Remote controls, tumble dryers, documentaries … do we have to make everything so complicated?

‘Not everything must be changed. My mum doesn’t need to choose between 92 buttons to operate her telly’ …. Photograph: Ruben Bonilla Gonzalo/Getty Images

I was once trying to get a television idea commissioned about a subject or issue that I thought was important. So important that I can no longer remember what it was. Whatever it was, the commissioner stayed alert for a minute or two but soon clouded over and demanded: “What is it you’re trying to say?”

“Say? I’m just saying it’s really interesting.”