Have to say, hand on heart, that I’ve never been on the BritMums website.  Not knowingly, anyway. (Cue the music while I have a quick look. Nope. No, definitely not been there before. Alien territory. Here be Mums. Ctrl-D)  Apparently I should be spending a good deal more time there in the future as there’s a growing dads group. Word is being spread by RJR Daydreamer over at his blog: http://www.rjrdaydreamer.blogspot.co.uk/

In order to get the dads more involved – and we are somewhat sidelined, from time to time, this bloghop has been started. Very simple… 5 questions, 5 answers, 1 linky. Anyone who’s familiar with Keith’s excellent Recipe Shed, CosmicGirlie’s Silent Sunday, the entertaining (and occasionally useful) Listography etc. will know what a Linky is.

So. The questions…

• Why do you blog?
• If you could choose a performer to see in concert who would it be?
• How is your blog influenced by you being a Dad?
• What is your favourite film?
• Who gets up for your kids in the night?

1, Why do I blog? It’s somewhere to get ideas organised, dump stuff that’s been cluttering my brain and share what I hope are useful titbits of information. One of my more visited posts is about tweaking a Chrome browser extension, another about taking 5 kids on holiday. Mostly it’s about getting something written several times a week that isn’t a project status update for work or an email about printer usage.

2, A common trend here, I suspect, is going to be the lack of a DeLorean that does interesting things when it hits 88mph or a TARDIS. There are a number of performers I’d love to see – Freddy Mercury, for instance – who are no longer performing. I’d love to see Queen play Wembley in 1986 (a concert I was supposed to go to but Dad wouldn’t let the family have the time off school). I’d love to see Pink Floyd play again. But from what I’ve got on the phone at the moment, the performer I’d most like to see in concert is Colin Hay. If you don’t know him, he was the front man for Men At Work but his solo stuff is superb. Either him or Avantasia.

3, Being a dad influences a lot of what I write (well, the stuff that isn’t pure, 100% geek) simply because the 5 kids are a massive part of my life. I was lucky enough to have a few days with the house entirely to myself at the beginning of the month and boy did it feel weird!

4, Favourite film? Tricky. If I ever work out precisely which one of this shortlist is actually my all-time favourite, I’ll let you know. Hudson Hawk. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Stardust. Time Bandits. The Mummy. Hellboy 2. Actually, it’s probably Hellboy 2. I mean Hellboy itself is a great film, but The Golden Army is just stunning. I wish Mignolla, Del Toro and Perlman could get together to make it the trilogy it so deserves to be.

5, Who gets up for the kids? Either/Both of us depending on needs. I’ve blogged before about not being fazed by vomit since becoming a father. Any parent will know that sometimes it’s a hug from dad that makes everything better and sometimes it’s a hug from mum. Getting cross when you can’t sort everything out but it seems your partner can is just a recipe for disaster.

So. Dads. Get thyselves blogging! C’mon, 5 simple questions! How hard can it be?