Are you aware, perchance, of the current internet trend, “Taking my younger self out for coffee”. If you didn’t flinch at the word “perchance”, maybe not.

But it is fairly self explanatory. A person imagines taking the him or herself of a decade or two or three ago out for coffee and imparting wisdom, discussing all the ways in which the adult has changed from the child, teenager or 20-something and generally reflecting on life.

Here’s mine. Dear young Lucy Mangan, by 2025 you will have reached a point in life where a roof repair will plunge you into an apparently endless existential crisis.

To be fair, not just a roof repair – even though I must note that what began as an apparent single slipped tile duly turned (as these things do, I shall point out to young Lucy so that she is early aware of this immutable but for some reason unrecorded in GCSE physics textbooks law and can start saving her Sainsbury’s Saturday girl wages accordingly), into the revelation that £7,500 worth of work was needed.

There was also, 48 hours later, a defunct boiler and an ensuing three days without heating (water on the immersion heater if you can bear to have a shower in a bathroom frozen on the inside long after the sun has made an appearance outside) and a rat in the........

© iNews