There isn’t a special word for people who went to my school. They tried to invent one once, in Latin, but it never caught on. It was never really cool to like my school that much and especially not to learn a Latinate name for the place. The word also contained virgin, or something that sounded like virgin, and what self-respecting adolescent is going to apply that word to themselves? Or own up to it. So there isn’t a special word for people who went to my school. Nor is there a special tie, or bow tie, with which we signal to each other at parties that we are the same, share the same provenance, come from the same stock. My school had teachers, not Dons, and games with proper names – names that everyone else has heard of and games that everyone else plays, which don’t mark us out as special. Special like we went to a school for magic or something. We don’t do that.

But I suppose this makes you better than me. A part of me believes it does. And I know that seems ironic after the list of dysfunction above so there’s no need to point it out. Nothing annoys me more than people pointing out irony as though they’re the only ones smart enough to get it. And that’s exactly what I’d expect from you. From someone with the arrogance to mutter, ‘They fancy me,’ after a perfectly routine conversation with a third-party. You’ve even done it with me, haven’t you. ‘You’re madly in love with me,’ you say, in front of mutual friends. Do you want me to be in love with you? I believe you do, secretly. Virgin-tart that you are.