I had Borat’s family pay a visit to me last week.

There was the mother with her newborn along with the Dad, brother, grandad, grandmother, and 2 or 3 others of unknown relationship to the previous. What’s that they say – two’s company but eight is a nightmare? Yep, certainly is. Especially when the memory card they shove into the machine for doing keyrings is stuffed with a gazillion images.

Experience has dictated that a crowd like that all giving their opinion on which photograph of Baby Borat to use can turn into an epic battle of opinions.

“Oooh, I like the one where he’s dribbling snot down his nose”

“No, no. The one where his face looks like a bulldog is much better than that one”

“Ahhh, look at the little fella fast asleep – doesn’t he look like an angel”

And so on, and so forth ad infinitum. It’s all very well to wax lyrical about the little bundle of joy in your own home, but when you’ve got a ton of work to do and can’t tie up your keyring making machine for too long, you kindof have to “move things along”.

That’s when the battle plan for such scenarios come into play.

First part of the plan is to remove all non essential combatants. The mother is the target and a well placed suggestion of “perhaps the family would like to do some shopping while you choose the pictures yourself”. In this case some stern words in a foreign language from the mother resulted in the family members looking very hurt and shuffling off with shoulders slumped.

Second part of the plan is to narrow down the selection of favourite images to maybe 3 or 4. This can be done very quickly. Smiley ones are winners, sleepy ones are a good backup. Dribbly snotty nose ones are generally only selected by the father, but handy to have in reserve for the not-so- photogenic baby.

The last part of the plan is the final selection. The key here is to agree vigorously when the mother indicates a photo is nice or cute. It’s a bit like the reflex response to “Does my bum look big in this”. Any hesitation and you’re doomed. In a relationship it means you’re in the doghouse for a while. In my situation, it’s time – precious, precious time when it’s a busy day.

With those 3 steps executed to perfection, I had the order “in the bag” (sounds all Dragons’ Dennish doesn’t it?). “Grand so, they’ll be ready in about 15 minutes”. I finish off another order I was working on and who appears by my side after a couple of minutes? Grandad Borat.

Obviously bored with the delights of all the wonderful shops to browse in, he took up residence to my right hand side. This I do not like. Someone standing over me impatiently while I hurry to make up the order. The hovering impatiently was bad enough. Much worse was his incredibly annoying habit of sucking his teeth every 10 seconds. Drill.To.Brain.

I have not yet worked out a good way of dealing with a teeth sucking, hovering, impatient Grandad Borat type. If I ever come up with one, I’ll let you know.

Order complete and money transacted, Grandad Borat heads off with a hop, skip, jump and a suck of the (not so plentiful) teeth to rejoin the extended family. They all lived happily ever after and I waved heartily as I watched them leave. Buh bye now Grandad, Buh bye Mary Ellen, Jim Bob, Baby B, Cousin Ernest, Michael, Granny B, Daddy B – all the B’s – Buh bye.