'All anyone seems to want is stability and all they get instead is sex-and-go'

Cornwall. My mother and I are sitting upstairs in a small café, looking at menus. My mother orders the carrot cake on the condition that I will finish it if she can’t.

She has seen the size of the slices up at the counter, and loudly announced it: “Monstrous. No wonder there’s an obesity problem in England.” While my mother is concerned about the café’s portion sizes, I am concerned about its acoustics. It is a tiny, quiet space up here, and my mother is not a whisperer.

I quickly scan the other tables for obesity problems. Fortunately none materialise: everyone’s body mass index looks normal. But the acoustics remain a concern; now that she’s finished ordering, my mother is free to return to the topic she was discussing beforehand: the hook-up culture.