I wrote (replying to simonb@wasabisystems.com)

>> Just a WAG, but do you have other "esp0"s declared in your kernel
>> config file?
> Yes.  [...]  I'll try a build with all three of the stock GENERIC's
> "esp0" lines commented out and see if that works better [...]

I've now tried this.  The resulting kernel works exactly the way I
want.  Thank you very much - well guessed.

What's going on here?  What produced the "broken" (which here really
means "well, it violated _my_ princple of least astonishment" :)
behaviour?  I'm wondering whether it's fixable, and if so, what the
most appropriate fix is.

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