After I wrote: <I'm reminded of the notion of Avon's Aged Aunts again :-) though one finds it hard to think that any of them, being Avons, would be frail and helpless - more like terrifying old battleaxes.>

Marian asked: <I haven't heard of that notion before. Is it something like Bertie Wooster's aunts? Sounds great fun.>

<grin> I *think* it came from a flight of fancy about his background, (or maybe why he is called by his surname by his brother *and* lover) and was a suggestion that he was brought up by a heap of terrifying elderly relatives, like Wooster's Aunt Dahlia and Diana from 'Waiting for God'.

Helen's suggestion of the woman from The Weakest Link is good [though having seen the English one and the Australian (Cornelia Frances), I have to say the Aussie one's more venomous, IMO, would make a lovely Aunt Avon].

I do think it's a pity we never met any of Vila's relatives, the Doolittle-Fagin descendents.

Though (to be serious for a minute) think of what we learn from him of his background (prison at an early age, having his head adjusted three times, which indicates a series of arrests followed by spells of incorrigibly larcenous freedom) and his nature (actually more self-centred if less ruthless than Avon, there is really *no one* that we know of who Vila will put ahead of himself, no one at all; his self-deprecation and humour tend to obscure that fact, methinks). Would anyone agree that it could support the idea that there *is* no Restal clan, that in fact Vila's been very much on his own since childhood, and therefore never learned to care as much about another more than he does about himself?

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