Saga Magazine – August 2018

permission, of course! I found

I had a taste for it and started

taking on one tree after another

until, by the end of the day,

a passage had been cut clear to

the Tesco Metro at the top of

the road. I felt something of the

spirit of David Livingstone

surging in my veins.

To assume that someone

else is going to take control

of things, though, is all too

easy a trap for any of us to fall

into. Recently, my ten-year-old

son got addicted to something

called Fortnite. The spelling

should have been a red flag but

I only encountered it aurally, in

his conversation, which it

dominated, utterly. His bedtime

and dinnertime chat were

entirely governed by it. But

I decided I would allow this

obsession to work its way

through his brain and out the

other side. This laissez-faire

approach, I told myself, was

realistic, healthy, proportionate.

Not at all lazy.

When I learned, however,

that children were running up

horrendous bills via the game’s

in-app purchases, a quick scan

of the bank statements revealed

that little parcels of cash were

indeed being nibbled off here

and there from my wife’s and

my joint account. Altogether,

we were in for more than £200.

Disciplining our son was the

easy part. He was, I sensed,

almost relieved when we

pulled the plug – I think

he could sense the

game’s coils around

him. The bill itself was,

OPINION

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Saga Magazine,

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Z

I had farmed out responsibility

to – what? The good intentions

of the games industry, which

knew perfectly well it was

marketing something every bit

as addictive as tobacco

ALAMY

20 SAGA.CO.UK/AUG-MAG I^2018

Simon Evans is a stand-up

comedian who has appeared on

everything from Live at the

Apollo to The News Quiz.

For details of his autumn tour,

visit offthekerb.co.uk

have to be you. By then, it is

often too late.

One possible solution is to

simplify things a bit. The less

stuff there is in your life – on

screen or off, or purely abstract,

in the form of current events

that you somehow think you

need to have coherent opinions

about – the more time you have

to pay attention to the stuff

that really matters. Such as your

joint account, and your kids.

So, I have taken a few small

steps to move towards a more

community-minded ethic.

Just over a year ago, I – and the

kids – joined Park Run,

a breathtakingly simple scheme

to get people of all shapes and

speeds off their sofas and onto

a five kilometre track every

Saturday morning. I have also

joined a book club – one that

actually talks about books,

though I realise that can come

across as elitist – and that has

had as noticeable an effect on

my attention span as Park Run

has on my girth.

To compensate for my son’s

drastically reduced access to

Fortnite, I try to spend at least

half an hour a night playing an

ancient and venerable game that

has a folding board instead of

a console and an adversary that

you share a good deal of your

DNA with, instead of an avatar

and an array of freshly

purchased virtual weapons to

‘toggle’. And the best bit is,

when it comes to chess, I get to

beat the little so-and-so. He

can’t even castle. WIN!

of course, merely added to

his running total, with which

he will be presented on

achieving maturity.

But it did make me reflect.

I had avoided doing the hard

work here – the responsibility

for knowing what my son was

up to. I had farmed it out to –

what? The good intentions

of the games industry, which

knew perfectly well it was

marketing something at

children every bit as addictive

as tobacco? Why had I not been

protected from this?

I blamed all the other parents

who had bought their kids

Xboxes before we bought

Edward his, and had thus

created the peer pressure. Of

course, any mothers and fathers

who came to the party after us

should really have understood

the whole caveat emptor thing

before entering their account

number in the box.

The fact is, my children’s

lack of exercise, my

inability to walk past the

biscuit tin, our failure as

a species to consume more

improving documentaries

and fewer phone-vote-based

entertainments on

television... no one else is going

to resolve these issues. Sooner

or later, you realise it’s going to

Lop of honour

If a job needs doing,

just do it yourself