Why Peter Andre Shouldn't Be Father Of The Year

In the quest for content, the inevitable lists have dropped on Father's Day. Websites are inevitably choosing to cover who they think are the year's best fathers. But there are no adequate conclusions to be drawn here, so the writers of these things run straight to the most idiotic answer: Peter 'Mysterious Girl' Andre. According to the wonderful people at UK hotel chain, Premier Inn anyway. David Beckham and Elton John were the unfortunates who missed out on the award, though don't ask them because they probably neither know or care.

This non-celebrity's celebrity trophy case has just doubled in size: he also won the award last year. And if his non-notoriety is an issue, calling his activities 'good parenting' is a far bigger one. Peter Andre stays in the public eye with his raft of reality show programming - we only know about his fatherly side because it's packaged up for us. It'll come as some surprise to most fathers that the definition of great parenting is found in a tub full of Alpha-H and in the cold hum of irrelevance that you find on ITV2.

Perhaps the day after Father's Day is also an appropriate time to question what manliness even is these days. The trend setters of global manliness (sportsmen, actors, err... astronauts) have long been seen endorsingMolton Brown skin care. Our strong, silent fathers are being replaced in the media by loud-mouthed sensitive types. This 'new man' has been a part of popular culture for about forty years, leading us to the logical conclusion that they're now the only men. 'New Man' is everywhere in the west, and he's here to stay.

There were other gaffes too this weekend. Google offended a large portion of its userbase by adding a reminder to 'call dad' to everyone's Google Calendar. Google: not everyone has a father in their life. Many are loved but missed. Others are unknown, and others are known and intensely regretted. Alone, unloved and unappreciated on Valentines Day? You wouldn't expect Google to remind you to 'buy her flowers'. This shows an ugly face of Google, one that no amount of Elemis could improve. Utterly unfeeling, the whole episode is completely insensitive. And the lack of social awareness is typically Google. People are already too sceptical of their social credentials to bother with the +1 button even.