‘You’re probably just having a midlife crisis,’ says Scarlett Johansson to Bill Murray in Lost in Translation (2003). ‘Did you buy a Porsche yet?’ Murray was 52 when he played the fading actor having an intense yet chaste emotional affair with a woman half his age. My husband turns 50 this month and, apart from expressing a wish to go to the National Gallery and stand in front of ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ (the ageing, obsolete warship being towed away for scrap, etc, etc), is managing not to be too boring about it.

Yes, he’s buying a new car, but it certainly isn’t a Porsche. It’s an electric BMW iX3 (‘soulless’ and ‘functional’, according to Tanya Gold of this parish) because we need a more reliable family car than my knackered old Discovery.

The cost of living being what it is, divorce, like school fees and skiing holidays, is now for the super-rich

The cost of living being what it is, divorce, like school fees and skiing holidays, is now for the super-rich

The classic midlife crisis used to be the preserve of men and usually involved the purchase of a ludicrous car and trading in their wife for a younger model, often a secretary. But when did you last hear of a chap taking leave of his senses in such a clichéd way? There have been a couple of divorces in our wider friendship groups, but they happened years ago, before children, because........

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