Dad’s World with Jonathan deBurca Butler

THERE was little point talking to them anymore. They’d been sparring intermittently for the guts of 45 minutes now and it was verging on the ridiculous. 

Such was the dramatic exaggeration of the exchanges that it was like watching a parody of an ill-tempered village derby in the lower divisions of the Italian football league.

The simmering tension was punctuated only by the increasingly inevitable petty shove or punch, the victim would scream operatically, make sure the parental referee saw it, before hitting the deck like a sack of wet flour and rolling around screaming for their lives.