The Daily Insult Rides Again.

Over the dinner table this evening, I express my ignorance of some flimsy piece of teenage slang, which Secundus explains before warning me never to use it.

"You're a good dad," he says, "but not a cool dad."

I take this as a great compliment. Two compliments in fact, because parents simply shouldn't be cool, even if they are. (Hint: they aren't.) But then S. elaborates. "With your British accent and your gray hair, you come across to my friends as my laid-back grandfather."

Uh-huh. Still, with those attributes, I'm apparently two-thirds of the way to qualifying as a wizard in their eyes. I just lack the beard.

Of course, at Christmas, I did have the beginnings of the necessary facial fungus, but I shaved it off before the new year. Just think, I could have been Dumbledore if it weren't for the itchiness.