I’m cross, in part, because I feel guilty. During lockdown, I let my son watch too much TV. By the end of home-schooled term, 20 minutes of PAW Patrol had morphed into 40 minutes of whatever he fancied from age-appropriate Netflix. And it would have continued that way had I not begun to notice the effects: a constant cooing, a three-syllable ‘aaah’ ending with an upward inflection, followed by ‘it’s so cute’. Out walking, everywhere was ‘cute’: pigeons hobbling on club feet, ‘Aw, so cute.’ Flies: ‘Cute.’ Next door’s pit-bull: ‘Cute.’ One day in the park we saw two snails mating, locked in a slimy hermaphroditic tango. ‘Is it cute?’ he asked, confused. If it wasn’t cute, it didn’t compute.