Pardon me, good sir, I don’t mean to interrupt but – and I offer my sincerest apologies once again for interrupting, I do understand how frustrating it can be when one is interrupted, there is nothing more rude than an interruption, except perhaps arriving late to a dinner party where one has prepared a rich coq au vin as the main course of a seven-course Provençal dinner despite the coq au vin being a pan-French dish and bouillabaisse being a clear and better choice for the main course of a seven-course Provençal dinner – if you could answer this one question for me, sir, should you find the time to answer it and are willing to answer it in a truly honest and complex manner as one should, do you – once again, only answer should you be comfortable answering in the moment, else I would happily accept a handwritten missive, communiqué, dispatch, or memorandum – but not a note, letter, bill, or message – sent by bonded courier on Thursdays between 16:53 and 19:21 Greenwich Mean to my home on Trinity Road in Birmingham — do you, sir, fancy a row?

I do not mean to insinuate, sir, as that would be awfully impolite of me to do so as insinuation is truly the gentleman’s sin, but it appears clear to me, good sir, that you seek a quarrel and, in I, you shall find one only if such a arrangement would be amenable to you, your spouse, and the person in your employ responsible for the maintenance of your collection of 16th-century Viennese wheellock pistols, not because I believe that our row shall descend into violence, good sir, but because I hear that the fellow is worked to the bone and deserves a vacation to visit his daughter who attends one of the lesser Colleges of Oxford University and shares a room with an awful-smelling Glaswegian who spends her time singing Gilbert and Sullivan in her pants despite the fact that the fellow in the next room is deathly allergic to poor singing, and I wouldn’t want to cause him, the man in your employ responsible for the maintenance of your collection of 16th-century Viennese wheellock pistols, any undue stress by having a row in his vicinity.

Should you choose to reply “yae” to my unexpected inquisition, I trust that you shall publish in your local Mancunian paper the precise details of our row, such as the time of the row, the duration of the row, the location of the row, the expected humidity in the air at the time and location of the row, the concentration of Eurasian shrew within a cubic Boris Johnson of our scuffle, and precipitation, as all those who wish to view our quarrel deserve to know the precise details of the environment in which they shall be watching us bicker – it is reported by scientists from Leicestershire of all places that too many shrews per cubic BJ results in chronic ennui amongst middle-aged millennials – and we must also issue tickets to all those who fancy viewing our row, as Wembley only has a limited number of seats available for use due to its occupation by that ridiculous football club with the boorish supporters, though I do suppose we must also plan for tea afterwards and we must provide for our guests as well – it would be awfully rude to invite them all to a row and not have tea afterwards, my mum would be awfully scandalised should I forget to offer our guests tea – so I do hope that you have your own set of china that you wouldn’t mind sharing with our guests as my set only has two cups and that is already far too few as I plan on inviting both my mum and her boyfriend, Ken.