Ever since I was old enough to appreciate them, I have enjoyed the Peanuts stories by the late Charles Schulz. Being young, it took me a while to realise that the cartoons, and particularly what the characters did or said, were not really aimed at children. The characters were just vehicles for Schulz’s observations on life, whether it was the misfortune that seemed to dog Charlie Brown, or the frustrated Lucy who could never quite catch Schroeder’s eye.

I always had an empathy with the beleaguered protagonist of Peanuts. Someone would make an odd comment or say something unacceptable (to him), and there he’d be, shaking his head. To this day, whenever I encounter something particularly confounding, I think of Charlie Brown.