I was watching our youngest (22 months old now) expertly drinking with a straw – wondering how the hell we taught him that or Alexander. They just seemed to pick it up. Which is lucky because when you think about it how do you explain how to use one when they are too young to understand language properly. By demonstration I suppose.

Anyway the point is my mind started wandering and I began to think about straws. For a young child they are pretty much perfect. You can give them a carton of drink that they can drink from when they haven’t yet mastered the art of tipping up an open top cup – and especially handy when you haven’t got a proper beaker to hand.

However – beyond that – what the hell is the point of straws. I mean – when you think about it they actually make the act of drinking a little bit harder.You have to suck! Now I am not complaining here – I don’t really care – but it does seem illogical to use a straw when you could just sip the liquid.

It’s not even like it improves the taste or anything. Why would we add inefficiency to something as vital as drinking.

OK – so maybe it was invented exactly for the situation described above – for young children. But now they are every where – we all use them at some point. In fact I bet there are multi million pound companies – providing jobs and financial throughput somewhere out there.

All based on making our lives just that tiny little bit harder – with our complicit approval.

As I said my mind wandered. It was brought back to reality when our son – having demonstrated his mastery then took out the straw and decided to tip the rest all over himself.

Perhaps he had been thinking along similar lines.