Elaine is so proud of her daughter. I’m not saying that she regards parenting as a competitive sport or anything - perish the thought. But you should see Poppy’s drawings. In fact, every parent at the school gate should see them.

“Look at this princess. Isn’t she fabulous? Look at the way she’s done the crown. I didn’t show her how to draw diamonds; she just did it all by herself.” Round of applause for Poppy. But then her skill is hardly surprising when you consider the practice she gets.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Elaine tells me. “It’s all she wants to do. She even insists on taking crayons to bed with her. She’ll happily lay on the carpet for hours and draw anything that comes into her head. She’s not in the least bit interested in televisionI” That last bit is said with great relish - the more so, I feel, because my own son, Poppy’s almost exact contemporary, is about as interested in television as a child of four and three-quarters can be.

Only one thing interests him more than television, and that is computer games. Poppy, of course, has no interest in these. What’s the point of clicking on an icon, of guiding a mouse and doing all that opening and dragging and dropping? Elaine is delighted. For her, it’s computer games bad, drawing good.

But is she right, or is she guilty of the same snobbery that in earlier times led parents to discourage their daughters from reading novels? “Computer gaming,” she says, “is a solitary activity.” Not in my house, I tell her. And when did Poppy last invite her chums round for a spot of group sketching?

“But it’s not exactly creative, is it, running around a virtual world that somebody else invented?” Not yet - not at this stage, I agree. But neither is reading Jane Austen under the bedcovers, an activity she would doubtless condone.

There follows a lively discussion about the relative merits of Quake II and Emma. And then Elaine’s husband chips in. “The thing is,” he says, “computer games are addictive. Kids end up playing them all the time.” We have now come full circle, I say, having begun our discussion with a description of Poppy’s 24:7 attachment to her crayons.

Moderation in all things? Very sensible, I’m sure. But try telling that to the young Picasso. Try telling it to Alan Turing.