My son sent me a picture of his university accommodation, which looked perfectly nice, but there was something off about it. It was a little bit too tidy, of course, and had the slightly dystopian atmosphere of a neutral colour palette, but the main problem was that places look weird without people in them. That’s why architects, when they’re trying to sell a development, always add the magic ingredients: a child with a balloon, a couple pushing a buggy and a gentleman with a bicycle.

So I squinted a bit and tried to imagine my son in that room, which is when it hit me: he’s actually serious about this. He truly intends, in one month’s time, to get all his stuff, put it in bags, take it to another city and live there. I can neither convey nor explain my surprise, which is bottomless. It’s not that I thought he wouldn’t get the grades; I’m not one of those harridan sceptic-parents. I just had “I’m going to university” filed as one of those cute, dumb things kids say, along with “I’m going to space”, “I’m changing my name to Unnamed Being” and “I’m an otter now”.

I was right there for the entire process: the selection of the university, the offer, the maths A-level paper that was so hard there was a petition against it on change.org and someone called it a war crime, and results day – when it became apparent that it wasn’t that hard and The Hague wouldn’t be necessary after all.

If........

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