Some weeks ago, I’m on the phone with a friend in Canada who is infuriated about the boorish behaviour of a recent guest in his household. He unloads on me. “It was particularly galling that this lady was no casual acquaintance; this was my cousin – a blood relative – and here is this woman being thoughtless, selfish, lazy – she wouldn’t even make up her bed – and generally being one of the most inconsiderate and irritating people imaginable. I couldn’t believe it. My wife’s reaction was ‘That’s young people today; they only think about themselves.’”
I know without asking that we are