The youth of today

It's brilliant when you have nephews, because you get to attend weekend functions that might otherwise remain at the periphery of your life's experience. You get, for example, to go to the Irish Beyblading Championships, even though you don't really know what a Beyblade is.

You get to stand in a toyshop and discover just how baggy are the baggy trousers worn by boys these days. You are afforded unwanted glimpses of boxer shorts peeking brazenly from waistbands worn half-mast. It's a whole new, not entirely attractive, world.

Fionn and I went for lunch after the games. This took some time because we chose to go to the Epicurean Food Hall in Dublin and you have to walk around a few times before you decide what country you want to eat in. We finally settled in Mexico, and over lunch we talked about winning and losing and taking part.

He hadn't had a particularly satisfying tournament. First he was accused by the referee of modifying his Beyblade - it's a kind of spinning top, that's all you need to know - when he absolutely hadn't. Then his equipment fell apart almost as soon as battle commenced. The whole thing smelt to Beyblade heaven as far as I was concerned, and I would have called for some kind of inquiry, but Fionn distracted me by pointing at the aisle full of Barbies.

I don't mind, anyway, he said. It's not about winning, I had good fun taking part. This is not what you expect from a healthy child of 10 years old, not in this competitive age of points races and Pop Idol. Later, wandering around one of those new Asian supermarkets, I felt the need for some Auntie intervention.

This win-some/lose-some attitude is all very well, I told him, but, winning is not to be sneezed at. I know this probably sounds mad to you, but take it from me, winning can be even better than losing sometimes.

The little blader didn't bite. He said he had great fun taking part and changed the subject by pointing out a Durian fruit and telling me that while it smelt like rotten fish, it apparently tasted simply delicious. I was momentarily disarmed by his knowledge of exotic fruits until I remembered that he is the proud owner of a subscription to National Geographic. What is it with the young folk these days?

It's equally brilliant when your boyfriend has nephews because in the same weekend that you make your Beyblading début, you get to take seven-year-old Stefan Tour on the Viking Splash and watch him roar at passing Celts.

It's not so great when afterwards he demands to go bowling, but he was down from the North and it was his first time in Dublin, and so it was that I returned, after an absence of more than a decade, to the Stillorgan Bowl.

Stefan, it soon transpired, doesn't share quite the same view of winning and losing as Fionn. Whether or not he managed to hit any of the clubs with his bowling ball wasn't a matter or life or death - it was more important than that. He kicked, he cried, he shouted at his mother. I wouldn't have fancied Fionn's chances trying to explain to Stefan about the joys of, you know, taking part. It could have got very messy.

The next day we brought Stefan to Dublin Zoo. It was one of those rare days when every animal seemed happy to be on show - as though the keepers had gone around the African plains geeing them up. Now look, fellas, it's a sunny day, we're expecting a big crowd, just make a bit of effort. No squawking at the back.

So we got to stare at gorillas for half an hour and watch as the biggest one put his hand to his head in a very good impression of someone chatting on his mobile phone while the smallest one rolled around on the grass. The chimpanzees were having swinging competitions, the elephants were trumpeting away and, best of all, the seals were being fed.

Waiting for the keepers and their buckets of fish, we watched hungry herons until we were distracted by a screaming child. Stefan rolled his eyes. Can't concentrate, he said, not with that one shouting. Then we both started looking at another small child in the arms of her father. She was in hysterics, chuckling in that throaty way you do when someone is pretending to devour your neck.

We watched the scene until Stefan said: "I wish I had a Daddy like that."

He does have a Daddy, it's just that he hasn't lived with him for quite a while. You do have a Daddy, I told him. If I have a Daddy then what's his name, he asked me.

And, the thing was, I just didn't know. But that was OK because quick as anything he asked me, so, which do you like best, the sealions or the gorillas? And I said, neither, I like Stefans, and it was brilliant when he threw back his head and he laughed.