“Who killed Spongebob?”
This was the comment that greeted me after my husband used blue gaffer tape to mark out the dimensions of a new island unit on our kitchen floor, turning the kitchen from a pleasantly untidy hub, into a crime scene. We skirt round the taped area now, so as not to disturb the evidence.
RIP, my absorbent and yellow and porous friend.

My son has got a bit of a bee in his bonnet about peoples’ attitudes to teenagers. He is five feet eleven tall, and when he walks down the street in his black Dingwall Academy hoodie, he says he can sense hostility towards him. He is thirteen. Thirteen! I guess it’s my job to tell him to ignore it, to keep on being nice to people - maybe even try to convince him that he’s imagining it.
But he’s not. I went swimming with him yesterday. We took my two nephews along with us, the elder, also thirteen, another tall lad. The vibes from the two other adults in the pool, shepherding their infinitely more special small children out of the way, were definitely there. My boys were given spectacularly suspicious looks as they played, and such a wide berth they practically had half the pool to themselves.
What do you do when you pass a group of young teenagers? Try not to visibly tighten your grip on your bag. They are kids. Smile and say hello. Most will say hi back (the rest will be too surprised, or waiting for a cue from their leader), and somewhere deep down they’ll know that they have just encountered an adult who is of just the same species as themselves. What’s the worst that can happen? That they’ll point and laugh? They don’t. That they’ll swear and nick your bag? Why on earth? That they’ll run at you with a knife? Come on.

He came second. I sat loyally through his plucky British thumping - well, at least until the start of the third set when the writing was on the wall early on. Nadal had him on toast the whole time but for me, Andy gets the good manners award simply for not spending all his time between shots picking his pants out of his back bottom unlike his opponent, who did. These players have got hordes of people working for them - what’s gone wrong in Rafa’s underwear department? And while I’m not suggesting they start getting a ball boy or girl to retrieve the munched pants (though those poor teenagers seem to do just about everything else - holding umbrellas and fetching towels and drinks and the like), surely the issue could be addressed in the dressing room before he bears his bottom to the scrutiny of those of us who’d given up watching Murray’s serves hit the net and begun obsessing over whether Nadal’s wearing a thong or not?