As a child, I would get very excited playing pranks, mainly on my dad because he got most annoyed. About once a year, my mum would take me to the joke shop and give me a fiver to buy whatever I fancied: fake mice, sweety bags that snapped your fingers, that sort of thing. I still vividly remember my dad storming out of the bathroom, his hands and face foaming black with the secret soap I’d switched for his while he’d been downstairs watching telly.

But my biggest success was while we were in Greece on holiday. We arrived at a very fancy hotel. My dad smoked, so as we sat in the hotel lobby I pulled a recent ‘fake cigarette plus burn mark’ purchase from my rucksack and covertly placed it on the arm of the posh sofa where my dad was sitting.

The receptionist came over to check us in and started properly screaming at my dad. I sat, unsure if the level of trouble I would be in was worth the watch. It was. My dad looked at the cigarette, didn’t touch it, and shouted back in defence. A heated argument ensued for a good couple of minutes until someone picked it up. I remember very little else about the holiday apart from this grand triumph. 

Lobster And Other Things I’m Learning To Love is out now published by Fleet; Hollie McNish is on tour across the UK until June 2025.