When I was in my mid-teens, my mother took me to see Peter Ustinov doing his cosmopolitan raconteur turn at the State Theatre in Sydney. We both pretended to get the highbrow cultural references and (as did most of the audience, I expect) dutifully laughed at them when required to do so. With hindsight I realise we both just wanted to be that breezily sophisticated sort of person (as did most of the audience, I expect).

I only recently started to suspect how profoundly intellectually frustrated my mother has been for her entire life. Can you imagine being born into the unprecedentedly prosperous post-war golden age, without it making the slightest bit of difference to who you could be?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1GXrLLHjs