National glory

Now I am in a blog ring I am gloating. 'See!' I say to Dig. 'Not only Michelle has read my blog! Look Dig! Look!' I keep pointing to the different names and say 'Someone wrote something nice! Look! Here's a Jax and a Gill and a Grit, OK then, I won't count that one, but hey! There's a Haricot! Look! Dig! Here's an Alison! Have I shown you what Clare said? Can I read it to you again? Out loud?'

Dig is getting fed up with this smart behaviour and says he thinks I might be doing this blog stuff all wrong. He says if I am seeking national acclaim and glory I should do it all different. He says that I write far too much about bits of household drivel, like how many hours Dig spends without his trousers on, and that no-one wants to read that. He says people in the world go to blogs for big things like news and what is happening in politics and stuff like that. So I have decided, in pursuit of national fame and glory, to write some news for a newsfeed. I'm not sure how to go about this, so bear with me Jules.

8.55 am. I tell everyone to shut up because I am listening to the news headlines after the pips of Radio 4. I say this might be important for my newsfeed. Squirrel asks what a newsfeed is and Shark starts talking rubbish about feeding cornflakes to the radio. Tiger joins in with some more nonsense about pouring milk all over the talkers. 'Actually Tiger' I say, 'those are not talkers. They are John Humphrys and Edward Stourton and they are the presenters.' I think I am good at this news stuff. Then Squirrel ruins it of course by asking if she can pour Weetabix and milk over John Humphrys and Edward Stourton and in amongst the hysterical laughter about something which is not funny at all the pips and the headlines have gone and it's Melvyn Bragg. Now I've got a problem with Melvyn Bragg, so I have to turn the radio off in a temper tantrum and try and send everyone to their rooms to tidy up.

10.00 am. I get Squirrel to read the word cat. I know it's not exciting nationally, but it's big news in this house.

11.00 am. Squirrel can no longer read the word cat. She has gone up to her room to sulk and be difficult. There you go, the changing political and social world that goes on around us. I can barely keep track of it.

11.30 am. Everyone has to leave the house to get to a gym lesson. These gym lessons are costing me a fortune. If I didn't keep telling everyone off about rolling about the floor and jumping up and down on the sofa, I could probably call those activities gym lessons instead. Thinking about it, I now have an inter-generational conflict story. That would be good for a human interest angle in the Sundays Life and Living supplements.

3.00 pm. I discover there is nothing to eat in the house except dried pasta and a lot of dried beans that need soaking in hot water for an hour before being boiled to death in a saucepan because the pressure cooker has broken. This probably reflects a crisis of technology, which sounds like a promising angle for any journalist. Just in case there is any journalist picking up my newsfeed.

5.00 pm. We eat a lot of pasta with boiled tinned tomatoes from the Tesco value range. There you see, poverty today and economic drivers in action.

7.00 pm. Shark and Tiger are arguing about who gets in the bath first. Politics.

9.00 pm. I am writing up bits of my news. I rather like this idea of newsfeeding. I am starting to feel like Reuters now, tippety tap on my keyboard, writing about all the breaking news and important issues of the day. News, news, news. I might have to get a special hat for this job.

10 pm. Tiger is having a long complain because she was last in the bath and she says it's not fair and she says she is always last. Tiger says she is leaving this family in the morning but before that she is never going to sleep ever ever again.

10.03 pm. Tiger is asleep. A rich subject I feel for issues of child welfare or the post-modern, post-bedtime educational setting.

11.00 pm. The newsfeeder is feeling a bit tired now and is closing down and going to bed with a glass of red wine. This might be an innovation in newsfeeding. Sometimes it just has to stop. That would be an interesting story for the journalist who is probably, even at this very moment, hanging on Grit's newsline.

Night night.