I’d been living under two misapprehensions: first, that “creature” was an acceptable rebuke here; second, that I had a right to be rude. That right is under threat. I read with horror that a woman who told off a Muslim gentleman at a supermarket checkout was arrested. Cinnamon Heathcote-Drury, a photographer, watched as the man let his wife unload their trolley on her own, and informed him in no uncertain terms that his behaviour was un-British. She even offered to help the wife herself.