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Get your geek on

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Put down your Shakespeare omnibus and peer over the top of your glasses - According to a new “Geek Index”, older fathers are likely to have geekier sons.

Presumably, this means that the chaps at King’s College London who carried out this research generally have dated daddies themselves. The same won’t apply to any of the lasses involved though, as daughters are seemingly unaffected. The age of yer Ma seems to be irrelevant too.

Whilst delaying having kids increases the risk of genetic errors, sons of fathers with more mileage on the clock are statistically likely to have a high ‘geek score’. The mini-nerds do better at school, and outstrip their peers in just the subjects you would expect, such as maths and science.

There are some interesting theories as to why boys wearing bow ties are designing super-computers using spaghetti, or building Large Hadron Colliders with Lego round the back of the bike sheds.

Geek dads might take longer to start a family (perhaps failing to spot romantic advances whilst reading a book on astrophysics), or that the homes of older dads might be the perfect setting to encourage the inner Einstein in Junior.

There’s also the possibility of mutations, but if Marvel Comics taught me anything, it’s that a genetic crossed-wire or two should produce kids capable of climbing tall buildings without a rope, or having super strength. I don’t remember one where it resulted in them being brilliant at trigonometry.

I was never amongst the cool clique at school. I was too busy accumulating facts like some kind of nerdy knowledge sponge to get caught up in the trendiest shirt collar angle debate. I was briefly in the Dungeons and Dragons club, so that’s definitely geek chic points, right?

If this report is correct, we should be keeping an eye on the recent male offspring of our ageing rock stars. Rod Stewart was 66 when his son arrived, Whilst Mick Jagger’s lad showed up when the Rolling Stones rocker was 73. These nippers should logically be able to fix global warming and find a cure for all diseases before they’re out of nappies.

If having an old Dad makes you clever, then you’re probably unaffected by wasteful modesty. My dad was 45 when I was born.

(High-fives everyone whilst moonwalking backwards out of the room reading the collected works of Nietzce.)

Sadly, it seems that my own increasing age means people who made a significant impression on my childhood are fast disappearing.

Another of the good ones went this week, as the charming Brian Cant passed away at the age of 83. His endearing and inspiring performances made every episode of children’s TV shows Play School and Play Away an enthralling and magical experience for my young mind.

His talent spread wide across TV in the ’60 and ‘70s, with his voice lending a gentle warmth to stop-motion classics such as Trumpton, Camberwick Green and Chigley. Trumptonshire, and the rest of us of a certain age, will miss him.


This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the newly re-named The Mail, on the 23rd of June 2017. The version used on their website retained my title (and the old column header), whilst the print edition became "It's all geek to old dads".

 It also had a new column header... which appears to have squashed my photo, instantly adding quite a few pounds. For some reason, the 'y' of 'Friday' seems to have missed out on the bold treatment too. They do have a newer photo - at their request I submitted one a couple of years ago, and it was used online for a while but, for some reason, has never made it into print. 

 So... please do enjoy this new version of a 5+ year old photo of me that makes me look fat.

 The print edition also merged the two subjects (Geek kids and the passing of Brian Cant) and add a picture of the Play School star.

(CD A-Z: Bit of Liz Phair's self-titled album from 2003.)
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