Coming Third.

My brother’s greatest claim to distinction was in being the one to take on the school bully and win, thus ensuring that said bully was henceforth more circumspect in his behaviour.

I now learn that my daughter’s 11-year-old daughter (I decline to use the G word; it doesn’t sit naturally with me yet) has a similar claim. She’s mixed race, her dad being Jamaican, and a boy at school recently referred to her using the N word. She let it go – the first time. When he did it again she explained to him why it isn’t a nice word to use. When he did it a third time she punched him on the nose, wrestled him to the ground and rubbed his face in the dirt. I gather the boy now tells his friends that the N word isn’t a nice word to use.

I have to make do with being the runt of such an august litter. I never cured anybody of anything.