"Now then, " said Magic Andy. "Who knows what this is?"

He was holding up a cardboard disc with a hole in the middle. It was printed to look like, well, a seven inch vinyl record. I nearly put my hand up to shout out the answer, but refrained. This was, after all, a party for toddlers.

"A DVD!" shouted one precocious tot. Magic Andy accepted that answer and proceeded to mystify the children and certainly flummox me with a trick that involved changing the colour of the cardboard mock-up of a seven inch single or, in fact, DVD.

Children's birthday parties. You never really consider, when you embark upon the adventure that is parenthood, that at some point you are going to have to sit in a Wacky Warehouse or a Tumble Tots or, as in this case, a play area in Idle and make small talk with other mums and dads while keeping one eye on your progeny as they go backside over heels off the top of a slide in a soft play area.

It's a curious sub-sector of society, the gathering of parents. For starters, you never seem to get to know anyone's real name. They are "Harry's Dad" or "Millie's Mum". I'm not sure why no-one ever introduces themselves properly. Perhaps it's just not important. I could march in and say to everyone: "Hi, I'm Dave, " but what they'd really want to know is, okay, but whose dad are you?

So once you've got yourself a coffee or - and this is where the Wacky Warehouse-type event comes into its own - a pint, you set your little charges off to run riot in the ball pool and sit down, awaiting for the inevitable conversation about children to begin.

It's difficult to strike the right balance. You want to appear proud, but not pushy. You want to acknowledge your child's achievements, but not look like you're gloating at the expense of other children.

Questions from parents of younger children will often be tinged with anxiety - they'll see your kid walking or talking and, swiftly calculating that there's only six months in age between your and their precious cargo, they'll begin to worry about whether their child is developing fast enough.

It's always a good idea to deflect such questions as "when did she start to walk" with an offhand comment. "Oh, only this week. We didn't think she'd ever start, " is good, whereas "Oh pretty much since she was born. She was snowboarding at six months" is bad, even if it's true.

Mums will always be casting sly glances at each other to see who got their figure back quickest after birth while dads will often be seen fidgeting and trying to catch sight of a TV screen - these parties are usually held on Saturday afternoons while the footy is in full flow, which suggests that more dads should get involved with organising them.

Then there's the entertainment. If it's in a chain pub playroom, you can probably expect a visit from some student in a moth-eaten funny animal costume sending all the kids shrieking to their parents' bosoms with huge sobs of fear. Or you occasionally get someone like Magic Andy.

If he hadn't been magic, then Magic Andy would have made a good teacher. As children stood up to study his sleight of hand he expertly despatched them back on to their bums with the implied threat that there would be no more magic if they didn't behave. He'd have no trouble controlling a classroom full of yobs with Asbos.

His final trick even had me gobsmacked. A live rabbit produced from a box. Some of the kids, sadly, didn't seem that impressed. I suspect that most of them were wondering which modern CGI cartoon extravaganza was on the DVD that Magic Andy had used for his earlier trick, and whether they'd be allowed to watch it.