IT is December. Good cheer is seeping into the western world on a wave of festive tinsel and jolly Christmas cards. But not in my house. There are two young children in my house. Oh what are jolly time we’re having! Today we open door number 4 on the advent calendar. We don’t have lollies in our advent calendar. We have cute festive scenes. Yesterday’s was a Christmas cracker. A picture of a Christmas cracker. “Where’s the lolly?” asked by granddaughter. “We don’t have lollies. We have pretty pictures. Isn’t it pretty…?” “They have lollies at Sarah’s house.” “Yes, but this isn’t Sarah’s — what are screaming for? We’re supposed…

I NOW know how old age is defined. In blokes, anyway. It has nothing to do with how often you have sex, or whether you sit down for a wee. It depends on whether you go to a barber. I told my 23-year-old daughter I was going to the barber. She asked: “What’s a barber?” When I told her she said: “Oh, you mean a hairdresser.” But a barber is not a hairdresser. As I understand it, a hairdresser is where you go when you want streaks in your hair. It’s where you go when you want loud music and a monologue from a Cool Chick about what she said to…

THEY say a fool learns by his own mistakes, but a wise man learns by the mistakes of others. A nice idea, but nonsense, of course. No one learns by the mistakes of others. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having Iraq; we probably wouldn’t have had World War I and we certainly wouldn’t have had World War II. And probably my daughter’s face would look different. It’s what happens when you try to force your head through the windscreen of a car. There was a bad moment there last Saturday morning when everyone feared she was brain damaged. I’m sure the doctors wanted to add: “Assuming she wasn’t already.” Which is…

I was a baby once. Not many people know that. I gurgled in my cot while my doting parents gazed fondly on. Probably my father said to my mother something like: “Look at him darling, One day he’ll be president of News Limited.” What happened? What happens for most of us? Why don’t parents save a lot of heartache — for themselves and for us — and just murmur instead, for instance: “Look at him darling. One day he’ll be old and penniless, with really thick toenails, selling insurance door to door.” I am in a reflective mood. Why? Because I have been writing these columns now for four years.…

HANDS up if you think a spa bath is a cool — even essential — element of modern living… … … … Right… hands up instead, then, if you think a spa bath is really, really good joke against a really, really gullible public by someone with a really, really sick sense of humour… I can’t be alone, surely! I have sat in a spa bath. With my wife. For the second time. The first time we tried it we took two cups of cocoa. Our children tell us we didn’t give it a Fair Go. So this time we took champagne. We booked the place and the man told…