Ode to my dad
Right, my dad is quite simply brilliant. [as you can see this is a long one and may be completely uninteresting to anyone who doesn’t know him]

A few things that back up my hypothesis:
1.Regular failure at remotely foreign words: I'm making sushi for my family and my dad is 'helping' (code for 'hovering around the kitchen and asking when it'll be ready'). He shouts out to my mum "love, have we got any wasmati?"

2. On the same theme of getting words wrong, we were on a family holiday about 6 years back, five of us in the car when 'living on a prayer' comes on the radio. We're all singing along when my sister asks my dad what he's singing and we all quieten down to hear him... "Wooooaaah, we're halfway there! Woooaaah living on a beeeaaar!" It's been the default lyric ever since and he's never been able to explain why he thought bon Jovi lived on top of an ursine abode.

3. Typical middle aged man syndrome of waving vaguely and saying tenuous synonyms when he's looking for something.
"Where’s the... the thing... the small thing... the stripy thing?" (a cat)
"There’s the... microwave... toaster... phone...*pokes hand with other finger*" (remote control)

4. Amazing lack of coordination coupled with a spot of bad luck:
We were on a holiday when I was small and were walking through an empty French field. My dad managed to find the only tent peg in the entire place and fall straight over it. With the high grass it looked like he'd been taken down by a hidden velociraptor.

Trick or treating with us kids. We left the house and crossed the road. He promptly tripped up the curb and hit his chin on the pavement. His hands, generally useful for not breaking your face on the floor, were jammed in his jacket pockets.

I've always been horrendous at football, and of course it's a dad's responsibility to teach this oh so useless skill. I'm booting the ball around the park with absolutely no control over where it goes, and my dad decided to step in. "watch this, son" says he, as he places the ball and takes a little run up. the uneven grass shifts the ball ever so slightly as he swings his foot and he ends up stepping onto the ball, his momentum and the springiness of the ball catapulting him up into the air and the cruel mistress that is gravity puts him on his arse.

On top of all the things he's done over the years to amuse us unwittingly; he's a bit of a practical joker. He was once stripping the paint off the front door and decided to yell "shit, the door's caught fire! Bring water!" my mother does so, see his grinning face and dumps it on his head.

He’s also universally liked and respected in his private life and his career and has an admirable sense of fair play and morals. He’s raised three children who have had a fantastic start in life and I pretty much want the life he’s got when I’m his age. He’s a role model and a friend and I’m incredibly lucky to have him as a dad. Mostly though, he just cracks me up.

EDIT: Completely forgot the best story about him! I was 15 and he was dropping me off at a house party.(as with all good parents he would drop me off around the corner) He suddenly says to me "by the way son, if you ever want to bonk a bird, just tell me and I'll take the girls out for the day." horribly embarrassed ESP says "er... thanks dad..." not picking up on the oh so subtle death from shame occurring in his son, he goes "have you got any condoms? NO? right, here's three quid, pop into that pub and buy some from the vending machine!" I can’t think of a more heartfelt gift to a teenage son than the offer of an empty house for sex; despite the horror I was feeling at the time. The whole incident is never spoken of again, apart from every opportunity I can get to say “bonk a bird”.
(ElectricSexPants would like to be the Sultan of something, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 13:54, 2 replies)

I enjoyed reading that
*click
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 13:58, closed)

giggling like a loon
at the cat bit
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 16:26, closed)