Caroline O'Donoghue: Why fathers are notoriously difficult to buy for
This weekend is my father’s birthday, and I find myself in the exact same position as I did last year: legally forbidden from seeing him — and trying to overcompensate with something from Amazon. It’s hard. We were both born on decade-turning years — him 1950, me 1990 — so we always hit the big milestones a few weeks apart. Last year was particularly difficult. My 30th and his 70th were both jolly but reasonably downbeat affairs as we promised one another that the real party would come next year.
It is now next year and the real party is not coming. So here I am, doing what every millennial child does when birthdays and Christmas rolls around: I look at gift guides. I trawl endless online lists, all called things like ‘The Best Gifts for EVERY Kind of Dad’, ‘Presents for the PICKIEST Fathers’ and ‘Here’s Some Fancy Shit for that Old Guy Who Lives In Your Mum’s House’.
