S

O, the nine-year-old saunters into the kitchen where I’d sought refuge from the assault on my ears by the Fifa 17 battle in the TV lounge. (In my house I lost all my television privileges towards the end of the Mbeki presidency, you see.)

Anyway, he opens the fridge, grabs a punnet of white grapes, halts, whips around and asks, “Are these grapes seedless?” No, I respond, they’re “regular” grapes. “Eeuw,” he retorts, “whoever buys grapes in this house must remember to get seedless grapes from now on”, before starting to head back to being Cristiano Ronaldo with a joystick.

So I stop him and ask what is so difficult about spitting out grape seeds and a “robust debate”