Nos amis Francais are frugal types with their cuisine and loath wasting anything remotely edible – occasionally resulting in some peculiar stuff ending up on your plate. In order to render the more obscure dishes palatable, they’ve also become adept at masking the taste and texture of amphibians, garden wildlife and the internal workings of anything foolish enough to wander into the path of a shotgun. And given that you’re destined to spend your adult life digesting much of this, where better to find how it all works than at primary school.

Somewhere deep in the bowels of ITV, hidden away on a dusty shelf are episodes of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). For those of you who don’t remember, the private detective and his ghostly ex partner outwitted baddies various and worked out of a traditional gumshoe’s office, complete with an acid etched glass door. Not hugely relevant perhaps, but from this mental clutter came a solution to a particular problem au bureau – namely our plate glass door.

The pantry’s damn near empty, the dishwasher is claiming overtime pay and all that pere noel so kindly delivered has been opened, played with and spread around every corner of the house. The dogs have been walked endlessly, dead stuff in the garden chopped down, horses moved to a drier field and a hundred hours of tv repeats absorbed. So as the new school term looms large, it’s time for a rare trip au cinema.