I used to think grown-ups talked rubbish. Especially the ones who went on about how everything was different in their day; better; more civilised; kids were quiet; no happy-slapping.
I was convinced that the world never really changed that much - people just got older and forgot what it was like to be young.
The other day, as we sat in A&E waiting five hours to see an obstetrician (St George's has no appointment system for this), a young, wounded man burst through through the treatment room doors and asked: 'Am I dead? Am I dead though? No. Well then', before strutting off, closely followed by his police escort.
That, I thought, would never have happened in my day. Kids thumped each other, stole things and did drugs. Now they spill off the front pages of newspapers and into A&E, settling disputes with guns and knives, bragging about the mere fact of not being dead.
Not something that ever bothered me before, it just seemed too far removed from my own life. But now these people are in front of my son. My perfect, innocent son.
Is this the kind of people he'll be mixing with, or running from, if he grows up in London? Will he have to learn to swagger? Will he talk violence as if it was sport? Will he act gangster-minded when he's actually an insecure adolescent? Will he get stabbed or shot for no reason, like poor Ben Kinsella?
I love london, but sometimes I don't know if I want to bring up my boy here.
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