Lick it off a stone, didn't

I was at this gaahden paahty in England with a mission. Actually, of course, I went for free booze and sausage rolls but I found myself getting all Ancient Mariner "long grey beard and glittering eye, now wherefore stopp'st thou me" etc. on the poor wedding (anniversary) guests. I had to explain to anybody who couldn't escape [wheelchair, dodgy hip, emphysema, whatever] just how brilliant my pal the hostess was. My formative experience of this multitalentedness was in the world of molecular biology, which has a technical language quite opaque to outsiders, so it was Work to make sense. Two glasses of fizz didn't help.Anyway, I button-holed a misfortunate 30-something niece, and gave it socks on the auntie-propaganda front. Not least because Mark ch.6 v.4. When I slowed down a bit, we fell to talking about how it was, as a Greek woman, living and working in middle England. It was okay, so long as you didn't let the niggling casual racism get under your skin. "And how is it in…