“If you’re ever threatening an action should your child choose to do something naughty, don’t ever make a threat that you aren’t prepared to follow through on.”

“Like, don’t threaten to throw them out of a third-floor window?”

“Well you’ve got to at least be prepared to dangle them out of it until they wet themselves.”

* * * * *

Observed, at the corner of North Street and Ship Street in Brighton:

If you intended to participate in the World Naked Bike Ride, naked, you should do so on a bicycle.

If you decide instead to do so on roller-blades, naked, you should first learn how to roller-blade.

And if you’re not prepared to do either of those, then you should be aware that you’re likely to learn what it sounds like when three hundred watching people chorus in perfect unison: “Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh….. that’s gotta hurt!”

It looked really bad. At first, I thought the whole arm-waving thing was an act to get the crowd going, but then his feet went right out from underneath him and he crashed naked-arse-first into the tarmac at a fair wack. He was down for a little while, although he was taking it in quite good cheer (better than I would – I’d have been crying and wailing), but I’m told (I couldn’t bear to look) that when he did get up, he had a very, very badly grazed backside.

Bicycle for him, next time, I think.