Schools....yes, you read that right, schools

The lad is only just getting used to sitting up, memorising his times tables and reciting the kings and queens of England are but a twinkle far off in his distant horizon....and yet we've already had a look around his first potential school.

Thanks to the outstanding generosity of my father-in-law, junior is going to benefit from a private education. To anyone unfamiliar with the quality of state education in Britain - and London's schools in particular - that might not seem a big thing, but believe me it is.

However, just throwing money at the problem is not, in this case, a guaranteed solution. You see in London we have a glut of wealthy types to whom a few grand a term for young Tarquin or Yolanthe is small beer indeed. Barely more than it costs to run the Range Rover or pay for the full time nanny so mummy and daddy don't have to get their hands dirty with the offspring.

Thus, even among the private sector a clear pecking order has formed, and the school we visited today (which will remain nameless, just in case we get into the mixer for a place and somehow this blog gets attributed to yours truly) is up near the top of it - at least in our neighbourhood anyway.

And very nice it is too. Very nice. But with more than 400 serious applications for 32 places each year the lad's got about as much chance of getting selected for it as he has of going to a madrassa.

In fact the clear message from today's tour was "don't get your hopes up, folks". Our guide talked about their desire to have a spread of abilities, but clearly that spread starts at extremely bright and goes to Steven Hawking.

Fair enough. At least the process of selection seems reasonably fair. The missus was telling me of some schools elsewhere in the Capital where selection is done more on the 'first come, first serve' basis, with a birthday early in the month offering an advantage. Thus some mums are having elective Cesarians to ensure their offspring are born on the first or second of the month, with dad having the application forms ready to fill in while his wife is still being stitched up. What a world we live in today.