Fashion advice

I THINK it’s fair to say that everybody finds parents embarrassing from time to time.

It’s particularly bad, if I recall correctly, from the age of about 12 to 16. At this stage of your life, pretty much everything your parents do makes you want the ground to open and swallow you up.

I am reconciled to this eventuality; Harry, I am sure, will be utterly embarrassed by me in future. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, was Harry dishing out fashion advice to me just yet.

I was therefore a bit shocked when Harry told me that he didn’t like my tie shortly before I left the house to go to work the other morning. “It’s pink daddy,” he announced. “Pink is for girls.”

Suitably chastised, I changed my tie. “That’s better daddy,” was Harry’s conclusion. Anyway, he’s now taking matters into his own hands and choosing clothes for me to wear. Generally, anything stripy is good (“Harry likes stripes too, daddy”) and anything else, well, causes friction.

The side effect of all this fashion advice is a very messy bedroom floor – Harry likes to take every item of clothing out of the wardrobe when deciding whether or notI should wear it.

Some days, though, I get it right. “I like your shirt daddy,” he said yesterday morning. He even told me morning that he wanted a shirt, suit and tie like mine. “And a case to put my dinner in,” he added.

At least it’s not just me in the firing line. When Harry stayed at my parents’ house a couple of weeks ago, he made my mum change her top because he didn’t like the colour.

As Harry is fond of saying, “I am a bossy boots.” He’s spot on with that even if his fashion advice is a little bit suspect.