I encountered a lot of euphemism and speaking in forked tongues today.
"The team aren't comfortable with technology", he opined, and I concealed my scorn as they allocated their tasks on white forms, green forms, yellow forms, tear off strips - and lost all the jobs they didn't like down the back of the radiator.
"We've had a mixed experience with that service", said one of their key customers, and then outlined a project which was budgeted at £x, and ended up a year late, costing £2x and not really fit for purpose at that.
"Some of the team are better than others". Do you want to be more specific? No.
I think we English have a mastery of the understatement, the damning with faint praise. "They're not the worse service here".
And I'm becoming more and more interested in the things people don't say. Quite a few situations lately where we Don't Mention It. Sometimes the absence of mention is booming, deafening, resounding round all the spaces in the conversation. I find it fascinating, how easy it is to hear the things that aren't being said.
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