Cooler Than My Kids

Hardback

A Handbook for Hip Dads

You've seen them at the back of gig or blaring Radio 6 on their over-ear headphones; they're the ones in Doc Martens queueing outside Rough Trade in unflattering hats that hide their receding hair lines; you may even have one of your own - that's right, it's the hipster dad!

Are you a middle-aged man who still loves discovering new bands and going to gigs - albeit standing at the back nodding appreciatively rather than down the front in the moshpit? Do you make playlists for your kids and dazzle them with your encyclopaedic musical knowledge at every opportunity, especially if that gives you an opportunity to explain why bands were better in the 90s? Do you own a large collection of band T-shirts collected over the years, even though some of them seem to be inexplicably tighter these days?

Other Hipster Dad signifiers: he loves vinyl; gigs and festivals (glamping only); Carhartt, Converse and Fred Perry; left-of-centre politics; Sunday-morning cycling clubs; Stewart Lee and Feargal Sharkey (because of the rivers); sourdough bread and posh coffee; a bit of creaky lunchtime yoga. Essentially, he is a good man, who cares for his kids and his aged parents. He might be lacking his own father's hands-on DIY and car-maintenance skills, but he knows his Suede from his IDLES, his Big Thief from his Boygenius. In other words, he's an expert in the things that really matter. Or as Jarvis Cocker once sang: 'He'll teach you stuff, although he's looking rough.'