I suppose I had better admit this. I realised today that I have a prejudice: I hate boys. Not all boys, mind. Half my friends are male, after all. I mean a certain type of male, between twelve and twenty, who cuts his hair short and wears football shirts and hangs around on park benches with his mates. I don’t know why, but the sight of such people just makes me angry – I automatically think ‘scum’. I know, of course, that I’m resorting to stereotype; there’s no such thing as ‘scum’. But the way they look at me, as if I was some piece of shit; the way they snikker and talk about me; the way they seem to think they’re ‘hard’ and own the place, makes me want to shout at them. I’d like to tell them that I’m older than they are, that I have a degree, which is probably more than they’ll ever have. I’d tell them to stop looking at me, and to fuck off back to their mothers. I guess I’d just like a little respect, which, I guess, is what they want too, but unlike them I don’t feel I need to pretend to be ‘hard’.