Ok, back to drawings of my son’s things, which I keep in a book dating back a few years now and update only sporadically. What, you are asking, are these? What indeed. If you have kids, you probably know all too well. These little things are called “Beyblades”. Oh, Beyblades. So my understanding is that they were really popular, and then they weren’t as popular, ok fine. So my son made a Christmas list late 2015 (“late 2015”, yeah right he started it in June), full of all the Pokemons and Legos and video games he wants, not a mention of Beyblades. Come November, safe now to say his list is final, yes; safe to go shopping. No. No, for some reason by then he had suddenly become obsessed with these Beyblade things. At his afterschool daycare, all the kids were now into these “Beyblades”, an obsession fueled by the daycare staff, the same people who had the year before organized Pokemon tournaments and therefore got all the kids into little Pokemon people. And Pokemon is rather irritating. I understand it not one bit, and the TV shows that go with it are just, look, I watched He-Man when I was a kid and that was 100% awesome and not ridiculous at all. This Pokemon stuff makes no sense. I’m sure the game itself is actually a lot of fun. I will say that having all these cards accelerated his reading and numeracy skills so I’ll admit they have been beneficial, but since they are all over my living room floor 24-7 I will reserve my right to grumble like any old dad.

And then it was Beyblades, and suddenly the List had to change. If anyone got him Beyblades that was automatically his favourite thing. Again, it was down to daycare – they were having Beyblade tournaments daily, so all the kids were playing them, and then going home and getting parents to look them up online to buy them. I know some people who had actually sold all their son’s old Beyblades when it seemed like that time had passed, and then when all the boys got into Beyblades, well they had to go looking for new ones. I’m a parent, this is just how it works. These things are not actually blades, they are in fact little spinning tops that you build and launch into a little arena. Two or more will spin around each other, hitting each other occasionally (“battling”) until one stops, meaning the other one wins. And spin they do – they can go for sveeral minutes silently whirring away. There are low quality, fake Beyblades out there and you better get the right one. Because the fad lost energy a while ago, these are less easy to find. If you have enough of them all over your living room floor, your bare feet will also pick up many injuries, something which only happens to adults who are of course stupid. There is a tv show that goes with it too. Now I say that Pokemon makes no sense, but Pokemon is like Citizen Kane compared to Beyblade. If you are a fan of shrieking irritating voices and plot concepts that make no sense whatsoever then Beyblade TV show is for you. Or perhaps Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (oh I could have a whole blogpost about that). Oh, Beyblades. They make these kids very happy indeed. For his birthday, my son had a Beyblade tournament, and a whole load of kids came over and “battled” with their Beys, I even tried it myself, and of course lost, the silly old boring useless grown-up that I am. They love it, and that’s fine. It can I guess be fun. They are quite pretty. Ok lad, I’m on board, I’m even going to draw them; tell me more.Which one’s faster?

What? You don’t play these any more? Your daycare has moved back to Pokemon, so it’s all Pokemon again? Yep, in the time it took me to draw and then finally post these, they have sat idle in the red plastic stadium, waiting for the next time the fad rolls in. Ah well, at least my feet are safe again, for now.