Framily is of course a new portmanteau word, blending friend(s) and family. It first hit the spotlight in 2006, in the context of research commissioned by UK food manufacturer Dolmio (picture the well-known advertisements featuring members of a puppet family gathering happily together over a steaming dish of spaghetti bolognese!). The research also showed that, within framily groups, individuals sometimes take on roles that they would otherwise perform in a family – there’s often an organiser, a caring, motherly figure, a person who’s always having problems, and someone who behaves more like a child and needs ‘looking after’.