It’s my son’s thirteenth birthday and he thinks I have gone out of fashion

IAM in an alien land. One full of designer sunglasses and nostril-dilating man perfumes. I listlessly pick at price tags, then drop them in horror. I wonder how underpants can cost more than my summer frock allowance just because they have someone’s name written in elastic across the waistband. I realise I sound like an old git, even inside my own head.

I resist the urge to run screaming to the nearest exit.

It’s my kid’s birthday. Instead of mooching around my preferred retail emporiums — book shops, food shops, charity shops — I have been catapulted into the shiny, bright-lit shopping mall full of identical outlets which lines every high street in every town, where the air is sterile, the music piped, and the coffee rank. To commemorate his coming of teen-age, my son would like trainers more expensive than my car, and items that are secondary to the names on their labels.