Breakdowns rocket in new pothole crisis

‘Millennial’ Brits aged 25 to 34 are baffled by things older folk find easy Real reason our mollycoddled kids never learn anything useful

PERIL Road surface misery The number of pounds in a stone The number of feet in a yard How to manage money How to iron a shirt How to sew on a button

How to do times tables without using a calculator

How to use an index How to properly polish shoes How to use cutlery in the right order How to write a formal letter How to wire a plug

How to spell without using a spell checker

How to lay a table properly

The correct use of grammar

How to garden How long fresh foods keep How to treat a burn How to get stains out of clothes

How to read an ordnance survey map

Number of centimetres in an inch

The collection times for your local post box

The names of different birds How to repair torn or worn clothing How to tie a sling or bandage How to play chess How to administer first aid LAST summer holidays I packed off my son (then 13) to his grandma and grandad for a few days with a couple of pairs of clean pants and a mission, ‘Learn Something Useful’.

Leaving nothing to chance I’d drawn up a list of all the things I was certain I could How to change a car tyre

How to make a cake without following a recipe

The price of a first class stamp do by his age but which somehow in the too speedy, yet too easy, flow of modern life I’d never got round to teaching him.

Wire a plug, change a tyre, mow the The number of kilometres in a mile

How to identify plants and flower by name

How to arrange flowers How to fix a bike chain How to start a campfire How to make marmalade or jam

How to guess the weight of ingredients by looking at them

How to crochet

How to ballroom dance eg waltz or tango

The names of different constellations of stars lawn and iron a shirt were all on the list. He returned having achieved about half of the points.

He abandoned the challenges before ‘sewing on a button’ and there was no way my mum was letting him ‘hang a picture’ on her new Anaglypta. “How was it?”, I asked on his return home. “Easy,“he said with all the 13-year-old cockiness of a 13-year-old.

“But to be honest.. what’s the point? I’ve got you to do all that stuff.”

And that, mums and dads, is how we created this whole sorry state...