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I was mildly amused to hear this week that the celebrated Daily Mail columnist Allison Pearson is in a spot of bother with her publishers. The author of the smash-hit novel 'I Don’t Know How She Does It' - a hymn to the modern, multi-tasking professional mother - is being sued by Miramax for the return of the $700,000 advance she has been paid for her next offering. She hasn’t delivered. In her world of complex multi-tasking, clearly she has allowed one of the larger spinning plates to fall.

I doubt if I’ll be the only bloke tickled by this, not least because I hear an awful lot of sexist nonsense these days about men’s lack of ability when it comes to the multi-faceted demands of organised child-caring. 

Well, I don’t know How I Do It, to be frank. The Wife departed at the crack of dawn this morning for a business trip to the States, leaving me on my Jack Jones with The Kid (aged 11 months). I think even the most hardened harridan might be impressed by my busy timetable since 6.10 AM, when the cot-yelling started.

Bottle (7 oz.) gently warmed and downed in one. Carefully supervised rapid crawling round bedroom. Books read: 'Noisy Animals', 'Farming Animals', 'Spot’s Rainy Day', 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' (twice), 'This Little Baby'. Change into day clothes for the pair of us. Breakfast: rice krispies plus two lumps toast.  One nappy change (Code Brown). Speeding around the half-finished kitchen in juvenile dodgem which plays 'When The Saints Go Marching In' (this is beginning to sound like a Bridget Jones Diary entry). 8.55 AM: handover to The Minder and fast exit to my desk here to a proper job (only kidding).

The weekend promises even more intense multi-tasking, as a divorced mate and I are planning to take The Kid down to Devon for a Boys' Mini-Break. That could be a nine hour drive behind three-abreast caravans on the M5, with a lot of Baby Organix cheesy wotsits and other assorted snacks wiped over the leather of his Audi. Heavy rain is forecast, and the last time I turned up there all he had in the fridge was a three-quarters-spent container of Gentleman’s Relish.  Careful planning will be all.

For the 'Two Men and a baby' update, read my Silly Season blog on Monday. 

In today's bulletin:
Winners and losers in supermarket price war
Merrill Lynch gets 60 year UK tax break?
An enterprising approach to education
Editor's blog: I Don't Know How I Do It  
Lessons in positive spin, from YouTube