1) Just as I got on the bus yesterday to go to work there were two people at the front talking loudly and the woman said: "They ought to just bump them off and sell their organs!". The bus driver just rolled his eyes when I looked at him in surprise and said drily "They're talking about drug dealers."

2) A quote in our family for many decades arose from an incident we heard about. A woman, who was fairly well off, visited the house of my parents' friends. Her son had a new toy hammer made of metal and he was going around banging it on all the furniture in the room. The owner of the house was getting really annoyed but it didn't seem to bother the mother at all. Finally she paused in her conversation just long enough to tell her son to "Tap gently, darling."

We used to say that about people's attitudes, when they were oblivious to the effect of their actions on others, or when we saw kids going off while the parents just watched without having the idea of actively engaging their parenting skills.

Helen