Coffee: we can get it anywhere, and get as loaded as we like on it, until such teeth-chattering, eye-bulging, nonsense-gibbering time as we may be classified unable to operate heavy machinery.

Public depictions of women still tend to remain rigid and narrow – about the size of a coffin, say.

Lovers and even some family members may come and go but the friendships that take root abide. Sometimes the best of what is true survives as if it had an independent will: The coals of friendship keep themselves alive until something happens to rekindle them.

I’m told some people no longer bother to have friends at all – can’t fit them in.

Yes, letter writing is antiquated – though there remain a few renegades who still so treasure the luxury of contemplating their lives in letters that they would rather write than call.