Meeting a person who’s a crashing bore over some cause or another that most people aren’t too bothered about is an everyman experience we all can relate to. You meet them in some social context, and after your efforts to politely disengage from the harangue pretending to be a conversation, you end up turning your back and basically having to walk away. Even then, the bad cases will sometimes literally pursue you to continue on with your enlightenment.

At that point, you’ve already done the ten minute common politeness, have by now completely run out of patience, so all that’s left is to tell them to Foxtrot Oscar. On the rare occasion the situation has got to that extreme, a few good old Anglo-Saxon swearwords tend to ensure a traumatic separation from the crazed nemesis dogging your heels.

What happens with such people is that the invitations to anything tend…