Hippo is Alive and Obviously Cooking On Gas

Good news...Tom Gowans ( aka Hippo) is still with us!!!!!!!!!!!

Strangely a score of friends/ bloggers were sent an email today heralding the arrival of his third child.. ( I say strangely as I thought he would blog about it! ) 

now we all thought...that

1. He had succumbed to his dreadful thigh injury and had died a painful death
2. He had been hounded out of Angola by some local nefarious types with a machete
3. He'd joined an aging mercenary gang aka Bruce Willis and was shooting the fuck out of some South American drug baron" with a group of wrinkled ex SAS killers

Anyhow Here is the email 

" I would very much like to have said that her name was chosen as a nod towards tolerance, harmony, freedom of expression and peaceful co-existence regardless of race, creed or colour, 'je vous présente ma fille, Charlie…'

Sadly, given that such is Marcia's fascination with the British Royal family she wanted to name our humble two bedroomed timber cottage, 'Clarence House', I rather suspect Charlotte owes her name to Sky News and its non-stop coverage of the royal birth.  Still, I get the last laugh; I can call her Charlie, which I think is a really sweet nickname for a girl, and it also happens to be the name of my dog so there will be an economy of effort when calling them both to heel.

Charlotte Teresa Manuel-Gowans, born 19.33hrs on the 30th May 2016, weighing 3535 grammes to the delight of both parents and her brothers Dominic and Alex.  Both Marcia and Charlie are in the best of health.  

Tom"