All who curse father or mother shall be put to death; having cursed father or mother, their blood is upon them.

Check out the hands on this lad. He's going to be a biggun, make no bones about that! Ezra, unlike his brother, has been in fine form all week. The less said about Henry, the better. Two year olds really can be quite frustrating. That said, I've pulled out a wise bit of Leviticus (20/9), to keep both of my sons on their toes!

After having my thunder stolen by the comments thread, I've had to revise today's post. Yes, I say "Itsy Bitsy Spider", and Jennifer says "Insy Wincy Spider". My personal reading of it, and Hallam's research seems to confirm it, is that somewhere along the way, the Poms decided that they didn't like the sound of the original American "Itsy Bitsy" and went down the "Eeensy Weensy" route. Australians, being Australians, had six o' one, half dozen o' the other and had a bob each way, running with both "Itsy" and mutating "Eensy" into "Insy".

A quick fiddle with Google seems to support this interpretation of the odd transmogrification of the Sisyphean-like tale. A closed search of "Itsy Bitsy Spider" returns 469,000 pages. "Incy Winsy OR Wincy Spider" gives me 81,000 pages. Hallam's favourite, "Eensy Weensy Spider", garners 48,400 pages. On the face of it, an embarrassingly convincing blow to the aspirations of the "Incy/Eeensy" brigade.

My personal belief is that the shadow of the ABC TV's Play School looms large over most of the comments, and has brainwashed poor Australians into getting it wrong, in much the same way as they do with regards to the "Hokey Cokey" (ignorantly mistaking it for the far more common, and far less profound "Hokey Pokey).

So, whatever the mob say, I'm prepared to call it a win for myself anyway, with the earliest published reference to said spider calling him "Itsy Bitsy", and siding with my American friends on this one against the upstart Australians. Just because Noni or John said "Incy" doesn't make it right. In the same way as the word "maroon" should never, ever be pronounced with the stress on anything but the "ooooon", I'm not going to concede on this one. Would anyone who knows me accept any different anyway?

As to the other question yesterday, I can't possibly comment of whether Miles' fat former flatmate has got their grubby hands on the gear. What I can say is that the list of goods are all things that been broken by one Henry Fitzgerald McCracken in the time that I have known him. Yes, a man of expensive tastes in what he chooses to destroy, Henry is firmly in the bad books. Not even brutally smashing an old desk telephone over the unprotected head of the playgroup bully (three times!) in a manner reminiscent of Charles Bronson in the Death Wish films can get him can get him out of the doghouse. That may only happen when I finally get the PC to boot up past the blue screen of death.