I got to the funeral an hour early. I’d though 11. In fact. it was 12. So I went into a cafe to bide my time. The talk from one table was whether their kid had got into their preferred school. A mother came in with two children who bought smoothies. Wow! said the mum with hyperbolic glee, they look amazing! The kids were just drinking smoothies. The mother repeated that the smoothies were really incredible. She wasn’t drinking one, so you wonder how she knew. How they looked, I suppose. At another table a small child was being spoken to by an oldster, maybe a grandad. The grandad was deliberately bamboozeling the four year old with words. Is it a driller or a gorilla? he said. I read the child’s thoughts. A gorilla, obviously. What’s a driller meant to mean anyway? How do we speak to children! It’s no wonder they get all gender-neutral on us.

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