I spent nearly 20 years working in a Northern Irish company in which in-office discussion of politics, religion and most sport was banned, on pain of disciplina

I spent nearly 20 years working in a Northern Irish company in which in-office discussion of politics, religion and most sport was banned, on pain of disciplinary action. On occasion people were asked to stop bringing their choice of newspaper into the office, too, as this could be construed as a subtle political signal. After a few months one adapted to restricting the domain of conversation without much effort, and the main problem was when we had visits from overseas staff who would stray into the verboten topics. One became adept at moving the conversation to safer ground.