A run-in

with my own relentless mortality.

How to square things.

Joel and I were talking about fashion today.

Neither of us is particularly (or even remotely) fashionable.

To underline this point, I was wearing at the time a ski headband of battered fleece that used to belong to my mom.

We were having an uncharacteristic fancy coffee in a local place that is known to be a bit “slebby” and chic.

I commented on a girl wearing platform trainers and trackie Bs with a side-stripe (I think they were tearaways, be still my heart, curdle my fear).

Basically the outfit I lived in when I was 13.

Ah, those dark pre-millennium, post Spice World years. You know the ones.

Tony Blair was God, Di was dead. Texting ‘hello’ on chunky Nokias went like this: gh-de-jkl-jkl-mno. Everyone had a favourite member of Boyzone (mine was Stephen, who turned out to be not inclined to women, again be still my heart).

We were talking about fashion being cyclical.

I was looking at this woman wearing Spice Girls trainers and hypothesising that, if kids now (and by …