By this time, she had so many questions, but she only hit him up for one answer about those “hims” and “hers.” She asked, “Do both hims and hers reproduce hummers?”

And here I would observe, that love of admiration seems scarcely to be properly appreciated; it is the only bond of society—we could not otherwise endure each other. It is the true source of the sublime, and, my conscience obliges me to add, of the ridiculous. Still, it is the strong necessity of admiring each other, and the being admired in our turn, that has built cities, congregated multitudes, and organised what we call our present state of civilisation.

It must always be remembered that although to an adult a particular belief may seem like a coelacanthine survival from the past, to the schoolchild who learns it from his mate the belief is a novelty; it is something just learnt, and often excitingly full of possibility for his immediate welfare.

It's a shame; not only are nuts quite ridiculously nutritious but, as anyone who's ever shelled out (sorry) for a tiny glass of pistachios in a pub will know, they're a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. But although I happen to have a soft spot for nut roast – an option often preferable to the meat that emerged from the school kitchen – it seems I'm in a cranky minority. A request for recipe recommendations was met with a polite silence on Twitter: vegetarianism, apparently, has moved on a bit. You don't see Yotam Ottolenghi faffing about with nut roasts, do you? But I'm determined to revive the fortunes of this much-maligned classic. After all, Christmas isn't Christmas without a luxury nut selection.