From the moment he discovered the Horrible Histories books by Terry Deary, No 1 Son was completely hooked. Rotten Romans, Terrible Tudors, and the rest, he read them all, cover to cover, and I firmly believe they’re responsible not only for his interest in history but in part, at least, the fact he passed all his exams in the subject with flying colours. And of course when the TV series started, our whole family were instantly hooked. Not only does it have plenty to entertain kids, but there are lots of ‘grown-up’ jokes too.

To help celebrate Horrible Histories 20th Anniversary BBC Worldwide are releasing Horrible Histories Series Four on DVD. Tune into Charles Darwin as David Bowie, a boy band of pilots from the Battle of Britain, nursing pioneer Mary Seacole in the style of Beyoncé, a big love ballad from Victoria and Albert, and the Pilgrim Fathers in Jay-Z and Alicia Keys-style. Watch the Historical Apprentice, a team of Neanderthals against a team of Homo Sapiens in a Stone Age hunting challenge while a team of pirates compete with sea merchants to avoid being fired.

Join the Historical MasterChef’s who will be cooking up Saxon, Tudor, Crusader and Stone Age fayre and the intrepid Bob Hale is back to give high-octane whistle-stop reports on Human Evolution, Roman Britain, the Renaissance, and Napoleon.

This hilarious look at historical events is released on DVD on 27 May priced at £10.20, but I’m giving five lucky readers the chance to win a copy.

All you have to do to enter is tell me the name of your offspring’s (or your) favourite historical character. The winners of the DVDs will be chosen at random and entries close at midday on Friday May 31st. Usual The Mum Blog competition rules apply.

Good luck!

On Tuesday I went along to the Chelsea Flower Show 2013. I’m ashamed to say that despite the fact that I’m a South West Londoner born and bred, this was my first visit (I know, right?).

It was a chilly evening, but this didn’t seem to dampen spirits (although the Pimms stalls were probably helping with that), and it was VERY crowded. My overall impression, though, despite the beautiful gardens, was of being at a giant garden centre. There seemed to be an awful lot of stalls, and people trying to sell you stuff – which is fine, if you have lots of cash to spare, but not if you’d really rather just look at the gardens, given the price of the tickets.

Still, there were some really stunning displays. Here are my favourite gardens – in particular, the Tolkien-themed garden created by the Library of Birmingham, part of the Birmingham City Council’s display. And the winning Antipodean-inspired Trailfinders garden, with its waterfalls and tree ferns ( it still makes me sad that our Tasmanian tree fern only lasted two years). This is exactly the kind of garden I’d like to create in our green space, if I had the time, and er… money. And we didn’t have a dog.

Tranquil garden

The Sound of Silence

Laurent-Perrier garden

One of the best things about being in Florida for a few days was getting a chance to swim in the sea (the water was incredibly clean), and of course there were lots of families enjoying the beach, too. I’m such a fan of swimming lessons for kids – we took No 1 Son to baby swimming and then enrolled him for the ducklings class at our local baths, and he carried on going to swimming club until he was 11. Whenever we go on holiday it’s still such a joy to see him in the water – he doesn’t like the sea, but once he gets in a swimming pool, you can’t get him out of it.

As we’re going away in June and will be able to do lots of swimming in a pool I’ve been looking for some new swimming gear, and I’ve found a fantastic selection of swimwear for kids and swimming goggles at Australian brand Zoggs. Their Little Comet swimming goggles for one to six-year-olds (£10) have a very clever anti-fog buster (which will save on all those goggle-induced tantrums at the pool) and also offer UV protection. They also sell cool children’s cossies for ages 0 to 14, maternity suits and swimming costumes for adults – all the swimwear you need for the whole family, in fact, as well as teaching aids and games for kids learning to swim.

The Aussies definitely know a thing or two about swimming, and how to have fun in the sun, and the other thing I definitely need to buy before we go away is some spray-on-wet-skin sun protection, because that will definitely make life a lot easier, and cut down on tantrums. Mine, mostly.

One of the advantages of not drinking wine (it makes me sick) is that in addition to champagne and anything dry and sparkly, I get to drink cocktails at dinner without anyone raising an eyebrow. Right now, probably because of the Don Draper influence, I’m into martinis – preferably gin, although I will have vodka ones too, and flavoured. And like James Bond, I prefer my drinks to be shaken not stirred, like this one (left) served at Balthazar Covent Garden.

This raspberry martini I had in Tampa is pretty much my idea of drink heaven – incredibly refreshing, very slightly sweet, with a maraschino cherry at the bottom. Delicious.

In fact I love martinis so much I bought this vintage cocktail shaker and glasses. So elegant – very The Great Gatsby, don’t you think?*

*Disclaimer: They’re actually from Ikea.

This is my entry for The Gallery and the theme this week is ‘drink’.

OK, I know it sounds a bit nuts, but I’ve just come back from a long weekend work trip to Florida. I know. Only instead of flying into Orlando or Miami, we flew to Tampa, on the west coast of the sunshine state, where it takes just 15 minutes to get through security. A huge bonus, and it meant we could pack heaps in.

It was my first time really exploring this part of Florida. Highlights included a return to Busch Gardens, of course, where we encountered a very handsome tiger, a beautiful white peacock, flamingos, got up close to a sleeping aardvark, paid a visit to Harry the sloth and viewed the very scary roller coasters from a safe distance; the Florida Aquarium, where we saw some super cool jellyfish; the beautiful beaches; Ybor, with its vintage shops and market; and of course there was A LOT of food, because Tampa has some superb restaurants. Special mention must go to the Monkey bread at Datz (warm, sticky, sweet), and the tapas at Ceviche.

We also went to Clearwater and St Pete’s, and swam in the sea, and apart from a brief argument with a segway (which I lost) it was the perfect getaway. Three nights, four days, and boy did we do a lot. The journey home was equally easy and thanks to the five hour time difference I can honestly say I don’t feel remotely jetlagged (although my cankles are rather unsightly). Who said you can’t spend a long weekend in Florida?

Aardvark

Aardvark

Solo jellyfish

Pancakes and strawberries

Pancakes and strawberries at the Oxford Exchange Tampa Florida

American school bus

Sunset in Tampa

Busch Gardens

Cheetah Hunt

Harry the sloth

Tiger

White peacock

Oysters and vodka

Creme brulee in a chocolate shell

Monkey bread

Dough

Jellyfish

Ybor

Vintage shoes

Dawn, St Pete's

I was up early yesterday morning as usual, and hadn’t turned on the TV; and so when I saw Angelina Jolie’s article for The New York Times being tweeted, I clicked on it not knowing what to expect. Her eloquent words on her decision to have a double mastectomy were so honest, and beautifully written, that they reduced me to tears within seconds. I hestitate to call anyone who has had to cope with the prospect of their own impending mortality ‘brave’, ever since the very forthright Lisa Lynch told me she hated being called brave. But which ever way you look at it, Angelina Jolie’s decision to have this operation, and then go public with it is brave.

A few years ago I met Wendy Watson, who discovered she had the BRCA2 gene and was the first woman in Britain to have a preventative double mastectomy. Like Angelina, she went public because she wanted to help save lives.  By using her extraordinary celebrity status to highlight the BRCA1  gene, Angelina has ensured  many more women will investigate their own health and take whatever action is necessary to try to reduce their chances of developing breast cancer. As she says, ‘I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.’ Coupled with her humanitarian work it is impossible not to feel incredibly humbled by this woman. All the nonsense that’s been written about her over the years – but she just keeps on getting on with trying to effect change for others, wherever and however she can.

In a week when we’ve heard about increasingly ridiculous celebrity tour riders – the list of things they simply *must* have have before they will perform – Angelina Jolie’s dignity puts every grasping, greedy celebrity to shame.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am definitely a Princess. Yes, I can feel that pea under any number of mattresses. I like sheets with high-thread counts, indulgent pampering products in the bathroom and I particularly enjoy a nice turn down service – preferably with chocolates on the pillow and the following day’s weather forecast included.

Here then, in no particular order, are my top 10 luxury hotels of the world. One thing I should point out is that this list does not contain any London hotels. I have of course eaten, drank at and visited all sorts of luxury hotels in London, but as a Londoner, I never really need to stay in any of them, more’s the pity. Do feel free to add your own favourite hotels.

The Merrion, Dublin

What I love about The Merrion – apart from the wonderful rooms and garden, and the best scrambled eggs I think I’ve ever eaten – is that it feels very much as though you’re staying in someone’s home (albeit a very large home, where you could bump into the likes of Bono at any minute). It’s a very discreet hotel, the kind of place you’d stay if you wanted to be incognito, and the service is impeccable.

The Peninsula, Hong Kong

From the fleet of Rolls Royces that greet you on arrival to Felix, the Philippe Starck-designed bar and restaurant at the top (where we watched an actual typhoon coming in – all very Blade Runner-esque), this is luxury on a very grand scale. There’s even a helipad on the roof (probably the most nerve-wracking experience of my life, getting into a helicopter on the top of a skyscraper. Never again).

The Adlon, Berlin

The first time I visited the Adlon was to interview Russell Crowe, who was staying there, so getting the chance to sleep there myself, albeit for only one night, was a huge treat. This is of course the hotel where MJ dangled his baby out of the window; it’s also the hotel featured in the Liam Neeson film Unknown. But don’t let that put you off, because the rooms are incredibly cool. Its proximity to the Brandenberg Gate, the Ku’damm and the Tiergarten makes it perfect for a luxury Berlin break.

The Plaza, New York

Featured in Home Alone and scores of other movies, The Plaza is as much a fixture of New York as Central Park, which it faces onto. It’s glamorous without being stuffy (the staff are excellent with kids), and although much of it is now apartments, it’s still a wonderful hotel.

The Fairmont, Washington DC

Often, of course, it’s the experiences you have in a hotel that make them so special – and particularly, the staff. This is where we stayed for my *cough cough* birthday, and what impressed me the most was how much fuss was made not only of me, but of No 1 Son. They even gave him his own business cards, with ‘Sir’ before his name, which he’s kept, and they also arranged for us to have a limo tour of the Washington monuments at night. As a birthday treat, that’s pretty hard to beat.

Grand Hotel Atlantis Bay, Sicily

This is probably one of the most James Bondesque-hotels I’ve ever stayed at, not least because three of its terraces are below sea level. It’s not far from the main shopping area of chichi Taormina, but what makes this hotel really special (and very romantic) is the view from the private bay. Breathtaking doesn’t come close.

Grand Hotel Beau Rivage, Interlaken

What makes this hotel in Switzerland so memorable, apart from its castle-like appearance, is the magnificent views of the Alps from its balconies. Just stunning.

Hotel Nikko, San Francisco

I’ve stayed at a few hotels in San Francisco with very mixed experiences. What we liked about this one, apart from the fact that our room had probably one of the comfiest beds EVER, is that the location is really central – easy to reach Union Square and get the trolley, plus it’s very stylish.

Altstadt Vienna

A boutique hotel and an absolute gem – located behind an unassuming door in a scruffy side street, all the rooms are individually decorated (ours had an enormous bath), and it’s all achingly cool without being remotely unfriendly.

Intercontinental, Sydney

You can practically run to the Opera House from here, the rooms are wonderful (particularly if you have a Harbour view) and it serves an excellent afternoon tea. I didn’t want to leave.

Ohhhh, OK, I know I blogged about baby clothes yesterday, and I promise you I’m not broody AT ALL but how cute are these adorable baby clothes? They’re part of a new gift range by personalised baby gift website My 1st Years, brought out to celebrate the forthcoming Royal baby. They can be personalised for your very own prince or princess – or as a gift – and include a Body Suit, Sleep Suit, Hat, Bib, Baby Blanket and Sheepskin Booties.

The Body Suit and Sleep Suit are made from 100% cotton and have press stud fastenings, are available in size 0-12months and, along with the one-size-fits-all hat and all-important bib are machine washable. There’s even a soft fleecy baby blanket.

And my favourite items, the HRH Sheepskin Booties are made from chestnut sheepskin with double-Velcro fasteners. Easy to get on and off they give support and comfort to little feet and are available in sizes 3 –24 months.

The set retails for around £80, and includes a free luxury gift box and standard delivery. But I’m giving one lucky reader the chance to WIN a set, and have it personalised with the name of your choice.

All you have to do to enter is leave the name of your choice in the comments below by midday (12pm) on the closing date, Wednesday May 22nd. The winner will be selected at random and announced here on the blog as usual, and the usual The Mum Blog competition rules apply.

Good luck!

On Thursday night, thanks to the Trackback plugin on my blog, I discovered that someone had stolen 10 of my blog posts. 10. It was a ‘scraper site’, ostensibly about travel, and they had been scraping blog posts from travel bloggers from all over the world.

Of course, scraping goes on all the time, and there are limits to what you can do about it (another useful way to find out if someone has been scraping your content is to check regularly on Copyscape). In fact, someone stole a blog post from me once before, although fortunately that was resolved very quickly. I had disabled the right click then, but if someone really wants to steal your content, they will.

What happens when someone scrapes your blog is that the post they have published with your words in it then ranks almost as highly as yours does on Google. They are a virtual cuckoo in the nest, and this can be catastrophic. Apparently you’re supposed to be flattered that they’ve scraped your blog, since it means you’re obviously ranking high for the topic they want their content to be about, but I don’t see it that way at all.

But there was another reason I was so upset about what had happened. And that’s this. The posts this person had scraped included very personal posts about my dad, and about my son. To see my words about my grief and my child on this cheap little scraper site with its ads for all kinds of nonsense made me absolutely furious.

There are heaps of posts advising you what to do if you discover your blog been scraped. The first thing I did was send a cease and desist email to the owner of the site, via the email on one of his sites (he has about eight), telling him that he had committed plagiarism and that I would take very swift action if he didn’t remove the posts immediately. (Incredibly, he has a ‘copyright’ footer on the scraper site, which is how I found him.)

I then looked up the ‘whois’ domain via his ip address which had come through on the Trackback comments, and discovered which company his domain was registered with – Go Daddy. I contacted Go Daddy to tell them (a very laborious process, as they require so much evidence, and they’re based in the US. There is a London phone number, but that just gets you through to someone who knows nothing).

To my joy, by late Thursday evening the entire site was offline. I then received an email from the scraper to say his site was currently suspended, but as soon as it was back online he would remove the posts in question.

I went to bed feeling fairly confident it was over.

But on Friday I was very upset to see the site was back up and the posts were still there. Once again I emailed the owner of the site, and Go Daddy. The owner of the site responded shortly afterwards to assure me that all the posts had been taken down – they had, although I noticed that all the other posts he had scraped from travel bloggers were still up there (I have told as many of them as I can.)

Then I had an email from Go Daddy to say that since the posts had been removed the case was presumed to be closed.

Er… not quite.

I have now complained to Go Daddy after they responded to one of my tweets about the fact that they are continuing to host this scraper site, which, as I’ve said above, contains lots of content scraped from other bloggers. They have promised to look into it again, so we’ll see what happens there.

I’ve now added a copyright sentence to my RSS feed, so that it appears on all my blog posts – the idea of this is that someone does scrape your site, because inevitably they will be bots rather than people you should get the ping back.

The other thing you can do if it happens to you is complain to Google so they stop indexing the site, but this is something you need to do while the posts are still live – and I just wanted to get them removed as quickly as possible.

As I wrote to the scraper, when he told me the posts had been removed, I don’t understand why he couldn’t have created his own content. I also asked him what possessed him to scrape content about my father and son.

He did not reply.

As your kids grow up, there’s a limit to how many of their clothes you can hang on to, but I decided to keep these baby clothes for very sentimental reasons. No 1 Son is 6ft 2 now, and it’s very hard to believe he was ever tiny enough to fit into these.

The pale blue babygro was always one of my favourites – it’s incredibly soft and I love the colour, which matched No 1 Son’s eyes when he was a baby. And the little outfit with the skating rabbits is what he wore for his Naming Ceremony.

Of course there’s another reason I’m hanging on to these clothes. So one day I can bring them out and embarrass him in front of his girlfriend