Grace Dent

A painful attitude to domestic help is, I think, a fundamental aspect of being working class made good.

The first time I realised that generation X, my crowd, had fully became Uncle or Auntie Disgusting at family gatherings came as I was airing my very old-fashioned attitude to allergies.

All friendship groups divide into two halves: moody ex-goths who don't mind summer lunch indoors while sipping ice-cold pastis with damp backs-of-knees; and those Club Tropicana types who call ahead to jostle for the one terrace table that's in direct sunlight and from which you'll be lucky to leave with any skin left on your shoulders.