Mother would insist on two things, my playing the doodle-sack and her speaking French. Both were problematic. Of course, one had a rather jolly time as a youth in the incessant push and pull of her and father’s rather acrimonious custody battle. Father’s determination was the prevent the ‘Parisian Whore’ gaining anything but the most brief of custodial periods. Yes, indeed, courts always remind me of the rather jolly times when one or the other would enter the dock and under oath profess their ‘interest’ in me. I always regard this, and not their private actions(1) as revealing their true feelings.