Who's The Daddy: Looking back on successfully winging it bringing up kids

Pennis was a character dreamt up by Kaye who would turn up at red carpet events, armed with a BBC microphone, ambush unsuspecting Hollywood royalty and ask them insulting questions in the hope of provoking a reaction. The BBC mic he waggled at them gave him a thin veneer of credibility and A-listers gormlessly toddled over like flies to a spider’s web.

Two of the best ones were Demi Moore, “Are there any circumstances, if it wasn’t gratuitous and it was tastefully done, would you consider keeping your clothes on in a movie?” And Steve Martin, “How come you’re not funny any more?” Ouch!

Martin’s came in like a wrecking ball this week when daughter #2 asked if I could send her around 10 Who’s The Daddy? columns from when it first started back in 2006 for a project she’s doing at university.

So I dug them out, had a quick read of a handful and pinged them over. I don’t want to blow my own doo-dah or anything but I’ll say this - this column used to be funny.

One column was about a trip to Manchester where we all stayed in a hotel’s family room for a couple of nights and did our level best to keep a seven-year-old and a four-year-old entertained, which is waaaay harder than it sounds.

The whole column, headlined “The princesses of moan”, was a list of every self-entitled gripe from “That tap is too splashy”, “Mummy, she said sorry but I don’t think she means it”, to “Ooh! I need a poo! I want one as well. No! No! Me first.”

Others included a trip to A&E after daughter #2 bust her arm falling off a trampoline, the Christmas daughter #1 left a note out for Santa which read, “Dear Santa, plesese (sic) tick in this box if you are real” (she works in law now, surprise surprise!) and the time the boss caught them scribbling in biro all over the face of their Girl’s World and then delivered a world-class, blood-curdling telling off at little more than a whisper. Dear reader, even I was terrified and I hadn’t done anything.

Comedy gold. Anyway, daughter #2 enjoyed them so much she asked for a load more, which got me thinking. I should do something with them.

You know, the funny ones.Looking back on it now the first 100 or so columns read like a manual on how to successfully wing it when raising little kids.