As frequent readers of this blog (and I know there are at least a couple of you) should have realised by now, I like to keep things pretty private. I’m not the sort of person to post every detail about my life into the public domain. I like to keep that little space for me and my nearest and dearest only, while I keep this blog more focussed on the world of writing and my place in it.

One little personal detail about myself that I generally don’t make a deal of here, but that close readers should be able to glean, is that I am father to a couple of offspring. Offspring that, much to my terror, have now reached their teenage years.

How this has happened so quickly, I’m not completely sure. I remember when I was young, it took a couple of centuries for me to become a teenager. But now, I’ve just blinked and my little babies are practically grown up. But I’ll save more of that for future posts.

One thing you learn quickly as a parent to teenagers is that, no matter how hard you try, you cannot possibly be cool. You can present them with all the things that seemed modern or cutting edge back in your day – all the pop songs or TV shows or movies – but they will simply look at you with their noses in the air and deride your uncoolness. You can use all the lingo that was hip and happening when you were their age, and they’ll just laugh (if you’re lucky).

You would think this must be a great blow to my pride. You would think it must be devastating to deal with this sudden decline in my cool status. Well, the good news I am happy to state is that it isn’t. It’s barely caused a pause in my stride. I’ve had no difficulty at all dealing with this situation. And for a very good reason.

I’ve never been cool. My tastes have never been cutting edge. I’ve never cavorted with the it crowd, or hung out at the trendy venues. And though I may not have thought much about it at the time, that’s turned out to be a real advantage.

When you’ve never possessed coolness, you’ve got nothing to lose. You don’t have to worry about your kids looking at you like the uncoolest person around, because that’s how you’re used to being looked at anyway. There’s been no blow to my ego. No existential crisis about my declining ability to be ‘with it’. It’s just like another day, ho hum.

So if there’s a message to this post, it’s this. Embrace your inner uncoolness. Because you might need it one day.