Being an immigrant's kid is a bit tough socially. You never quite fit in with the stuff the other kids do as it is a tiny bit weird to you and, as a result, your weirdness is weird to them. And there is the whole trying to be like the old country cousins who make fun of your crap skills at penny falls and headers and sweetie shops. You cultivate odd replications of what you think the right skills for the homeland would be, listen to the BBC for references, follow the British charts, insist on getting the #1 albums sent from relative even if it is friggin' Wet, Wet, Wet and yet (and an excruciatingly "and yet" it is) you still find yourself at 14 in the coolest record store in the world in wide leg jeans with long hair when everyone else in the Oxford Street Virgin record store in 1977 has punked spikes and tight leg pants. So you hunt out icons, touchstones you can take home - Billy Connelly lps, ska 45s, Penguin biscuits, Irn Bru and lots of Scotland scarves - to assert yourself as yourself when uncousined. You tuck your sweaters in. Speak of chip butties.

And you buy Subbuteo, what you think is the UK version of table hockey...without the table...and without the hockey. Just a green cloth and a million tiny players. And you never figure out the rules to Subbuteo. And it sits on a shelf for a couple of decades until you have kids and you bring it out, buy some more pieces on eBay and, again, never figure out the rules...until a book comes out. Maybe now I will get to be the little boy in the woolly jumper and collared white shirt clearly understanding the damn thing...unless he is choking on one of the pieces.