{pp}As early as 1945 people started to realise that in order to write effectively and get their message across they needed to write in language that everyone could understand.

{pp}You get all dressed up for a great night out with your workmates and arrive at the event to welcome cocktails – the evening’s looking good, even though it’s a company anniversary bash or something similar. They’ve hired good music and the party’s getting better by the minute. Even the food at this huge hotel is surprisingly good.

{pp}So much work goes into producing documents, which is why they’re so long, but so little work goes into editing them.

{pp}So what does this mean for us in real terms that we can process and work around? It means that we have less money at the end of the month and maybe we have to look at ways to supplement this as they’ve been doing for years overseas.