We had a bit of bank holiday weekend joy in our house, ladies and gentlemen, when I fulfilled every contemporary dad’s dream: introducing the kids to Back to the Future for the first time. I had been waiting for them to hit the right age to appreciate it. And with snacks at the ready and lights dimmed, only slightly worried they’d find the whole thing too dated, I hit play.

And I’m relieved to report they absolutely loved it.

What struck me, watching it with fresh eyes through theirs, is just how tightly the whole thing is scripted. Not a single moment lost. Every line of dialogue, every throwaway gag, plants a seed for something later. By the time the credits rolled, my son and daughter were wide-eyed and frazzled, the young fella announcing he felt ‘a bit stressed’ and needed to lie down after that. I felt a small pang for the kids, honestly, that they don’t have more films like this in their world, that so much of what they’re served now is forty-minute YouTube essays about Minecraft farms or some lad in his bedroom ranking energy drinks. But that’s exactly what some old lad in his forties would think, I suppose.

Spielberg and Zemeckis just knew how to make a film, though, and it was a reminder not to underestimate your audience. Let’s see what they make of part two and how the portrayal of 2015 stacks up.

Labour woes    

Speaking of going back in time to undo terrible decisions, it’s been a tough ‘aul week for both of the previously leading British political parties. As we go to print, the UK is bracing itself for what’s been delicately christened ‘Starmergeddon’ Thursday’s local elections, where Keir Starmer’s Labour are most likely facing a hiding of biblical proportions.

Five thousand English council seats are in play, along with the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Parliament, and current projections have Labour shedding over a thousand seats. Reform UK, who currently sit on a grand total of two, are forecast to walk away with around 1,500. The Greens are also expected to win big.

Spare a thought too for the Tories, who are also haemorrhaging support. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch had to apologise last week for a video on her own social media channels that ran archive footage of British soldiers from Bloody Sunday underneath a clip of her arguing on behalf of elderly Troubles veterans. Awkward.

SDLP MP for Foyle Colum Eastwood called it ‘disgusting.’ Badenoch’s defence was that she hadn’t signed off, that the video had been put together by ‘very young people’ on her team who hadn’t recognised the footage.

Listen, I work with very young people. They’re great. And smart. But you’d want to be reasonably sure they can tell the difference between a parade and a massacre before you let them near the party TikTok account.

We all love a good nap

And now for something completely different… The city of Seoul ran its third annual Power Nap Contest on Saturday. Hundreds of South Koreans turned up at a park by the Han River, with the official entry requirements being that you arrive tired, with a full belly, and dressed as either a sleeping beauty or a sleeping prince.

One contestant, an English teacher in her twenties, rocked up in an enormous plush koala onesie, on the basis that koalas are champion nappers and she was hoping some of it might rub off. Fair play to her. She didn’t win. The winner was a man in his 80s, a cohort known for their form on the napping front.

The whole carry-on is in response to South Korea’s reputation as one of the most sleep-deprived nations in the OECD. Turning it into a potentially stress-inducing competition suggests they haven’t learned a thing.

Bosco rite of passage

It’s been a week of looking back to childhood and it was sad to read the news last weekend about the death of former Bosco presenter Gráinne Uí Mhaitiú at 72. May she rest in peace. For anyone of a certain vintage, Bosco was less a children’s programme and more a rite of passage: the little red-haired puppet in his box, the magic door, and the sense that anywhere was reachable if you only knew where to look.

Gráinne later went on to present SBB Ina Shuí alongside Seán Bán Breathnach, which I’m fairly sure my mother used to have on the black and white telly in the back room of Ann’s Boutique in Ashe Street where we used to pass the time after school.

A whole generation of us was quietly raised by a small cast of hippies in cardigans and an weird squeaky-voiced, red-haired box dweller. Isn’t it a wonder we turned out the way we did?