Noah Cooper
The world’s greatest secret agent (Wikipedia)
We had a boys’ night in last week when it was just me and Mr. T. As he was on his way to pre-school earlier in the day, I asked him what he wanted to do, and he loudly declared ‘Pizza’. Who was I to argue with such a convincing argument.
So I picked him up and brought him home to a kitchen with his little table in the middle and everything ready to make our own pizza. First, he had to spread the tomato sauce all over the base with the back of a spoon, then I asked what we needed next, which was cheese. He ate some of the cheese that I had already grated while watching me spread the rest out.
Next were the mushrooms. He put one mushroom in the middle and then went back to eating grated cheese as I put the rest of the mushrooms on. The same thing happened with the red peppers.
There was a slight deviation for the tomatoes as he stopped eating the cheese and started to eat the tomatoes instead.
While the pizza was in the oven we got the drinks ready. A Toddy (Brazilian chocolate milk, no whisky involved) and a beer for me.
We then had to sort out what we were going to watch while we ate and had our drinks. There was a bit of a discussion over the merits of Galinha Pintadinha (it has no merit whatsoever) before I suggested ‘Danger Mouse’.
Good grief Penfold (Wikipedia)
‘Danger Mouse’ is a classic of British children’s TV that anyone of a certain age with any taste will have loved. I have lots of taste so obviously I adored it. I bought the DVD (for my son, of course) but the first time I played it it didn’t go down well. That was some months ago, so I hoped things had changed.
Once the pizza was sliced we sat back with our beer/milk and I pressed play on the DVD. Not a word out of my son for the next 15 minutes as he watched enraptured with the sight before him. A big smile crossed his face at various times, and I was almost in daddy heaven: there I was with my son, eating pizza, having a beer/milk and watching Danger Mouse. Could life get any better than that?
Yes, it could.
During the final credits my son jumped to his feet to dance along and got me up to. We were dancing and jumping and acting like silly little boys.
But it got even better than that.
I started to sing along to the lyrics, some of which I could remember, the rest I made up. I shouted especially loudly when the singer sings ‘Danger Mouse’ on more than one occasion. My son repeated it after me, except he got it wrong in the best possible way. Instead of ‘Danger Mouse’ he sang ‘Daddy Mouse’.
‘He’s the ace, he’s amazing
He’s the strongest, he’s the quickest, he’s the best
Daddy Mouse!’
It was one of the best boys’ nights in I think I have ever had or am likely to have.
Further reading
I have almost finished ‘Rivers of London‘ by Ben Aaranovitch. It’s a fast-paced tale of wizards, spirits, murder and the Metropolitan police. Not a world-changing book, but a very good read. It’s the first in a series of four (so far) and I reckon I’ll be getting the rest soon enough.
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