Our chairman has apparently been listening to intellectual broadcasts, as you do, about the likes of George Orwell, who had a fondness for taking the mickey out of anyone he felt was over-egging the pudding on the linguistic front. Being not un-used to attempting this, we have no sympathy.

As we found on an Orwell website "A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."

Well, everyone can relate to that.