Quite

by Claudia Winkleman

If the kids have done their homework, if the person you’re with is kind and knows how to laugh at themselves, if you’ve remembered to call your best friend back then that is really quite good. Everything else is just sprinkles.

‘By the way, always let your children sleep, it’s the greatest life insurance we have. The brain grows and the body fixes itself while at rest.

The really successful people – I mean the spectacularly smart ones – seem to be gardening and reading books and pottering about (have you seen their Insta stories? They’re literally drinking martinis on a barge). Let’s emulate that. Relax, don’t show off about being busy, boast about being idle, then you’ve done something truly right.

Very good-looking men are nice to have about, great to be friends with, but don’t make them your life partner. Their lack of wit, energy and effort will drive you mad after the lust and ‘check out who I’m shagging’ has gone.

‘Girls,’ she said, ‘you’ll learn that, in life, high expectations are a killer.’

Avoid the hype and, equally, try not to oversell everything before people get a chance to see it for themselves.

That – right there – is what you want: someone who doesn’t steal your thunder, who wants everyone to think ‘lucky him’ rather than ‘lucky her’. And that makes you both lucky. If he gets crotchety when the spotlight is on you, if he starts to comment on something else when you’re in the middle of a joke then he’s a bit of a tool. Or just insecure. But neither is going to work. Stay with the boy who always thinks you’re the greatest in the room, as that will last.

There. Is. No. Race. That finishing line is invisible, it’s just a figment of your imagination, so stop trying to reach it before the others. We’re here for five minutes; enjoy the view.