Lick it off a stone, didn't

I was at this gaahden  paahty in England with a mission. Actually, of course, I went for free booze and sausage rolls but I found myself getting all Ancient Mariner "long grey beard and glittering eye, now wherefore stopp'st thou me" etc. on the poor wedding (anniversary) guests. I had to explain to anybody who couldn't escape [wheelchair, dodgy hip, emphysema, whatever] just how brilliant my pal the hostess was. My formative experience of this multitalentedness was in the world of molecular biology, which has a technical language quite opaque to outsiders, so it was Work to make sense. Two glasses of fizz didn't help.

Anyway, I button-holed a misfortunate 30-something niece, and gave it socks on the auntie-propaganda front. Not least because Mark ch.6 v.4. When I slowed down a bit, we fell to talking about how it was, as a Greek woman, living and working in middle England. It was okay, so long as you didn't let the niggling casual racism get under your skin. "And how is it in Ireland?", she asked. I wasn't going to trot out some tired old platitudes about Ireland of the welcomes; nor did I feel qualified to quantify how prevalent was the setting fire to direct provision centres.

Accordingly I replied brightly that my 30-something daughters and all their friends were a) colour-blind b) embracing the entire range of the LGBTQ+ spectrum c) giving me some optimism about the future of Ireland as a multi-cultural h[e]aven. Their collective watchword seems to be "you do you, knock yourself out, none of my business". The Niece raised a quizzical eyebrow and said that my children didn't develop their inclusive sensibilities without any input from their parent[s]. "No No", I replied, "it's not just my daughters; it's their entire cohort, their entire generation, they are all kind, tolerant and forgiving, I delight in their company".

"Yer, yer", said the Niece, "but you can't escape all responsibility, I blame the parents". We had agreed earlier that her Aunt had a finely tuned crap-detector. So her clincher was "You must be a good person, you would be my Aunt's friend else." And that was the Last Word on the matter.