Must have been about 12 years ago. We were on holiday that summer in Florida; and we went out for dinner. Which is the same as going out for dinner anywhere else in the world, except much earlier. You eat by 5 because last orders are at 6 and the places closes at 7. Seems odd but with a state-average age of 92 you can almost understand it.

We ordered drinks. Beer for me. I like beer. Mel likes brightly coloured concoctions in long glasses filled with ice and little plastic toys. And so ordered a ‘sex on the beach’ or a ‘banana, peach and peppermint daquiri’ or something along those lines. Chocolate mojito, whatever. She tasted it, said the usual ‘oh, that’s lovely’ and we all had a sip to confirm. When the straw (one of the 9 that came with the drink) was in Rachie (then about 13 years old)’s mouth the waiter started screaming. But like, really screaming.

“WE COULD LOSE OUR LICENSE!!!!! SHE’S A CHILD!!!!! CAN’T DO THATTTTT!!!!! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?????!!!!!” kind’a along those lines. He would have called me a motherfucka or some other Americanism but, along with ‘underage drinking’, swearing with children present, or ‘cussin’ as they call it in the South, is probably illegal too.

And you have to admire the Americans. No, really, you do. They have this ‘no means NO’ attitude to things. There’s no flexibility, no ambiguity, no room for wriggle. Its not like Rachie was on the floor with a bottle of vodka in one hand, her mother’s knickerbocker-glory flavoured margerita in the other singing football songs. That came a little later in her life. She just took a sip, to taste.

Because our kids were never strangers to alcohol. With a mother like theirs that would have been impossible.But I place no blame. The kids were little we gave them sips of wine. They grew up, they tasted our drinks. It was never VERBOTEN!!! it was never a deal, big or otherwise, its just a drink. And for them, I hope, it simply de-mystified the whole booze thing. It wasn’t to be, when they reached that inevitable milestone, something illicit and unknown and therefore more likely to become a problem. It was no big deal. Like they do in Europe.

So Liz Hurley goes to a party with her 14 year-old son. Damian, if you’re interested, the kid with the awesome MILF if you’re not. They drank champagne on the lawn of some manor house or other and ‘Hello!’ did what they do best; filmed vacuous people being vacuous.

And then they edited out the glass from the kid’s hand. Photoshopped. Gone. Never there. Just looks like any other kid but with a deformed hand. Because although its no crime to drink in private whilst ‘underage’, it is apparently, and stupidly, ‘against medical advice’. Like they know anything. So Hello! did what it does best; act like a bunch of tossers.

Happy Monday

A xxxx