Vampire Weekend

As a family, we rolled through the Harry Potter years without too many issues. But that has given way to Twilight, New Moon and now Eclipse, as the notion of blood-sucking boys with wan faces has played havoc with my daughters and their psychic well-being. They have been retiring to their rooms, like Victorian ladies, to vent their grief and to read more of these Stephenie Meyer mope-fests.

And so this was our Vampire Weekend, as different parts of the family have been travelling in well-scheduled rotas to view Eclipse at the cinema. They already know the plot, they are fully up-to-speed with the casting news and occasionally I hear them musing about whether the new film's director can possibly live up to the work of the predecessor.

Our house is groaning with posters, annuals, branded watches, jewellery and I believe a board game. When we travel in the family car, the Twilight CDs are forever bleating out their goth-lite gubbins. They regard my indifference to all this as a major character flaw, likewise my reluctance to side with either the werewolves or the undead. Yes, I dozed off in the middle of New Moon and emitted a few dad snores, but does that make me a bad parent?

So I dutifully made the trip to the cinema to see the latest instalment. And I do understand that there's a metaphorical side to all this that relates to girls and their hormonal upheavals. Hence the silly plotlines and the meticulously sculpted hair. Yet as the emotional intensity is ramped up in this latest episode, I started looking at the courtship scenes on screen and realised that in the next few years, there would be real-life dramas in our household to rival anything that's going on in this mythological zone. Heaven help us all.