As I am reading the last issue of The Economist, which arrived in this morning’s mail, two German couples with small children turn up at the hotel terrace. They sit right next to me at two tables noisily joined together. In their mid- to late forties, the wives are undoubtedly sisters. Their husbands are in their late forties to early fifties. Each couple has a boy and a girl from four to eight years of age. By today’s standards at least, these are two ideal families. The children are dreadful and the parents are very well behaved. They do exactly as their children please. I just smile at the neighboring tables whenever an opportunity arises. For better or worse, I am rather sure today’s standards will evaporate into thin air in less than a generation. “Let the children have all the fun as long as it lasts,” I mumble to myself benevolently whenever my reading is rudely interrupted by screeching or howling. In my munificence, I give them ten to fifteen years at most.