John Walsh: Tales of the City

'What a miracle: we survived the Attack of the Party Teens. But my wheelie-bin didn't...'

Published: 05 September 2006

My son Max hit 15 the other day, and asked if he could have some friends over for a little party. Well, I thought, why not? Since he and his gang of buddies go everywhere together in a shuffling hormonal phalanx, as though shackled at the ankles like the convicts in Take the Money and Run, and since they are always in our house, playing Guitar Hero on the PlayStation, lolling on the trampoline like sleeping lions or devouring chicken drumsticks like starving jackals, what harm could it do if we gave them a party by just adding some music, a cake and some cans of Bloke Coke?

But I was forgetting that thing called puberty (awful word), which changes the face of the Young Person's Party like a dose of acne vulgaris. It means that it's imperative for Max to invite as many girls as he can find, from school and elsewhere, in the spirit of a young Hugh Hefner showing off his prodigious harem. The list of Maddys and Zoes and Rachels and Yasmins grew longer and longer. Most of the female population of Dulwich was invited and they were all, it seemed, saying yes.

Article Length: 878 words (approx.)