Why can’t anyone take a joke any more?

Most people reading this will at some point have had the misfortune to meet one of those piggy-faced people who at a certain point in the conversation says, ‘Excuse me, but I find that offensive.’ Often it is someone who isn’t actually offended themselves. They have claimed offence for a group in absentia. ‘Excuse me, but I find that offensive on behalf of an absent third-party.’

Unfortunately this horrible behavioural tick is extending its reach. It is realising its power and getting organised.

You often hear the phrase ‘Why does no one ever say “X” in the media?’, or ‘Why do you never hear “Y”?’ The simple answer is that to an extent barely realised outside the business, what can be said, written and broadcast in our media today is no longer decided just by editors and commissioners but by a labyrinthine bureaucracy open to the wildest abuse by anybody who can claim to have had their feelings hurt.