One of Boy’s more annoying teenage rules of thumb is that, if Dad likes it, it must be crap. This applies of course not just to all those classic albums I consider an essential part of his education from Led Zep III to After the Goldrush, but to books, films and TV shows as well.
In our precious final years together before he leaves home to work his way up the Greenpeace hierarchy, I’d been quite looking forward to snatching a few father/son bonding moments as we settled down in front of, say, Ghosts of Mars, High Plains Drifter, Das Boot, The Sopranos or, as a special treat, the entire series of Band of Brothers back to back. But I’m beginning to fear that it ain’t going to happen.
‘Dad,’ he said to me the other day. ‘I just watched Withnail & I.’ Nervously, I asked how he’d found it. ‘Pretty decent,’ he said. I breathed a sigh of gratitude — Withnail & I is only, like, my favourite film ever — but also felt a stab of pain. For 14 years I’d been longing for the moment when Boy was old enough for us to be able to watch Withnail & I together, perhaps with Dad doing a running commentary explaining all the jokes and pop cultural references and reminiscing about the time he went for a curry with Bruce Robinson. But teenagers these days seem to prefer doing these things on their own. I blame laptops and the interweb and streaming sites like Netflix.
It was thanks to Netflix, mind, that I recently scored a minor triumph. Boy came to me at breakfast, looking shame-faced. ‘Dad, I’ve been watching Breaking Bad,’ he said. ‘And???’ I asked. ‘Pretty decent,’ said Boy.
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