Only 100 miles separate me from my parents, but I suspect that distance seems much greater to them. Around these parts of Solihull, the toilet rolls lie concealed beneath the dresses of flamenco dolls, there's a different Haze Plug-In for every room in the house and the pelmet maker has a waiting list so long, you'd think he was Dr Magdi Yacoub. Once in a while, my wife and I visit for the weekend and face a series of questions concerning our fancy London ways. On a visit last year, all hell broke loose when they discovered I'd eaten a frog's leg.
'You did what?'
'I ate a frog's leg.'
'Why?'
'Because my mate ordered it in a restaurant and he asked me if I wanted some.'
'How did you know it was a frog's?'
'Well, it would have looked pretty silly on a duck.'

At this point, my mother retched and, because I'm never too old for a telling off, my father roundly admonished me, 'Look what you've made your mother do!' This, I felt, was pretty rich given some of the smells I had to put up with as a kid. Greek-Cypriot cuisine has many virtues, but subtlety isn't one of them. Imagine the explaining I had to do when I brought David Milne home from school, only to find two sheep's brains on the table - remnants of my dad's lunch. Within two days, even Mr Snabel the geography teacher was hilariously threatening to give me a 'bleating' if I didn't get my homework in.

Still, I'm over that now. The playground chants of 'Sheep's Brain Boy' are but a distant echo, so let's forgive and forget. Besides, on this particular evening, a hitherto undiscussed aspect of my fancy London ways has aroused my dad's curiosity.
'Have you ever tried sushi?'
'Sushi? Oh yes,' I say, in the blasÀ manner of people who know they're freaking someone out. It turns out that my dad has heard about sushi. He's equally appalled and fascinated by it. In the 25 years he ran a fish and chip shop, it didn't once occur to him to slice off a bit of cod and see what it tasted like. Now he's thinking if raw fish is that nice, why did I spend so much of my life frying it?
'But it isn't really raw, is it? They cure it?'
'It's definitely raw,' confirms my wife. 'And sometimes, it comes rolled up in seaweed, or sitting on lumps of special rice.'
'Well, I like special fried rice!'
'No, this is special sushi rice. And there are these places called Yo! Sushi. You sit at a conveyor belt, just like on The Generation Game, and you pick up whatever you fancy.'
'Where are the waiters?'
'Well, there are waiters, but if you want a drink, you get that from a robot which patrols the restaurant.'
He turns to my mother. 'Did you hear that, Victoria? Robots!' But my mother is far from impressed. She fears that one day robots may take over all household chores - thereby removing her primary function on this planet. She also feels that the reason the Japanese eat raw fish is because they can't be bothered to cook it.

The times they are-a-changing though. And the most telling confirmation of sushi's shift into the cultural radar of middle England is that people like my parents are tempted to try it. Sure enough, the next time my dad appears in London, it's a 'surprise' solo visit. My mother's appears to have released a different side to him. 'Don't mind me,' he says unconvincingly. 'I can amuse myself.'
It takes one minute for him to come out with it. 'So, this place, Yes Sushi. Is it far?'

At Yo! Sushi, a young woman asks: 'Is this your first time here?' Before she finishes, my dad bellows his first impressions: 'IS THIS A RESTAURANT OR A UFO?' In turn, I ask the young woman if she can give my dad some cutlery. 'He's going to struggle with chopsticks,' I explain.

He's handed what appear to be two Magnum sticks, which interlock at one end to form pincers, and the whole concept is explained to him. His period of shyness now over, he wolfs down squid sashimi, mackerel rolls and tuna nigiri while ordering me to keep mixing wasabi and soy. What I'd give to attain such levels of unselfconsciousness. But there's my father pointing at someone attempting to get to grips with his (proper) chopsticks: 'He's clearly never had sushi before!' But then, that's dads for you, imposing their dad-like seniority on even the most un-daddish environments. On the other side of the conveyor belt, a chef of eastern extraction slices tuna. 'Excuse me, young man. Yes, you! Are you Japanese? I bet you have places like this all over Japan, eh?'
'Um, I'm from Cricklewood actually...'

Sushi may be all the new-fangled rage, but Chris Paphides, former proprietor of The King Fisher didn't get where he is today by not knowing a thing or two about fish - raw or otherwise.
'You see, the thing about sushi is that it has to be very FRESH! I used to run a fish restaurant myself. If the fish is not FRESH, it doesn't matter what you do with it. And this,' he pauses, for impact, 'is FRESH!'

As he makes to leave, I stack his little plates. 'I can tell everyone in Birmingham that I had sushi and lived to tell the tale!'
Which, quite possibly, is more than can be said for the robot. As my dad, a big bloke, descends from his stool, he looks behind him and grabs a fistful of chopsticks from a nearby tray, unaware of the automaton advancing towards him. Only one winner emerges from the resulting collision. If my mother had been here, she'd have surely smiled.