LETTERS FROM LOCKDOWN
MICHAEL DEACON
That’s the trouble with getting older. It’s so hard to keep up with the latest youth trends. Only last week, I wrote that the soundtrack to our lockdown had been the voice of DANTDM: a young man who presents videos on Youtube about computer games. Our son hangs on his every word.
Or at least, he did. Because no sooner had that column been published than he’d moved on. Poor Mr TDM, in his eyes, was yesterday’s news.
Now he’s transferred his affections to another young chap who presents videos on Youtube about computer games. This one is an American named Preston. And all of a sudden, having grumbled at length about being subjected to DANTDM every day, Mama and I find ourselves looking back on his reign as a golden age. Because Preston, it turns out, is far, far worse.
I don’t wish to cast aspersions on someone
I’ve never met. In private, Preston may well be charm personified. But, for those members of our household over the age of six, his videos are torture. His commentary is excruciatingly excitable, a relentless, ear-splitting yodel of delirious glee. And, although he purports to be 26 years old, his voice constantly sounds as if it’s breaking. It’s like listening to the jungle call of a pubescent Tarzan.
We begged the boy to go back to Dan. But this was a textbook parental error. Children live to rebel. So by denouncing Preston and defending Dan, we’ve ensured that Preston will remain his favourite, and Dan won’t get a look-in.
We’re like parents in the early Sixties, imploring their daughters to listen to that nice Cliff Richard, rather than those noisy mop-haired louts from Liverpool. Nothing is more appealing to a child than their parents’ disapproval, and nothing more off-putting than their endorsement.
If I really want the boy to stop watching Preston, there’s only one thing for it. I’ll have to become a fan of him myself.
A cobbler in Romania has devised an ingenious way to maintain social distancing. He’s started making shoes that are 75cm long. “If two people wearing these shoes were facing each other,” explains Grigore Lup, 55, “there would be one-and-a-half metres between them.”
An excellent idea. I urge the Government to submit a bulk order as soon as possible – although ministers will of course have to request an adjustment in the shoes’ dimensions. While Romanian authorities may consider 1.5m metres sufficient for social distancing, in the UK the guidance is 2 metres. Our shoes, therefore, will have to be a full metre long.
Initially the public may be reluctant to wear such long shoes, for fear of looking like clowns. But once they’ve seen them being modelled by the Cabinet, no doubt any such anxiety will be dispelled.
Kids rule
I’ve made a serious parenting error: telling my son what to do Nothing is more appealing to a child than parental disapproval