Well, I told Michael, these days you could cook with any damn thing you pleased, and if the rump of the National Front still went to football matches and threw bananas at African players, well, it earned them the disdain of their neighbours and their heroes, and sometimes even prison. I had suffered its stupider days, not Michael, and I would judge whether the salvation of my country from occupation in 1941 made up for the unconsidered prejudice of Britain decades later, and in my judgement it did. Friends could be unfeeling and stupid and still be friends when you needed them, and that did not make them the Derg. The world was imperfect and Britain was better than most anywhere else. That was how it was, and Michael should grow up and understand it.