Tobin Jr is already a Monopoly master. Now I’ll teach him cheating is bad

Big moment, this weekend. It was the first of what I hope will be many afternoons of family board gaming: the three-year-old had proudly set up his new Junior Monopoly set.

He wanted to be banker, of course, which was worrying — nothing is more character-revealing than a game of Monopoly. Also, it swiftly became clear that his financial prowess was only slightly better than Transport Secretary Chris Grayling ’s.

Fair enough, I thought, he’s a toddler. But so eager was I that he should fall in love with the innocent board game that I wanted him to win.

I had to fudge a few throws to ensure I didn’t snag too many valuable properties and it worked — he won. Now he only has to wait a few years until his baby brother is old enough to play to learn the truth about Monopoly (it’s too long, quite boring and always ends in a door-slamming argument).

Then I read extracts from a new book, Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump, by Rick Reilly. The closest I get to a fairway is a seaside round of crazy golf but Reilly’s claims about Trump’s scam-filled rounds are hilarious.

Hilarious, that is, if Trump wasn’t President of the US. Reilly writes that Trump routinely knocks shots off his tally, making excuses such as “that bird flew over just as I was about to hit” and “my foot slipped”. Caddies, apparently, got so used to seeing the President cheatingly kick his ball back into play from the rough that they dubbed him “Pele”.

Games are revealing about character. It didn’t surprise me when my university tennis opponent (who’d lie about balls being in or out) turned out to be using essay mills. Trump’s alleged golf cheating isn’t the worst allegation he’s facing; but how someone plays a game says more about them than just sporting aptitude. I’d better play tough next time the Monopoly comes out.

A good loo seat is a penny well spent

A snippet in the latest MP expenses probe reveals that Richard Benyon submitted a claim for a £6.80 toilet seat for his constituency office from Wilko — before putting through another, for £10.87, weeks later. Some view this as yet more evidence of parliamentary excess. As a fool who has been too often duped (by small, begging people I gave birth to) into buying Poundland toys that break before we’re home, I reckon it just shows the importance of buying once and buying well.

Doing otherwise — especially when it comes to loo seats — is just pissing money down the drain.

Will teen hit Clueless ever age? As if...

Cher, Josh, Murray and Travis had a reunion over the weekend (if you didn’t clock they were the stars of Clueless — Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Donald Faison and Breckin Meyer — then you’re not a millennial).

First shock: it’s 24 years since the film came out. Second: Rudd doesn’t age. At a Chicago comic convention the nearly-50-year-old’s co-stars mocked him: “On the Clueless set they would come to Paul’s trailer an hour beforehand because he had to finish sucking the lifeblood out of the babies to maintain his youth,” joked Meyer. So there are still actors in LA with a sense of humour! Then I realised that, given some celebs’ love of treatments like the blood-swapping vampire facial, it can’t be long until a rogue LA Botoxer concocts placental skincare.

As Cher would no doubt put it: “Ugh — as if.”

Keep wearing that lucky coat, Theresa

Theresa May has done much to be mocked for over the past month but commentators turning on her for wearing the same blue coat repeatedly are wrong.

We want MPs to be non-duck-house-owning people like us but then expect celebrity-style wardrobes. It’s partly a female thing: no one asks why Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t changed his crumpled navy coat for months (years?) Re-wearing clothes is just being normal. Still, if May thinks of her coat as a lucky charm (she’s worn it to talks in Strasbourg, Downing Street, Brussels...) it might be time for a rethink.