HOT on the heels of the Olympic high jump embarrassment comes the George Clooney wedding scandal.

Just to recap for a moment, the last Grandad At Large column revealed how a little white lie by my grown-up daughter, Hannah, had leapt out of control…

On one of her trips home from London, she’d been sifting through the dressing-up box with her little niece, Chloe, when they came across a cheap plastic medal from some far-off school sports day.

The five-year-old – wide-eyed and adoring – asked her beloved Auntie Hannah if she’d won the medal at The Olympics.

Not wishing to be a disappointment to her biggest fan, Auntie Hannah confirmed that she had indeed won it at The Olympics – and that it was a gold for winning the high jump.

Naively, she thought it would end there, but Chloe went on to proudly announce to her teachers and fellow pupils, at the first opportunity, that her Auntie Hannah had been crowned an Olympic high jump champion.

Inevitably, this led to ‘Hannah Barron – Olympics’ becoming an internet search at the school before Chloe’s dad went in to put the staff out of their misery and confess that Auntie Hannah had got a little carried away in her desperation to be admired.

Well, this week, it turns out that Chloe’s Ganma – my wife, Heather – has also been guilty of a spreading a bit of fantasy.

A few years back, for her birthday, I bought her a special mug. It has our wedding picture on it, but I arranged for the face of George Clooney – the man of her dreams – to be superimposed over mine.

“Who’s that, Ganma?” asked Chloe, spotting the mug in the kitchen, and pointing at the happy bride.

“That’s me when I was younger,” explained my wife.

“And who’s that man?” Chloe enquired, focusing on the handsome groom in the nice grey suit.

“Oh, that’s my first husband,” Ganma told her without hesitating.

“What’s his name?”

“He’s a famous actor called George Clooney.”

“Oh...”

Now, given that George Clooney is very much alive, the only logical conclusions that can be drawn are either that he left Heather for glamorous human rights lawyer, Amal Alamuddin, or Heather left him for me. I prefer to imagine it’s the latter.

The danger now, of course, is that Chloe goes back into school and tells her teachers that her Ganma was once married to George Clooney – and has their wedding picture on a mug to prove it.

Having only just come to terms with the fact that one of their reception pupils doesn’t have an Olympic high jump gold medallist for an auntie, this may be a disappointment too far for Chloe’s teachers.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

CHILDREN can be very cutting – and so it proved when Chloe’s dad made butternut squash risotto for tea.

“It looks like sick, Daddy – but it’s very tasty,” she declared.

BUT they can also make you feel very special...

Chloe jumped into bed with her Daddy, gave him a massive cuddle, and sighed: “I can’t believe you’re my Daddy!”

That’s love, right there.