After nearly 16 years as a parent I really should know better, but clearly I never learn. My son knows full well I covet a Maserati, as a fall-back an Aston Martin would suffice. I’m constantly buying lottery and sweepstakes tickets where one of the prizes is a car such as this.

From time to time, like many parents, I have been known to lament to my children that if it wasn’t for them, I’d be retired and living on my tropical island, and tooling around in an extremely expensive motor vehicle.

This desire is made all the harder by our neighbour over the road, who often parks his Maserati in the drive way, straight in my eyeline as I walk out our front gate. Of course, the Maserati lives in the driveway because all the space in his garage is taken up with his Ferrari. That’s what comes from living in a ‘nice’ suburb.

And with the text message above my 12 year old now clearly believes you can have your cake and eat it too.