This article is taken from the August/September 2022 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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You literally couldn’t make it up. I mean, you wouldn’t make it up, because it’s just so wrong. My friend Pandora, whose son Ludo has ADHD, was feeling particularly drained after two weeks in Provence with said child failing to fall asleep until midnight, no nanny and — obviously — no school. Anyway, they were back and she’d finally packed him off to some kind of tennis camp, and realised that she had two weeks of work to catch up on and that coffee wasn’t cutting it.

So she went and helped herself to a few of Ludo’s Ritalin capsules. She took twice his dose, on the basis that she’s about twice his weight. This may have been her mistake. For the first few hours, she says, she was on fire. Replying to 50 emails in 15 minutes, bashing out a proposal, writing reports that would normally have taken a day in an hour, etc. And then, she says, she started to feel distinctly weird. Like, not just weird, but super wired as if she’d done a shit load of speed. Which, of course, she had.

The upshot was that, at seven and a half stone on a bloated day, Pandora really shouldn’t have taken twice Ludo’s dose

Then her heart started going crazy, and she completely panicked and realised she couldn’t call Ludo’s private consultant to confess. Ditto NHS 111. So she was forced to text this doctor mother in Ludo’s class who she can’t stand (partly because said mother always looks sceptical about Ludo’s diagnosis, implication being — in Pandora’s eyes — that Ludo’s issues are actually Pandora’s issues). Anyway, she lied and told this woman that she’d mistaken the pills for Nurofen, which the woman clearly didn’t believe, and they ended up having an incredibly awkward Zoom call with Pandora basically off her face and the other mother trying to talk her down from the ledge.

The upshot was that, at seven and a half stone on a bloated day, Pandora really shouldn’t have taken twice Ludo’s dose. Apparently he’s had a growth spurt over the summer, and she hadn’t registered that his psychiatrist had upped his dose accordingly. All was well that ended well, but when she went back into her sent items she was mortified at the emails she’d sent people when she thought she was really flying.

Frankly, I could do with some chemical assistance myself. Why are private school summer holidays so sodding long? Are they trying to save us money? Because I’d literally pay not to have Minnie, Lyra and Hector at home all week. I mean, I do pay, obviously, for multiple extortionate summer camps. Which mostly end up just being a logistical nightmare of ferrying, and booking cabs for the nanny to get them to and from their various activities.

Frankly, I could do with some chemical assistance myself. Why are private school summer holidays so sodding long?

Equally, slightly dreading La Rentrée, when Lyra starts at her new school for gifted and talented kids. Side point, every time I abbreviate this — as is actually NORMAL among teachers — to G&T, Will snorts and makes a dad joke about underage drinking.

Anyway, it’s in Marylebone, which is a) likely to give me PTSD flashbacks to Francis Holland Regents Park girls being smug in the nineties and b) definitely going to give me insane house envy driving through the Outer Circle daily. Although does anyone, except perhaps the odd Goldsmith, actually live there?

Made this point to Will who said he had no idea what I was talking about (no change there) and started banging on about the joys of Lyra being able to see the giraffes in the zoo from her classroom. Cos that’s really going to set her up for Oxbridge/life.