"Your schooldays", elders universally rue, "are the best days of your life". And whilst no one was massively fond of double physics or publicly-endured puberty, today, sifting through post-holiday inboxes, paying council tax and no longer getting home in time for Neighbours, sort of suggests that they had a point.

Come to think of it, the holiday entitlement wasn't bad either, was it?

So why then, now that we're all grown-ups, do our attempts at reminiscence usually mean us dressing up like some pedo-fantasy and slam dancing to T'Pau and Heaven 17?

In New York, where "dropping your guard" isn't always synonymous with binge drinking (and is often caught up with a decent appetite for irony), old-school-style nostalgia seems to be very much subject of the day.

Among the best, The Poetry Club, on the Bowery, runs a Monday night "Show-and-tell", where performers are given an open mike and five minutes to impress the crowd with tales and artifacts. (The audience can always find light relief in the half-time beer-downing competition if it's been a slow weekend.)

In Williamsburg, The Stain Bar runs a jazz-accompanied craft night (save the kitchen roll tubes), The Lucky Cat runs an after school chess club, and Pete's Candy Store has a weekly, adults-only spelling bee, complimented by cheap pomegranate margaritas.

For those more physically inclined, nygames.net run citywide games of manhunt for anyone that signs up – and they won’t make you dig through lost property if you forget your kit.