The adventure of the mysterious pride

Yesterday was a day for feeling proud. Not only did i, through an obvious amazing feat succeed to listen to the entire 7 hours of 'the hound of the baskervilles' on my beloved MP3player, i got the front upper level seat for the five hour national express trip from manchester to london victoria (that, might i add, left at6.30am and caused me to have to get up at 5am) BUT I also spent four hours with the freemans, which was a terrible and strange experience, though it did leave me feeling, if only for a few hours
-thinner
-prettyer
-cooler
-more original
-cleverer
though
-more like i don't fit in
-terrified.

my family is so horribly and overwhelmingly english and it's a daunting experience to be stuck in a room with so many of them. Had ben only been there things would have been 80% better. half the time i felt like laughing and half the time like crying. what with amazing lines such as "of course, martin, you were very into organs then" and my auntie frances (not blood related) insulting everyone quite loudly (a great and nice relief), and looking at my gran and two unmarried unkles sitting on the sofa opposite me, a sight that made me shiver with fear and worry. i'm not going to end up like them, am I? like the oldest of my three unkles who got married only a few years ago and he and his wife still call each other mr/mrs freeman, and who chuckles like a vicar. or my second uncle who is a vicar but also happens to be gay, though won't admit it, and seems to have absolutely no faith or respect for his religion but just earns money and gets along in an indeterminably but strongly english way in his centre of london well furnished flat. the only vaguely sane ones are my youngest unkle and his wife who've had children, and their two sons (friendly)but still, one of them WANTS to be a supermarket manager.
am i doomed? how can i be related to such people? is there any way of escape? am i destined to innocently utter lines like "do you like tits, michael?" in refrence to ornithology, and leave the last scowne because it would be impolite not to? i don't want to be a freeman!
how can i be decended from such a lot? and how can carys, one of the people i respect the most in the world, be the daughter of such a man as rod? is it the increasing nuclear radiation in the air deforming our blood, or did they all start out as young, more interesting people and our only future is downhill to distance and terrible, terrible englishness?
i am afraid.