Elation and deflation

Unsurprisingly, Madness were terrific last night.

Lead singer Suggs, resplendent in a pink suit, belted his way through all the classics in front of an aging but crazed 2,000-strong Leeds audience. Indeed, so vocal were the crowd that he ended the evening by apologising for the fact that the band hadn't played in the city for 30 years.

To be fair, he and his fellow Nutty Boys had been left scarred by what had happened after the last gig at Tiffany's nightclub in 1979 - the good folk of Leeds had smashed all the windows of the Madness minibus. Still, everyone has now hopefully moved on.

My feelings of elation were tempered ever so slightly by the sight of a deflation when I went to collect Jamie from nursery. For yes, folks, with 16 days still to go before Christmas Day, our son managed to bring Yuletide shame upon our family. He burst Santa.

Apparently he had been kissing the blow-up Father Christmas, got a little bit carried away and, when I walked into get him shortly before 6pm, the two nice nursery ladies were creased up on the floor as Santa slowly sunk to the floor - I had only missed the incident by a few seconds.

I've just dropped Jamie off again and one of the girls said she'd brought a puncture repair kit in to attempt a repair job. But you can easily guess what I'll be trying to find when I hit the shops at lunchtime today.