Why do people talk nonsense in public

There’s something about the word located that makes me want to slit throats. Not that I’m a naturally furious chap, not a bit of it. But located makes me want to shoot a puppy. The safety instructions are ‘located’ at the end of the carriage. The life-jackets are ‘located’ under the seats. They needn’t be located. They just are. The life-jackets are under the seats. The information desk is on the ground floor. I want to take a huge red pen to the world and start deleting.

The curious thing is that everybody — even health-and-safety officers — can talk properly in a pub. By properly I don’t mean that they’ll necessarily use the subjunctive perfectly or distinguish between disinterested and uninterested. What I mean is that in a pub, surrounded by the happy clink of glasses, a chap will say: ‘I saw a man get out of his car and run off up Easton Street.’