Mother-in-law has arrived for Christmas. Your hackles are up - and she hasn't even done anything yet. However, you know it's only a matter of time before she's muscling into the kitchen, wincing at your carrot-chopping technique and shuddering as you make bread sauce from a packet.

'The kind of work we do, it's just never done, is it?' remarked my friend Sophie's mother-in-law last Christmas as she watched her peel a mountain of spuds.

Sophie was confused. She runs the language faculty at a comprehensive school. As far as she is aware, her mother-in-law doesn't have a career.

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