A couple of years ago my washing machine broke down. I called out an engineer, a friendly Caribbean bloke who busied himself taking it to pieces, hooking it up to his fancy gauges, machine parts and tools all over my kitchen.

I left him to it for a while, and on coming back I asked him, in typical poncey Oxbridge language,

“So, um, have you reached a preliminary diagnosis of the problem that seems to confront us here?!”

“I ‘ave indeed, sir,” he replied affably, “It’s completely fucked!”