Top secret dossier: how kids are saving the world
Irrational irritation is something I do well. You may have noticed. After all, there is no reason why the two people managing to take up an entire hallway and preventing anyone from passing should really annoy me. Getting past them might save me three seconds on my journey to wherever I’m going. And to be [...]
I’m a lover, not a fighter
When the desire to get into a fight was given out, it’s fair to say that I was probably sitting underneath a table somewhere playing with an Etch-A-Sketch. Given that I never had the punching power of a Ricky Hatton, or the ability to flee from trouble with the pace of Usain Bolt, I used [...]
How I never became a spy
I was always fascinated by the idea of being a spy when I was a kid. I think someone bought me a thick red hardback ’spy handbook for kids’ for Christmas one year, and I never looked back from there. Each day I’d race home from school and pore over it, testing myself to make [...]
The longest day – part 3
1501 Decide that a change of scenery might be a good thing for both of us. The Artist Formerly Known As The Youngest has returned from a sleepover, and insists on being taken out so that I can buy her all the things she needs to make me a Christmas present. Try to point out [...]
The longest day – part 2
1201 Set a new world record for the Sofa To Kitchen 30 Yard Dash, grabbing coffee and returning to daughter in 5.7 seconds. Daughter looks at me as if to say “what took you so long?”
1203 Realise that the Manchester United game will be on TV in less than half an hour. Talk to The [...]
The longest day – part 1
I was left alone with a ten week old child this Saturday. I can only assume that The Special One had exhausted all other options and – left with no other choice – decided to leave The Little One in my care. As a public service to new fathers everywhere, I’d like to share my [...]
Comes with instructions
As every long suffering wife or female partner will readily testify, it is absolutely verboten for men to read an instruction manual before plugging in a piece of technological gadgetry. Any male choosing to even remove the ‘How To…’ guide from its plastic will have his membership of the Men’s Union terminated with immediate effect, [...]
A long overdue Halloween missive
It’s pretty astonishing how being a father to a month old baby can change your perspective on the things that matter in life. Although, for the avoidance of doubt, I will never like peanut butter, no matter how much my daughter comes to believe it to be the lifeblood that keeps her in existence.
Nut spread [...]
Keeping mum
When you tell people that you’re going to become a father for the first time (or in my case, a father to a baby for the first time, given the presence of The Young Ones), you suddenly find yourself playing a game of Baby Bingo. As the well-meaning person you’re talking to rattles off platitudes [...]
The game of the name
As I may have mentioned before, my mother is a worrier. Whether she’s panicking that I’ve got some kind of tropical sleeping sickness simply because I momentarily yawned on the phone to her, or reading a story about a car crash in – say – Idaho and phoning to check that I’m OK, she truly [...]
