Brad Pitt Ha Ha Ha

Glad to see, on the front cover of this morning's Independent, new dad Brad Pitt looking like crap trapped in the neck of a bottle. Well when I say "crap trapped in the neck of a bottle" it's all relative: there's still not an ounce of him hanging the wrong way, that I'll grant you. But there was a definite crumpling around the eyes, a clear saggy knackered-ness that comes with being kept awake all night by the mewling of newborns. Next to him in the same photo was George Clooney, an older man by far, whiter of hair, but looking fresher and, yes, younger than his New Dad chum. George's secret to staying youthful? Is it Nadine Baggot and her famous pentapeptides? Nope. It's much simpler. George has no kids. So did I feel a twinge of sympathy for old Brad? A pang of empathy? Nah. Punched the air, frankly and thought "Good. Serves him right. Just goes to show you can't have everything." Small minded of me? Yes. I put it down to tiredness.

Running in St James's Park

"We Won't Let Parenthood Change Us…"

Saw a cartoon last Christmas – either in The Spectator or the New Statesman (a sign of the times that even the magazines of the political right and left blur – or should that be Blair? – into one another). It featured, topically, being Christmas, Mary and Joseph and the infant Christ in the manger. The two shiny, happy parents, whilst gazing lovingly at the new arrival, made a resolution” “We won’t,” they agreed between them, “let it change us.”

Raised a wry little smile, I can tell you, being, as I was, six months into parenting.

Eight months on the wry smile is gone. It its place there are peels, gales of laughter. Gales of long, loud, brittle laughter. The kind usually reserved for megalomaniacs in bad sci-fi and spy movies. The kind of take-over-the-world laughter the baddies are prone to, only shot through with notes of desperation. And tiredness. Lots and lots of tiredness.

“We won’t let it change us,” is the battle cry of the new parent. Yet here are just three of the ways I’ve morphed into someone utterly unrecognisable to my former self in just the last 24 hours.

i. Went on to water in the pub on a Saturday night (a Saturday night for Chrissakes!) after the second beer.
ii. Rearranged a night out with old pals over from Ireland because it interfered with Isobella’s routine.
iii. Stood in absolute, total and deeply uncomfortable silence at a party because I had nothing whatsoever to say about any subject other than my daughter.


Number iii may be the most disturbing. I no longer have time to watch football/check the sports pages (or any other newspaper pages, come to that) so don’t know what is going on in that area. So when someone throws me a conversational bone such as “What about that Ronaldo, eh?” I have no response. What about him? Did he die? Commit some horrific crime? Come out of the closet?

Ditto “Have you seen The Dark Knight yet?” It is only from the context (people at a party were talking about movies) and the vital clue of the word “seen” that I even realised that they were talking about films.

So I haven’t let fatherhood change me… aside from the fact that I have stopped paying attention to football, going to see movies or reading newspapers. But apart from that…

Well, apart from that there’s the beer thing I mentioned earlier. I’ve pretty much stopped that altogether. How radical a change can this really be, you may ask? Well, have you been following all those doom and gloom stories in the press about how pub takings are down and the British boozer is on the verge of extinction? I can’t help but think I’ve had a hand in this with my drastic change of habits.

So, to sum up: that’s no drink, no football, no newspapers or telly or new movies (see also books, theatre, music); and pissing off my old pals by my constant rearranging/cancelling nights out/meetings/parties. And that’s only the stuff that’s happened in that last 24 hours.

Does it get me down? Of course it does. Abso-bloody-lutely. But only until Isobella laughs or runs or smiles or says “Daddo!” or makes a soft jobby in her nappy or climbs the stairs or claps her hands or… or anything, really. In fact just to see her wipes all the difficulties away. Fourteen months ago I wouldn’t have dreamt of posting such slushy, sentimental pap on a website for all the world to see. Now, however, I don’t care. Soppy? Sure. Sentimental? You bet your ass. But with one smile from my daughter, I no longer care what anybody thinks. And that’s the biggest change of all.

Dad Aid from Tim Lott

Excellent piece by Tim Lott in yesterday's Independent on Sunday on the complex joys of being the father of girls. It's ostensibly an opinion piece on how Bob Geldof must feel after his daughter ran off to Vegas to get hitched to her little drummer boyfriend of three weeks, but shines light into the complicated corners of dad-daughter relationships at the same time. Brilliant piece, a must for all dads. Find it at: http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/tim-lott-were-helpless-there-is-nothing-like-a-fathers-love-for-his-daughter-899621.html

Taking Steps

Above: Having mastered the basics indoors, Isobella makes her public walking debut in the street outside our house, a few days shy of 14 months old.

Isobella, if you're reading this, just keep walking until you reach the corner and then turn left. Go right to the end of the street until you get to the shop, where you can pick me up a copy of The Independent and this month's Record Collector mag (and a copy of Pregnancy, Baby and You, natch). Also, ask the nice man for a bottle - make that two bottles – of Meantime IPA. Yes, I know you're under age, but if you tell him they're for me I'm sure he'll understand. I'll give you the money when you get back. Ta.

(Worth a try, no?)

Brought to Book

A version of this column featured in the June issue of Pregnancy, Baby & You magazine. My next column will be in the September 2008 issue…



I am a hoarder of useless stuff. It’s a guy thing. I will use any excuse to buy myself a book, a CD or a DVD. And I will shamelessly dub my random, space-eating collection as a “library” to dignify and justify its presence in our ever-shrinking home. At the first sign of pregnancy, I sniffed a book-buying opportunity.

My first few taps on Amazon, however, were unsuccessful at best. I typed in “Father”. Up came “My Father was a Serial Killer.” It didn’t sound helpful. I tried “Dad”. The Pocket Idiot's Guide popped up. An idiot? Me? Must be some other dad. Trying "daddy", I found a question on screen: "Did you mean 'dada'?" I didn't know if did, so I clicked on. Dada, it seems, referred to a bunch of mad artsy types who influenced the surrealists. All very nice but advice on Provider Panic from "starving", goateed, Bohemian trustafarians was really the last thing I needed.

As a last resort, I turned to the books I already had, starting with The Big One. Turning to the New Testament I thumbed the pages for a word of consolation from Joseph. Surely the earthly father of Christ could lend a hand? Not a word. Literally. In the whole of the New Testament, Joseph doesn’t utter a single peep. The message for new dads seems to be: keep your lip buttoned and just get on with it. But then, perhaps Joseph isn’t the best role model either. After all, it is one of the new dad’s responsibilities to make sure that mum and baby have a peaceful and restful environment after the birth. Yet within minutes Ol’ Joe had the place swarming with shepherds and wise men.

Towards the end of the third trimester, a friend had loaned me a copy of Ernest Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Now, I’d never read any Hemmingway before. All I knew about him was that his nickname was Papa. Appropriate, I thought. Until I encountered, towards the end of the book, a scene featuring a Caesarean section that would not have been out of place in the recent Sweeney Todd movie. Did it give me nightmares? Only when I was asleep.

All this is to make light of my trouble finding a serious, non-patronising book to help me through impending fatherhood. And this ”making light” is part of the trouble. Why is it that men can’t/won’t approach a subject seriously without making gags about it? Even in my pre-natal NCT class, when we were asked to split into groups (male and female groups) to discuss different aspects of the imminent event, the women’s heads were always huddled together deep in debate while we were roaring our heads off with laughter. If it’s not yet known as Chandler Syndrome – named for the pathologically emotionally stunted (but in a nice way) gag-cracker Chandler Bing out of Friends – then it damn well should be.

Is it an expected response? Are we playing up to the GSOH clause in all those lonely-hearts ads? “Don’t care if he looks like an even porkier, melted version of Adrian Chiles but GSOH essential”. Or are we just trying to mask the fact that we are terrified? No bad thing, this, being terrified. In fact, it’s because we’re terrified that we’re looking for a book in the first place. And round and round it goes.

Help, for me, was at hand in one of the many books my wife Karen ploughed through during the pregnancy. So much so that she remains a Delphic oracle on the subject? “Colic? Just rub coal and jam on the soles of her feet. Simple.” Yeah, right. But the book that stood out was Miriam Stoppard’s Conception, Pregnancy & Birth. I remembered Stoppard from TV in my childhood, and she proved to be a reliable advisor, stopping in the narrative from time to time to address the dad in a direct and non-patronising way, with no gags. Good old Mizza Stoppo, that's what I say.

And so, having been unable to find satisfaction in the dad books field, I started my blog to educate other would-be fathers in the ways of parenthood with hard information presented in a concise and frank fashion revealing all the mysteries once and for all. Well… no, actually, it's just a stream of daft gags and nice pics. But it does keep me cheerful. And keeping cheerful makes me a better dad. Maybe old Saint Joe was right: just shut up and get on with it.

Pregnancy, Baby & You magazine

A version of the following appeared in the June issue of Pregnancy, Baby & You magazine in the My Story section. The July issue is on sale now...


“No kids?” other couples would ask. “No kids,” we’d reply, cool as cucumbers, non-plussed, unconcerned. If it happened, it happened, that was our attitude. And as the years passed, five, six, seven of them, people just stopped asking. Yet our easy-going attitude held true: until, that is, we went to the doctor, just to make sure.

It was only when we were told that we couldn’t have children that our minds became focused. In fact, after that, having a child was all we could think of.

We wanted a baby. That much we now knew. And we found out that one in seven couples, according to NHS Direct, experience the need for assisted conception. With IVF, there is an average success record of 15 percent. In our case, the Doctor handed us this statistic sharp end first: we had an 85 percent chance of failure. The numbers were bamboozling.

The words, which should have made sense of the numbers, only served to complicate matters further. First came “motility”. This new word, combined with plain old “low”, denoted that my sperm didn’t move very well. Combined with Karen’s age – we were just north of the “optimal” 39 mark, our chances of success now shrunk to “around” two percent. Sad-eyed shrugs and impeccable bedside manner did little to help either.

Action was the only solution. Go ahead with the procedure, give it one go, as futile as it is, and, if we make it to 80, we won’t look back and regret that we never tried. And so, pretending that everything was normal, we carried on planning our big, annual Christmas party.

Some friends showed up and announced their pregnancy. We fought a raging internal battle to be truly and genuinely happy for them. A battle, I’m pleased to say, that we won. To have added bitterness to despair would have been to dig a whole too deep to ever have clambered out of again.

After Christmas, the numbers and the words turned into a blizzard. Hycosy (a detailed examination of the womb); Progesterone injections (seven of them);
A fibroid – one of them, benign, as it turned out.

Our friends would ask: “How’s all it going?” We’d pause. In that pause we’d review the feelings of alienation, of invasion, of inadequacy at being unable to partake in the simple animal imperative of reproduction. “Oh, fine,” we’d reply, “fine…”

My mate Pete May, a West Ham nut, often says of being a West Ham supporter: “The despair I can handle: it’s the hope that kills me.” And indeed, the despair threw us together. And we stuck, tighter than ever before. Long walks, tears and talks of the unthinkable dominated that winter. I quoted Pete on one of our long rambling walks. “But there has to be hope,” said Karen. “Without hope, there’s…” At this point we turned a corner and slap bang in front of us was a pub. Its name? The Hope. We both laughed: there was Hope after all. “If we ever have a baby girl,” said Karen, “we’ll call her Hope…”

Another number came next: two. The number of eggs taken from Karen for fertilisation. Two is a low yield. But the word used by the nurse to describe them gave us hope: “magnificent”. Magnificent eggs. We dreamt immediately of twins – I know now that we both did – but at the time we each took a deep breath and looked the other way. Having been made to stare down the barrel of a scant chance for so long, this flake of good news was almost overwhelming amongst all the pain.

A funny thing, pain. If I asked you to describe your last toothache in precise and vivid detail, you couldn’t do it. Go on, try. Sore? Inadequate, isn’t it. Agony? Still doesn’t cover it. Anyway, now that it’s better, it doesn’t seem to matter, does it? Our IVF story is the same. The idea of the pain of IVF and potential childlessness haunts us still. But the news that one of the eggs had “taken”, that Karen – that we – were pregnant, delivered in an anonymous room in a corner of south east London, wiped all the months of pain away in a moment.

Are we grateful? Too small a word. But it’s impossible to live a life at such a high emotional pitch. We said we’d never complain if she woke us up in the middle of the night… but of course, we do. Besides, the pressure on Isobella to live up to the hefty billing of Miracle Baby is just too much for any person. But sometimes – the first time I fed her, the first time she waved, when she started laughing and then began to crawl – that miraculous feeling surges through us like delirium.

It turns out that Karen was right: There is Hope. Isobella Hope Scott-Goulding. She’s 10 months old now. And we still can’t believe she’s here.

Dumbstruck

Twenty-fourth of June today, celebration of the birth of St John the Baptist. When John’s mother Elizabeth – a woman of advanced years and the cousin of Mary Mother of God – announced her pregnancy to her husband Zachariah, the poor fellow was struck literally dumb. He remained thus for nine whole months.

Zachariah, I know how you feel, mate.

ESSENTIAL Listening

One of the best things about being a stay-at-home dad (at least part of the time – Karen and I are both freelance and split the childcare) is catching the mighty Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. I've just caught up with a programme from Friday 13th June in which Tony Parsons and a variety of fathers and "experts" talked frankly about dadding. Fascinating, moving, insightful (three words you don't always associate with Tony Parsons), if you can still get it on Listen Again, it's the best programme I've ever heard on the topic. It may also still be available on podcast. The Woman's Hour website is at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour.

Norfolk: No County for New Men

First family holiday – a short break to Norfolk.

Exotic, I know. But it was fun to watch the average age of the place plummet to 79 just by our arrival.

The seafront at Cromer has a pleasing Edwardian aspect. But the social mores of the place seem to be rooted firmly in the period of Edward's long-running old ma. I was treated to confused and, on one occasion, filthy looks and given a wide berth as I pushed the pram along the seafront. Being a God's Waiting Room sort of a place, Cromer was perhaps not ready for the sight of a man pushing his own daughter along in a pram without his wife in attendance. And I use the word "wife" as opposed to "partner" advisedly – for Cromer, it seems, is not yet ready for unmarried couples breeding. The previous day, when my wife Karen had been making the same journey – i.e. a pleasant stroll along the prom prom prom tiddley-om-pom-pom – she was approached, and by "approached" I mean "assailed", by a nonagenarian in a brace of hearing aids and a big bad attitude. "You're not one of these bloody single mothers are you?" he railed, "getting all the council houses for free and sponging off the state? I've seen 'em. Here in Cromer I've seen 'em. Here in Cromer!"

His shock at the phenomena of single mothers in Cromer, noted Karen, was akin to someone having found a Martian invasion scene in an Emily Bronte novel.

Say what you like about London, but complete strangers who want to chat about babies stop me at least once a day when I'm out and about with Isobella. Almost always they wistfully turn to memories of their own children. And it's always lovely to listen. On one occasion, a be-suited, middle aged City gent sprang out in front of me, pointed at Isobella in her pushchair and announced gleefully: "I've got two of those." Lifting his finger to point at me, he added, "But the oldest one's as big as you now…" And off he went into a monologue about how he wished his generation had been allowed to be more hands-on as dads. Nice fella.

There's always an exception, of course. And this came in the shape of the miserable old crone on the H3 bus through Hampstead Garden Suburb (I ask you, where else?). Isobella was tired and hungry and was, quite naturally, grizzling about the whole state of affairs. Mrs Hampstead Garden Suburb, after a concerted campaign of vicious looks, finally spat:

"Have you nothing to put in that baby's mouth?"

My reply of, "Have you nothing to put in your own mouth?" although not a vintage slice of invective, had the planned effect of bringing a cessation to the (mercifully) brief episode.

Pregnancy, Baby & You magazine June 2008

The new issue of Pregnancy, Baby & You magazine is out now with both my Dad Column and the story of our IVF journey with Isobella. See also www.thinkbaby.co.uk.

Me & Isobella

Pregnancy, Baby & You Magazine II

The new issue of Pregnancy, Baby & You mag is out now (their website is at www.thinkbaby.co.uk). My next column appears in the April issue, but for those of you who missed the mag last month (shame on you!), here's my April 2008 column:

Whatever happened to pacing up and down the corridor, a big stogey poking out of the breast pocket in anticipation of a celebratory smoke after the happy event? I blame the 60s. Those Hippies going all gooey over “the miracle of birth”. Move away from the joint, dude, that’s what I say. That and King Louis the somethingth-or-otherth of France who, keen to get a view of the, erm, proceedings, had his Queen lie on her back, as opposed to the more natural squatting position. So at least, among all your squeamishness, there is an upside: you get to blame the French.

It’s the unwritten 11th Commandment: thou shalt attend the birth of your child. Pulling a sickie is not on the birthplan. Oh, you’ve got tickets for the Cup Final, have you? And your team hasn’t won the Cup since 1991? Tough dung, buster. And no one will believe that the dog ate the birthplan so, no, you can’t be excused.

But what, you ask, if I faint at the sight of blood? What if I throw-up? Here’s a tip: At the birth, just sit on the side of her weaker hand and any blow she lands on you should have trouble breaking the skin, let alone drawing blood. Indeed, this is good advice for life, let alone childbirth.

Worried about pain? So you should be. There is a period of the labour known as Transition – or The Zone – during which you may well find your partner’s fingers meeting behind your Adam’s apple as she clasps you, viscously yet lovingly, by the throat and bellows words that, these days, would get her ejected from a football match. Chances are this will cause you a very great deal of pain indeed.

Rationalise it by adding it all up: sick, blood, pain, losing consciousness. Don’t try to tell me that at least one of those doesn’t feature in the aftermath of – if not during – your average night out. Looked at like that, it doesn’t seem too bad, does it? Now, just one tiny extra little mental gearshift will cure your fears for good. Move your thoughts away from the Y-word – “You” – and on to your partner.

It’s an old chestnut, this, but it works. Take your mind off what you are worried about. Your partner will most certainly appreciate it. Just a slight shift of focus and bob’s your uncle, you’re a dad. It would be a shame to besmirch your birthday with a whole load of unnecessary worries, wouldn’t it?

Hang on: don’t I mean your child’s birthday? Nope. I mean yours. This, as those aforementioned Hippies were so fond of saying, is the first day of the rest of your life. You’ve just been killing time until this point. This is where the good stuff really begins. And it would be a pity to miss the first day of the rest of your life, wouldn’t it? Perhaps, like me, you’ll even emerge so changed, so enhanced, so unrecognisable from the ante-natal wimp that you once were that you’ll even consider eating the placenta. Be sure to email me your recipes.

They Hate Babies Here No.1

They Hate Babies Here: No.1 in an Occasional Series: It’s strange, but before Isobella was born, I would never have been seen dead in an All Bar One. Indeed, on the only occasion I ever found myself crossing the threshold of this dreary and homogenised chain of “aspirational” (ahem) bars was the birthday bash of a friend of a friend. And even then I, in the best News of the World investigative hack tradition, made my excuses and left as soon as I could. (A snob? Me? Absolutely.)

So when I found myself drawn to the empty branch of ABO (one letter away from ASBO: how appropriate) at London Bridge one morning recently, it was something of a surprise. But it was, as stated, empty (this being just after opening time); the smoking ban was in place and so pubs were now in bounds for babies (I had Isobella in the pram); and my companion’s nappy was full of poo. So ABO it was.

Upon entering, however, a member of staff swooped down on us in a boiling fury: “You have to be 21 to come in here!”

“That’s okay,” I smiled, “I’m 22.” (Ahem ahem).

“Not you, not you!” screeched the next CEO of ABO, “HIM! HIM! HIM!”

If she hadn’t been pointing at the pram, I’d never have known that she was talking about my daughter.

As I struggled back through the swing doors and down the steps (she wasn’t so keen to eject me that she helped me off the premises by holding the door open), you could almost smell her sense victory. “Gotcha!” her whole being seemed to say. So if you’ve ever wondered who the One was in the name, then the mystery has been solved: It’s your baby.

Clocked

31st March 2008: Woke up all off kilter yesterday morning completely unaware that clocks had gone forward by an hour. That’s how all-encompassing childcare has been: I am so separated from my old media habits (watching TV and reading newspapers) that I can’t even keep up with rudimentary events such as the change from spring to winter. I’m prepared to bet that Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho or the movie star Heath Ledger didn’t have the same trouble yesterday morning.

Shit, This is the EASY Bit?

A Road to Damascus moment. Isobella was crying her air raid warning cry. Her bottle had leaked all over me. I hadn’t slept a whole night through since Kennedy was assassinated. It was 3.20 a.m. And it suddenly hit me: this is the EASY bit. She can’t crawl yet, can't throw food around the place. Nor can she stamp her feet in the supermarket aisle, demand expensive trainers, take drugs, have innappropriate boyfriends with motorbikes and piercings or scream (to a volley of slamming doors) those six magic words “I didn’t ask to be born!”

Felt, bizarrely, despite the hot-knitting-needles-in-my-ears intensity of my daughter’s screams, a little bit better.

Isobella: Thoughts on Bob Dylan

Isobella peruses the sleeve note of her favourite Bob Dylan L.P. 1965's Bringing it All Back Home:

Pregnancy, Baby & You Magazine

The new issue of Pregnancy, Baby & You mag is out now (their website is at www.thinkbaby.co.uk). My next column appears in the April issue, but for those of you who missed the mag last month (shame on you!), here's my January 2008 column:


Are you sitting comfortably reading this at home? Yes? Then stop. Stop immediately. Fold up this mag, tuck it into your coat pocket and head for your local.

Done that? What do you mean you’re embarrassed reading PB&Y in the pub? Okay, tuck it inside a copy of Nuts, then. Got a pint? Best get a shot, too. You’re going to need it. Because, my friend, your pub days are over.

Pub culture is dying. We’re getting healthier, snuffing out fags, cutting out booze. But you are playing a part too. Yes, dear reader, you.

“Not me,” I hear you mutter, “I’d never help the patron saint of coffee – St Arbucks – convert my beloved local.” I said that, too. Once. But like some St Peter of Booze, by your partner’s third cry of “Epidural!” you will have denied the pub at least three times.

Naturally, you will have celebrated the news of your imminent arrival in the pub. Most important events of your life have probably been celebrated in the pub – if they haven’t actually occurred there in the first place. Excluding, I’m hoping, conception.

Your first denial, however, is already in the post in the shape of Provider Panic. It arrives at the moment when you find your Lotto fantasy no longer features a new Maserati but a Bugaboo with on-board i-Pod and climate control. That’s the moment when you suddenly realise that baby stuff costs money. And if babies love anything, boy do they love stuff. Prams, cots, sterilisers. All this and stuff you’ve never even heard of before: topping and tailing bowl (£39.99) anyone?

Thanks to PP you will cancel all mag subscriptions (apart from PB&Y, natch), start taking sandwiches to work and – shock horror – ditch the pub. You are now an embryonic Responsible Parent, my son. And this will delight your partner. Until, having cleaned up your own act, you start lecturing her on the dangers of half-a-glass of red wine with Christmas dinner. Then she will just wish you’d piss off back to the pub where you belong. She may even tell you this. (A word of advice, here: Don’t put it down to hormones. You really are being a sanctimonious pain in the arse.)

In the meantime Champions’ League nights in the pub will slip by, all denied with increasingly flimsy mendacity (“Sorry, bad night: I’m bare-knuckle cage fighting with Jeremy Clarkson.”). And on it will go until the major pub-based event of your life hoves into view. The Wetting of the Baby’s Head.

Why on earth, you might ask, would I miss out on a legitimised, tradition-sanctioned, recrimination-free night on the lash? Am I mad? Well, it’s a kind of madness, I suppose. It involves gazing at your firstborn for hours on end, marvelling at her unique ability to utter the word “Ak” and make green pooh. She is clearly a child prodigy.

This might not sound like good news. But just think of it like this: which event would you rather relive? Your stag night or your wedding night? It’s a no-brainer, really. Unless, of course, you married Tracy Barlow out of Corrie.

Expectant Dad: The Movie

So how are you finding it all, this dad-to-be malarky? A bit like it’s all happening to someone else, is it? Does it all feel like you’re a character in some movie? Well, that’s not too bad an analogy, as it goes. In fact, a trilogy would be more accurate. And just like a real movie trilogy, the same rules of diminishing returns will apply.

Just as the original is inevitably better than the sequel, and the sequel in turn is superior to the third part – or “threequel” in movie geek-speak – so too will your own personal trilogy, your Action-Dadventure epic, deteriorate in quality as it progresses. For example, in the original, you would be played by Al Pacino. In the second, not-so-good instalment, you will be played by Jean Claude Van Damme. In part three, Tyrone out of Coronation Street will be offered the part. And he will probably turn it down.

Part one is set in the pub. Most important events of your life hitherto have probably been spent in the pub. Why change the habit of a lifetime? Most stages apart from conception, I hasten to add, although maybe that’s just me. Perhaps you have another story. If so, please don’t share it. Some things are better kept to yourself. (Although I suppose our conception could have taken place in a bar as Isobella is an IVF baby and one of the top drawer mixologists at Claridge’s or the Savoy’s American Bar could have made jiggly with the petrie dish.)

The pub is also where you will pick up the first flotsam and jetsam from the ocean known as the Sea of Wisdom. Nuggets will include: “You don’t want a girl, mate: boys’re less bovver as teenagers”. Luckily, like most pub pronouncements, you will have forgotten it all by the morning.

Part Two moves location away from the pub, and is subtitled The Provider Panic Months. This shift of location will make for a pretty dismal movie for the viewer, being set largely in the marital home. And it will start out as a love story in which the leading lady (your partner/wife) will be all moon-faced at the fact that you have at last grown up and are ready to shoulder your responsibilities. This will only last, however, for the first reel. After this she will grow increasingly annoyed at your fretting and paranoia and lectures on the dangers of half-a-glass of wine with Christmas dinner. Long before the credits have rolled she will be wishing you’d just piss off back to the pub where you belong.

Reviews for the sequel will be bad. So bad that moviegoers will stay away from the third instalment in their droves. This movie will be subtitled “Whatever Happened to Old Whatsisface?” due to the fact that you will be seen so seldom down the pub that sightings of Glenn Miller’s plane will be more commonplace. But you are the star of this movie. And it is the best part you will ever have. It will be a very long movie, too long to hold anyone’s interest other than your own. But this is a real case of art for art’s sake. You will be listed in the cast list at Happy/Confused/Tired Dad. And it will win you no Oscars. Your new co-star will steal every scene. And none of those scenes will be set in the pub. But you won’t care. In fact, you won’t care if you never see the inside of a pub again as long as you live. And then you will be a true star.

Movie Dads

A selection of role models – and otherwise – from the movies.

HARRY DEAN STANTON in PRETTY IN PINK: A broken man, tries his damnedest, but just can’t do, just can’t say the right thing. But, man alive does he try. Fail again. Fail better. The absolute role model in the business of being Not Too Bad a Dad.

GREGORY PECK in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD: Here’s the only guide to dadding that you’ll ever need: Watch the movie To Kill a Mockingbird. Observe Gregory Peck as the loving, principled, sensitive, morally upright and generally legendary Atticus Finch. If you try to be a tenth of a hundredth of a thousandth as good a dad as him, then you’ll leave all the Not Too Bad Dads in the shade. An unreasonable goal. But worth shooting for.

MARLON BRANDO in THE GODFATHER: Great scene where, in his dotage, Vito Corleone rues his life of crime in almost confessional tones, while handing the mantle to his son Michael. “There just wasn’t enough time, Michael. There just wasn’t enough time.” Poetic, moving, intensely dramatic, tragic on an ancient Greek scale, this is movieland’s finest equivalent of the Empty Nester’s battle cry “Make the most of it: they grow up SO fast!”

ROBERT DE NIRO in GODFATHER PART II: “I have,” says Brando in The Godfather, “a sentimental weakness for my children.” De Niro takes this line and weaves it into the young Vito Corleone’s makeup beautifully. Standing in their coldwater apartment in Little Italy, De Niro’s young Don watches, biting his fist, wracked with anguish, as the womenfolk apply a hot poultice to the infant Fredo. Tears to a glass eye.

AL PACINO in THE GODFATHER PART III: Touching moment when he produces a drawing made by his son Anthony on the day of the boy’s confirmation. He’s kept it for all these years. Awwwww, how surweeet is that? Okay, so he’s killed anyone and everyone who ever got in his way – including his own brother, Fredo – but he still loves his little boy. If that’s not being Not Too Bad a Dad, then I don’t know what is.

JOE PESCI in CASINO: Robs houses. Shoots people. Beats people to death. Has an affair with his best friend’s wife. Swears like a docker with Tourette’s. Puts a guy’s head in a vice and pops his eye out. But always gets home in time to make his son’s breakfast. Not Too Bad a Dad? Who’s gonna argue?

DARTH VADER in STAR WARS: Who knew? Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s dad? V. bad dad role model in the worst movie (and movie franchise) ever made. Once described by Isobella’s Godfather John as “the death of culture”. Indeed this insight was what led us to appoint John as a Godfather in the first place.

What Kind of Question is THAT?

I have been asked some extraordinary questions over the past six months, but this one surely takes the biscuit. Consider that it fell from the mouth of a new father and it seems even more outrageous.

“Were you disappointed?” he enquired.

“Disappointed in what?” I asked

“That you had a girl and not a boy?”

Looking at his little boy bouncing on his knee, I could only hope that he would grow to take after his mother and not his vile father.