Name: Soft play centres. Age: Rupert Oliver introduced them on Tomorrow’s World in the early 70s. Appearance: Like Caligula’s Rome, only more expensive and shrill. The horror. Listen pal, you don’t know the half of it. Just because you spend seven Saturdays a year unsuccessfully trying to read a book in a shrieking industrial-estate echo chamber that’s been decorated like an exploded Mr Blobby, it doesn’t mean that you’re a soft play expert. I am, and as a result I have the worst life of all time. The second worst. Don’t forget, you could actually work at one. Jesus. That’s right. You only experience the full-body trauma of soft play for a couple of hours at a time, but for some people it’s a full-time job. Those poor souls. Don’t be too sad. At least they get to tell their stories to newspapers, as one anonymous worker just did to the Sun. Let me guess, peeing in the ball pit. Oh you poor sweet summer fool, they claim it’s so much worse than that. They found knives and condoms and miniature bottles of spirits in the ball pit. The mole told horror stories about discovering dirty nappies and caked-on vomit in their centre. And parents “would come along to get drunk and ditch their kids”. They can’t be that dirty, surely. Well, in 2019, US researchers discovered 31 different types of bacteria in ball pits, including Streptococcus oralis, Staphylococcus hominis and the charmingly named Enterococcus faecalis. We should all stop going to soft plays immediately! Hold on, they’re not all bad. First, basically everything any kid touches is full of germs anyway. Also, few places are better at helping to encourage a child’s sense of independence and self-reliance. Plus, don’t forget Sexy Saturdays. Pardon? Sexy Saturdays. This, according to the worker, is the day when the mums dress up because they want to hook up with all the dads that visit at weekends. I don’t think this is a thing, and even if it is, it sounds incredibly bleak. Who are you to disbelieve an anonymous tabloid source? And also, Christ yes, unbelievably bleak. Well, as a family we’re too good for soft play. We much prefer trampoline parks. Oh, you mean like the one in Chester that was so poorly maintained and supervised that 11 people broke their backs over the course of seven weeks in 2016 and 2017? Yes. Cool. Anyway, don’t be afraid of soft play. Not all centres are like this. And we exist in a post-pandemic age. If we can get through a once-a-century health crisis, we can probably cope with a bit of wee on a plastic ball. Do say: “Soft play centres are just as grotty as you imagine.” Don’t say: “Still, at least there might be a shag in it.”