Today is the first Tuesday in November. In just a few minutes, the “race that stops a nation” will happen in Melbourne. For some reason I’ve never quite understood, the Melbourne Cup, more than any other horse race, is acknowledged and watched by most people in Australia. Even people who don’t gamble will partake in the office sweep, some might even have a flutter on the great race.

Back in my life before children when I was gainfully employed we used to have afternoon tea, a sweep, stop work for the race.

It doesn’t register for me now as much - for one thing, my children refuse to watch anything on television that is brightly coloured, animated, accompanied by trippy music and big blobby puppets or otherwise aimed at brainwashing their tender psyches. Mostly though, I just hate watching the how the horses are whipped through the race, can’t stand it. Apparently it doesn’t hurt them and they don’t mind …

It’s not a popular point of view.