Given the frantic comings and goings last week, I don’t remember which politician was being interviewed, but when I heard his response to the first question he was asked, it didn’t matter – he could have been any of them: “Let me be perfectly clear….” And of course he was anything but, hamstrung by waffle and platitudes. And when it came to Wes Streeting, a man I have a lot of time for normally, responding in exactly the same way on Channel 4 News, I had begun to despair.
Would it be at all possible for a politician to deal with a question without the throat clearing and obfuscation just for once?
Now to a couple of mysteries. I have noticed recently that very many people can’t pronounce vulnerable properly. They miss out the first “l”, thereby introducing a very ugly word into the language. Why? And has the BBC pronunciation department introduced a diktat on how to say Chile? I only ask because its correspondent there pronounced it “Chillay” last week, rather than the rather more usual “chilli”. All very odd.
Regular readers will know that I like nothing better than a community and last week produced an absolute belter. Commenting on free climber Adam Lockwood’s ascent of the 310m (1,017ft) Shard (as a vertigo sufferer, I could barely look at the pictures), a fellow free climber introduced me to the “urban climbing community”. Wonder where it holds its AGMs. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai?
Thank you to correspondent Mark Lilly for the following: “My local water board sent a circular beginning: ‘As a team, we are passionate about sewage treatment’ and signed ‘Customer Service Hero’.”
In the same vein, Christopher Hinds tell me that at his GP practice, inquiries and requests nowadays are fielded, not by receptionists, but by “Care Navigators”. “There’s probably a degree course for them,” he adds. I don’t doubt it for a minute.
jonathan.bouquet@observer.co.uk
• Jonathan Bouquet is an Observer columnist
