I spent a convivial evening with friends in the London Bridge area last night. Kev told an anecdote – actually, he ended up doing two encores, it must be something to do with the delivery – about a blow-up confrontation he had had with a young mother at a children’s party, after she had viciously harangued Kev’s son for pointing a toy gun at her own offspring. There are ways, and there are ways of telling 4 year old boys that it’s not nice to point a plastic imitation of an instrument of death at a fellow human being, but screaming at them while staring with “hateful, tiny black eyes” as Kev put it, probably isn’t the best way. Kev pointed this out to her, adding that he hadn’t actually brought his son to the party fully armed. But neither of them would back down. After some minutes, and the exchange had degenerated into batting back and forth the phrase “What’s Your Problem?” at high volume, the woman’s husband pointed out from the comfort of a nearby chair that it probably wasn’t the best idea for 2 adults to scream abuse at each other at a children’s party.

Adam noted that some middle-class parents are quite happy for their children to play with less sophisticated imitation weaponry: they might permit, say, the musket, mace or blunderbuss, but eschew plastic simulacrums of the Glock or Kalashnikov. Heated discussions followed, as we tried to work out the cut-off year beyond which modern, progressive parents might start to frown upon a weapon, and more specifically their kids playing with a pretend version of it. Thing is, I’ve just looked at a weaponry timeline on the internet, and as the first recorded use of a firearm is 1364, that leaves little more for their kids to enjoy than the crossbow and the boomerang. I’m thinking that cannisters of pretend mustard gas might prove a Christmas hit in 2007. Cheap to manufacture, too.

I never had a toy gun to play with when I was little, I was sat at a keyboard instead with some scales and arpeggios to learn. Some might say that the pianoforte is a far, far more potent weapon than a gun could ever be, and anyone who heard me trying to play the theme tune from Miami Vice on it at the age of 12 might well agree.

I got home and fell asleep to the sound of Dr Ian Paisley’s voice booming out of the TV, which might well be a first, and might also signal the end of his domination of Unionist politics.