MODERN STEREOTYPES

The house party

Luke telephoned his mum on Wednesday (an actual call, not a text, Fenella had to sit down), saying he’d like to bring some mates home for the weekend. Fenella was profoundly glad she was sitting, with pen and paper to hand, as she foresaw that she was going to be treated like a restaurant. “So, Mum, like, Jake is pescatarian and Noomi is ovo-vegetarian, so she eats eggs but no dairy, and Lettice is lacto-vegetarian, so no eggs but she does eat dairy.” Fenella regrettably hears herself saying crisply that surely Lettice only eats meat? Irony that is lost on a millennial.

When the dietary-entitled arrived on Friday evening, their first words to Fenella and Nigel were not “Good evening Mr and Mrs Crosthwaite, how lovely of you to have us to stay” but “Hi! What’s the Wi-fi code?”. And the Crosthwaites have been Fenella and Nigel (without invitation to be called by their Christian names) or Um. As in “Um, I am allergic to feather pillows, could I have hypoallergenic, please?”

Nigel, who has been told not to talk about hunting (tricky as he’s the Master of Foxhounds of South Woldshire) or shooting, as Lettice campaigns against animal cruelty, is of the Go Boil Your Head persuasion about diets, pillows, and plant-based rituals. “Um, I can’t seem to find a yoga mat in my room but I want to meditate with some snowdrops that I picked in your garden.”

Sunday lunch is a car crash. Nigel is not sacrificing his roast in favour of variations of brown rice and buckwheat made more exciting by lemon yogurt. Luke, despite his beret and ginger face fungus, is still man enough for a glass of claret and his mum’s Yorkshire pud. That is not what he gets at the plantbased food bar in his fluid space office in Shoreditch, where he job-shares in IT.

Jake opines that it is the baby boomers who have deprived him of a future. Fenella doesn’t know what passive-aggressive means but thinks she’s just bumped into it. Love Luke, obvs, thrilled he wants to come home, but please let them leave before the Brexit showdown.

None of the compassionate young leave a tip by their bed for the daily.