I think I need help.

If it's possible to fall for a cartoon lesbian fish, well, I just may have.

Yesterday saw me looking after Thomas's de facto little one, Thea, for several hours in the middle of the day. With Finding Nemo having recently opened in Blighty, it seemed the obvious diversionary tactic for entertaining an eight-year-old girl. Sure, she may have seen it already, but that never stopped a kid lapping up repeat viewings of favourite films, most notably Josh with Dumbo, and The herself with... well, just about anything.

It was my first experience of daytime kiddie cinema since my own childhood - and haven't things changed. I'd barely had time to get over the cynical off-peak pricing for children (80% of the adult price - unashamedly preying on the pockets of parents), before the ads had begun - and the predators really sank their teeth in.

Like most adults, I'm accustomed to the familiar mix of half a dozen or so commercials for booze, cars, mobile phones and the like, which serve as a brief but useful window of opportunity for latecomers to get settled in before the trailers.

Kids, on the other hand, get the real hard sell. I swear we must have sat through a solid 20 minutes of appeals for our cash, including various toys, videos, console games, at least two kinds of breakfast cereal plus other miscellaneous foodstuffs and, for mum and dad, ads for three different makes of car - big old family-sized ones, natch.

Follow these with a good half-dozen "Forthcoming Features" and we'd been subjected to at least half an hour of consumerist campaigning before we got to see what we'd paid for.

Finding Nemo is every bit as wonderful and witty as I've been told, another inspiring movie from the already legendary Pixar. Indeed I think I laughed more than Thea, and though before seeing it, I'd felt resentful about it being the clear front runner for next year's Best Animated Oscar, come the night it will probably be one of the better decisions the Academy makes.

And then there's the delightful Dory, a funny, adorable, little blue breath of fresh air, without whom all the Marlin bits would have been horribly earnest and schmaltzy. So I find myself thankful for the existence of Ellen DeGeneres and a little bit taken with this fish.

But of course it would never work. Even if we were able conquer the species divide and making the patronising assumption I was able to "turn" her, she'd still have trouble adjusting to my extra dimension, and when all's said and done, I'm not the world's strongest swimmer.

So I'll just have to wait for the DVD release, and dream of what might have been.

Keep on swimming, keep on swimming...