Someone asked me the other day if, as a single parent, I could relate to the McDonalds advert where a man is trying to ingratiate himself to a difficult teenage lad who is struggling to come to terms with him moving in to his house? The simple answer is no on several counts. First of all, I have no interest in McDonald’s food and secondly, I wouldn’t start plying it to a child who I may be potentially living with for the next ten years. I really wouldn’t want the spectre of type 2 diabetes and childhood obesity hanging over me as judging by this awkward little twat, I would already have enough on my plate (If you excuse the pun).  Finally my girlfriend has two daughters, not a son; they would have to really hate me for me to start taking them to McDonalds.

On the face of it, Dave, the potential step-father in the advert, seems a decent bloke. He looks like someone out of one of those 90’s “Madchester” bands such as The Charlatans or The Stone Roses and without sounding too presumptuous, it may well have been moderate use of class B drugs such as ecstasy and dope that led him up his own dangerous path to habitual late night McDonald’s use. In fairness to Dave, he tried all sorts of alternate methods to try and get this grumpy little fucker on board. He went to watch him play football on a cold council estate pitch; he offered to help him mend a puncture, a lift when it was pissing down, first go in the bathroom and a trawl through his prized record collection.

Now, we don’t know the history with Dave and the boy’s mother of course and in fairness to the lad, Dave may just be one of a succession of blokes who his mother has had move in with her. For all we know, she may have been cocked more times than Elmer Fudd’s shotgun and the poor lad is just about at his wits end with it all. Alternatively, Dave may have poached the boy’s mother off her then husband, a once stable man who is now living in a dustbin with his best friends Jack Daniels and Glenn Fiddich? That would enough to make any child a little disruptive, though one suspects a joke shared over a discarded gherkin wouldn’t solve an issue as big as that.

The romantic in me is desperate to assume that Dave’s wife dumped him for the dustman with various STD’s and that the father of the young lad ran off with his 25 year old secretary before getting hit by a tram, meaning this beautiful coming together was an act of fate which would lead to the ultimate repair of two broken souls. But why then, would the boy be so reluctant to take up the various generous offerings from Dave, who was trying every almost every option of friendship available before jacking the lad up on the salt and sugar rush that can only come from a McDonalds Happy Meal? Something is amiss…Please don’t tell me that Dave has a series of convictions for indecent exposure that the boy’s mother has perpetually forgiven him for?

At the moment, I still quite like Dave; it appears that he really tried his best to avoid McDonald’s before caving in to this defiant little bastard. However, some sort of parental instinct is nagging me inside and telling me that all is not well and that we are only seeing the edited highlights of what is a tragic story where the boy ultimately hits 30 stone on his 18th birthday. At the start of the advert you see Dave with a young girl of perhaps 10? Again, I am being presumptuous by assuming she is Dave’s daughter and if I am correct, where does this poor little thing fit in to the new set -up. Is it a case that Dave always wanted a boy and this little girl is going to have to play second fiddle to a kid who can be won over by a McDonalds Happy Meal?

Or is it even more sinister than that? Is Dave happy to ply a stepchild with addictive junk food whilst his daughter leads a happy and healthy life?