Boots don’t sell boots and theme parks generally don’t have a theme (with the exception of Disneyland); instead choosing to align themselves with whatever is the current cultural vogue (Peppa Pig, the Walking Dead, etc.). Much as I try to avoid them, I took a hit for the team last weekend on a day trip to Thorpe Park. It is the anticipation of the public mugging that puts me off: you get charged to park on their land, which always reminds me of trips to the hospital, a zero is put on the end of anything you wish to purchase, as you are now a fully compliant captive audience member, and you spend hour upon hour shuffling forward prior to a brief 40 seconds' enjoyment.

But the kids love it even though my wallet doesn’t, and actually there is a fun factor if you aren’t suffering from a bad back or enjoying the delights of pregnancy (the former for me). The queue to buy tickets snakes around barrier after barrier, which is good training for once you arrive in the hallowed land. The first pit stop, once we had managed to negate the ticket scanning machine, which may as well have had instructions in Swahili, was to do that dad thing. Men, when they hit a certain vintage, feel the need as they are passing a toilet, to pop in, ‘just in case’. As you unbutton, you are accompanied by the uplifting orchestral music so befitting such an environment and I now know how John Rambo must feel when taking an afternoon rest break in trap one.