.
The game also has a section where you can do vocal practices with Anika Noni Rose who did the voice for the movie “The Princess and the Frog”.
Each time you did a song you could use the Encore feature to hear your own voice back. The Encore feature allowed you to use different sound effects to sound like a lion, a mouse or a robot but ‘we didn’t think the sound effects were very realistic.’ said Elise.
Overall Party Hits was the definite favourite because they recognised the songs more and thought they were better to sing along to.
What a great review!
Massive thanks for my wonderful reviewers, the gorgeous Elise and Juliette, and to their lovely Mum, Sophie for taking the time to write up such a thorough review.
Thanks also to the lovelies at Disney for providing Elise and Juliette with the Disney Sing It games and the microphones, which they get to keep! Yay!
Random things I have learned this week about rural living
1. The joy of taking the laptop into the kitchen to work in a sunny spot can sometimes be hampered by extreme cockadoodledooing in the garden.
2. Cockadoodledooing is not conducive to any form of concentration.
3. Concentration can then be further hampered when a straying dog decides to attack a sheep in the field right outside your back garden.
4. Running out into the back garden in your pyjamas (the ones with the pink lollipops all over them) and shouting obscenities in a manic fashion whilst windmilling your arms will scare dogs away from attacking sheep.
5. The sight of a grown woman with mad, Russell Brand hair and lollipop pyjamas running towards them screeching like a banshee would probably scare anyone, to be fair.
6. Trying to walk over to the sheep to see if it’s alright will also scare the sheep away.
7. Phoning your friend in hysterics and jabbering incoherently about dogs and sheep and screeching in lollipop pyjamas and stuff in a ranty way is a very good test of friendship (thank you, Poppy’s Mum, you passed with flying colours).
Where was I? Oh yes….
8. Opening the patio door and shouting ‘WILL YOU SHUT UP!’ has absolutely no effect on the aforementioned cockerel or the amount/volume of his cockadoodledooing (but does give your nearest neighbour a good laugh).
9. Bursting into tears when trying to recount the dog/sheep incident to your children is a very good test of the teen/parent bond. Being patted on the head and told you’re a ‘bit of a knobber’ is A Good Thing.
10. This rural/self sufficiency lark is not as easy as I thought.
Andy Gray, Sky Sports, sexism and teenage boys
This afternoon, Andy Gray, the Sky Sports football presenter was sacked after ‘new evidence of unacceptable and offensive behaviour’ came to light.
If you’ve been living in a small shoebox in the cupboard under the stairs for the past week, I’ll bring you up to speed: during Sky’s Sunday match, Gray and his co-presenter Richard Keys were recorded off-air making offensive comments about Assistant Referee Sian Massey, and Keys also made comments about West Ham Vice Chair Karren Brady.
Further clips then emerged showing Gray and another Sky presenter making off-mic comments about Sian Massey including comments about her looks and again the classic: ‘what do women know about the offside rule?’.
Twitter went wild. One notable comment, from Kenny Dalglish’s daughter Kelly Cates made me laugh: ‘Phew am exhausted. Just read about something called “the offside rule”. Too much for my tiny brain. Must be damaged from nail polish fumes’.
Apropos of nothing, I do actually understand the offside ‘rule’ (not that I think women need to prove knowledge of the laws of football in order to compete with the fellas). I come from a footballing family – my Dad was a footballer at a reasonable standard before going on to become a referee, and my brothers and husband are/were all decent footballers. Rightly or wrongly, there’s a lot of sexism surrounding football and I genuinely think this news will bring up the same old discussions about the definition of ‘banter’.
There’s been some debate in this house, I can tell you. The reaction of my teenage sons, one of whom actually feels quite sorry for Gray, mentioned ‘entrapment’ and thinks that he’s been harshly treated, and the other who thinks his sacking was inevitable, reflects the diversity of the comments being made elsewhere. I think teens are 90% bravado, 10% hormones, and ribbing and piss-taking are part of their everyday life, hence a bit of ‘banter’ is nothing unusual. They also, though, mix with teenage girls, who don’t take crap, especially not crap of the sexist variety.
As usual with these kind of things, I can see both sides (I’ll never be a banner-waver at a protest, I’m afraid). Admittedly, most people would get caught out eventually if all their comments were recorded, then played to the wider public, but, as I pointed out to my laid-back offspring, both men knew they were being recorded and sexist comments are unacceptable, especially when they come from public figures. Sky was never going to let Gray continue in his role, especially when further film came to light of him asking a co-presenter to ‘tuck this in for me, will you’, gesturing towards his, well, I presume it’s his microphone.
And the loser in all this? Poor old Sian Massey, who has been withdrawn from officiating at tonight’s league 2 game, and has found herself at the centre of an unholy row through no fault of her own
What do you think? Is Andy Gray unfortunate, or a sexist pig? And have you had to explain this whole situation to your kids?
Farmhouse Breakfast Week 23rd – 29th January
So this week is the delightfully named Farmhouse Breakfast Week. I am a huge fan of breakfast (who am I kidding, I’m a huge fan of breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, supper…). I get up early with da brevren every day and make them a proper brekkie. The Death Wish Child is a two fried eggs on toast addict, especially now Mrs Nutty is producing some beautiful, golden-yolked eggs, and can often be persuaded into a bowl of porridge (no fruit though – just golden syrup – I don’t mind too much as he has fruit in his packed lunch). The Mad Professor, not being a morning person, needs cajoling to eat anything and sometimes it’s a battle. To be honest – I’d rather he went to school with two cookies and a glass of milk inside him than nothing at all.
At the weekends we really enjoy our late breakfasts – I often make pancakes with maple syrup and bacon, but I honestly won’t buy horrible bacon, so sometimes it’s just the pancakes. It’s so difficult to get good bacon (and pork) here – I mean, you can get standard supermarket bacon, but there is NO choice at all: no outdoor reared/free range piggies… I mean, aren’t there any ‘happy pigs’ in Ireland (at least where supermarkets are concerned)? I love bacon, but I can’t buy intensively reared bacon. I just can’t. Marks and Sparks seem to have well-labelled, decent bacon, so I stock up if I’m near one, which isn’t very often.
Happily, the lovely chaps at Denhay Bacon sent me a mahoosive big pack of their lovely bacon to try, and I have to say I was delighted. Their Spoilt Pig range (www.spoiltpig.co.uk) is outdoor reared – the piggies having the opportunity to rootle and tootle and live happy lives. I know some people don’t care what happens to their meat before it dies, but I want mine to be treated properly. Not only that, but it grilled to perfection, without giving out all that horrible water that a lot of the brands on sale do, and wasn’t overly salty OR smoky. Perfect.
For more info on National Farmhouse Breakfast Week, and some great breakfast recipes to try, check out shakeupyourwakeup.com
What about you – are you a breakfast bod? And do you care where that bacon in your sarnie came from?
Easy, step by step bread. And how to knead.
There is nothing, I think, quite as delicious as the smell of bread baking. I know there are times in the kitchen when you want to rush in, whip up something quick, and rush out again, but there are other times when a quiet potter is just fabulous. For those times, breadmaking is ideal. I love kneading bread – there’s something quite hypnotic and soothing about it – and producing a home-made loaf is possibly one of the most satisfying things you can do.
As you know, I’m a bit of a rapeseed oil nut, and it’s perfect for this recipe, being both very healthy and pleasantly nutty in flavour, but you can use olive oil or melted butter. Just make sure it weighs 50g.
450g strong white bread flour
2tsp salt (remember a tsp is flat though, don’t overdo it)
1 sachet (7g) yeast
50g rapeseed oil
300ml warm water
So first, sift the flour and salt, then stir in the yeast. Measure out the oil, pour that in, then use the same jug to measure the warm water (it’ll pick up some of the oil that was left in the jug) and pour that in.
Stir it around with a wooden spoon, then when it’s roughly together, flump it out onto your work surface.
The science bit:
Think of gluten as the spongy network that holds all the bubbles (of carbon dioxide, but hey, that’s me being picky) produced by the yeast in place. This is the most important bit of bread making. You want the gluten to form nice strong chains – under-kneaded bread will be tough, so don’t skimp.
Kneading technique:
Everyone’s got their own techniques, but all you’re aiming to do is stretch and develop the gluten and aerate the dough (as well as making sure that all your ingredients are thoroughly mixed). Most forms of squishing, folding and stretching will do the trick.
First things first: don’t worry if your dough is sticky – you want your dough to be sticky. Your fingers will get covered in dough – don’t worry! The stickier your dough,the softer and more plumptious your bread.
Start off roughly squeezing it together and then start pushing it away from you with the heel of one hand (you have to use your imagination a bit here, because obviously my other hand was holding the camera). Really smoosh the dough across the work surface:
… then bring it in, folding it over, and squish it together:
…then push it away from you again. Carry on doing that until your dough is soft, stretchy and plump – about ten minutes should do it – and bounces back when you stick your finger into it (I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but yes, it should be the texture of a nice soft bum cheek).
Rising:
Flour the bowl and pop your ball of dough into it. Loosely cover with clingfilm and pop into your airing cupboard alongside the pillows and enormously fat, bad tempered cat (hence the clingfilm). Leave it for a good hour or until it’s doubled in size.
Knocking back:
Fetch your dough, avoiding your unpleasant feline, pull it away from the edges and give it a couple of thumps with your fist to knock it back.
Additions:
This is the time to add stuff in if you’re being fancy: olives, sundried tomatoes, seeds… whatever you like. As a rough estimate, I’d keep the ingredients to under 150g.
Shaping:
Plop it once more onto a floured surface. This time, you’re thinking finished product, so give it a quick squish and start forming it into whatever shape you like. Being blessed with the decorative talent of an amoeba, I usually go for something plain – a rough, ball shape with a slit down the middle, but hey, if you want to plait, don’t let me stop you.
Second rise:
Flour a baking tray and place the dough on it, loosely covering it again and then it’s back to the airing cupboard or sunny windowsill for its final rise. It probably won’t take another hour, but just wait until it’s nice and puffed up.
Baking:
Preheat the oven to 200/gas 6 and bake for about 20 – 30 minutes. Obviously a ball shape is going to take longer to cook than a flatter shape. When it’s done it will be browned, and will sound hollow when you tap its bottom (ooer).
This is quite a soft, farmhouse loaf, but it’s got a lovely texture. Obviously it won’t keep as well as plastic bread, so it’s best to scoff it warm from the oven.
PS: If you’re a first-time bread maker, make sure you take a picture of your efforts – great competition coming up very soon!
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Mr and Mrs Nutty: Big Bird’s illegitimate offspring
Sunday saw us travelling north – practically into Northern Ireland, in fact, to pick up two chickens that the Death Wish Child had set his heart on. Admittedly I’ve done weirder things, but meeting up with the seller on a country road – surreptitiously passing a squawking bag between us and then stealthily exchanging cash did make me feel strangely guilty.
‘Wow!’, said the Death Wish Child breathlessly as we drove away, ‘that was just like a drug deal!’.
He really wants to breed chickens, but I’ve always been slightly reticent about having a cockerel. I know they can be pretty annoying.
Anyhoo, Mr and Mrs Nutty have arrived – looking like the bastard child of Big Bird and Animal from the Muppets:
… and also despite their ridiculous behaviour (the run around like loons, and yesterday, in a triumphantly comic moment, actually ran smack bang into each other), they’re settling well.
Mr Nutty is rather proud of his new flock (I think he was bullied at his previous home as he’s rather bald on top), and settled himself happily atop the hen house last night to guard over his new ladies, only to be a bit cross when I nabbed him and stuffed him into the coop with the others (well, there are foxes round here).
Next up on the wish list, is a new chicken house. And while not quite convinced by the ‘nogg’ (you heard it here first: http://www.nogg.co/):
…there’s a lovely man locally who makes gorgeous chicken coops:
…and then we’ll keep the small ark for a little nutty lovenest (or a ‘naughty ark’ as DWC suggested). We travelled happily home talking of naughty chickens (‘go to your coop!’) and dreaming of little nutty chicken babies. How cute would they be?
The Brilliance in Blogging awards – it’s not the winning it’s …
…oh who am I kidding. It’s the winning, right?
And I won!
Let’s back up a bit. A year ago, two things happened: one dreadful, and one pretty amazing.
The dreadful thing was an awful, terrible earthquake that struck Haiti and devastated countless lives.
The amazing thing was the response to this disaster. My own personal, tiny part in this was to send an email to a couple of blogging buddies asking if they fancied clubbing together and raising a bit of money. You can read all about it here:
Bloggers for Haiti: with a little help from my friends
And it really took off – the massed ranks of the British Mummy Bloggers got involved, as did bloggers from all over the world, not just raising money for our own little Shelterbox campaign (the total stands at £4419) , but for the DEC appeal too.
As a part of this amazing thing, I was delighted to be nominated for a Brilliance in Blogging Award in the ‘Make a Difference’ category. I was even more delighted to find out last week that I’d won.
The Brilliance in Blogging awards very kindly gave me my award ‘for mobilising many MANY bloggers to write about and support the Bloggers for Haiti appeal. People from all over the globe jumped on board. From little acorns.’
Of course one year on, the work in Haiti continues. My lovely friend Rosie Scribble has been working with UNICEF, who have been kind enough to send me some information on the work they are doing in Haiti:
On 3 December, Nadège, 16, waits for services for her cousin’s malnourished six-month-old daughter, Christelle Jean Pierre, at a UNICEF-supported baby-friendly tent in the impoverished Cité Soleil neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, the capital. Nadège is caring for Christelle because the child’s mother has been hospitalised with cholera. To ensure good nutrition and prevent cholera among small children, UNICEF encourages women to breastfeed their babies for at least six months. When breastfeeding is not possible, UNICEF supports efforts to provide ready-to-use infant formula, a safe milk-substitute. Baby-friendly spaces also offer nutrition counselling, as well as other foods and medicines, including ORS and zinc tablets to treat or prevent diarrhoea.
To read more about UNICEF’s work in Haiti, please click here: UNICEF.org
Many, many congratulations to my fellow nominees and winners. For a full list of winners in the British Mummy Bloggers Brilliance in Blogging awards, please click here: thebmbblog.co.uk
Tesco Magazine’s Mum of the Year Awards
My lovely friend Erica, was recently featured in Tesco Magazine talking about modern parenting. Tesco mag have a long history of supporting Mums (AND bloggers – there’s a mum blogger on the cover of the current issue, incidentally), so when they recruited me to tell you all about their Mum of the Year awards, I was highly delighted.
This year, for the first time ever, Tesco Magazine have opened up one of the categories so that the public can be involved in choosing the winner: the People’s Choice Award. There are three finalists:
* Michelle, the mum of a Downs Syndrome little boy, who founded Family Voice, to help other families in similar situations, and Little Miracles, a playgroup for disabled children
* Karen, whose husband was killed while serving in Afghanistan, and who now devotes her time to fundraising for forces charities, especially Forces Children’s Trust, who raise money for children who have lost a parent in the forces.
* AnneMarie who has devoted herself to helping her local community, Dumfries, including spearheading a successful campaign for an improved community centre in the area.
You can find out more about the finalists, watch videos of them being ‘championed’ by a celeb, and cast your vote by clicking on the Tesco Magazine Mum of the Year Facebook page. Votes must be cast by 25th January. Go on, what are you waiting for?
English Mum on Ice
Picture the scene: back-to-school Monday has finally dawned. If you listen quietly, the collective sigh of thousands of relieved mothers can be heard drifting across the lough. It is cold. At 7.40am on the dot, Gorgeous Lou from next door arrives, perfectly groomed and pristine (you can set your watch by her – the child is a miracle) and we bundle into the ratty but perfectly serviceable Volvo and head to the bus stop, arguing about who actually is sitting in the spot where the dog was sick in the car the other day (I washed it. I did, honest).
The frost is twinkling in the car headlights, but there is a light drizzle too – an odd combination. We turn left at the four-way cross and start to head down the steep hill to the Nine Eye Bridge (thanks to Poppy’s Mum for not rolling her eyes when I asked for an explanation for its name – it has nine arches over the lough, apparently) on the way to the bus stop. Suddenly in front of us, it is all ahead stop: tail lights and… slightly more mysteriously… headlights can be seen, as well as people. The next ten minutes go something like this:
- A helpful man in slippers appears at #1′s window: ‘it’s nothing more than an ice rink’, he warns us.
- We all panic as, with perfect timing, the car in front of us begins to slip sideways
- Helpful Man in Slippers and various other people decide that the best thing to do is for the cars at the top of the hill (us) to try and turn round, lessening the risk of them sliding into those stuck further down.
- #1 gets out to help and I take the chance to reiterate the fact that if he hadn’t left his school coat lying about someone wouldn’t have nicked it and he wouldn’t now be freezing in his jumper and he’s having a laugh if he thinks I’m buying him another one.
- The white car in front of us goes first, aiming for reverse, but actually achieves a very graceful slide sideways towards the hedge.
- Helpful Man in Slippers and #1 attempt to guide us backwards into a driveway by aiming to get two of the wheels onto the grass verge.
- It becomes apparent that slippers aren’t very good for grip.
- It becomes touch and go whether it will be us, or Helpful Man in Slippers, now being helped by #1, who will end up sliding down towards the bridge first.
- We try to reverse but go nowhere, the wheels hopelessly skidding on the slick black ice, then, with a jolt, we ended up slipping sideways too.
- Gorgeous Lou, from her usual spot in the back seat, emits an involuntary whimper.
- ‘If we start sliding’, adds the Death Wish Child helpfully, ‘we could tip over the bridge and into the lough’.
- I throw the ‘shut the f*ck up’ death glare to the Death Wish Child in the back seat.
- Helpful Man in Slippers and #1 try to guide me into the driveway by yelling such useless phrases such as: ‘hard right… not that hard… now left… no! Yes! but lefter than that…’
Eventually we got turned around and after another false start when we tried to slow down and warn someone else and couldn’t get started again, limped back home and tried the other way around the lough with more success. Abandoning all hope of catching the bus, and with the ‘gung ho’ spirit of those that have cheated a watery tipping-over-a-bridge type death, we decide to drive to school
Result = a grand total of two hours for the school run. We probably owe Helpful Man in Slippers a bottle of something too.
New chicken babies!
It’s been a very weird few days here at English Towers.
I’ll start with the good news. We got new chickens! We drove to the other side of Bailieboro and met with a lovely man called Percy, who had possibly the biggest bird obsession (feathered, natch) that I’ve ever witnessed.
Percy lives in a house pretty similar to ours – a newish built house set in about an acre of land. His acre, though, is completely covered in sheds, bird houses and coops of all shapes and sizes. Wandering through the birds with his lovely girlfriend (whose name I missed at least three times and was so embarrassed I didn’t like to ask again), we passed a beautiful pair of peacocks and a huge pair of breeding turkeys, proudly puffing up their feathers and warning us that this was their patch.
Percy specialises in all sorts of weird varieties – I’ll never be able to remember the names, but there were some kind of ‘Polish‘ ones with mad headdresses, and others with furry feet, hugely long tails, and even brightly coloured ones that hardly looked like chickens at all.
We settled on three babies who will grow with us, and hopefully be tame enough to succumb to the odd cuddle (what? we like cuddles). All three are Wyandottes, but there is a certain amount of colour mixing, so they’re not ‘pedigrees’ or anything. We think Tiny, (top), the smallest of the bunch, and Lucy (below) are possibly the ‘blue-laced’ varieties, as their undersides are a beautiful shade of blue/grey, and their feathers are red, tipped with blue:
But the third one, Holly, looks more like more a turkey than anything else (hence her name):
The sad news is that after a good six weeks of trying, poor Millie was not getting any closer to enjoying life here. The obsessive pacing and total terror of being outside made life for her (and us) pretty hard, and after a nasty incident where she bit #1 in the face (he’s okay – more shocked than anything, but to hear a snarl and find your son with blood pouring from his nose was a bit of a shocker), I had to contact the rescue and say I couldn’t keep her.
Poor Millie. Happily, the couple that found her are going to give her a home (they don’t have children, but do have other dogs – maybe she’ll be better with company). We all feel a bit of a failure, but as my lovely friend Liz pointed out, ‘sometimes dogs are just too damaged’. I hope that she’ll settle and live out her life in peace, but have to accept that it won’t be with us.
