With the current upheaval in my living room occupying my attention, it has made me stop to consider some of the small niggles in life.

For one, why is it that we can put a vehicle on Mars to show us images of that planet, yet we have never thought up a better way to hang a pair of curtains?

Poles, end-caps, rings, supports. Assorted screws in different sizes, some so small you can’t even actually see them, and have to fix them by touch.

Rings with clips attached that have to be threaded through some eighteenth century needlework. Miss one, or get one through the wrong hole, and you have to take them down and start all over again. Curtains haven’t changed in my lifetime, or even in my grandmother’s lifetime. Or her grandmother’s. It’s as if there is a joint conspiracy by the Guild of Curtain Manufacturers, and the Association of Pole and Ring Crafstmen. Not to mention the Federation of Annoyingly Small Screw Makers.

I have a vision of them all meeting in secret, examining any new invention in curtain hanging, then contriving to kill the person that is trying to patent it.

We have the ‘Dark Web’, and ‘The Deep State’, but they cannot compare to the ‘Curtain Conspiracy’, believe me.

I am not very technical, but in an age of a life lived online, mobile phones that can do almost anything, and a ‘Digital Assistant’ that can check your fridge stocks and order food for you, I flatly refuse to believe that there is no better way to hang a pair of curtains.

I was going to continue about three-pin plugs with fiddly terminals that have to be wired up, but I am too upset about the curtains now.