Diary – 15 October 2004

For my son’s eighth birthday, I invited all 18 of his classmates (according to diktat) to his exciting climbing party at the Westway sports centre. I sent a round-robin email to the parents. I pointed out how very easy it was to reach the sports centre from north London. I said that all their sons would be coming home from school that day with invitations to this exciting event. I should, for honesty’s sake, admit that I gave everyone only a week’s notice.

‘As you must know, Saturday is the day of atonement,’ said a mother, as she declined. Out of the 18 boys I asked, 17 had copper-bottomed reasons regretfully to have to say no. I began to feel a bit swivelly-eyed about the party situation. So I collared another mother at the school gates and asked her what was going down. ‘I’m so sorry no one can come,’ she said. ‘But the thing is, your party clashed with Otto’s football party.’

These are the four things I learnt from the experience. One, I’d left it too late, by about six months, to expect any seven-year-old to be free only a week hence. London-based children’s schedules are too jam-packed with extra music and Saturday language school, sports coaching and the dreaded tutoring to have time available for a last-minute party. Two, I hadn’t checked whether the date clashed with any important religious festivals for my son’s peer group. Three, I hadn’t done enough undercover spying at the school gates to know that our party clashed with another party that was probably ‘put in the diary’ back in 2003. And four, I learnt that if you don’t want to invite all the children in the class to your child’s birthday celebration, you don’t ever admit you’re having a party.