TEENAGE BOYS (2)

Since my two sons have left home, I can notice the difference in the houshold bills. Food bills are way down; but so too are the electricity bills and the amount of rubbish put out every week. Even the septic tank manages to last the year before it is emptied by the local authority.

I use the savings to visit them in their current big city domiciles. Today I was with my elder son and some 250,000 other people in Copenhagen, watching the world cycling championships live in one of the northern suburbs. In brilliant late summer sunshine, Mark Cavendish confounded the pundits who said he couldn't win an uphill sprint to give Great Britain its first world champion since Tom Simpson in 1965.

Walter Blotscher