Who's the Daddy: Getting Father’s Day just right

In the recent past yours truly has unwrapped an assortment of garden furniture on the big day that to the untrained eye looked suspiciously close to fitting in with the boss’s refined personal tastes. A chiminea, a drinks cooler and a fire pit. All great gifts and all thoroughly enjoyed by the boss and me down the years on long summer evenings in the garden with a glass of something nice and cold in our hands.

This year? Royal Blood’s new album on lovely vinyl and a book about The KLF, leading up to the night in August 1994 when they set fire to their last million quid in bundles of £50 notes.

Took them two hours, in all that time you’d have thought they’d have had a moment of clarity and said, “Hang on, what the **** are we doing? We could live like kings for the rest of our lives on this.” But no. Wooooof!

I hope our neighbours like Royal Blood, with their thumping basslines and thundering drums, because Mr Twirly is going to be playing Typhoons a lot over the next few weeks, particularly the track Boilermaker, perhaps the greatest record of this or any other year. Of course, back in the day Father’s Day was an occasion to be truly savoured. When our kids were little, wonky home made cards and even wonkier attempts at breakfast delivered on a tray in bed set you up for the rest of the year. Now they’re 21 and 19, nearly 6ft tall and with boyfriends to match who are far more fascinating and exotic than me, we generally communicate using a combination of texts, memes and grunts.

They’re adults and have their own lives, friends, jobs and money, which is exactly how we’d hoped things would turn out when they were little and demanded our full attention from dawn til dusk. And sometimes from dusk til dawn.

If you think the prospect of having kids is terrifying (and it really is) it’s nothing compared to the impending yawning chasm when they fly the nest for good – or at least til they graduate and come home with £45,000 of student debt and suitcases full of dirty washing.