Same old, same old

Every year for the last few years, a friend of my parents has held a party on the 2nd. They go every year and meet the same people — people they only usually see once a year — every year. So this shouldn't be terribly surprising, but on their return, they've both repeated, almost verbatim, exactly what they said on their return from last year's party: mater complained that the father of an old friend of mine was hard to talk to; while pater mentioned that although he was sure he'd met most of the people before, he couldn't quite remember where...