Out of the mouths of babes and Jacob

I had my hair cut this morning, nothing drastic, just a trim. I think the salon must be trying to flog straighteners as the hairdresser made a big push to get me to agree to using them to finish off my hair even though I wasn't keen. Anyway, as expected (I have a pair myself that I use v infrequently) my hair ended up iron straight but completely lifeless and not really me at all.

I knew that Doug didn't like - it was obvious in the way he avoided commenting on it, but the look on Jacob's face was priceless - he really didn't know what to make of a mummy with this "new hair". So I asked him "do you like it?". He was quiet for a few seconds and then said "No. Mummy, can you go back to the hairdressers and get your old hair back?".

Nuff said :)

Here we go again

After squeezing past Fenerbache last night (2-0 doesn't actually tell the story of difficult it was), we face Liverpool in the Champions League semis. Again. For the third time.

I really can't see us getting past them this time, either - Grant just doesn't have the tactical nous to engineer a win. But then Jose had all the tactical nous in the world and he couldn't manage to propel Chelsea past them into the finals, although there was all sorts of managerial baggage regarding him and the Fat Controller that might just have been getting in the way.

Anyway, I don't see it happening, but hey-ho, a fourth semi in five years. That's pretty good going.

And Adrian can now appreciate what its like to feel robbed at Anfield......

So

has anyone managed to prise Chuck's rifle out of his cold, dead hand yet?

I'm here all week. Try the veal.

171 is the magic number

Doug and I have been idly bickering recently over the type of breakfast cereal we give to our kids. This has arisen from his discovery that Special K with Red Berries (a current favourite) has sugar as its third ingredient and Doug has been saying, quite sensibly, that they'd be better off having Rice Krispies or Cornflakes or some other "plain" cereal.

I assumed that the sugar content was in the additional berries rather than the flakes and was less bothered about, but after a quick surf for the nutritional info of normal Special K, it seems the sugar is in the flakes too. So much for it being an essential part of a calorie controlled diet....

Anyway, today I looked at the calorie content of all the cereals in our cupboard as a comparison and found that cornflakes, Special K, Cheerios and Rice Krispies all have the same amount of calories for 30g of cereal in semi-skimmed milk - 171. I had a quick shufty at some other cereals online and although they didn't have the "per serving with milk" comparison, they did have the info for 100g of product. To my surprise, Cocoa Pops, Frosties and Crunchy Nut are roughly similar to plain cornflakes and Rice Krispies.

Of course, there is the issue of where the calories come from (ie from refined carbs like sugar), but it did get me wondering if there was something special about the 171 figure; is there some government guideline that means that if its over this figure then it qualifies as junk food? Or is it simply that a certain amount of cereal and milk plus some sugar will weigh in at about this figure?

Anyone know?