This will hurt me...

How long before you reckon he can get the whole arm in there?

Henry and I were doing our usual Saturday morning playgroup thing, and after a spot in the sandpit and a little splashing in some buckets full of water, I challenged him to a little duel. Essentially, we had a Liszt off . If you're not familiar with the term, it involves a little competitive tournament whereby willing contestants demand their opponents deliver their own interpretation of the work of the great Franz Liszt. Obviously, Henry and I are great fans for Herr Liszt, and often throw witty little Lisztisms (as we like to call them) back and forth when we're shooting the breeze. Yet it is the Liszt off that really counts. With the sort of temerity that renders most of my chess games brief, I threw Transcendental Etude No.5 ("Feux follets") at the recently turned two year old, figuring that his short wing span and much smaller fingers would render any comeback over before it began. How wrong I was. Bravely, he announced that it was his intention (the audacity )...

My wife and I have got another baby on the way (19 weeks on Thursday). Now last time, we both agreed within a reasonable period that Henry was a good name, and that it worked well with the last name, and also with taking my wife's surname as his middle name. Thus, our first born is Henry Fitzgerald McCracken. We're both pretty happy with that name, and everyone agrees he's a pretty good little bloke. Here he is looking slightly worried about the prospect of a challenger on the horizon. Here is the anxious little bloke So, my issue is that we've got to find a name the equal to Henry. I think that the bar is high, so the pressure is on. As with last time, we've gone our separate ways and compiled our own lists, with the intention of pruning them down and then merging them for the final master list. We can then 'test' the names to see how they go. I myself have already started testing names on dear little Henry (male and female), which - to be frank - is beginn...