Verity is going to the hairdressers at the weekend for her first ever proper hair cut. She has decided that the hairdresser will be her new best friend.

“Daddy, you aren’t my best friend anymore,” she said having decided on a replacement, “I am going to take you to the meadow and leave you with the cows.”

To me, this sounded as if it came from the same school of euphemism as the kind of rhetoric you hear in a mafia movie – “He’s going to sleep with the fishes.” For a moment, a chill ran through me and then we moved onto the next subject of conversation.

Kids, ain’t they marvellous?

« »