THE latest torment for those of us in the sans enfants sector is the Screaming Kids Party. This involves assembling as many children as possible into the smallest space imaginable and then allowing them to drive everyone insane.

Meanwhile, the parents swap childbirth notes, read passages from Spock, and cut Tuscan holiday offers out of The Guardian.

There is no attempt whatsoever to engage the children in any sort of constructive game or pursuit.

Oh, no – far better to let them scream their heads off and force everyone else out of their gardens back indoors to escape the racket.

When my kids were given a party it was all games and activities. I fondly recall Mr Curnock the Worcester magician visiting Dun Subbin and his glamorous assistant changing into lurex in the downstairs lavatory.

Then there was pass the parcel, pin the tail on the donkey, I spy with my little eye and Uncle John with his guitar. These days, it would just be boring were it not for the noise levels.

●I RECKON Andy Roberts’s period in office – ably assisted by deputy Mike Layland – will go down as being one of the more notable mayoralties in Worcester history.

Andy has an engaging personality and boundless enthusiasm for the job as I discovered during an informal tour of the Guildhall. And Mike, of course, is the great survivor, having escaped innumerable attempts on his character by New Labour ‘assassins’.

Diglis-born and bred, Mike is also in line to become one of that rare breed of civic servants destined to twice don robes and ermine to become this city’s senior citizen.

You can count on the fingers of one hand the people who have really made an impact on Worcester. And Mike Layland is one of them.