On the Seventh Day, when God was having a rest, Satan sneaked onto the Earth and made playbarns.

If you don’t know what playbarns are, just imagine a large corrugated steel shed, painted in primary colours, filled with padded scaffolding, rope netting and large plastic cushions, and usually boasting a “restaurant” in the corner.

Any six-year-old Little Madam on earth would gladly swap Daddy and Barbie for an afternoon in such a place. Every Saturday afternoon up to one thousand ankle-biters of assorted shapes, sizes and colours all contribute to the pandemonium – in our case after a week of being “so good, as good as gold!” (Little Nutter has proven that he has more sense than his big sister: he hates the place.)

So whilst Little Madam and all of the Clumsy Fairies from her class at school charged all over the rope swings and drainpipe slides, poor old Daddy was forced to endure an ear-pounding of awesome proportions. (Incidentally, when you read on the menu that only top-quality ketchup is used in the restaurant, you just know that by comparison Colonel Sanders is an Egon Ronay rated five star chef.)

Just to make sure that the playbarn facililites were used to maximum advantage, staff fed the Clumsy Fairy Gang on a special party diet: everything was made almost entirely of sugar. Almost entirely: a cocktail of tartrazine, idigotine, gamma carotene and cochineal ensured an extra ‘kick’ of hyperactivity – all washed down with a sugary infusion of sulphur dioxide and butylated hydroxyanisole. I cannot describe how thrilled I was when I read the labels on the sweets that my allergic-to-everything, eczma suffering Little Madam was gorging herself on. Still, at least the sweets and drinks matched the corporate colour-scheme…

Right now, Little Madam is tearfully de-toxing in the playroom.

My name is Gareth, and the only reason I’m not an alcoholic is that I hate meetings.