Self-bowdlerizing to avoid media constraints is not new: People have been doing it since at least the days of early newspaper comics, where sequences of graphic characters called grawlixes are still used instead of swear words to circumvent stringent syndication standards.

But after the first few sessions, the Voight-Kampff neo-noir charm of the language experiment wore off and it became boring for bridge and expat alike. Gore played up. He started describing the images on screen via caricature – what a mermaid would say about a coffee shop, for example. It charmed me and I resented his ability to play drawing room