HUMAN NURTURE

Let me say from the outset that my daughter, who is my only child, is a delightful person and I couldn't have hoped for nicer offspring. Her name, Amie, was chosen by her mother and the deal was that if our child had been male, I would get to choose his name. My son would have been Daniel.

Occasionally I wonder how it would have been to be father to Daniel. Would we have done lots of father/son things? Would he have made me proud of him? Would he have been proud of me?

I don't have to dwell on the 'what-might-have-been' for too long though because the luck which I have always felt to be a feature of my life provided me with a step-son. I had the privilege of helping to bring him up from the age of three so I hadn't missed too much. We got on very well and he honoured me by referring to me as 'Dad' many times.

He has grown into a really lovely man and has a charming wife. He has a great sense of humour, is very personable, honest and well-meaning. In short, you couldn't hope for a nicer son.

I claim no credit for this. Obviously, he inherited none of his character from me and I have no evidence as to whether any of his good traits have come from being nurtured by his mother and I. The only thing I can glory in, is that I taught him to drive which he is very good at. As to the rest, I can only say that if anything in his make-up has resulted from my influence, I am a very proud man.

A GRAVE MATTER

I recently hosted a big family reunion in the Midlands. There were a total of 88 of us with a further 10 who joined us after the meal. It was much enjoyed by everyone and their pleasure more than repaid all the hard work which I had put in to the event.

At one stage, I was chatting to a newly discovered second cousin who I had met on the internet through our mutual interest in ancestry. She suggested that we might go exploring one day, armed with our cameras, and try to find the addresses where our shared ancestors had lived.

This was music to my ears as I had often thought to do the same thing myself and with two heads being long established as better than one we should have a lot of success in our quest and a lot of fun too. We would also be able to track down a few gravestones which would be further photo opportunities.

Having decided to go ahead with the idea at some future date, I suggested to my wife that she might like to join us for our trip to Birmingham which is where our family roots lie.

She jumped at the offer and I immediately thought how the third person would make it easier to take photos of the other two. However, this plan then went by the board when she said "Obviously I shan't be interested in your families' homes and even less in their graves but you can drop me at the shops and pick me up when you've finished".

I'll never understand how she can pass up the chance to visit my family gravestones just to go round the biggest shopping centre in Europe. Women!

BRIEFLY SPEAKING

I had a curious conversation with my wife recently during which she informed me that in her opinion there was no greater turn-off than seeing a man 'adjust' himself. She added that she was very glad that this particular behaviour was not included among my long list of bad habits. She then thought for a moment and asked "Why do so many men do that?"

Well it's an easy question to answer. The reason is that they are wearing the wrong underwear. In the good/bad (delete as appropriate) old days, British gentlemen had little choice. We wore 'Y-fronts' which we had bought from Marks & Spencer. These were available in a choice of colours - namely white - and after a few washes they turned uniformly grey.

At some stage, the fashion of wearing 'boxers' came in. These were named after the style of shorts worn by ring fighters which were designed to allow freedom of leg movement. They seemed to prove popular with our lady friends and gradually, Y-fronts lost popularity.

Now boxer shorts have an obvious disadvantage. Anything which dangles has to choose to fall to the left or the right, there is no centre ground. Having made that decision, the dingle-dangles are periodically squashed between the underwear and your thigh and need to be rescued - hence the 'adjustment' which my wife finds so distasteful.

My own solution to the problem is to wear the type of briefs which have a pouch at the front in which to keep your crown jewels both safe and supported. When playing sport, I wear the 'hipster' style which is a little more close fitting and in bed I wear boxers because they allow air circulation and the dangle issue doesn't occur when lying prone in bed.

So there we have it gentlemen. If you wear the right underwear there will be no need to adjust yourself and your fingers will therefore be free to pick your nose with.

PRO CREATION

I have a lovely photo of myself taken immediately after the birth of my daughter. She is lying on my lap and I am gazing down full of obvious pride and awe at this wonderful gift which somehow shrouded in mystery, my wife and I created. There can't be many better moments in life than the first view of your own new born child. For those lucky enough to experience it, it is a feeling that will stay in your memory throughout your lifetime.

It is precisely because I remember that feeling so well that I recognised it again the other day when I experienced it for the second time. No, I haven't miraculously conceived. If I had I'd be demanding a refund from the clinic and a grovelling apology for the expensive and excruciating pain which they caused me.

No, I had created a totally different baby. It was round and perfectly formed. It was beautiful. It was tough skinned but soft and yielding within. It was a gorgeous shade of brown. It even smelled almost as good as a new born baby. In short, I had baked my first ever loaf of bread.

I had toiled hard to create it and kneaded it to within an inch of its life. The effort proved to be worth ever bead of sweat as I sliced the crusty loaf, lavished it with butter and devoured it sensuously. It was quite delicious. The next day it also made perfect toast.

As a result of this, I am so pleased with my new creative ability, that I can't wait to get another bun in the oven.

CONSUMER HUMOUR

Consider for a moment the humble toothbrush. An everyday essential I'm sure you'll agree. Now imagine that you manufacture them.

First you need to make it look good and feel good in the hand. Then it needs to feel good in the mouth and do its job well. Assuming you got all that right you fix the price and start selling them. But wait. Did you make a really good quality one which will last for a couple of years? Oops - then you'll go bust. People wont need to buy another from you because you did so good a job that they're still using the old one.

So will you make a substandard version instead whose compact bristles will resemble a hedgehog's bad hair day after a few weeks? Then no-one will buy your brush ever again. We need a compromise. Let's make a brush which is designed to wear out after say 6 months of use. Job done. But wait again. Even though the brush will last for 6 months, you would really like people to change it after say 4 months. This would add a third to your profits right? So how to persuade them to change the brush earlier than necessary? Easy. Colour the bristles so that the nice bright colour has gone after 4 months which you tell people means that it needs changing.

You may have encountered this principle with other products. Do you have a printer attached to your computer? Then no doubt you get annoying messages telling you the ink level is very low and you should change the cartridge. Hello? When the ink RUNS OUT then I will change the cartridge OK? In the meantime stop with the messages.

Have a battery powered computer mouse? "ATTENTION. THE BATTERIES IN YOUR MOUSE NEED REPLACING". I beg to differ. The cursor still moves which is how I was able to turn off that annoying message.

You can see their problem. They make a good product but they want you to buy more. The other trick that they use is to make you buy more of the product than you need. Have you tried buying just one battery recently? No chance. Commonly they are in packs of eight, four if you're lucky.

I needed to buy some dental floss sticks. You know the things. They're shaped like a mini catapult with some floss strung over the end. Of course once the floss breaks, its useless. So the wise consumer will find some with very strong floss - unbreakable would be excellent.

Eureka! I found the very thing. According to the packaging information, the floss fibre is the same stuff which they use to make bulletproof vests. It is also (I quote), "engineered not to stretch, shred or break during use". So tell me this. If it is so tough that it won't break when I use it, why do I have to buy a pack of 36 of the wretched things?

HEALTH & DANGER

I've just been to a 90th birthday party. The dear old chap is well into his second childhood so we played musical chairs and pass the parcel. I jest.

It was actually a 'celebratory luncheon'. Luncheons are so much tastier than lunches don't you think? In preparation for the event I went to buy a 90th birthday card. Not surprisingly, there were a lot less of these to choose from than say 70th birthday cards. However, I eventually managed to find one that wasn't covered in lavender there being the presumption, which is supported by statistics, that females live longer than males.

Then there was the problem of a gift. This wasn't easy. I mean, what do you buy for a 90 year-old who has evidently been there, done that and has a wardrobe of tee shirts to prove it?

I headed for the book shop where I so often find the solution to my gift buying dilemmas and ploughed through all the ageist joke books about senior moments aimed at those in Death's waiting room. No good. If I couldn't raise a laugh I was sure he wouldn't and anyway, I had no idea what sort of sense of humour, if any, he had.

Then, like a Yukon prospector finding a precious nugget of gold, I found a piece of treasure in the form of a book of photographs called "When I were a lad" by Andrew Davies. The subtitle is "Snapshots from a time that Health & Safety forgot" and it this lack of awareness of danger which provides the humour of the book. It was a delight.

Let me give just three examples to remind you that there was life before the Jobsworths moved in.

Firstly the front cover has a wonderful shot (sic) of a schoolgirls' archery competition. One girl has drawn the bow and is about to release the arrow towards a distant target. Immediately to the left of the target are serried ranks of schoolchildren and staff blissfully unaware that if the arrow were to deviate just slightly, they would instantly become a human kebab.

The second example is of a family who are proudly displaying their new 'conservatory'. This is too grand a word for it since it was really a lean-to with a corrugated plexiglass roof. How best to show off this wonderful addition to their home than by standing the entire family which included several children, on top of said plexiglass roof which was clearly suffering under the weight?

My favourite of all though, must be the photo with accompanying text which said that if you paid the man a farthing, he'd dangle you off the back of the tram as it went along. The picture shows the tram conductor leaning over the rail clutching the back of a small boy's sweater who is wriggling with glee as face down, he sees the road whizz past underneath him.

I feel sure that the book will bring back some happy memories for the 90th birthday boy and who knows? Maybe that was him hanging off the back of the tram.

BEST WISHES

We've all done the 'What if we won the lottery?' pipe dream and sorted out how we would spend the money. No doubt like me you were a little more or a little less generous depending on how much the winnings were. It's sad though that this hypothetical flight of fancy has pushed an old favourite out of the picture.

Remember Aladdin? Suppose you found the lamp, buffed it up and the Genie offered you just one wish.......and no, you can't wish for three more wishes!

I've pondered this and one thought was a new life as a bronzed adonis prowling the Californian beaches catching the eye of all the beautiful females. I'd be single of course and would court a different girl each day enjoying the thrill of the chase and the bedroom encounters to follow (sigh).

Then 'pop' goes the bubble as I mentally wind on a few weeks and realise just how bored I would become with it all. Besides, the worst thing about this scenario is that it doesn't include my lovely wife.

Have you decided on your wish yet?

To help you along, my next potential wish is for my wife and I to be young again - back to those heady days of courtship when we would spend hours on the phone finishing with 'You hang up first" - "No you hang up first". (Sigh).

Then I remember some of the difficult times we went through when times were hard or loved ones died. I don't want to go through all that again. Overall I am very happy in my own skin even though it may be over-stretched and a touch flabby.

So here's the deal. My one wish would be that as I continue to grow old disgracefully, comfortably financed by the kids' inheritance, I wish that I can retain my mental faculties right to the end. If only so that I can continue to see through the lure of those Californian blondes.