Fishing

A mildly racist electrician came round to change the light pendants, taking down ours and putting plain ones up.
Every so often, he baited a line and held it over me to see if I took a bite.
'Of course, I lost my job to three Polish men...'
'Now, of course, in Kent, well, it's getting very full, with people moving in from Europe...'
'The Indian people, of course...'

Of course.... he's not the only work person I have come across who thinks these fishings are part of a value-added service.
I am constantly shocked by the way that these nasty views are seen as respectability.
The woman across the road mentions 'asylum seekers' (formerly known as refugees) in every second sentence, so regularly that I've developed a knack of keeping conversations short so we don't even get there.
The oddest thing is that they all have a friend who is working in Canada, or Dubai, or France: something isn't computing, somewhere.
Of course.