Episode 5 John Bishop's Britain

APPLAUSE

Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Good evening and welcome to John Bishop's Britain.

CROWD CHEERS

The subject I'll be looking at tonight is parenthood and family.

They say that the family that plays together stays together.

In our house, we like to play a game called,

"Let's sit in separate rooms and argue via text messaging."

LAUGHTER

To help me get to grips with what parenthood and family means to Great Britain,

I've spoken to loads of people about it.

I know, it looks like a really shit version of Celebrity Squares.

They've given us their opinions and here's a few of the highlights.

My number-one grandson.

-All right, girl?

-Breastfeed me.

-He just yakked in my mouth.

-And I can see it!

-Which is handy.

-I HATE you.

We'll be hearing what they think throughout the show.

Plus, there'll be the odd sketch to explain what's going on.

So, parenthood and family.

Now, before I proceed, I've stood here just by chance and I have to ask,

you're nearly there.

-How pregnant are you?

-31 weeks.

Is this your first child?

-It is.

-Anyone in the room got kids, give me a cheer.

CHEERING

OK, anyone in the room without kids, give me a cheer.

LIVELY CHEERING

Hear that?

At the moment you're in that second group. You know the happy group?

That's where you are now.

-Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?

-No, keeping it a surprise.

What about names?

-Um, we've got a shortlist.

-I tell you what will happen now,

I tell you exactly what will happen,

YOU will have the baby, YOU will start crying,

YOU will pick the name.

That is what happens,

that's why my kids are called Shannon, Tracey and Becky,

which for three boys is a bit...

-LAUGHTER

-We all had our kids quite early, to be honest,

we got married and then had them quite early,

mainly because... Well, I'm a good shot.

But they grow up and they stop being a lovely baby

and they start walking and making noise,

and then that noise becomes words,

and then words become arguments.

That's how it works. I mean,

I've got three teenage boys,

I had to look at a picture of them the other day when they were babies

just to remind myself that I used to love them.

We did that thing because we got together quite early and decided to have kids quite early.

Somehow, Melanie, my wife, had told her dad,

she told her mum and her mum told her dad.

I remember being in our kitchen, making a cup of tea,

and my wife's dad come into the kitchen and said,

"I believe you're trying for a baby."

I went, "Yes."

-He said, "How's it going?"

-LAUGHTER

I said, "I'm doing my best, like."

"It'd be better if she put a bit more effort in, to be honest with you.

"The boots would help a bit more often."

When do you ever talk to your wife's dad about how often you're shagging your wife?

This is ridiculous, unless you live in Norwich, no-one does that.

Then there's that thing as well you must've had,

and other people in this room would've had it,

that moment when you realise that you've made your partner pregnant.

That wonderful moment where you realise that you've created

a new life. When you've created the union of your DNA with her DNA.

That moment she comes out of the bathroom and says, "I'm definitely pregnant."

I remember when one of my mates said it happened to his wife.

I said, "What did you do? When it happened to me, I was overjoyed."

He said, "I was overjoyed and I really wanted to kiss her,

"I was full of emotion, but as she was stood there,

"I couldn't help thinking, she's got piss on a stick."

Instead, I just went, "well done"!

And what happens when that happens, you get in that first phase

where you go, "We are pregnant."

"We are pregnant." This is a wonderful thing. "WE are pregnant."

And then you see what happens and you think,

"Thank God it's just her."

Cos I don't...I don't relish it at all, honest to God,

I don't relish the pregnancy thing for a girl,

I think youse bloom and you do well, men wouldn't do it.

We would never ever have babies, we would just give up.

I mean, the idea that women become obsessed with... Or like IVF.

IVF treatment is a massive thing and it brings joy to a lot of people,

it's one of the things that the Government is suggesting might be cut,

major cutbacks, cos apparently, it costs £7,500 for a treatment.

Let's just look at that for a moment,

£7,500 to have kids.

You could get on a plane, fly business class to Malawi

and you can come back with a couple of twins.

But then it happens. That's what happens with us.

We've got three and they're never always the same,

but for me, the best one was the middle one when the waters broke.

It was one of those moments you wish for all your life, as a bloke.

It was a waters-break moment at half one in the morning.

So it was downstairs, in the car,

which meant I've got a girl in the car, having a baby,

for the first time in my life, I could drive like a lunatic.

And I drove through every red light I could find.

EVERY red light. I must've done 110 in the 30mph zones,

I drove mentally.

I drove everywhere like a mad man. Not one policeman stopped me.

That is not fair.

I even took a 15-mile diversion

cos I was hoping for that moment

for a copper to come up with blue lights and go, "Where do you think you're you going?"

"She's having a baby, piss off, nobhead!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

But not everyone has the same experience.

When a woman is in labour,

it is quite tiring for the husband, isn't it?

It's quite hard work, you know?

Well, it wasn't too painful for ME.

Let me tell you, it was like hell. It was..."David!"

And there she is, screaming. Shouting, she's in pain.

It's all your fault! And of course, it IS always my fault.

"Georgie Major, I HATE you."

When my wife was in labour, I thought she made too much noise,

but I think she'd been watching EastEnders for far too long.

Watching my girlfriend give birth was like watching my favourite pub

burn down in front of my eyes.

It was vile. Blood, poo, water.

I just ran out. Shit myself.

She said, "Do you want to cut the umbilical cord?"

I was overrun with emotion and said, "Yes, I'll do it".

She was screaming and shouting for a few hours, like they do.

I was given these massive scissors, it's like a big rubber belt -

I just couldn't cut it. Every cut I made, blood was going in my face.

After some time, I got bored of this and thought,

"I'm quite hungry now, so I'll get a McDonald's."

As I snapped it, the midwives, four of them in the room,

all cheered and gave me a round of applause.

They were all patting me. She's just given birth, but I took full credit.

By the time I got back, she had a baby, which was handy,

so we had burger and chips. My wife didn't, of course,

she was still being sick and other unpleasant things.

It was an amazing feeling cutting the umbilical cord, the best moment of my life.

And Lana daughter being born, of course. A close runner-up.

APPLAUSE

Can I just ask, is there any blokes in here who's ever cut the umbilical cord?

No. You just don't...

You have? YOU have?

Yeah. Was it your baby?

LAUGHTER It was, yeah.

And what made that happen, if you don't mind me asking.

Was it a midwife's idea, your idea?

It was a midwife's idea, yeah, hers.

Oh, rea...

-You're a midwife? You're the midwife?

-Yeah.

Are you actually with him?

I mean, let's get this straight, is your job being a midwife?

Yeah, and I was having the baby.

You were the... Oh! Oh, I just thought it was one of those days

where you bring your partner to work.

"This is my husband. Go on, have a go, son. go on."

And you...you cut the cord?

Chewed through it.

Chewed through it?

Because it was said to me, "Do you want to do it?"

And on the three occasions, I went, "No chance!"

I just thought, "No chance." I've got a mate who's a builder,

and his wife said, "Do you want to cut the cord?" He was halfway through

and he said, "I've got another cord I started...

"I'll be back next week."

Now, having a baby's completely different.

A mate of mine wanted to have a baby in a birth pool.

They said to him, apparently, it was booked. Booked?!

It's a birth pool! A birth pool, it's not a swimming baths! But it was booked.

He was told that you could rent one. You can RENT a birth pool.

You can rent something to put in your living room.

It's probably going to be a paddling pool and sit in front of the telly,

so that your wife can have a baby in front of the telly.

You'd be sat there watching EastEnders, "Do us a favour, can you just move?"

Why d'you want a birth pool anyway? Why d'you want a baby in water?

Unless you're having a mermaid, it makes no sense.

Advice for any prospective father,

my only words of advice is that if you're going to be there before the birth,

do not watch Alien the night before.

That definitely changes your view of things,

cos to be honest, it's becoming mysterious, we've got all these different ways of doing it,

which are wonderful, but mammals have been giving birth

for thousands of years and they've never made such a fuss of it.

I'm not saying it's not hard, but women do go on and on and on.

I know it hurts, I know what pain is, I stood on a plug once. I know.

It is an amazing occasion.

And you must have, again... You've seen it loads of times,

you must have seen loads of blokes cry and you will cry,

I guarantee you will cry,

cos that's what happens, cos all of a sudden this flood of emotion comes out,

and it's an amazing, joyous occasion.

What happens on every single occasion, the midwife always says, "Do you want a photograph?"

I remember the first time, the baby come out, I'm holding this beautiful baby

and I'm looking with the love that you can't possibly imagine,

and my wife had been in labour for over 12 hours.

I look and she said, "Do you want a photograph?"

I looked at my wife and thought, "God, you look a frigging mess!"

I said, "Just me and the baby.

"I can't let her see herself like that!"

She looks... No, just me and him.

And then afterwards as well, every dad who has a baby, you get the dad,

you know, the proud dad pictures,

"Look, we just had a baby, look, we just had a baby."

You'll be wetting the baby's head.

-HE MUMBLES

-"That's my son, that's MY son Steven."

You think, "Yeah, maybe you should have come all the way out before you took the picture."

But what happens as well, the other healthcare professional that gets involved,

after the midwife, you get passed on to a thing called a health visitor

who's someone who's done an NVQ in papier-mache.

Honest to God, the most useless person...

I'm not having a go at health visitors, I know you do a good job.

But if you're going to be a health visitor for new parents,

come at two o'clock in the morning,

come when they want to stab each other in the eye.

Come when they've had no sleep for four days,

not at half ten for a cup of tea and a piece of cake.

Because all the paraphernalia you have to buy as well,

it's all built around this theory of all this fear

that we need to have...

You're paranoid about it, so you buy all this paraphernalia,

and anyone here who's had a baby's had that moment

when a baby gets really congested and there's nothing you can do,

you can't put a tissue on it and say "blow".

They don't know what you're saying.

So...so...there's this device in France

and it's a tube, right?

-And you put it in your mouth.

-GROANING

And there's a tube at the end like that,

and it comes down to, like, a little vessel.

And then there's a tube coming out, and you put it in the baby's nose

-and you suck the snot out the nose.

-GROANING

And it collects in the vessel, it is,

-it's like siphoning petrol, it is.

-LAUGHTER

It's the same effect if it goes too far, you go, "Unh!"

But no, it's genuine! It's a genuine thing and any parent in this room,

when your child's congested,

will do that, you go, "Mh-nh, we got any?"

It works, it works.

It also explains why every time you look at a French person,

they've got little heads.

And we've gone crazy with the paraphernalia that you get.

I was at a friend's the other day

and they had a barbecue, and his son who's about that age,

about two and a half, three, he's at that potty training age.

We're having a barbecue and he has a dump in the garden.

I said, "That's ridiculous," he goes, "No, it's OK."

"We've learnt that when he does that, what we do then

"is we put the dump in this potty and he sits on the potty."

"And then he gets up and goes, ' "My poo's in the potty,

' "I put poo in potty,' ",

and I said, "How do you make him sit on the potty?"

This is an actual invention, this.

He said, "It's a musical potty."

So when he sat on the potty, it went...

# Ding, de-ding, de-ding, de-ding. #

He said, "That will encourage him to sit on the potty,"

I said, "No, it won't!"

I said, "That will go into his subconscious.

"When he's 18, first goes to a nightclub,

"he hears music, he's going to shit himself!"

It's ridiculous. He takes him to baby yoga. Baby yoga!?

I said, "why are you taking him to baby yoga?"

He said, "He loves it, he bends..."

I said, "He bends cos he can't stand up!"

He hasn't got a choice!

But anyway, after you've dealt with the baby years,

you realise that you're sentenced to life with children.

I don't think anybody likes anyone else's kids.

I really like kids, but I don't want to hear about them on Facebook.

Not many people say that, but I hate anyone else's kids.

The worst is when they put pictures of their children on their profiles.

-It's disturbing.

-When you first take your baby home,

I know myself and a friend, you just look at it and think,

"What do we do now?"

The whole process of having kids and being a parent is fascinating.

I've had some disgusting moments with my baby.

Once, I was lying in bed in the morning,

happy to be alive, smiling, holding her above my head, she was going "Aah..."

And if it isn't, then something's going wrong, really.

Wrong time to do it after a bottle, she yakked in my mouth.

It was milky and lumpy. It was so thick.

The best thing about my children is they dress up for me

in my Star Wars costumes.

And they manage to just make an appearance, do whatever they want.

I have Joshua, who's 18, and he plays my Darth Vader.

And I can see it, and it doesn't work on me.

Shannon is my next one down. She makes a great mother Ewok.

They are very, very intelligent, even if they're miniature.

I don't think they enjoy it!

I think we now know that Social Services are going to go around

and find out what's going on with their mother Ewok.

Also, you have this thing with kids,

we have a relationship with them that you never used to have.

You spend time with them in a different way.

I remember when my one of my youngest lads, he would've been about five

and his mum said, "look, he's five now,

"it's time that you took him to go and get a pair of shoes."

So I took him to Clarks to get his feet measured -

before going somewhere cheaper.

I said, "you don't want them, they've got lights on, they catch fire."

We're in the Trafford Centre, he's just under five

and he turned round to me and said, "Dad, I need a poo."

Everyone knows if you've got a toddler,

and the toddler turns to you and says, "I need a poo" -

that means he could have a poo now,

or he could have a poo next Tuesday.

You've basically got a poo bomb in your hands.

You don't know what to do, you don't know whether to take the risk and walk,

or just run in a panic to the nearest place, to get rid of this potential poo.

I picked him up in the Trafford Centre and run through the shops.

There's a place that I never knew existed in the Trafford Centre.

I come to this place, they must have them in shopping centres all over the country.

It said on the door, "family toilet."

I walked into the family toilet. It WAS a family toilet.

It had the little toilet and the daddy toilet.

I thought, "This is wonderful." I sit him on the little toilet.

He's there, sat on the little toilet.

SMALL FART

Has anyone in this room ever been in the presence of someone doing their business?

It's like watching someone yawn. All of a sudden you go...

"I think I'll have one of them myself."

BIG FART

That's a wonderful thing. It's bonding, the modern way.

The family who shits together stays together.

What happens, you have a baby, it changes your life.

It changes your social life, you stop going out.

You reach the point when you think it's time to go out

and that's when you realise you can't, cos you can't afford it.

When we first had kids, we had them close together,

we got a babysitter to come and baby-sit for the first two.

£8 an hour.

She wanted £8 an hour to baby-sit.

I said, "I tell you what, "I'll give you a fiver an hour to go out with her, I'll stay in."

And we ended up with this babysitter,

and I wasn't quite sure, because you do get paranoid with kids -

I wasn't quite sure that she was looking after the kids OK -

she was a young girl, 21, she was, a young graduate, so what I did is

I got a nanny cam in the room, just to see what was going on.

And one day, one of her friends came home from hockey,

one of her friends who played hockey with her,

and they started making mad, passionate love on the couch

while she was babysitting my kids. She was making mad, passionate love

with one of her friends that she plays hockey with.

On the couch.

She's been doing that now for ten months.

I'm keeping an eye on her, I didn't want to mention it.

I didn't want to mention it to my missus

just in case she got worried about the kids.

Thing is, when you have kids, things change,

because before you have kids, if you're in that group who cheered before,

you see kids in an entirely different way, cos you'll see people

in shopping centres with kids and the kid will be having a tantrum.

You know kids under five having a tantrum, they're like that.

You always see the parent holding them like that.

And they're looking at you and they always give you that look...

Before you've got kids, you think that that is a look of embarrassment, cos you think,

before you've got kids, "My kid will never do that,

"my kid won't have a tantrum like that, my kid will poo pot pourri.

"My kid won't be doing that in a shopping centre.

"My kid will be a lovely kid.

"My kid will be at home, practising the piano or the violin."

It's only when you've got kids a few years later that you're there in a shopping centre

and you've got your kid... and people look at you and you go...

It's not until that moment that you realise that look

isn't a look of embarrassment, that look -

is an adult-to-adult message saying,

"Do us a favour, mate, look away, one dead leg will sort this."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It's true! Cos kids know you can't hit them, that's why they go mad. You think, "No, I can't hit,

"but I can hold your hand and break your bleeding fingers!"

What happened was, we ended up with three. Our hands were always full.

That's what happens when you have kids close together.

You've always got one kid having a tantrum.

We had this health visitor come round and I had one of my lads,

who's always running round the house, screaming his head off.

I said, "I don't know what to do, he's forever screaming."

She said, "If a child under the age of five is having a tantrum,

"don't hit him, that's a bad thing to do, don't hit him.

"Whatever you do, don't shout at them, because they don't understand what's going on.

"If they're under five, they've just lost control of their emotions.

"The best thing you can do..." -

and this is genuine NHS advice for everyone -

"The best thing that you can do in that situation

"is throw some water on them."

Apparently, the shock of the water will stop the tantrum

and the child will come to you for love.

That's bollocks.

I tried it, two weeks later, he's running round the house screaming his head off.

I said to his mum, "I'm going to try the water."

I tried the water, he just screamed more.

His mum said maybe I shouldn't have used the kettle.

I love telling that joke.

There's always some people in the room thinking, "That's a bit harsh."

Then there's all these young parents in the room going, "Well, did it work?"

The real problem is no-one ever gives you a guide to parenting.

I think good parenting

consists of lots of factors

and I think everybody's different.

As soon as I heard my baby cry in the middle of the night,

I'd run downstairs, jump in my cab, put the meter on and go to work.

That's one of the advantages

I had with driving a taxi at the time my first baby was born.

It's good to be honest with them and not treat them like children,

even though they are children.

So I swear at them. My sister's going to kill me,

but what I do is, when they leave me, I give them a fiver each,

and I say, "Don't tell your mother."

My son, Barney, and I were at Alton Towers and we were having tea

and there was a wasp flying around.

I said, "Just leave it alone. Leave the wasp alone."

"It won't do you any harm if you just ignore it."

At which point, the wasp flew up Barney's fairly baggy shorts

and stung him four times around the groin area.

And he's never believed a word I've said to him ever since.

LAUGHTER

The thing is, when you become a dad as well, things change.

Things do change. It's probably the same for women, but I think particularly for men.

Because when you're a little boy growing up, you want to impress your dad.

And then you become a dad, and the only thing you want to do

when you become a dad is to impress your kids,

that's all any dad wants to do.

That's why every time you go on holiday

you always see a fat bloke stood at the top of a diving board

shitting himself while his kids are shouting,

"Come on, Dad, do a somersault like the German boys' dad."

And you don't want to let them down, but things have moved on now.

Kids live in an entirely different world now.

There's a lot of pressure.

My oldest son was the first in our house to get a mobile phone.

The first one in our house to get a mobile phone amongst the kids.

He got a mobile phone when he was 11.

His mum said, "He needs a phone because he's starting high school."

I said, "So what?" She said, "He's got to get a bus."

I said, "Is he going to phone the driver?"

She said, "No, he's the oldest of your three sons.

"He's got to get a bus to school. He needs a mobile phone."

I said, "What for?"

She said, "What if he misses the bus?"

I said, "He can friggin' walk!"

Then she said what only a mother in this day and age would say.

She said, "He is the oldest of your three sons.

"What if he misses the bus?" Has to walk home?

"And when he's walking home,

"someone grabs him and snatches him?!

"What'll happen then?" Bleeding hell!

I said, "I'll tell you what'll happen then."

"Them two'll never miss a bus!"

Sometimes you've got to play the long game.

He was 11, which meant the youngest was seven, and HE wanted a phone!

Seven! He said, "He's getting a phone! I want a phone!"

I said, "You're seven! Seven! You've got nothing to say.

"You don't know enough words to have a phone."

He said, "I don't want a phone to speak to my mates".

"I just want to text people."

I said, "But you're seven!

"Are you going to be sat watching Scooby Doo going,

"I think it's the caretaker?"

When I was seven, I'd never used a phone. I hadn't.

Not cos I was stupid, cos it had a lock on the number one.

If you wanted to make a phone call, you had to say,

"Dad, can I make a phone call?"

And he said, "I'll just get the key out".

And what happens, you had the phone for the house.

In fact, it wasn't for the house, it was for about four doors.

People knock at your door and say, "Can I use your phone?"

You think, "No chance! Piss off!"

And what we used to do, we used to have the phone,

and are soon as you got the phone,

the next thing you got after you got the phone was the telephone table.

A table for the phone. A place for the phone to live.

And you could stand the phone on in the hall, under the stairs,

so everyone who came into your house would go, "Oh, there's a phone."

Did anyone remember the telephone table?

It was ergonomically the worst piece of furniture ever designed.

The only way you could make a phone call was to sit like that.

That's how you had to sit, you had to sit like that.

That's why now when you see old people, they all walk like that.

But the problem is now, things stayed the way they were then,

and as a parent you understood the rules.

Now things just change too quickly.

There's things that I just don't understand.

We have too many inventions.

We need to have a year off, don't you think?

We need a year off where no-one's allowed to invent anything,

like that whats-his-name, that Steve Jobs,

that fellow, someone needs to say, "Stevie, do us a favour,

"take your Apple and piss off."

Give us a year off, Steve.

Just give us a chance to catch up with everything that we've got.

Cos when you were a parent in the old days, a game was a game.

Now, you get your kids a game and it gets upgraded.

Monopoly when I was 10 was still Monopoly when I was 12,

was still Monopoly when I was 16, was Monopoly.

It never went Monopoly to Super Monopoly

to Monopoly with graphics to Interface Monopoly

to Monopoly with zombies and aliens. It was freaking Monopoly!

Now, now, everything gets upgraded and I just can't keep up with it.

I got an iPod for Christmas. It holds 160,000 songs.

I've got six CDs.

I've started buying new CDs cos I feel sorry for the iPod.

You want to try and keep some traditions together,

like when my son was five, I wanted to do the father-son moment

when the oldest one was five.

That main moment. I don't think it's just a Scouse thing,

I think a lot of people have that moment where you say,

"My son's five now. He's going to be a man one day,

"so I'm taking him for his first football kit."

As a Scouser it's like a Bar Mitzvah.

It's our rite of passage. I remember taking my son to the shop.

There was an array of football kits. I said, "Pick a kit, son".

Remember, I'm from Liverpool.

My wife's from Manchester, so my kids are mixed race.

And that creates a lot of problems.

At times, you assume certain things get passed on in your DNA,

stuff you never think you need to talk about.

I said, "It's going to be your first kit. It's me and you, son".

"Which kit do you want"?

I basically meant, "Home or away"?

He looked at me, a five-year-old boy, with eyes full of innocence.

He said, "Dad, can I have a Man United kit"?

At that moment, I'd rather he said,

"Honestly, I don't like football. I'd rather be a girl with a pony".

It's a different religion. It may be your religion,

but it's like one of your kids saying, "I want to join the Moonies."

You'll never get them back.

"No, I can't do that. I can't let it happen."

It's a difficult thing to happen in a shop. All those cameras - you can't just hit 'im.

I said, "Let's go home and have a chat."

The truth is I took him out

and bought him an ice-cream and said... It was hard to say.

I thought if I say the word, I'll get a rash.

I said, "Why do you want a M-M-M... Why do you want a Mmmm...."

"Why do Mmmm... Why do you want a Mmmm-United kit?!"

I said, "Why do you want a Man United kit?"

He said, "Cos all the other kids in school like Man United".

I said, "All right, son". I said, "Which Man United kit do you want?".

He said, "Honestly, Dad, I'm not sure what they play in".

So we went home with an AC Milan kit.

I told him that's what United play in when they play in Europe.

Then I took him to Anfield two weeks later. Changed him, saved him. It's what you've got to do.

It's so difficult, because we live in an environment where everybody's

trying to do the best for their kids.

You try and be nice to them and make sure everybody feels loved,

particularly if you've got multiple children.

You're not supposed to have a favourite.

You do.

Everyone has a favourite.

You're not supposed to say it, but life is a tough thing,

so kids need to know what's going on.

We sat ours down and said, "See him? He's the favourite".

"You two come second, but at the moment, he's the favourite".

Before you know it, you have turned into an embarrassing parent.

There is a name for someone like my dad. Social hand grenade.

I embarrass my daughter by doing silly walks or dances.

He'll get bikini tops and put them on his man boobs while doing a jig.

It's not nice.

He was dancing past the shop once, and didn't clock a toddler

walking towards him, and kneed him in the face.

Now we've got a bleeding child and he's still bopping.

-Still having a good time.

-Which, as you can imagine, does embarrass her.

I fart in front of her friends

and she gets embarrassed. She's like, "Dad!"

"No, Dad. Dad, no, no, no!"

The other night I come home from football

and I was quite hot and sweaty.

I said, "Have a smell of that, Hayden!"

I hope to embarrass my children!

As my mum likes to be a teenager,

she tries to follow my style and wear what I wear.

"Dad, if you're wearing that shirt, I'm not going out with you".

If I've got a nice wee floaty top, she'll get one,

but it'll be all flowers. It's like, "No, Mum, this is hideous."

I think it's more of a joke than being serious.

APPLAUSE

The thing is, once you become a dad, it's forever.

You can't change it, you've crossed the line. It's something that will never change.

And things about you change. Stuff that you never expected.

You find yourself going to B&Q for no reason whatsoever.

Just to walk around.

Past other men who look like they're dads,

and look them in the eye and go, "All right, mate?"

And they're looking at you and go, "All right, mate, yeah, yeah.

"I've knocked out a couple of kids and I've come for some tools."

"To build stuff cos I'm a man."

That's what you do.

But then the other thing happens - summer comes,

you get your sandals out, you put them on for the first time

and in your mind, you're thinking, "Could chafe a little bit.

"Maybe socks would be a good idea."

And you're now supposed to talk to your kids,

get involved with them in a way our dads didn't get involved with us.

You go to Wacky Warehouses and ball pools and fun places in pubs.

We didn't have that. When I was a kid,

if my dad said, "D'you want to come the pub",

that meant he'd drive there, go into the pub,

come out with a bottle of pop, a bag of crisps,

and piss off for four hours.

If I was lucky, he'd wind the window down.

When you reach adulthood, you still think your parents are a nightmare.

My mum's quite funny. She's quite ditzy.

She gets muddled up with the easiest stuff.

My mum struggles with technology.

Mobile phones are a no-go.

With computers, if something goes wrong, she buys a new one.

My mum just says the greatest things.

My mum was very eccentric.

My mum came in the kitchen and went, "Oh, God, I buy all this food,

"and all you lot do is eat it."

We used to go up to Chapel Market in Islington

and my mum used to bring a pram,

which was empty, to put all her potatoes in.

"They are frying eggs on the streets of London."

I used to try and have an argument with my ma,

but she just gives you this look, which is "the look."

Whenever my dad's mad, he doesn't say anything at the time.

Which is when you know he is mad, when he's silent.

And you know it's like a volcano that's about to erupt.

My father was an amazing father

in a time when men weren't supposed to be like that.

He couldn't quite breastfeed me, but he got as near as he could.

My dad gave me some good advice.

It's not really advice. It's a saying.

"You're an idiot. Luke, you are an idiot."

APPLAUSE

I'm from the generation where your dad thought a day out

was a trip to the tip. That's what he thought.

And it was. Your dad would say, "You want to come to the tip?"

You'd go, "Great! We're going to the tip!"

"We're going to throw some shit on other shit. It's great!"

That was a day out.

We didn't have slides or big things like that.

We went to the tip and pushed fridges over. That was a day out.

Even now, my dad can still go to the tip

and come back with more than he went with.

Four years ago, my dad went to the tip

and saw an oak front door in the tip.

He thought, that's too good to throw away.

He got it out, took it home and built his shed around it.

My mum is the only person in Britain

who's got a shed with a brass knocker.

Mums also know everything. They know stuff they shouldn't know.

They know the answer to everything.

Even now, I haven't lived with my mum for 26 years,

but I'm sure if I phoned her up

and asked her where my socks were in my house, she would know.

Cos they know everything.

They know a cure for everything.

They tell you lies about it. They do tell you lies about it.

My mum used to say, "You've got a headache

"because you've been telling lies." I used to believe her.

She came to our house

and I had this terrible gripping pain in the stomach.

You know what it's like, you think it could be something serious.

That could be really bad.

I'm not going to the doctor.

I'm not going to go to the doctor cos I don't want him to tell me it's bad.

I just want to know it's bad so that I can be bad

and have this thing inside and it's terrible and painful

She said, "It's trapped wind".

I thought, "You're not an MRI scan. How do you know?"

She said, "You need some bicarbonate of soda."

I thought, "Well, my mum's here, I'll do it."

And she happened to have bicarbonate of soda in her bag, along with everything else.

She got the bicarbonate of soda out.

I drank the bicarbonate of soda.

I had the biggest burp I've ever had in my life as this wind left me.

She said, "You've got trapped wind cos you've been telling lies."

Finally, the most important person in any family is your nan.

My dad's and mum's families are from Liverpool. They have Scouse accents.

But my nan always answers the phone like, "Hello?"

And then she'll go, "All right, girl!"

My nan and grandma are different.

My grandma was a grandma-grandma.

All soft and cuddly, typical grandma who collects thimbles.

My nan, who's the same age, is very young, hip and sexy,

if you can say your nan's sexy.

I don't know who she's expecting to ring, probably the Pope.

That would be her dream, the Pope to call. "Hello?"

If she didn't answer like that to the Pope, she'd be very distressed.

At Christmas, I came home and found that my brother and dad

thought it would be funny to tell everyone on Facebook

that I was masturbating.

I screamed at my brother. My grandma was hovering.

She didn't hear what was going on. She summoned me over and said,

"Sam, my number one grandson, what's wrong, darling?"

I said, "Gran, it's very embarrassing,

"but Leo told my friends that I'm masturbating".

She took a moment and went, "Sam, everyone masturbates!"

"I masturbate, your father masturbates.

"There's nothing wrong with it."

I've got to be honest.

I don't know what was most disturbing about that.

The idea of your nan...

LAUGHTER

..doing stuff you can't imagine,

or the fact that she sounds like Frank Butcher while she does it.

But we all had nans that are a bit on the edge.

Just a little bit racist without knowing it.

It's a generational thing.

I remember when my nan went into hospital. I went to see her when she came out.

I said, "How are you getting treated?" She said, "It's OK, cos the sultan is looking after me.

I said, "Who?" She said, "The boss, the sultan."

I said, "You mean the consultant?" She said, "Yeah, but he looks like a sultan."

And I actually took my... And maybe this is only a Scouse thing as well

cos you do get colloquialisms.

I remember taking Melanie, as a Manchester girl,

to meet my nan for the first time.

It's a nerve-racking thing.

Going to the matriarch of the family.

We walked in to my nan's house...

There was a massive pile of sandwiches before we'd got there.

Loads of cups of tea. We walked in and I said, "Nan, this is Melanie".

She went, "So are you his tart?"

LAUGHTER

Her face dropped.

I said, "No, that's a good thing!" She didn't call you a slag.

That's parenthood and family.

Tonight, Britain has taught me that you never really know

what your nan's up to, that there's only one thing worse than

a dancing dad, and that's a dad who makes his kids dress up as an Ewok.

Luke, you are an idiot.

Good night.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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