I wanted to dress my son as the grandma’s chewed remains
God bless the snow. Thanks to the weather, my son – who turns four tomorrow – didn’t have to go to nursery on World Book Day. Which was a blessing. I suspect most parents will understand why. For us, at least, World Book Day is a nuisance. It was created to encourage children to read, but in practice it seems to have little to do with reading. Instead it seems to be about dressing up. Essentially, it’s a second-hand Hallowe’en. A cuteness contest.
Each World Book Day, children are expected to dress as a character from a book. This means parents have either to waste their time making a costume, or waste their money buying one. Shops now produce such costumes to capitalise. Asda, for example, sells a child-sized Willy Wonka costume for £15. Whether bought or home-made, of course, the costume will be worn only once, given children’s unfortunate insistence on growing.
Still, it seems any old costume will do – as you can tell from the number of children dressed as characters from Frozen (a film, not a book), or as Hollywood superheroes, or as generic “Disney princesses”.
At my son’s nursery, the entire class was originally instructed to dress as characters from Little Red Riding Hood. Somewhat limiting, perhaps, given that Little Red Riding Hood contains, at a push, four characters: Red Riding Hood, the wolf, the woodcutter and the chewed remains of Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. I was tempted to dress my son as the chewed remains, in the hope of discouraging the nursery from observing World Book Day ever again, but sadly my wife was unconvinced.
Here’s a thought, possibly a naive one. Instead of expecting parents to buy their children costumes, why not suggest they buy them books instead? For the same price as that Asda Willy Wonka outfit – £15 – you could buy at least three of Roald Dahl’s actual books. And as for the parents who spend long tedious hours making costumes – perhaps those hours could be more productively spent taking their children to the library.
Who knows: maybe giving your children books will encourage them to read books. Donald Trump has thought long and hard about the endless series of school shootings in America. And he’s identified the root cause. No, not the instant availability of semiautomatic weapons, even to the young and disturbed. He means video games. “I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts,” says the president. He has therefore vowed to “do something”. What that something is, he hasn’t yet revealed, but his spokesman says he intends to meet video game executives next week.
In short: Donald Trump isn’t going to prevent teenagers using real guns. But he might try to prevent them using imaginary ones.
Well, you can see why he might worry about the influence of video games. At the height of Super Mario fever in the early 1990s, tens of thousands of impressionable teenagers were rushed to hospital after headbutting bricks in an attempt to produce golden coins, mushrooms, and special flowers that would give them the ability to throw fireballs at turtles. Meanwhile, one 16-year-old boy from Atlanta, Georgia flew 200 feet into an electricity pylon while attempting to recreate the spinning bird kick from Street Fighter II.
Personally, I think the solution is simple. Don’t prevent the young and the disturbed from playing video games. Just train teachers to play them too.
When Jeremy Corbyn is prime minister, Britain will become fairer, more equal, more just. Our country will no longer be ruled by the old boys’ network, where it’s all about who you know. Instead, people will rise to the top purely on merit.
For proof, we need only look to the office of John Mcdonnell, the future chancellor. Mr Mcdonnell’s chief of staff is a young man named Seb Corbyn. Who, by total coincidence, happens to be the son of Jeremy Corbyn.
In an interview yesterday, Mr Mcdonnell expressed disgust at accusations of nepotism.
“Whether or not his name was Corbyn I didn’t care,” insisted Mr Mcdonnell. “He’s just extremely talented.”
I agree. Seb Corbyn had to work incredibly hard to get where he is today. Whatever critics may think, being born to a political leader isn’t easy. Think of the competition Seb faced. In the race to become Jeremy Corbyn’s son, he had to see off literally tens of millions of rival spermatozoa. That took serious effort and dedication – and all at the tender age of just minus nine months.
My advice to aspiring Labour aides is to put serious thought into their choice of father. Shop around. If there are no positions vacant in Jeremy Corbyn’s immediate family, look for someone senior in the Labour hierarchy. David Prescott – also a Corbyn aide – wisely chose to be the son of John Prescott, Labour’s former deputy leader, while Laura Murray – another Corbyn aide – had the foresight to be born to Mr Corbyn’s close friend Andrew Murray.
The youth of today could learn a lot from that kind of get-up-and-go.
While we’re on the subject of important people’s children: Keith Richards has apologised for saying that, at 74, his Rolling Stones bandmate Sir Mick Jagger is too old to be a father. “It’s time for the snip,” the guitarist had said, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “You can’t be a father at that age. Those poor kids!”
Personally, I hope Sir Mick has more children. His exploits in fatherhood are awe-inspiring, and probably without historical precedent.
As I never tire of repeating: Sir Mick has a child who is younger than his great-granddaughter.
follow Michael Deacon on Twitter @Michaelpdeacon; read more at telegraph.co.uk/opinion