I’m a bit of a snob. I’ve never looked inside a volume of York Notes. Are they the ones that used to have those waspish yellow and black bands on the covers, that I used to sneer at when I was an Olympian teen, doing A-Levels like a real grown-up by reading the actual books? Or were those Mr Brodie’s rival notes? Never knew. Never knew who Brodie was either. Didn’t want to. Both series seem now to have had glossy makeovers so I will never know.

Probably I ought to find out what teenagers are told they should know about Othello and To Kill a Mockingbird and stuff, though somehow I feel that not reading York Notes is among the least bad of my bad habits of a lifetime. Curiously (I’m obviously behind the times) the bestselling York Notes Intermediate Volume is on Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. An Amazon review of this no doubt admirable volume says: ‘i bought this book for myu english gcse course, it is very helpful and must have one if you want to do well in your exam.’ This isn’t signed ‘Molesworth’, but I suppose by now he has grandchildren who can txt like that while taking out the civilians in Call of Duty 6 with an uzi.