Is common sense in shorter supply now than it was 30 or 40 years ago? Or perhaps we’re now so terrified of not covering our backs, we go over the top trying to protect less-bright individuals.

Surely you shouldn’t need a sign on a hot tap telling you to be careful because hot water will come out of it or a warning label on a car battery informing you not to try drinking the sulphuric acid it contains.

I’m not suggesting anyone’s less intelligent these days. There are plenty of examples demonstrating youngsters today have a wealth of knowledge and, believe me, there were an awful lot of thick kids in my class back in the day.

But, they all somehow survived without scalding themselves constantly or slugging battery acid.

Perhaps my generation failed badly on the parenting front. Maybe we’ve all become too wrapped up in our own lives and lost sight of the importance of developing the family unit.

Or, has something else changed? Does a 21st century diet make a difference, modern medicines, or even our natural environment?

I know we’re much keener to attach labels to youngsters these days. In fact a whole host of new physical and mental challenges have been placed in their way, but there must be more to it than that.

For example, I don’t remember a single kid in my entire school being allergic to nuts or being lactose intolerant, but loads of kids are today. And it’s not just nuts and milk, there’s an ever-growing list of substances they’re allergic to.

I must say I do wonder how children have been affected by all the food additives they now consume. That’s certainly a major change from my day.

And, the way everything they might come into contact with needs to be sanitised or bleached in case they are exposed to germs of one kind or another.

I wasn’t left on my own to eat mud or even allowed to miss weekly bath time but, apart from the dreaded hankie with lick on it, I certainly wasn’t being cleaned up constantly and reckon I must have developed some level of immunity as a result.

This said, whilst I’ve been blessed with a reasonable amount of common sense and also seem much better equipped to fight off infection, I did have to call upon the next generation to sort out the sports channel on the TV so I could watch the Champions League final.