Son

I can't remember a time when my dad was proud of me. But if there's one thing that can make any dad worth his salt proud of his own flesh n' blood is to be able to land a ball on a green the size of a dining table and knock it in across a surface as smooth as a mirror. And not have long hair. Nor weird spiky hair, like Gareth Gates when he's gone seriously off the rails. But there comes a time in life when one wishes to make the old alma pater put a fatherly arm around the shoulder and say something along the lines of: "What ho old chap, you know, I thought you were a strange old fruit, but seeing you there biffing it in on the par 5 13th, I thought to myself, you know, old provider of alms and financial support through university education, that boy hasn't turned out too bad, I think you may have done rather a splendid job with the rotter after all". But we'd have probably fallen out by then, me retreating into a teenage persona whose behaviour wavers between sullenness and pointless, melodramatic confrontationism. I dream of a better tomorrow however, and I envisage us kicking back in the 19th over a pint of something my dad has pronounced mortifyingly incorrectly, me still suppressing many, many years of things I wanted to say but think better of it. But he'll be proud. And no matter what all other shit floats about in the grimy tides of vicissitude, that will make all this worth it.