By the time we got to my brother's house to collect the kids, it turned out my Mum had already phoned ahead to say we were on our way. Thing is, if you want to keep kids under control, I'm of the opinion that you should never give them any advance warning at all. Otherwise they get too much time to mull over where they're going and whip themselves up into a frenzy.

It's why teenage preganancy rates are so high in this country. Kids are told around the age of 11 that one day (when they're 16) they might be able to have sex. This gives them a good 4-5 years to sit around twiddling your thumbs thinking about it. Then when it's time, precautions go out the window and it's all about just getting to jump someone's bones. 

It's a theory I have give much consideration over the years and I'm of the thinking that if we only told the kids on the eve of the 16th birthday, sexual transmitted disease rates and the number of girls getting pregnant now would be nowhere near as high.

Hmmm, this has gone slightly off topic, but nevermind.

Basically the problem was that my Mum had told my brother to tell his sons that we were taking them to the beach. This was a massive overstatement anyway; we were only taking them to Ruislip Lido. Also this meant that by the time it came to collect them, we were greeted by a scene that looked like someone had got a big dollop madness and set it off on a riot.

The kids were going crazy. The youngest one was running round with swimming trunks on, a bucket on his head and hitting anything that came in his way with a spade. The other one was marching around demanding that we get ice creams and fizzy drinks. Because that's what you do at the seaside.

We decided to just try and get them into the car as quickly as possible. That way the sooner we could get them to the Lido and shatter there dreams about going to the seaside.

Heartbreak. It's the best way to sober people up.