There is an inherent tolerance and kindness in the state school teenagers I know.

The crushing, pitiful, and frequently just plain risible pathos of an unsuccessful actor/performer's life is well charted.

My parents' generation's benchmark was simple: Fat Equals Bad.

If there's one thing I know, it's this - everybody thinks somebody else is having a better life.

I was accorded the opportunity to learn by failing - albeit at the cost of a few honourable teachers' sanity - and now I realise what a rare and incredible luxury that is.

My parents both had Oxford degrees, they read important books, spoke foreign languages, drank real coffee and went to museums for pleasure. People like that don't have fat kids: they were cut out to be winners and winners don't have children who are overweight.

There is an inherent tolerance and kindness in the state school teenagers I know.