Who's The Daddy: I’d be well and truly ‘Lost’ at any festival these days

Less than a minute long, each clip lasts for around a second and looks an absolute riot if you’re in your early 20s, but like some sort of Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award challenge if you’re middle-aged.

Daughter #1 and her friends look like they’ve had the time of their lives over four days. But the thought of sleeping on the ground in a tent over a long bank holiday weekend to the sound of “Whumph! Whumph! Whumph! Whumph!”, “Nnng-tss! Nnng-tss! Nnng-tss! Nnng-tss!” and “Boots ‘n’ cats ‘n’ boots ‘n’ cats ‘n’ boots ‘n’ cats ‘n’ boots ‘n’ cats” sounds about as appealing as a meeting with HR where they ask you to tell them - in forensic detail - what was so funny about that joke you emailed to everyone at work an hour ago.

Once upon a time in the early 90s yours truly ran the music pages of a newspaper in the north west and knew every band in the NME on sight. Looking at the line-up at this year’s festival I’d heard of five acts from, I dunno, more than 100.

You read about blokes in their 50s wandering off in an advanced state of refreshment at festivals on the afternoon of day 1, and their corpse found slumped in a stinking “Turdis” midway through the following week when organisers scorch the earth during clear-up. Well, that’s me, that is, if I’m ever dumb enough to go to a festival again that’s 30 years too young for me.

Plus, Daughter #1 tells me that her phone told her that she did 146,500 steps around the site over the weekend, which sounds like a training camp for the Olympics, although how many of those were achieved dancing to “Whumph! Whumph! Whumph! Whumph!”, “Nnng-tss! Nnng-tss! Nnng-tss! Nnng-tss!” and “Boots ‘n’ cats ‘n’ boots ‘n’ cats ‘n’ boots ‘n’ cats ‘n’ boots ‘n’ cats” for hours on end is anyone’s guess.

These days the closest I get to rock ‘n’ roll is getting some of my early 90s indie albums professionally cleaned by a hi-fi dealer in Preston on a machine that costs more than double what our car’s worth. And that’s more than close enough, thank you.

Meanwhile, 4,216 or so miles away, Daughter #2 is about to compete (checks calendar) her fourth week of a six-month contract working on one of the world’s biggest cruise ships as it sails from New York to the Bahamas and back, over and over again.

It’s fair to say it’s been eventful. Up at 5am to get 6,000 passengers off the boat after their week’s holiday and 6,000 more on to start theirs, all within four hours, is no mean feat. And then she did a day’s work.

Last week Daughter #2’s boss told her that she wished all new starters were like her. Patient, good humoured, an ability to pick things up quickly and get along with people. All qualities she has inherited from her mother.

To read more Who’s The Daddy click here