“I bet the word most overused in restaurant reviews is nice,” said my old friend Mike. We were sitting in the Rising Sun’s courtyard, the sun blazing down, drinkers and diners packed into the al fresco space, our empty starter plates in front of us. The starters had been, well, nice.

“I used to have a friend who said that about everything. Yeah, it’s nice. He said that about beers, about restaurants, you name it. And it wasn’t that he liked everything, it’s just that he didn’t have opinions about anything. With hindsight, not a massive surprise that he was a LibDem.”

“You say it when something’s pleasant, but if something’s bad and you don’t want to say so, you’d also call it ‘nice’, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe, but the word I always overuse is lovely. When I write a review I go back, hit Ctrl-F and find every reference to lovely, try and reduce it to one per review.”

I do, in truth, not always succeed. Our philosophical discourse was interrupted by our very pleasant, distinctly overworked server coming to take our dishes away. “Did you enjoy your starter?” she said.

“Yes, thank you. It was lovely” I said. Mike raised an eyebrow as she walked away.

“See, you’ve used your one lovely up already.”