THERE IS A single-sex private school not far from my suburb, where I have lived, now, for close to eighteen years. Across them all, I have walked past its sandstone gates and tennis courts that stretch along the main road, along a smaller back street that bears its name and where its cricket pitch, indoor swimming pool and cadet academy do the same. I have plucked roses – a flower I will never take from an actual person’s front yard – from its street-facing gardens, and I have resisted picking up any of the turds my dog has laid there, though I am always, otherwise, a good citizen in this respect. I have taken great pleasure at the sight of its students stuffed into woollen blazers on 40-degree days. I have referred to them (in their absence only) as shits and snots and wankers. 

This is who and how I am – and have always been. I want you to know and understand this. It is important to me.