12 November 2025

Behold: I am the coolest dad alive

There comes a day when a father must accept a lift on a Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 from one of his children

Ping! A text from my eldest child, who, alone among the three of them, is in a position to pop over to North Finchley and visit their grandmother as she goes through her rehabilitation. This is not because the other two are idle and selfish, but because travelling to North Finchley and back alone would carve out three hours of their day. My eldest, A—, however, has a motorbike, which means that nowhere in London is more than about 20 minutes away. A— proposes that I get a lift on the back of the bike. As it is the evening and I have had a glass of wine, I readily assent. I might be only two and a bit miles from the hospital, but it is all uphill and – as I think I might have mentioned in the previous week or three – I am suffering from gallstones, and physical exertion is both painful and tiring, even more so than usual. I have to walk to East Finchley Station, and then wait, rain or shine, for a 263 bus to take me up the hill and across the North Circular to see my white-haired old mother as she sits in her chair, watching ITV3 and half paying attention to old episodes of Endeavour.

There are some in London who say that the 263 does not actually exist, that it is, in fact, an urban legend; or that, like the town of Brigadoon, it only appears once a century, to take passengers to a mythical paradise called “Barnet”. These people are wrong. I can vouch for the existence of the 263. Although native to this country, they are rare, like kingfishers, and one should feel privileged to see one. I have spent many hours over the last couple of weeks waiting on the bench in front of the Old White Lion by East Finchley Tube Station while any number of 102s, 143s, and 243s pull up and disgorge their passengers. (As if to prove my point, I have just looked up a website giving live arrivals at East Finchley Station to check on the numbers of those buses, and while a 102, a 143 and a 243 are all expected to turn up within the next three minutes, of the 263 there is no rumour.)

The process is then repeated on the return journey, with the difference that one can sit at the stop and watch half a dozen different buses pull up and then move on, as if in mockery. One has not fully tasted desolation until one has experienced a 30-minute wait in the wastelands of North Finchley. To add insult, TfL have removed all information from their bus stop there, so instead of timetables there is simply some waffle about how they’re doing wonderful things to keep the city connected. “We are sorry if the information you are looking for is not displayed at this stop,” it says, as if taking the piss. There is a QR code which might have this information but I’m not using a QR code in the wild. I once heard of someone who saw a QR code advertising a weed dealer in Brighton and and it gave him a virus which meant he had to get a new phone.

The day of A—’s arrival comes. It is, luckily, a nice day, perfect for a bike ride, but I am sober now and am not looking as forward to being a pillion as much as I was the evening before. I suddenly realise how momentous a milestone it is for a father to accept a lift on a Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 from one of his children. There is also this: I used to have a motorbike myself – it’s what gave the eldest the idea in the first place – and the main reason I got one of them was because I hated riding pillion. One has no agency.

Still, mothers and grandmothers have to be visited, and so I put on a very beaten-up leather jacket, and A—’s spare helmet and gloves, and after five minutes of straining I manage to haul myself on to the back seat (it’s difficult because there is a luggage box on the back and I am not as flexible as I once was).

Off we go. My, I had forgotten how fast motorbikes accelerate. I realise I am going to have to hold on to the eldest, as the box is covering the rear grab rail. I try the shoulders, but that doesn’t feel right. So the waist it is. Now I have known, ever since I saw A—, aged three, doggedly piloting a dodgem car in a dilapidated fairground in Spain, that they were going to be a safe driver, but one can still be anxious, especially if one has a gallbladder as easily enraged as a Reform UK councillor.

And A— is safe. There might have been a little undertaking at one point, and a tiny lack of anticipation as we pass a stopped bus, (I didn’t get the number) but really, I have no complaints. We park up at the hospital and we take off our helmets. In the lift I catch my reflection (for some reason it has a large mirror). I see myself, in my distressed leather jacket, motorbike gloves, black jeans and sunglasses, which have gone opaque because of the sunshine. The helmet has flattened my hair, so that it doesn’t have those annoying tufty bits at the corners which are one of the banes of my life. I confess, I am rather pleased at the spectacle.