If you’ve seen House of Cards you’ll know there are some unexpected twists and turns, but basically we know that the Underwoods are going to get up to. They’re going to do whatever it takes to hang onto power so that they don’t have to face the moral and emotional voids inside them. Yes, it may be horribly realistic, but it’s not truly surprising.

When my wife and I are watching our favorite program, we genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen next.

“Ballela? A spider spitted some blood on my finger!”

“Oh no! I need to drive you to the doctor. Let’s go! Wait. Where’s my doggy?”

We probably have too much choice these days. Being able to choose want we want to watch on telly, whenever we want to watch it, seems like an amazing idea, but it turns out it’s not that great.

When House of Cards ends we’ll have to start plodding through the listings again, looking at the pictures. That’s got four and a half stars, that’s got to be good. But then that thing you started to watch together, when you were both too tired to have an actual conversation, had four and three quarter stars. You couldn’t make it to the end of the first episode. How did that maverick FBI agent always have such a perfect hair do? You laugh about it, but then you start plodding through the listings again, with that sinking feeling.

“Five, four, three, two, one, blast off… we’re here! On the moon. Let’s go shopping!”

There’s a subscription free channel. It’s live, so you never have to trawl the listings. There is no clear story as such, and the actors seem to be improvising, but it’s never predictable. No one is ever trying to assassinate the president. If there is a president, she’s probably a cat.

“Meow, I’m a cat. I’ve got a chocolate wand. I’ll magic you into a rabbit baby. Aah, rabbit baby, you’re so cute!”

A video monitor isn’t absolutely necessary. But it’s so much fun. Especially when your kids share a room. There are drawbacks, of course. Most episodes, for instance, end with you having to go on set.

There’s a blood curdling scream. One of the actors turns to the camera and shouts directly at you. “Daddy! The cat just bit my bottom!”

Heatwave plus ginger equals misery. For everyone in my family. Except me.

I’m very pro ginger. I have to be. I am myself a ginger hybrid, my wife apparently is a carrier (she’s explained it to me, apparently I’m recessive), and my daughter is the warrior queen, high priestess off all the gingers. She is so strikingly, powerfully, eye wateringly ginger that she’s probably visible from space. And possibly audible from space too.

While there are many wonderful things about gingerness, there is one major drawback. We are basically allergic to summer. When it’s sunny outside, (or “raining death rays” as we know it in our family), ginger life is terrible. We hide in the shadows, sweating, sticky and uncomfortable in layers of factor fifty. Dizzy, grumpy, tired, irritable and longing to be north of the ice wall with the rest of the wildlings.

There is a Dad perk, though, to a heatwave. I can recommend it even if you are not lucky enough to be ginger. You will need some equipment, all available from your local diy warehouse. A comfortable garden chair. Some sort of parasol. A hose. One of those triggered water guns, preferably with several different settings. At a push a super soaker will do. A small table and a tall glass of something cool are not essential, but recommended.

Next throw your children outside in their swimming clothes, in our case head-to-toe spandex. You could, if you like, give each of them a small umbrella as a shield, make things a little more sporting. Sit back. Reminisce about all the sleepless nights, the stress, the confusion, the tantrums and the pennilessness, the constant feelings of failure that children subject you to. Choose your most powerful water gun setting, and get some payback.

Soon you will have forgotten the discomfort of summer. And all your other worries too.

I watch him. He watches me. I am open mouthed. Transfixed.

“Mmmmmm.” He nods as he bites deeply into the fruit. He sucks greedily at the flesh. “Mmm-mmm. I love this. I really love this, Daddy.” He says, his eyes never leaving mine.

I know exactly what he’s doing. I know what his endgame is. He wants to break my mind. Turn me into a pliable servant. I hold the line between my children and everything they want but shouldn’t have. His end game is to break my mind, make me a hollow parent-zombie willing to dispense biscuits and cake at his whim.

These days it’s called Gaslighting. The use of confusion and misdirection to convince someone that they are delusional, that they cannot trust their senses, in order to control and dominate them.

My son and I are engaged in this struggle. No one else believes it’s happening. But I know it’s real. And I suspect it’s a struggle that will last for the rest of my life. I know I can never win. That’s impossible. I equally know that I cannot let him win. That would mean I lose all authority, and my mind.

I’ve written before about my utter failure to prevent my son from becoming a picky eater. One of his nicknames is “the surgeon”, for his boundless patience when removing the things he doesn’t like from any meal. The beans from baked beans. The spag from the bol. He’s never been very keen on citrus fruit either.

“He’s trying to drive me mad.” I hiss at mummy.

“Don’t be silly.” She laughs. “He likes it.”

My son grins at me as the bitter juice runs down his chin. “Mmm. This is really yummy.” he says. To my ears his voice is dripping with sarcasm.

“But mummy…” I whisper, mouthing my words exaggeratedly, unable to believe that she can’t see what’s happening, my voice squeaking with desperation now. “It’s… a lemon.”

My son giggles at me malevolently.

I’m a truly rubbish dictator.

I try to dictate. I try to oppress. How I try to oppress. But if the fear and obedience of your subjects is the test of your dictatorial success, I’m failing miserably.

My son’s strategies to undermine my rule and make me look ridiculous are constantly evolving. He is enormously creative in his subversion. One of his recently development techniques is something I call the dungaree hijack. He climbs on my back while I’m sitting and refuses to let go.

“I know.” I think. “It’ll be fun to get up now and take him with me.” I grab his hands and stand up. What I don’t know is that he has slipped his legs down the back of my work dungarees. This means it is now impossible for me to remove him. He has become a monkey on my back. This is not the end, though. The true genius of his plan is when he starts tickling my buttocks with his toes. I’m very ticklish. I can’t remove him. I hop around, clucking like a chicken with involuntary laughter. The rest of the family come to watch. Soon they are laughing too. He cackles hysterically as I literally dance to his tune.

That probably sounds quite bad, quite undermining to a parent’s authority. But it’s nothing. It’s not even close to being the worst, most disturbing form of resistance he uses against me. He has, through a long process of evolving mischief, discovered a method of physical and psychological attack so destabilising to my regime, so baffling and discombobulating, that I’m nearing the point of abdicating and letting the rabble take over.

His new tactic is… attack-licking. I’ll say that again to let it sink in. Attack… licking. No, you will not find it in any parenting manual.

Imagine you’re watching a little TV. Suddenly a face looms into view and before you can dodge, a slimy tongue is up your nostril. He’s gone just as quickly, screeching with ecstatic laughter as you recoil, reeling with confusion and growing horror. He dances about in front if you, explaining in lurid detail what he has just done to you.

Later, when you have begun to forget the traumatising incident, you have a hug with your beloved son. “I love you daddy.” He says. You pull him close. He starts to giggle oddly, as if his tongue is sticking out. You feel an odd, slimy, disgusting sensation in your ear hole…

Where could I go into hiding? Any thoughts?

Beware of your brain.

“Here’s an idea,” your brain starts, all perky and friendly, “don’t spend any money on your son’s fourth birthday party. Just entertain the kids yourself.” This seems like an amazing idea. For one thing, you don’t like spending money. And for another, they’re kids. It all fits.

“Let’s have a pirate party!” Your brain suggests next. Another brilliant idea. You can dress up as Captain Hook like in the Cbeebies panto and lead the calm, happy children in all sorts of pirate themed party games. “And don’t spend any money on a costume, just buy that cheap wig off ebay. You can improvise the rest. It’ll be fine. You’re a great Dad. You’ll make wonderful memories.”

Luckily, on the day, it turns out your wife has ignored your chuntering and hired a huge pirate bouncy castle, which is more than enough entertainment. But you’re committed now. You’ve spent the last several weeks telling your wife, your kids and anyone else who will listen that you’re going to dress up as a pirate and entertain the children.

You enter the venue in your ebay wig and your wife’s tights. It would be an enormous understatement to say that you do not look very much like Captain Hook. What you look like is halfway between the world’s worst Cher impersonator and someone’s gender confused uncle who’s filling in as the last minute substitute Brian May in a Queen tribute band.

The children have one of two reactions to you. The younger ones, presumably because of the tragic sadness of seeing a clearly down on his luck Brian May reduced to impersonating Cher at a children’s party, simply start crying. The older ones decide, as one, that whatever you are, you are wrong and you should be put out of your misery as soon as possible.

Their attacks are relentless and merciless. First your wig goes, then your eye-patch, then your wife’s chiffon scarf, then her gold shoulder purse (your costume improvising went a little off course). Then they jump up and down on you, throw things at you and pummel you senseless. The parents watch, or try not to watch, their faces caught between embarrassment, amusement, confusion and pity. Finally you are left wandering the village hall like a senile old man who’s mistakenly put on his wife’s tights before locking himself out of his house.

“That went well, didn’t it?” Your brain suggests timidly as you sit and stare into the distance, traumatised. Hollow.

“Shut up, brain.” You reply.

I imagine being around one of those famous, quirky, surrealist artists of the last century was quite exciting. You’d never quite know what was going to happen next. They might turn up dragging a dead horse on a piano. Come to think of it, they’d be a right pain in the arse to share a house with.

You’d forever be finding them eating cheese out of your hat or piling up all their possessions in the middle of the room and sitting on them shouting “I’m a queen-lady! Meow!”

Come to think of it, that’s my daughter.

Two years old. Wildly imaginative. Disconcertingly surreal. Utterly narcissistic. She’s like a female Salvador Dali, if he was ginger, and two. Yes, being creative is all very well, but sometimes you just want them to do something that you want them to do, like eat something other than cheese. A carrot, for instance. I know you’re a member of the cat aristocracy but just take a break for two minutes and eat a blummin’ carrot!

If you put healthy food on her plate, she creates with it. Smears it everywhere like a disgusting action painting. “Stop playing with your food.” You say, like the philistine you are. She’s making art, you lumpen prole. “Just eat something. Just one bit of food I’ve just made you. Eat a carrot.”

She regards you with a mixture of bemusement, disgust and indifference. To great artists, critics are the lowest form of life.

It’s painting day at the play group. “Great.” You think. “She’ll be rolling around in it like a dog.” As it turns out, surprisingly, she doesn’t.

It’s vegetable painting. You get a vegetable, like say, a mushroom or a… carrot, chop it in half and dip it in paint and see what shape it makes. “What’s she going to do with this?” I think, utterly jaded and cynical. Nothing this artist could do would surprise me at this point.

She dips the carrot deeply into the blue paint, then studies it, fascinated. Then she does something utterly original that completely astonishes me.

With one large bight, she starts eating it.

I struggle to the shops. I’m shattered. Unshaven. My hair needs cutting. My lips are painfully chapped by the cold winter wind. I have to “borrow” some of my wife’s coconut lip balm just to be able to leave the house. I’m tough, but I’m not made of steel.

My daughter is wailing and writhing in the supermarket trolley as if she’s being attacked by ants. My son is lying down because his “legs are too tired”, then hanging onto my foot, cleaning the floor as we go like a human mop.

“All right!” I want to shout at everyone. “I know. I’m not very good at this. Stop staring at me! I’m doing my best!”

I pick up my son. He weighs about eight tons. As my daughter flails in the trolley seat she manages to, probably accidentally, kick me in the gentleman area. People are openly staring at me now as I grimace in pain. “Stop staring!” I plead in my head. I have to put my son down again and he decides to run off. I use my deepest, most terrifying authority voice. It has no effect. People turn and stare. I have to make chase, shouting at my son.

It feels as though everyone is watching now, like I’m on some sort of cruel game show. I retreat to the checkout with only half a list completed. A checkout attendant asks me if I’m OK. I say yes. He stares at me, confused, as if he can’t believe what a terrible parent I am.

Finally, I make it outside and battle my kids into the car. Cruel passers by gawp openly. What is wrong with everyone, for god’s sake!? I’m just a normal Dad trying to get the shopping done. Finally back in the safety of the car, my children strapped down, I adjust the rear view mirror and glimpse myself. Turns out my wife’s coconut lip balm is not, as I assumed, transparent. Not at all. More like the London look, in fact.

Important announcement. I think my cold has finally turned a corner. Not out of the woods yet, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I don’t complain. It’s just not in my nature. But every time I explain to my wife how awful my cold is, she ignores me, which is demoralising. And it’s not just this cold. I’m tired too. Lately my wife turning over in bed is like a mini earthquake, which wakes me up, so I was not at my best when we went into hospital. When I explain this she seems even less concerned. Admittedly she has other things on her mind. Like having another baby.

Maternity units are crowded and noisy and uncomfortable places, a bit like prison, except with less privacy. If I was having a baby I definitely wouldn’t be able to cope with it. My “Paternity Unit” would have to have waterbeds, and big screen TVs, and games consoles, and you’d be able to sleep as long as you like because your observations would be taken remotely and your milk would be extracted and piped directly to your baby in the next room. You’d be rendered numb below the waist and given a mobility scooter. I mean, you’re not a flippin’ prisoner! You’d probably have a couple of personal assistants 24/7, otherwise how would you cope? But it’s not all about me

By the time my wife gets out of hospital I’m completely exhausted. And my cold seems to be coming back! My wife says this is definitely the last baby she’s having. I think she’s trying to make me feel better because of my cold. Sympathy at last! And I’ve got a beautiful new baby son too. Which is nice.

We expect a lot of our leaders. We don’t tolerate human frailty in them. The truth is, though, we all have our weaknesses. We all have dark secrets lurking in our past.

My dark secret was safe. I thought. If I ever entered politics, which is unlikely I admit, not even the most tenacious tabloid journalist could root it out. And yet, the telltale heart beneath the floorboards never stops beating. Your sins will come back to haunt you, from the most unexpected quarter.

“Daddy, I haven’t had any sweets today.” My son tells me as we drive, apparently for no reason.

“No.” I say carefully, my parenting senses scanning for any attempts to trick me into buying sweets. “That’s true, son.”

“Can we buy some sweets from the shop?” He asks. I almost chuckle. He’s not even trying.

“No.” I say. My son asks why not. “Because sweets are bad for you.” I say. My son asks why. “Because…” I trail off. He’s ever asked me this before. There’s no point explaining to him about fillings or obesity or diabetes. Even if he know’s what they are, he truly doesn’t give a damn. “Because…” I say, struggling, “if you eat too many sweets, you won’t grow big and strong like daddy.” He falls silent. I feel a bit queasy. I may have just told him that if he eats sweets he will die.

“What if I eat crayons?” He asks.

I go cold. My God, is it genetic? “How did you know?” I want to hiss at him. “Is this a set up?”. I’m back in the primary school classroom, secretively nibbling a red crayon from a secretive fist. I can’t help myself. The wax sticks in my teeth.  Amanda Belcher sees me and her fist goes up like she’s trying to punch God in the face. “Miiiiiiiiiisss!” She screeches, grinning ecstatically. “He’s eating crayons!” She pauses for effect. “Again!!”. The whole class stares at me. I look back, fist half raised to my open mouth.

“Will eating crayons stop me growing up?” My son asks.

“Er…” I say, feeling as though I’m being recorded. I look around for an incongruous van with an incongruous aerial. “You shouldn’t eat crayons, son.” I say stiffly

“Am I not going to grow up?” He asks, sounding worried.

“Er… I, er… I think… just one crayon will be alright, but you shouldn’t eat any more.”

“What about two? Will I still grow up if I eat two?”

Cleverly, I pretend to fall asleep. With one eye open, because I’m driving.

Take some time and watch your beautiful children. Just watch them. If you really look, you will be filled with overwhelming emotion about the future. In my case that emotion is despair. We’re all, basically, doomed.

My daughter does not like her personal space to be invaded. My son knows this. He has worked out that if he invades her space, just a little bit, repeatedly, it will drive his little sister absolutely crazy. Just a little finger prod, timed correctly. This discovery has given him enormous pleasure. His cackles are ostentatiously evil. Even when, in her rage, she manages to hit him, he doesn’t mind. Annoying her is worth it.

I’m not thick. I can open a packet of pasta without tearing the packet open and exploding pasta all over the floor. Well, sometimes. I’m sure there have been times when I have done that. The point I’m making is, I’m not completely incompetent.

And yet, keeping peace between my two small children is impossible. The hitting. The pushing. The snatching. The barging. The psychological torture. If they are typical human beings, there is no hope for us.

Then one day I find them sitting in the arm chair, side by side, in peace. Smiling. Blissfully happy. It cannot be overstated how startling this is. They see me come in. They are beaming at me. I watch them, speechless. Tears are welling up.

Then, grinning, my son points at my daughter’s lap. Only then do I notice that she is mashing the keyboard of my laptop like a concert pianist. My blood freezes.

What’s the worst that could happen? I retrieve it. My laptop starts talking to me. I had no idea it could talk. It’s saying something about resetting its password. My beloved laptop appears to be locked, waiting for a password. I have never set a password. I make a few guesses. Nothing works.

“What password did you set, my darling?” I ask. She smiles at me. A beautiful, evil smile. They both laugh happily.

Turns out what brings human beings together is a common enemy. In this case, me.