In the 80s a Brazilian footballer named Carlos Kaiser staged his whole 24-year football career by faking injuries and being mates with sports journalists. He could barely kick a ball. One time he was worried he would be exposed, so before the game he started a fight witha fan and as a result got sent off before the game even started. After the match, Kaiser lied to bosses that the supporters were calling him a thief and he was forgiven and earned a six-month extension.
Things you need to hide from teenagers
1. Food: I bought a jar of Nutella once. It was eaten in a day. I did a calculation and presented him with the eye-watering fact that he'd eaten a 4000-calorie snack, which, to put it in the language of fast food, equalled a meal made up of a crispy chicken sandwich with bacon, fries, Coke and McFlurry with Oreos ... eaten twice.
2. Mouthwash: Teen oral hygiene is to be congratulated and encouraged, yes ... but if the opportunity cost of such vigilance is a dry toothbrush, then maybe not.
3. Your distaste of tattoos: This will only make them want one more. Say you love them - especially the neck ones or those super-cool lower leg ones that look like socks. The reverse psychology will work on most teens. If not, have a sincere talk about design. Talk about what are brand endorsements and that music preferences from adolescence may not stand the test of time and most importantly no faces of real people. (My son told me that if I died he would get a massive picture of me on his shoulder - much like Millie Elder did with her late father, Paul Holmes, but on her thigh. I suggested that something more symbolic of me might be better. He suggested an angry emoji.)
4. The real cost of labour: When your eldest turns 14 they are legally allowed to look after your younger spawn. This is a glorious time in a parent's life. Particularly single parents. The possibility of taking on a night job becomes possible ... unless you have a Helen Kelly negotiator of a son, who googled minimum wage and wanted to talk terms. (Don't panic! I screwed him down to $7 an hour by bluffing that Sally from next door said she'd do it for six bucks.)
Markers or delineators?
Chris Langdon of Westmere writes: "Contrary to your reader in yesterday's Sideswipe, my husband who worked for many years with the Ministry of Works and then Transit says 'marker posts' have always been called 'delineators'. Drove our kids mad during games of I spy when travelling as they could never get the 'something beginning with D'."
"Is this the greatest headline ever written about Pippa? It is like an erotic cryptic crossword," tweets a media enthusiast.
Local: Media death knocks, as they are known in the business of news, are when a reporter has to go and knock on the door of the family of someone recently deceased (usually horribly, and try and get information out of a grieving family. This explains it well.
