#15 - Kid talk

Summer is here, as I can confirm by the uncomfortable dampness in my office chair. When temperatures start to rise it’s time for one thing: big fans. But it’s also the season of summer fairs. If there’s a large, open bit of green space within reasonable distance to a town or village, you can bet that a summer fair is going to pop up there at some point between the start of June and the end of August. Who doesn’t love a summer fair? Well, me. Actually, that’s not true; I enjoy what a summer fair offers, I just wish it was from within air-conditioned halls.

And by “enjoy what a summer fair offers,” I mean I like to buy food at them. Pizza van? Yes please. Vat of mac and cheese? Lovely. Souvlaki? You can’t stop me, I’m eating it before the fair even opens properly. Cupcake? Yum. Brookie? I’ll have two. Ice cream with sherbet on? Delightful. Speciality apple crumble with custard cream? Speechless! Can I move? Not any more.

I’d probably consume my weekly calorie allowance in one afternoon if left unchecked, and yet, the food often isn’t even my favourite part of these fairs, it's the bizarre way my kids interact with other kids their age… who am I kidding? I wouldn’t go to these events if there wasn’t any food there! Give me all the food!

Anyway…

When adults see other adults they know, even just in a “I know that guy because I walked past him once when I was coming back from the chip shop during Covid lockdown,” kind of way, we acknowledge that person. It might be a head nod, a simple “hi,” or “afternoon!” but an effort is made. There are two elderly ladies who I walk past every afternoon on my way to school pick-up, and I always clumsily say “hi” and then wonder if they have a chat afterwards about the strange, bedraggled, bearded man they see every day who mumbles at them and grimaces.

If the person you see is more of a friend, but not someone you’d ever hang out with, perhaps a neighbour or a parent of a child your kid goes to school with, we are compelled to chat. I’m terrible at this, and will mostly just smile and nod while my wife talks, but it’s hugely uncomfortable for all parties - at least in my mind*.

There are people I have known for almost a decade through school that I still don’t know the name of. They are simply “Daniel’s dad” or "Beatrice's mum” - not sure why I went so posh with that last name, my kids don’t go to a private school. I’ll happily give them a knowing nod, maybe even a handshake if one is initiated, along with an “alright mate, you good?”, all the while knowing I’ve made this super awkward by making little to no attempt to get to know these people better. I keep up the charade. “Yeah, I’m good, thanks,” I say enthusiastically, hoping that’ll put an end to this interaction and that I was actually asked the question I replied to.

Kids don’t have these same rules. They don’t give a shit and it shows, but they also have a distinct separation between school and home life - something a lot of adults could learn from, I think. Kids (at least my kids) will excitedly talk about the friends they are going to see at the fair, having seemingly talked to each other at school to make plans, only to bump into each other while crafting sand ornaments and act like they’ve just seen Mr Tumble break character by dropping an F-bomb! What you’d imagine would be a joyous occasion, full of shouting and jumping, and general hysteria, is in fact mostly silence, some side-eyed looks, hiding behind things, and a whole lot of parental embarrassment.

Then as soon as this dire social interaction is over, the child will talk about it as if it’s the greatest moment of their life to date. For them, just seeing someone they know from school outside of school is an unbelievable event. It’s incredible. We’ve had this at three fairs so far this summer.

The one at my daughter’s school was the most ridiculous - the school where she plays with her friends for six hours a day. But at 3.30pm, once school had finished, I couldn’t get her within 10 metres of her friends. Yet the walk home was 90% talk about all her friends she saw. 10% was about the stuffed toy she won**.

**Full disclosure here. I deliberately overpaid for every event and stall we used at the school fair to help it raise money for new equipment, but I did also use my foot to make sure that when my daughter rolled a giant die that needed to land on an even number to win a toy, it rolled back from a 3 to a 4. Was this wrong? Yes. Do I feel bad about it? No. Report me to the police. I don’t care. I’m a rebel.

Anyway, summer fair game transgressions aside, maybe it’s time to stop feeling awkward about how I interact with people. Maybe they are feeling the exact same. I’m not suggesting we all just sort of stand near each other in silence, eyes under the peaks of our caps, but maybe there’s no need to pretend. I’m someone’s parent, you’re someone’s parent, and that might be enough.

*My wife has confirmed to me that I do indeed make these situations very awkward for everyone involved, and that it’s not just in my mind. Good to know. 

All signs are pointing towards yet more layoffs at Microsoft-owned game studios, perhaps even closures. At the time of writing things aren’t looking good for Double Fine, Ninja Theory, and Compulsion, and it sounds like more teams could be affected. Xbox could point to a number of issues that have hurt the firm’s abilities to perform as it would have wanted, but the reality of mismanagement is hard to shake. Taking ownership of so many studios and teams comes with great responsibility, and it simply hasn’t acted accordingly. Xbox is far from the only villain in the sorry tale modern video game development and publishing has written, but at this point it’s hard to argue it’s not the market leader in failure.

This newsletter isn’t entirely about video games - in fact, this one was mostly about awkward conversations with adults. I’ll have a think about some other bits and pieces and round them up in the quick reviews below. I’m a critic, too, you see.

Things I can review:

• True Detective: Night Country (Now TV/Sky/HBO): Finally got round to watching this having convinced myself it must surely be better than most other TV even if it’s not nearly as good as Season 1. Well, I don’t know yet, but I do know that it’s pretty engaging and downright depressing. At one point I even felt sorry for a man who is absolutely awful. 3 polar bears out of 5 frozen bodies.
• Brownies (stalls, shops, home baked): I think the chocolate brownie is a bit underrated. It’s not the most fancy of cake treats, often overshadowed by fusion creations that riff on it, but it’s hard to beat a chewy, simple, tasty brownie. I bought a tub along with a dipping sauce from the most recent summer fair we attended, and I have no regrets. 5 chocolate chunks out of 5 slightly crispy edges.
• Nail cutting (in this instance, those of my kids): There are some things you expect to be hard as a parent, but I’m not sure I saw my kids being born and immediately started to dread the day I would figuratively scream into a pillow over cutting nails. But that’s what happened this week, and on many days previous. It’s the toe nails that really cause the meltdowns, the combination of the child’s fear you’re going to lop a toe off and being overly sensitive to tickling being almost impossible to fight. 1 cut nail out of 5 toes, because life’s too short for this level of hell.