My daughter wants to know why you haven’t heard of the Jayhawks

One of the many delightful aspects of having children is that you can get them to do things you are too old, lazy or important to do yourself. My disinclination to attend any sort of music festival, owing to a distaste for tents, chemical lavatories, mud and other people, has happily not passed down to my daughter, aged 15. Last month she went with a group of like-minded 15-year-olds, and large quantities of cider, to Latitude, which everyone says is much nicer than Glastonbury, if only because it doesn’t sprawl across several counties like a giant upper-middle-class shantytown. (The Guardian published an aerial photo of Glastonbury this year. It looked like Mexico City, only with a higher incidence of red trousers.)

We sent her off with her sleeping bag and 83 changes of clothes, which she thought had been put in the other car, while the people in the other car thought it had been put in her car. Being 15, and lovely, she laughed this off and everyone mucked in together. Being 54, and appalling, I would have stomped off in a rage to the nearest hotel. This is why I stay at home most of the time, and why, if I try to go out, no one will let me.

While at Latitude, my daughter discovered that an American band called the Jayhawks were playing. ‘The Jayhawks!’ she said. ‘They’re great! We’ve got to see them.’ Her friends looked bemused. My daughter had to explain that an elderly and confused relative of hers played their albums all the time, particularly one from 2000 called Smile, which contains two of her favourite songs, ‘I’m Gonna Make You Love Me’ and ‘Mr Wilson’. As they reached the Teetering On The Precipice Of Obscurity Tent (a short walk from Weeping With Rage At The Futility Of It All Tent), Martha realised that these now ageing American country-rockers were actually playing ‘I’m Gonna Make You Love Me’.