The Spectator(@spectator):At the tail end of the summer holiday, my son and I had a shouting match in King's Cross station. For more than three hours on the train south from Durham, he'd been staring at a single question on a comprehension paper. The text began with a description of a road running through the moonlit countryside, and question three asked: 'Why does the author compare the road to a grey silk ribbon?' Between Durham and Peterborough, I had repeated that question, with increasingly psychopathic calm. 'So darling, why does the author compare the road to a ribbon?' ✍️ Mary Wakefield Article | https://t.co/QtMSCAP56T

2026.09.20 13:30

At the tail end of the summer holiday, my son and I had a shouting match in King's Cross station. For more than three hours on the train south from Durham, he'd been staring at a single question on a comprehension paper. The text began with a description of a road running through the moonlit countryside, and question three asked: 'Why does the author compare the road to a grey silk ribbon?' Between Durham and Peterborough, I had repeated that question, with increasingly psychopathic calm. 'So darling, why does the author compare the road to a ribbon?' ✍️ Mary Wakefield Article | | @MaryWakefield