Psst, Kanye! Don't spend $15000 for your daughter's bouncy castle. I can get ...

Over its years as a parent, Lost in Showbiz has learned many home truths, but none quite as incontrovertible as this: the three hours of your child's birthday party will invariably rank among the most miserable three hours of your year. God, they're awful. The noise, the constant fear that the whole thing is an inch away from slipping into feral chaos, the appearance of some ineffably depressing character called Mr Linguine or Dr Barmy, whose jolly costume and way with a balloon animal can't hide the stench of thwarted ambition, of a life that never turned out the way they dreamed it might at drama school.

It thus alighted with interest on the latest dispatch from the world of shy understatement that is the union of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian: the first birthday party of their daughter, North. Hosted in the grounds of Kourtney Kardashian's Calabasas home, it was themed along the lines of a music festival and called Kidchella.

Having just returned from Glastonbury itself, Lost in Showbiz can confirm it can think of no environment more appropriate to recreate at a one-year-old's birthday party than a music festival. It can only hope that, for veracity's sake, the West-Kardashians went the whole hog and hired both a scally to lurk furtively by the entrance, repeatedly muttering 'hash for cash' and a woman who takes too many drugs then decides to forgo the lavatory in favour of simply urinating in front of everyone.

Reports in the celebrity press are curiously hazy on the whole scally dealer/urinating woman angle of Kidchella, but they do reveal that the party variously featured a ferris wheel, hair braiding, a snow-cone machine and - ideal for the one-year-old who wants to spend their birthday belting out It's Raining Men or Love Shack - a karaoke booth. Let us pause and imagine the sinking of spirits among the other children's parents when they noticed the microphone and speakers and thus surmised that festivities were unlikely to end without the birthday girl's father favouring those present with one of his famous orations about his misunderstood genius. Let us furthermore imagine the hastily conceived contingency plans being hissed between nervous mums and dads: 'The minute we see him go near that microphone, you run out and start the car, I scream 'OH MY GOD I'VE JUST NOTICED MY CHILD HAS NITS WE'D BETTER LEAVE IMMEDIATELY', and we're out of here, right? Party bag? What about the party bag? Listen, I don't care if it's probably got diamonds in it. I don't care if it contains the Koh-i-Noor set into a bloodied slice of Kanye West's arse. He looks like he's going to give a speech, it's car, OMG! NITS!, and we're off, clear?'

There was also a bouncy castle, which, according to one report, cost $15,000 to hire. $15,000! Lost in Showbiz doesn't want to be the bearer of bad news to the West-Kardashians, but you do know Go Bounce in Burgess Hill has a deal on at the moment? Any bouncy castle - and that's including the one shaped like a fire engine - for 50 quid, delivery included, if you book before 1 August! But that's the devil-may-care life of the global superstar all over: too busy to do a straightforward Google search that could save them ££££s, they simply dispatch a minion to Hollywood's famous We've Seen You Coming, You Big Rich Plank Bouncy Castle Hire And Celebrity Fleecing Emporium and end up out of pocket.

But even the $15,000 bouncy castle is cast into the shade by the news that the party also featured a face-painter who apparently charged $200 an hour. Now, without wishing to gain a reputation for being wise after the event in the wake of the £50 Burgess Hill bouncy castle bombshell, Lost in Showbiz thinks it can claim a modicum of experience in the world of children's face painting. It has seen a crusty at Womad paint a butterfly on its daughter's face with so much delicacy and attention to detail that the end result resembled a piece of photorealist art. And it's seen a harassed-looking mum at the school fete, who it suspected was a couple of glasses of mulled wine to the good, do something she laughably described as 'a panda' that made Lost in Showbiz's daughter look like a cross between Heath Ledger's Joker and the lead singer of Alien Sex Fiend circa their 1987 opus Here Cum Germs. And it can tell you for a fact: kids cannot tell the difference.

Frankly, for $200 an hour, Lost in Showbiz wouldn't want face painting so much as reconstructive surgery. 'Yeezy', my friend, permit Lost in Showbiz to give you a little wise counsel: after all, you certainly seem like the kind of calm, reasonable, unegotistical fellow who takes on board other people's advice. Don't bother with the $200-an-hour face painter next year. Get your mother-in-law or one of your mates to do it: Pusha T has the look of a man who might be a dab hand with the old Snazaroo Princess Party Face Kit.

Here's what you might call a 'pro tip': $200 will buy you enough strong lager to make you temporarily forget the fact that you're at a children's birthday party, which may well make it the best $200 you will ever spend.