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What's a cyber doll, daddy?

This was the question my eldest daughter forced me to confront the other day at a local NHS walk-in centre. She's an advanced reader for her age and was studying various posters that were on display as we waited for a prescription to be filled by a pharmacist.

When the cyber doll question arose, I feared the worst, but discovered it's actually some kind of pretend baby that's handed out to teenage girls so they can get a taste of what motherhood is like.

The mini-W follows in a fine tradition. When I was six, I was reading 70s-style health posters in the waiting room of our local surgery and asked my mum - in a loud voice, apparently - what a smear test was. Precocious little whatname, wasn't I?

I won't mention the time when I was expelled from the All England Tennis Club at Wimbledon for repeating the umpire's scores. I was 18 months old and one of the players demanded my removal.

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