December 3rd 06, 09:58 AM
One day last week, making my way back home on the 1740 from Cannon
Street, I found myself in the position of being thoroughly bored.
I'd read the Evening Standard, skimmed through the London Lite and the
London Paper, and even had a quick look at somebody's discarded Metro
before realising I'm not one of those idiots who reads that morning's
free paper later that evening. Which, incidentally, is the very
definition of cheap. And daft. Not only are you too mean to hand over
fifty pence for a Standard, you're too moronic to realise that a dozen
other free papers, magazines and supplements are available for your
commuting pleasure each and every weekday evening. Clearly, you're
happy with old news, as long as it's free. What a result for humanity.
My iPod, curse it to Hades and back, was once again complaining of a
flat battery, even though I'd charged it to the hilt for seventy-two
hours and it was proclaiming itself satisifed for a good forty-eight of
them. No, clearly forty seconds of Won't Get Fooled Again was too much
for it, and it died a miserable and undignified death.
So, with a heavy sigh and a quick glance into the window of the train
to ensure that I looked really miserable, I let my eyes wander around
the carriage in search of amusement. I didn't have to look far, because
there, just in front of me, was a discarded magazine, still
shrinkwrapped.
And it had Alex Curran on the cover.
Alex Curran is, probably, the only woman I would ever leave my wife and
family for at 4am on a Tuesday morning. Every other day of the week she
wouldn't stand a chance, but by God, she's a cracking lass. I'm not
sure my wife even knows who she is, which of course works in my favour,
but if she saw her, she'd definitely agree. How could she not? We're
only human, after all.
I tore off the wrapping with something approaching bloodlust, and while
doing so, glanced at the rest of the cover. Stephen Gerrard was on
there, too, of course, which put me off slightly as he's (a) a prat,
and (b) about as deserving of Curran as Hitler was of Eva Braun. Which
however you break it down, is not very much at all. He's also, alas,
(c) a multi-millionaire, which I, again alas, am not, and probably says
as much about Curran as anything on her magnificent frame, because she
quite simply must realise that Gerrard isn't fit to lick the chewing
gum off of her stilettos. I wouldn't go as far as proclaiming her a
gold-digger, but let's face it: if Gerrard worked in Tesco, he'd be
doing well to get a kiss on the cheek from Ann Widdecombe.
I scanned the articles listed on the cover: '17 Deadly Dad Sins, And
How To Avoid Them', 'Are You A Pushy Parent?', 'Santa's Sorted: Twenty
Best Kid's Presents' and, and I kid you not, 'Staying Alive: John
Travolta's Guide To Parenting'. I suppose we should be grateful they
didn't ask Chris Langham.
And then I noticed the title of the publication: FQ. And finally it hit
me.
Father's Quarterly.
Really, who thinks this stuff up? Somewhere, at some point, some team
of somebodies brain-stormed this and concluded that the most appealing
title a magazine written by and about fathers could have was Father's
Quarterly. And, better, they could make it a heck of a lot cooler by
shortening it to FQ. Christ, even 'Dad's Mag' would have been better,
and they must have known this because underneath the title in small
print it excitedly states that it's 'The Essential Dad's Mag'.
But all this, of course, is absolutely moot, as I was soon to realise,
because in no way, shape or form is this magazine worth even one second
of your time, and it's about as far away from 'essential' as a human
being is from the moon. And as nobody has been there since 1972, that's
bloody miles.
Eager as I was to unveil more pictures of the delicious Curran, I
plouged on. It opened to a two-page Mamas & Papas pushchair advert,
which was good, because as a father I only took care of that months
before any of my children were born and don't really feel it all that
likely that I'll be looking to trade it in for a newer model. And of
course the parent in the advertisement was a woman, so well researched
there.
The index had a feature on some of the contributors, and one of them -
and I swear this is true - had the surname of Cholmondeley. If anybody
needs to not be having children, it's him.
A few adverts for 4x4s later we come to the first main feature, 'The
Top Ten Songs About Fathers', and one of them was only Madonna's
frickin' Papa Don't Preach.
Then the aforementioned John Travolta piece was upon me. 'If you let a
kid decide on their own, they'll fall asleep within 30 minutes. If
you're strict, they'll be up to midnight,' says the near-billionaire,
Jumbo Jet-owning and Scientology-preaching master to forty or fifty
servants. How many nappies do you think he's really changed,
realistically? A couple for each kid, maybe?
After a piece where the token female contributor whined that all of her
single mates were out having a blast while she was at home looking
after her child - yes, that does come with the job, dear - there was
another advert for a pushchair, again featuring a woman.
By now I was losing patience, so I rapidly flicked through the pages
trying to find the feature on Curran, which I'd assumed would come with
some kind of reward, like maybe a tastefully-done breastfeeding
sequence. But no. Because this was Father's Quarterly, it only had eyes
for Gerrard, and in several pages of him waffling on about how he hates
it when the baby wakes his fleet of nannies in their £2m mansion,
there was only one tiny picture of Curran, and she wasn't even naked.
The '17 Deadly Dad Sins' suggested that, post-natal, you should record
your waist-size twice a week in case you turn into Kerry Katona, be
mindful not to be too jealous of the baby while being careful not to
neglect the missus, control your rage during the sleepless nights and
avoid being a 'baby bore' with friends.
All sound advice. All blatantly obvious to everybody except for the
sort of people who are never in a million years going to come anywhere
near a magazine like FQ, because it just won't fall into their social
circle. You know, inbreds and people who live on council estates.
Then we had several thrilling pages on father fashion, several pages on
faily cars, another pram advert and an odd section called 'Dad
Reviews', where the male parent cast his learned eye over the latest
music, books and films. Quite why anyone thought that simply because
one is a father one is suddenly a member of some kind of club where
because of this we all have similar tastes and expectations in our
entertainment basically beggars belief.
The magazine closed with a predictably trite quotes page (which they at
least had the good sense to title 'Blah Blah'), and even included one
from Tom Cruise. As Cruise quite clearly isn't anybody's natural
father, one wonders if this really was intelligent copy. Surely his
contribution would have been better served in AQ? And if they haven't
got around to publishing that yet, well, somebody really needs to pull
their finger out.
In short - and I realise I've rambled on a bit here but these things
need to be done - the whole thing is rubbish, and offers about as much
enlightment to a new parent as a packet of value nappies. Which doesn't
go any further than, "Crap. I won't be buying that again."
The thing is, being a great dad is basically pretty simple. All you
have to do to be a winner in your children's eyes is to make things
fun. A lot of fun. If your baby daughter can't find her dummy, make a
huge game out of tracking it down. And when you do, pick her up by her
legs, spin her upside down, start doing the theme from Mission
Impossible and relish in her laughter as she flaps around trying to
pick the thing up.
If your 6-year old wants to play ninjas with the baby's doll, a giant
Spider-Man figure and a few random bits of Lego, by God, let him.
Better yet, join in. Give the doll a deep, cockney voice and make
Spider-Man a bit of a whoopsie and you're pretty much guaranteeing
you'll never be dumped at a rest home.
And if your 10-year old comes home from school in a really foul mood,
once you've established that nothing serious has happened and he's just
being his usual I'm-really-17-year old self, take the **** something
chronic. Then, when he gets really wound up and says or does something
awful, ban him from the Playstation for the rest of the week. It's the
only way they learn. Heck, it worked for me.
Basically, use your common sense. Homework, putting together elaborate
art projects, decisions to do with clothes, or anything else that comes
with an unhealthy dollop of dull: pass that over to mum. Women live for
that stuff. It's a bit of a cliche that the man is the 'fun parent' and
the woman is the comforter, but like so many other stereotypes it's an
absolute fact and we all secretly know it.
When my wife and I were expecting our first child, some friends of ours
relished in enriching us with their own experiences of what, quite
clearly, were nightmare children. It put the fear in me, for sure, and
took me a good few months before I realised that it was actually all a
bit of a doddle. Yes, they fall down, and yes, sometimes they creep
away and hide at Tesco and absolutely terrify you for about nine
minutes, and yes, a bin full of nappies really does make you question
whether you could get by without nostrils, or perhaps just one, but
overall, when you really look at it, they're a snip.
Which, coincidentally, is something I must be getting myself, and soon.
I've had three of the little buggers now, and a forth one really does
sound like a bloody nightmare. I wonder if WH Smith has the new edition
of VQ?
--
http://www.soapboxx.co.uk
Street, I found myself in the position of being thoroughly bored.
I'd read the Evening Standard, skimmed through the London Lite and the
London Paper, and even had a quick look at somebody's discarded Metro
before realising I'm not one of those idiots who reads that morning's
free paper later that evening. Which, incidentally, is the very
definition of cheap. And daft. Not only are you too mean to hand over
fifty pence for a Standard, you're too moronic to realise that a dozen
other free papers, magazines and supplements are available for your
commuting pleasure each and every weekday evening. Clearly, you're
happy with old news, as long as it's free. What a result for humanity.
My iPod, curse it to Hades and back, was once again complaining of a
flat battery, even though I'd charged it to the hilt for seventy-two
hours and it was proclaiming itself satisifed for a good forty-eight of
them. No, clearly forty seconds of Won't Get Fooled Again was too much
for it, and it died a miserable and undignified death.
So, with a heavy sigh and a quick glance into the window of the train
to ensure that I looked really miserable, I let my eyes wander around
the carriage in search of amusement. I didn't have to look far, because
there, just in front of me, was a discarded magazine, still
shrinkwrapped.
And it had Alex Curran on the cover.
Alex Curran is, probably, the only woman I would ever leave my wife and
family for at 4am on a Tuesday morning. Every other day of the week she
wouldn't stand a chance, but by God, she's a cracking lass. I'm not
sure my wife even knows who she is, which of course works in my favour,
but if she saw her, she'd definitely agree. How could she not? We're
only human, after all.
I tore off the wrapping with something approaching bloodlust, and while
doing so, glanced at the rest of the cover. Stephen Gerrard was on
there, too, of course, which put me off slightly as he's (a) a prat,
and (b) about as deserving of Curran as Hitler was of Eva Braun. Which
however you break it down, is not very much at all. He's also, alas,
(c) a multi-millionaire, which I, again alas, am not, and probably says
as much about Curran as anything on her magnificent frame, because she
quite simply must realise that Gerrard isn't fit to lick the chewing
gum off of her stilettos. I wouldn't go as far as proclaiming her a
gold-digger, but let's face it: if Gerrard worked in Tesco, he'd be
doing well to get a kiss on the cheek from Ann Widdecombe.
I scanned the articles listed on the cover: '17 Deadly Dad Sins, And
How To Avoid Them', 'Are You A Pushy Parent?', 'Santa's Sorted: Twenty
Best Kid's Presents' and, and I kid you not, 'Staying Alive: John
Travolta's Guide To Parenting'. I suppose we should be grateful they
didn't ask Chris Langham.
And then I noticed the title of the publication: FQ. And finally it hit
me.
Father's Quarterly.
Really, who thinks this stuff up? Somewhere, at some point, some team
of somebodies brain-stormed this and concluded that the most appealing
title a magazine written by and about fathers could have was Father's
Quarterly. And, better, they could make it a heck of a lot cooler by
shortening it to FQ. Christ, even 'Dad's Mag' would have been better,
and they must have known this because underneath the title in small
print it excitedly states that it's 'The Essential Dad's Mag'.
But all this, of course, is absolutely moot, as I was soon to realise,
because in no way, shape or form is this magazine worth even one second
of your time, and it's about as far away from 'essential' as a human
being is from the moon. And as nobody has been there since 1972, that's
bloody miles.
Eager as I was to unveil more pictures of the delicious Curran, I
plouged on. It opened to a two-page Mamas & Papas pushchair advert,
which was good, because as a father I only took care of that months
before any of my children were born and don't really feel it all that
likely that I'll be looking to trade it in for a newer model. And of
course the parent in the advertisement was a woman, so well researched
there.
The index had a feature on some of the contributors, and one of them -
and I swear this is true - had the surname of Cholmondeley. If anybody
needs to not be having children, it's him.
A few adverts for 4x4s later we come to the first main feature, 'The
Top Ten Songs About Fathers', and one of them was only Madonna's
frickin' Papa Don't Preach.
Then the aforementioned John Travolta piece was upon me. 'If you let a
kid decide on their own, they'll fall asleep within 30 minutes. If
you're strict, they'll be up to midnight,' says the near-billionaire,
Jumbo Jet-owning and Scientology-preaching master to forty or fifty
servants. How many nappies do you think he's really changed,
realistically? A couple for each kid, maybe?
After a piece where the token female contributor whined that all of her
single mates were out having a blast while she was at home looking
after her child - yes, that does come with the job, dear - there was
another advert for a pushchair, again featuring a woman.
By now I was losing patience, so I rapidly flicked through the pages
trying to find the feature on Curran, which I'd assumed would come with
some kind of reward, like maybe a tastefully-done breastfeeding
sequence. But no. Because this was Father's Quarterly, it only had eyes
for Gerrard, and in several pages of him waffling on about how he hates
it when the baby wakes his fleet of nannies in their £2m mansion,
there was only one tiny picture of Curran, and she wasn't even naked.
The '17 Deadly Dad Sins' suggested that, post-natal, you should record
your waist-size twice a week in case you turn into Kerry Katona, be
mindful not to be too jealous of the baby while being careful not to
neglect the missus, control your rage during the sleepless nights and
avoid being a 'baby bore' with friends.
All sound advice. All blatantly obvious to everybody except for the
sort of people who are never in a million years going to come anywhere
near a magazine like FQ, because it just won't fall into their social
circle. You know, inbreds and people who live on council estates.
Then we had several thrilling pages on father fashion, several pages on
faily cars, another pram advert and an odd section called 'Dad
Reviews', where the male parent cast his learned eye over the latest
music, books and films. Quite why anyone thought that simply because
one is a father one is suddenly a member of some kind of club where
because of this we all have similar tastes and expectations in our
entertainment basically beggars belief.
The magazine closed with a predictably trite quotes page (which they at
least had the good sense to title 'Blah Blah'), and even included one
from Tom Cruise. As Cruise quite clearly isn't anybody's natural
father, one wonders if this really was intelligent copy. Surely his
contribution would have been better served in AQ? And if they haven't
got around to publishing that yet, well, somebody really needs to pull
their finger out.
In short - and I realise I've rambled on a bit here but these things
need to be done - the whole thing is rubbish, and offers about as much
enlightment to a new parent as a packet of value nappies. Which doesn't
go any further than, "Crap. I won't be buying that again."
The thing is, being a great dad is basically pretty simple. All you
have to do to be a winner in your children's eyes is to make things
fun. A lot of fun. If your baby daughter can't find her dummy, make a
huge game out of tracking it down. And when you do, pick her up by her
legs, spin her upside down, start doing the theme from Mission
Impossible and relish in her laughter as she flaps around trying to
pick the thing up.
If your 6-year old wants to play ninjas with the baby's doll, a giant
Spider-Man figure and a few random bits of Lego, by God, let him.
Better yet, join in. Give the doll a deep, cockney voice and make
Spider-Man a bit of a whoopsie and you're pretty much guaranteeing
you'll never be dumped at a rest home.
And if your 10-year old comes home from school in a really foul mood,
once you've established that nothing serious has happened and he's just
being his usual I'm-really-17-year old self, take the **** something
chronic. Then, when he gets really wound up and says or does something
awful, ban him from the Playstation for the rest of the week. It's the
only way they learn. Heck, it worked for me.
Basically, use your common sense. Homework, putting together elaborate
art projects, decisions to do with clothes, or anything else that comes
with an unhealthy dollop of dull: pass that over to mum. Women live for
that stuff. It's a bit of a cliche that the man is the 'fun parent' and
the woman is the comforter, but like so many other stereotypes it's an
absolute fact and we all secretly know it.
When my wife and I were expecting our first child, some friends of ours
relished in enriching us with their own experiences of what, quite
clearly, were nightmare children. It put the fear in me, for sure, and
took me a good few months before I realised that it was actually all a
bit of a doddle. Yes, they fall down, and yes, sometimes they creep
away and hide at Tesco and absolutely terrify you for about nine
minutes, and yes, a bin full of nappies really does make you question
whether you could get by without nostrils, or perhaps just one, but
overall, when you really look at it, they're a snip.
Which, coincidentally, is something I must be getting myself, and soon.
I've had three of the little buggers now, and a forth one really does
sound like a bloody nightmare. I wonder if WH Smith has the new edition
of VQ?
--
http://www.soapboxx.co.uk