Kids should be seen and heard

It has been a great week for top-flight entertainment value supplied by small children. Including the one who was B-B-C-een but not heard.

Despite clearly not needing their services, I sat in a hairdressers in Kendal for a while last weekend. Before you start calling the local constabulary, I was legitimately there – Mrs. G was getting her barnet coiffed.

Whilst carrying out the thoroughly modern practice of staring at my phone and avoiding eye contact with anyone, I found myself simultaneously trying not to get distracted by an extremely smiley toddler and his adorable slightly bigger sister, who was having her hair cut.

Every time I glanced up, the little chap was grinning at me, or making an attempt to grab my sleeve, whilst his sister chatted happily away.

After the trim was sorted, she decided I clearly needed to pay more attention, and launched into a hysterical explanation, for my benefit, about the deficiencies of her baby bro. She does love him, apparently, but he doesn’t do much apart from crawl really fast and sometime stand up if he’s got something to hold on to. However, the biggest problem seemed to be that “he doesn’t even talk”.

Never mind – happily, she had any conversational deficiencies in that household well and truly covered, along with extreme cuteness.

Meanwhile, Professor Robert Kelly was live on the BBC from his home, giving his professional opinion on events in South Korea. The next 30 seconds have turned him into an internet sensation, as his organised, neat, office was invaded by his children.

And they did it in style. First, his small daughter opens the door and positively swaggers into the room in an arm waving dance frenzy. Marching right up to her now flustered dad and sitting on the end of what appears to be a bed, she successfully knocks a pile of books over whilst he desperately tries to push her back, only for a tiny toddler in a baby walker to shoot in through the door at high speed.

A panicked entrance by their Mum then leads to a wonderful moment of more spilled books and a frenzied attempt to get two children (who don’t want to go) out of a door whilst pointlessly hoping you haven’t been seen.

Shared rapidly round the world, the BBC’s own clip of it on YouTube has already amassed well over 20 million views, and has firmly established itself as a clear front runner for the coveted “Funniest TV news clips 2017” award.

That it also spawned a conversation about why some people assumed the harassed mum was a nanny, simply because she is Asian and the Prof white, is no bad thing either.

Seen but not heard? No thanks – put your phone down, shut the lid on your laptop and unplug the TV – all the entertainment you need is just a couple of small children away.

They’re definitely having fun. We might as well join in. What have we got to lose?

This post first appeared as my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 17th of March, 2017. You can view the version used by the paper on their website here, which was re-titled as 'Entertainment is child's play'.

Just in case you actually do live under a rock and haven't seen this glorious piece of unscripted brilliance, here it is for you. Since submitting my column on Wednesday, the clip has been viewed another couple of million times, too. And that's just this copy of it.

There has also been an entertaining follow-up interview with the whole family, in which the kids yet again steal the show. Good work, small people. Life is depressing at the best of times - keep up the good work of lightening the mood.

(CD A-Z: Gary Numan's "Dance". Yes, I am pouting.)