Written with self-excoriating candour and the driest humour, comes a book about being a dad from one of our best loved journalists.
āFor me the hardest task of fatherhood was always the oppressive obligation to lead by example. My sons have been present on countless occasions when I have, as we say in my homeland, completely lost my shit. During these stressful moments I have often wished to turn to them as a judge might to a jury and say, āPlease strike the next few minutes from the recordā, but many of those instances are chronicled in these pages. Itās not because Iām any less ashamed now; itās because if I left them out there wouldnāt be enough for a book.
Perhaps this is my lifeās true purpose: maybe Iām here to teach my sons that self-esteem comes and goes ā it can get rolled right out of you at short notice ā but that you still can get by in life without any, as long as you donāt want to be a contestant on The Apprentice. That, at least, is my experience. And for what itās worth, my example.ā