The rudeness of Daddy Delaney

We had a bit of a do down the local pizzeria for the littl'un's first birthday at the weekend: whingeing, strops, brattishness - and that was just my dad.

"Who are all these people I don't know?" he asked, pointing at my wife's relatives who he'd met a dozen times before.

"They're Anna's relatives. You've met them a dozen times before," I explained.

He narrowed his eyes and peered at them with a mixture of

fascination and suspicion, like an intrepid anthropologist observing a lost tribe in a hidden corner of the rainforest. All he was missing was the pith helmet and the blunderbuss (accessories which I'm sure, once the dementia kicks in, he'll take to wearing around the west end of London, calling ordinary members of the public "savages" and instructing them to "call me a bloody taxi immediately!" Mind you, he'd probably carry that look off. What he lacks in manners he makes up for in stylishness,