Things I tell my son off for that I still do myself #2

In no particular order...

Not saying 'please' and 'thank you' often enough.
Picking his nose and eating it.
Not listening to everything his mummy says.
Leaving pants on the floor.

Football Part 2... the Football Fairy

My wife is trying to make our son support Liverpool. I’m a Man Utd supporter. She seems to find this very funny. It is not.

I blame myself for neglecting this area of my son’s education. I was too busy making rockets out of cardboard boxes and gluing tiny pieces of paper to other slightly larger pieces of paper to realise what was going on. Looking back I realise that I had left him exposed to the potential manipulation of some malignant force in his life i.e his mummy. My advice to other father’s would be that your child must have a rudimentary knowledge of your team’s best goals, sexiest players and most amusing chants by their third birthday at the very, very least.

However, all is not lost and thanks to a combination of ridiculous promises, outright lies and untold bribery, you too could save your child.

Just follow these easy steps in this handy cut-out-and-keep guide to brainwashing your eldest son.

1. Buy a ton of tat from the football team of your choice. In my case this has included Man United pyjamas, a Man United clock, a Man United football and a Man United football kit.

2. Create a wondrous and magical character imbued with traits of love, kindness and generosity who will give the tat to your child. Think Santa and then times it by a hundred. I came up with the “football fairy” so feel free to use that or come up with something else. For instance, Newcastle United fans might like to come up with the Sports Direct.com@Football Fairy.

3. Drip feed your child the footie goodies. You don’t need to give them everything at once but it is important that each item comes with a personalised note from the Football Fairy expressly forbidding the supporting of any other team.

4. Cry yourself to sleep in utter self-loathing at how pathetic you are.

And so far so good. My boy still thinks that Manchester United is a person but you know, from tiny acorns and all that. I just thank the great football fairy that he’s stopped banging on about Stephen bloody Gerrard.

Things my son loves that I hate but have to pretend to love... Me Too!

If you are aware of this cultural arse gravy then you must be a parent or BBC childrens’ commissioner. If you happen to be the person responsible for commissioning/writing/directing/making-teas-for-the-actors on this show then know this my friend, you are going to be fast-tracked to hell in a rocket powered wheelbarrow.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, it is a show on the Cbeebies channel set in the fictional hell town of Riversea Fingle. Each day a different grown-up (and I use the word in a very loose sense) drops their kid off at Granny Murray’s house so she can look after them while they bob off to work.

There are several reasons why this production gets on my frazzled teats but let’s kick right off with the lead character, the aforementioned Granny Murray. Now she ain’t like no granny I’ve ever met being clearly in her late twenties or possibly early 30s. Her sole reason for existing seems to be to dish out her special brand of advice to the other saps of Riversea Fingle. But really, would you trust a woman who'd not only got herself knocked up at an obviously early age but also managed to raise her son or daughter to procreate with similarly youthful pip..? Of course you wouldn't.

Also, Granny Murray's insistence on calling me her 'honey pie', when our acquaintance is cursory at best, is proving rather tiresome.

Secondly, Mickey John who takes us on his journey from Granny Murray's house to school is obviously a massive fraud. Instead of getting to the job he claims to love by the most direct way (i.e. down Granny Murray's street and across the bridge), he clearly takes a rambling route to show off the fact he can rhyme words like ‘down’ and ‘frown’. Perhaps you should spend more time at school Mickey John because then the idea of playing blind cricket might not seem so "confusing" and "upsetting". It's Rudy I feel sorry for, that's all.

Most disturbing of all, it seems quite obvious from the expressions of fear on the children's faces that none of the people claiming to be their parents are in fact who they say they are. I think we have to ask some very serious questions about this..? Is Granny Murray actually running a safe house for a kiddie sweatshop..? Is there a large room behind the front door of that beautiful terraced house, filled with under 5s sticking pins into their bleeding fingers just to get another shipment of t-shirts off to China..? Perhaps the ‘parents’ are just mules who kidnap the kids from their real carers just to satisfy the obvious cash lust that lurks deep within Granny Murray’s blackened heart.

Obviously my son absolutely loves this show and every time I have to sit through an episode and laugh and sing along, another little piece of me dies inside.

If there's a TV show that your kid makes you watch just let me know, comment below or email me frazzleddaddy@hotmail.co.uk

Things that my son loves that I hate... Halloween

I've always been much more of a bonfire night person myself. The crackle of the fire, the whizz and the bang of a rocket, the toffee apples, the tomato soup (Heinz of course). Trick or treat has always seemed, I don't know, a bit grabby. I think Fry and Laurie said it best when they said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u0RQkj3Tic

So listen, my boys will probably never have my blessing for trick or treating but, all things considered, my eldest had the most kick-ass outfit I've ever seen.

Enemies of fatherhood...#2 children

Something of a paradox I know but I'm ill and grumpy.

I'm ill because my kids are ill and they're ill because other peoples' kids are ill.

And so for this reason and this reason alone they made the list.