Monthly Archives: June 2010

Why is my relationship with my daughter so antagonistic? My grandmother used to say of child-rearing that you spend five years drawing them out and the next five squashing them back in again. I used to think how sad this … Continue reading →

Daughter’s first sports day this week. It finished at the exact moment the England World Cup match kicked off (3pm Wednesday). The field of play was almost bereft of fathers, and those that were there could be seen afterwards saying, … Continue reading →

To promote the new Divine Comedy album, Neil Hannon did an interview for the Observer, in which he broke a great parental taboo: ‘he describes fatherhood as “hilarious and time- consuming and fantastic and sometimes completely dull”. People do talk … Continue reading →

If I have a parenting philosophy (which is doubtful), this is it – a phrase popularised by screenwriter William Goldman (Princess Bride and All The President’s Men, among others). He uses it in the context of the movie business, of … Continue reading →

All the advice seems to say that you should speak to your children more or less as if they’re adults from the off in order to aid their language development. (This is a middle-class obsession. At a parents’ meeting at … Continue reading →

I’ve often wondered why there were women on the school run who clearly dressed up for the occasion, and who – in some cases – dressed up their accessory children to match. What was going on in their heads? Well, … Continue reading →

I think I should be clear from the start. For those who live in the UK and remember – or know anything of – the 1970s, the word ‘confessions’ has certain connotations… This is emphatically not a blog about a … Continue reading →

How much is George Osborne going to fuck me? And the rest of us, too? It’s a simple question, really, and here are my thoughts… Continue reading →