As regular readers will know, I work for my parents. My father is very conservative (and Conservative) and English. He sometimes irritates the hell out of me with his Europhobic, xenophobic, almost racist, little-Englander ideology.
For the past year, we have had a German girl, Melanie, working here. Every now and then, dad will start going on about the Germans in some way, usually making reference to either of the two world wars, and usually when we are all sitting around having tea. Today he was waffling on about the Red Baron. Melanie takes it in good heart and usually plays along and sometimes gives as good as she gets, but it really can be cringe-inducing at times. Somehow, I’m reminded of Basil Fawlty.
separating the wanted from the unwanted