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The best music is called Bashment, “which is like house and ragga. Rock’n’roll is not good, it’s for the posh kids. Rock people are like the goofy people in your class who you can ask for help to do your work,” she asserts.

Can you do well in school without looking like a geek? “If you are going to do well or do the work you have to have an excuse, like to say, ‘If they (the school) call my mum, she’ll beat me.’ It’s OK if you say that.”

Most drugs are not cool, crack is for waste boys, but weed is OK. Cool parents are ones who let you stay out till 3am and go to raves, so in that respect her own mum is not cool, and people who try to be cool but just aren’t are called beggars. The coolest job would be, “to be an It Girl. Like Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton is cool because she’s got one of those little dogs to carry and when the dog got too big she got rid of it to get a smaller one.” Not Kate Moss? “Most people I know don’t know about Kate Moss. She is, like, a Paris Hilton wannabe.”

Twelve-year-old Jackson Caines is old-fashioned cool; he is completely different from just about every other kid I know, but affable, as opposed to arrogant, with it. He goes to a fee-paying school, is off-the-scale clever, and musically gifted. He went on Junior Mastermind as a Beatles expert. He goes to White Stripes gigs with his dad. He is easy and unguarded around adults.

He says that defending what he thinks is cool, which is not what lots of other people his age think is cool, “is the story of my life! In my primary school, everyone said the Beatles were crap, and I said why do they hold six world records? They were the biggest band ever. Their music is amazing and they have inspired millions of people. Music has got to have some intelligence. It can’t just be a beat and a bassline and someone rapping over it. I like people who take the time to write proper songs.”

You could see how that sort of thing wouldn’t go down too well in the playground, but Jackson toughed it out. He likes the White Stripes because “they are taking old blues, which is a bit forgotten, and bringing it to life in a more modern way that people can relate to. It’s a cool idea and a good way to go about music.”

He thinks it is important to distinguish between cool people and cool stuff. “A cool person has a nice personality. The cool people are always popular, but cool things are original and new and interesting. But the cooler kids are more into what the majority of people think is cool at the time.”

Smoking is not only not cool but “everybody knows that now, even the cool kids know it is stupid. Some kids joke about taking drugs but deep inside I think they joke because they would never do it really.” Drinking is different. “Many kids look forward to turning 18 so they can drink.” It gladdens my heart that they even pretend they are going to wait that long.

Do you need lots of money to be cool, to buy cool stuff? “You are teased if you are considered poor, but nobody is really poor in my school. The popular kids are usually rich and their families have new cars and they have the latest mobile phones, but I don’t think that is so important. It is really more about attitude and personality.”

But Jackson admits that looks are important too. “The popular boys in my school, they all have girlfriends. I think if an ugly kid tried to join the cool kids, the girlfriends would say, ‘Who is this loser ugly kid and why is he trying to hang out with us?’ ” He thinks his parents have cool taste in music and films. He says he likes what they like and knows this is unusual. “I like film noir, Double Indemnity, The Third Man, Hitchcock. I am not into too fast and too furious. I really like Casablanca, special edition.”

Can you have a posh accent and be cool? Here, a big sigh and then a vehement “It’s impossible.”

Nang, from those in the know . . .