‘Me, yes. You, no. No one knows who you are.’

‘I assure you that if I tweeted something transphobic from this office, people would be very aware of my existence before I even had a chance to clear out my desk.’

George opened his mouth to protest further but found that he was lacking the energy to bother, so closed it again.

‘You see what I’m saying?’ she asked.

‘I do,’ he said. ‘I think it’s idiotic and it feels like the obsession of narcissistic morons with far too much time on their hands, but I accept that the culture exists in the world. Just like National Socialism did in the thirties. And McCarthyism in the fifties.’

‘Please don’t say anything like that on social media, George. Those are both very powerful lobbies.’

‘Not the Nazis. They got defeated.’

‘Well, they’re back. And, this time, they’ve all got Twitter accounts.’

‘Fine. But I just want you to admit that it is not so appalling that I got it wrong in the first place. If you got married tomorrow, Margaret, say you married Tom Thatcher over in Accounting—’

‘There’s nothing going on between me and Tom,’ said Margaret, rearing up in her chair and looking appalled. ‘What on earth would make you suggest such a thing?’

‘I’m just using it as a for instance,’ said George. ‘Say you and Tom got married and I was invited to give a speech at the reception, and in that speech I said that of all the Heads of Entertainment under whom I have worked in my long and illustrious career at the BBC, Margaret Roberts is by far the most recent, would you be offended that I had called you by the name by which I have always known you, rather than by your married name?’

‘No,’ admitted Margaret. ‘But you have to appreciate that we’re not talking about normal people here. We’re talking about people on Twitter. There’s an enormous difference. It’s like comparing house cats to lions that have only ever lived in the wild, ripping the heads off young gazelles and feasting on their bodies.’

George threw his head back and laughed. ‘I’ll have to remember that one,’ he said.

‘I love those shows,’ said Ben, eager to get back into a conversation from which he felt he had been excluded for too long. ‘When you see animals ripping each other apart.’ He made a tiger face and presented his hands as claws. ‘Grrrr,’ he said.

‘My point is,’ said Margaret, ignoring him. ‘While the average man or woman on the street is smart enough to know that you meant no offence, the Twitterati is not. Are not. Is not. And they want your head.’

‘Well, they can’t have it.’

‘Then we must do something to keep it attached to your shoulders.’

‘I’m extremely sorry,’ said Ben, sitting up straight again and repeating his earlier mantra. ‘It was never my intention to offend and I apologize unreservedly—’