Us

This is us.

The title of tonight’s half term midweek Drake Towers Cinema 7pm special showing (or to give it its full moniker: One Direction: This Is Us), sums up tonight perfectly.

My 15-year-old daughter had her new friend round. During the hugely-anticipated visit, her 13-year old New Best Friend was treated to games, tea, the 1D film, carefully weighed-out popcorn, and a sleepover.

They met three weeks ago, on a Prader-Willi Syndrome Association family weekend. They clicked, in a shy/not-talking too much/chatting when prompted/content/sitting near each other/smiling/stealing glances/oddly sociable/PWS way. Today's half term fun and frolics were tentatively arranged.

First, I had a grand old chinwag with PWS NBF’s mum, while the girls went upstairs to check out the sleeping arrangements, under attack from Annoying Little Brother, who was in Full On Show Off Banzai mode.

Then Mum nipped off home, with us both ridiculously content at just not having to bother with the usual PWS conversation about food, and portions, and banned grub, and acceptable nosh. I knew. She knew I knew. It wasn’t a thing.

Board games were played: our visitor brought Scattergories, where spelling and quick-thinking were required. It was a little challenging for both of them, but they piled in willingly, managing to come up with a celebrity and a herb beginning with O: Olly Murs and Oregano. (Or was it the other way round?) Next, we lightened things up with a game of Ladybirds, which is aimed at 3-7-year-olds, and involves rolling a dice and turning over cards, to find, predictably enough, ladybirds. They shrieked with delight when they got three bugs on a leaf, and giggled and groaned when they got the worst cards: "I've got a none! Oh no, another none!"

I then had two kitchen assistants whilst making the tea, which was a triumph, of course. (If ever you want to be complimented on your cooking, invite someone with PWS round. The pair of them were so appreciative of the Hairy Bikers’ diet enchiladas, that I’ve stuck four Michelin stars on my front door). The successful meal prompted a dreamy discussion about food, which lasted a good half hour.

Finally it was onesies on and 1D on. My daughter has a loud, almost hysterical, nasally, honking laugh, which is one of my favourite sounds in the world. Her NBF has one just like it. They’d been duet honking throughout the evening. Only now it wasn't laughter, it was the glorious honk of 'singing' along to every word of every song - one of the sweetest sounds I’ve heard, despite it bridging the gap between Simon Le Bon and a braying donkey. Which, as you well know, is a very narrow gap.

Meanwhile, my husband had been charged with keeping annoying little brother out of the way. He failed. The three foot anarchist, watching Harry Potter in the other room, had obviously picked up some lessons in mild swearing from Ron Weasley, which he felt he needed to share. He broke ranks near the end, bursting through the door, cocking his head to one side, and yodelling the immortal lyric-mangle: “You light up my life like no bloody hell! You don’t know you’re bloody hell!”.

As you can imagine, mayhem ensued. The worshipping congregation on the sofa (both equally disapproving of rude words) reared up, in indignant unison, and yodelled back: “You light up my life like NOBODY ELSE! You don’t know you’re BEAUTIFUL!” 

I looked at them both, as the world’s worst minder scooped the potty-mouthed usurper from the room and took him to bed for a stern talking to. The girls sat there, giggling, slightly shocked, my daughter and her new buddy, like peas in a pod. 

They’re upstairs, fast asleep, in my daughter’s bedroom, having cleaned their teeth with their new 1D toothbrushes (my girl's presented to her by her NBF as a surprise gift).

As Ron Weasley and Harry Styles might jointly say: bloody hell, they don’t know they’re beautiful.

Video is One Direction: What Makes You Beautiful. Nah, not really, I've just sat through the blinkin' film, I'm not subjecting you to it, too. Here's Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - There She Goes, My Beautiful World.

Dance

My daughter is wearing a T-shirt bearing a picture of her own grinning face on it. It’s cute, in a slightly disconcerting, Zaphod Beeblebrox kind of way.

It’s her trophy from her school’s Red Nose Day shenanigans. Her classmates each chose their own sponsored activity which they had to do for 30 minutes: one girl did a sponsored silence, another cut out as many pictures of red noses as she could, and my girl ended up choosing to dance for half an hour.

What actually happened was that my daughter’s activity turned into something different. After a restless night the night before, she was a little tired and ended up falling asleep.

“Mum, I won’t get my sponsor money, because I didn’t do my dancing,” she complained, her head face furrowed into a frown, her tummy face still beaming.

I told her we could cross out the ‘Sponsored Dance’ title on her fundraising sheet, and replace it with ‘Sponsored Snoozeathon’ - but she wasn’t having it.

That’s why we’re just about to compile a playlist for our own foot-stomping, toe-tapping, shoe-shimmying, happy hoofing session later.

It should be fun.

____

Comic Relief raised a record £75 million last night.

I steered clear of the telly coverage, as always, as the sight of newscasters doing high kicks in stockings isn’t really for me.* (*Note to Internet Comments Curmudgeons - if you don’t like watching something on the telly, try...er... not watching it.)

Some people say that by raising Comic Relief cash, we are letting the government off the hook and paying for things they should already be providing. This is all well and good, and we could debate this in detail - but while we do that, the money is actually helping needy kids NOW.

Others say that it’s hypocritical and sickening that rich celebs are jetted off to Africa to make documentaries about Comic Relief projects, and how shallow that makes people for having to be ‘inspired’ by celebrities. 

But they are completely missing the point: the charity sends the likes of One Direction to Africa because it helps. It means a legion of little girls who worship the gelled-up nincompoops learn about what the charity is doing. Your average One Direction fan is not going to sit and watch a straight documentary on the effect of a water-pump on a poor village community. But they’ll watch Harry, Barry, Larry, Mingo and Mudge’s film about it and the message will get through. This is A Good Thing.  

It's also extremely important to remember that while Wand Erection are there they’re not recording any songs. This Is A Very Good Thing Indeed.

Video is Blondie - One Way Or Another (not the Comic Relief version, I'm not that cruel).

Video is The Undertones - Teenage Kicks