ACCORDING to a survey by Poundland (why?) a third of young adults apparently can’t change a lightbulb, wire a plug or boil an egg.

Well, maybe they don’t like boiled eggs. Maybe they have long life lightbulbs installed before they were born. And when did anyone last have to change a plug?

There’s no point in oldies sucking their teeth at the hopelessness of the young. Most of the skills that young adults don’t have are those they don’t need.

When it comes to stuff they really want – generally involving social media, a million apps and cheap flights – they’ve got the knowledge at their fingertips.

And if they REALLY need to know something, then they’ll Google it – making Chicken Kievs with phone in hand. Or re-grouting a bathroom with the You Tube instruction video blaring from a lap-top perched on the loo.

Why bother to learn when you have instant information? Which is why even so many nervous grown ups, even in their 80s and beyond, have finally embraced the internet, if only to keep in touch with families scattered worldwide.

Whatever age, you never learn until you have to. In my twenties, I was a whiz on checking oil and water and using jump leads because my first few cars were rubbish. People with more reliable cars don’t need such knowledge.

While my mother was alive I rarely did any mending. She would come and tackle the lot – replacing zips, re-lining husband’s jackets and occasionally, unfortunately, repairing the fashionable rips in the boys’ jeans.

Then she died and I had to do it all. I’ve become competent enough for sons and daughters in law to ask me to do their mending, including a neat job on my tiny grand-daughter’s fairy wings. My mother must be sitting on her cloud laughing.

How did I turn into the sort of person who could mend fairy wings?

You learn what and when you need to. One day my daughters in law will learn to sew and in fifty years’ time my grand-daughter might well be mending a small child’s dressing up clothes.

In the meantime, if anyone really doesn’t know how to boil an egg, they can always Google it. So let’s not panic – or condemn.

THE Duchess of Cambridge, on a solo trip to The Netherlands, carefully wore her pearl earrings and looked a long time at Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring, to give photographers an easy shot. Clever.

If she wishes to imitate art, let’s hope she’s never faced with a reclining nude or a disjointed Picasso.

HUSBAND had a big birthday at the weekend – he might just have mentioned it – and as I know my limitations when it comes to cake-decorating, I went to Edwina’s in Richmond.

She magicked up a cake looking like a page from The Northern Echo, complete with football, pencil and notebook – and – the perfect touch of realism – covered with rows of illegible writing. Brilliant.

It tasted good too. Thank you Edwina.

OF course, I don’t want to say “I told you so”, but… Living in the heart of the A1 upgrade near Scotch Corner, I’ve been warning for months that the signing for diversions, and road closures is not just inadequate but totally contradictory, confusing and can easily send people round and round in circles. Every day’s a new adventure and that’s when you know the area. Strangers don’t stand a chance.

Last weekend was its biggest test yet when they closed the road for two days. And what happened? Cars were stuck, drivers were lost, a ten-minute journey took nearly two hours, journeys were abandoned and surrounding towns and villages were gridlocked.

If the Highways Agency would like some help sorting out their signs, I’m available…

DONALD Trump presumably thinks he’s a gentlemen when he boasts of eating Tic Tacs before launching himself on some unsuspecting women. Bad breath? If he thinks that’s his only problem with women, then he’s clearly even more delusional than we thought.

KENNETH Clarke clutched a large glass of red wine when he was interviewed by Andrew Marr last Sunday morning – it had been recorded the previous day. Well, he says that since he was old enough “to fool a blind barman” he’s had a drink every day of his life. As he’s now a hale and hearty 76 with all his marbles intact, we can assume it hasn’t done him that much harm.

Any physical effect must surely be outweighed by his sheer delight in a drink and good company. Much more life-enhancing than the killjoys who would have us count every unit and condemn us to dull sobriety.

Back in the days of Maggie Thatcher, Kenneth Clarke was Minister for Health and I’m sure we were all a lot more cheerful for it.

Any chance of bringing him back?

BRITONS lag behind the rest of the world in being able to do simple money sums, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Only 48% of British people could answer a basic financial quiz. The other 52% are

probably still trying to work out what “%” means…