Mark Wood is the uncapped quickie in question and, after a month of carrying the drinks in the Caribbean, the 25-year-old is hoping raw skills trump a lack of familiarity with the home of cricket and that he is granted a Test debut by the captain, Alastair Cook, and the caretaker coach, Paul Farbrace.
Then there is the middle aged man who has been visiting for follow up, and thinks I am fed up of seeing him again, but doesn't realise that I secretly look forward to his cheery greeting as he energetically strides into my room greeting me with friendly familiarity by the shortened version of my first name.
His ability, familiarity with trade and finance, toughness in controversy - all fed belief among Conservatives that he was the man to restore them to power.
Do you refer to them by their full name, thus blowing any pretence of familiarity with them, or just gently drop in their first name and risk nobody having a clue who you're talking about?
Ive disliked the approach, although thought it was important for the first iPhone for familiarity, but didn't intervene because he was at the stage of "I don't think this is right, but I'm really busy doing my stuff".
The journey from war to peace has taken too long, and familiarity breeds irreverence.
They had moved from comfort and familiarity to poverty and disarray within the space of a fortnight (the notice given to those who lived close to either side of the newly drawn, arguably arbitrary border).
With immigrants as people, as distinct with immigration as a shorthand for a broad sense of happiness with today's Britain, familiarity usually breeds content, not contempt.
Familiarity does breed contempt, and in every partnership you need to find ways to reinvent your interacation with each other and retain the ability to surprise.
It is, according to Professor Julie Tinson of the University of Stirling, typical of a market where customers want a little more than the familiarity and consistency of the high-street shops.
The increasing familiarity of this century's culture with such territory (perhaps we are all gradually catching up with her) delights Smith.
