I am sat in the coffee shop reading a paper, listening to two women talking at the next table. This is not my purpose for being there, obviously. I am not a weirdo. If I wanted to listen to women talking I would just hide in a cubicle in the ladies toilets like any normal person.

“So Josh made the football team, I’m sure he’s going to be a footballer, he’s so good for an eight year old”

“Oh that’s great, but Harry has made it to the country trials.”

“I’m sure Josh will too, probably before he’s ten, like Harry is.”

This “my kid is better than your kid” one-upwomanship continued off and on for about ten minutes, and yet these women gave the impression they were friends. Not particularly good friends, clearly, but friends nonetheless. This is another good reason for not having kids. It will inevitably lead to strange conversations in coffee shops overheard by the last sane person in the town.

I began to wonder what the conversation would have been like if they were not friends.

“Christ your kid is ugly. He looks like the mongoloid love child of Jade Goody and James Blunt!”

“Yes you can, and imagine how stupid that kid would be.”

At that point I shook myself awake from my daytime nightmare and left them to it. The irony? I bet neither Josh or Harry are even nearly as good at football as me. But you don’t hear me bragging about it.

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