It’s World Book Day again. God help us

For parents of primary school children, the first Thursday in March has got to be the worst day of the year. Even an attendance Nazi like me, who won’t countenance any excuse for keeping a child home from school, would accept that on this occasion a ‘tummy ache’ is a perfectly legitimate reason. Why do I say this? Because the first Thursday of March is World Book Day.

Now, for those of you without children, or whose children went to school before this annual ritual was invented by Unesco in 1995, I should explain that the reason it’s such a colossal bore is because parents are expected to mark the occasion by sending their offspring to school dressed as their favourite fictional character. That might sound harmless enough, but for status-conscious middle-class parents such as Caroline and me it’s a complete nightmare.

The problem begins when your child insists on going to school in a superhero costume, rather than a character from Winnie-the-Pooh or The Wind in the Willows. As the father of three boys, I have had this argument so many times I can recite it in my sleep. Yes, Charlie, I know Superman is cool, but it’s World Book Day, not World Comic Day. No, Freddie, graphic novels don’t count so I’m afraid you can’t go as Batman from The Dark Knight Returns even though it’s technically a ‘book’. Sorry, Ludo, if you wear a Black Panther costume you’ll be accused of ‘cultural appropriation’.

To be fair, Ludo has dressed up as a girl on World Book Day, which if not ‘cultural appropriation’ is in the same ballpark. He went as Goldilocks and even took three teddy bears with him as props. I thought he looked so good I took a picture of him and posted it on Twitter — which, like many things I’ve tweeted, turned out to be a terrible mistake.